GOD'S MISSION CHURCH
Was Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) just a name?
A PROPHETIC VIEW
FROM ADAM1 TO ADAM2
Names in the Bible are many times an extension of the narrative. Like the very first name given was that of Adam and it was given to tell us that humans come “from the dust of the ground”. These few words speak volumes about the true nature of how man was “formed”.
Science claims that man is nothing more than just another mammal, but the Bible does not quite concur. Gen.2:7 says man comes “from the DUST (H6083) of the GROUND (H127)”, and animals “out of the GROUND (v19)”. In Hebrew, the “dust” is “awfawr” and the ground “adamah”. In other words, humans are “awfawr adamah” (which one can understand as “refined” ground) and animals just “adamah”. It means that humans share basic similarities with animals (adamah), but at the same time humans also differ radically from animals (“awfawr adamah” opposed to just “adamah”)
These two inconspicuous differences are easy to miss, but it is in both the original and the translated texts. These words are written so that the difference between man and animal can be clearly picked up by the God-focused mind.
Yes, science is right that all life, including that of humans evolved, but not FROM a “common ancestor”, but BY a Common Ancestor (God) who used Evolution as a TOOL and, not as science thinks, a spontaneous, impulsive process, but according to a well-designed blueprint: “Let us (evolve) mankind in our image, in our likeness…” (Gen.1:26) The product could already be visualized in the blueprint, like a plan can tell us beforehand what a house will look like!
The Bible then go the extra mile to highlight the difference between humans and animals even more vividly.
(Verse7) “…and (God) breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.” Something that was not done for the animals. This “living soul” tells us more about the difference between man and animal, because in Lev.17:11 it is written: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul.” In other words, a soul makes atonement for a soul.
This means a human has a soul and an animal has a soul, but there is a big difference between the two. Humans received the God-breath, but not animals. It means that humans and animals share the same natural breath, but only humans received the spiritual breath. The soul of humans is God-connected, while his body is earth-connected (1Cor.15:47), while the soul of animals is earth-connected, and their bodies are, like the bodies of humans, also earth-connected.
The Bible says “...man became a living soul.” That means the human soul is also not destroyed with the death of the body. It can only be destroyed by God (Mat.10:28), whereas the soul of an animal is automatically destroyed when it dies.
The animal soul did atonement in the “external” religious ceremonies of the Jews and sanctified them to be “outwardly or bodily clean”, while the “unblemished” Soul of Christ “cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death.” (Heb.10:13-14) The atonement of the Old Testament was just a “shadow” of the Real Atonement Christ did for humanity.
So, Adam was not just a name. Adam was history in the making. The name Adam stands in the forefront of a new creation, the origin, the beginning… Genesis! However, there is more to the name Adam. The Bible says: "The first man Adam became a living being the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.” (1Cor.15:45)
THE MISSION
The First Adam started a physical genealogical line of human beings, when God “created them; male and female… blessed them and said to them, ‘be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth…” (Gen.1:27-28)
The Second Adam started a spiritual genealogical line when He send out His disciples into the world with the Great Commission: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…”. That means the Great Commission is the same Blessing and Command to “be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth…”, but, in a spiritual cloth!
The Christians have been busy with this Commission for the past 1991 (in 2021) years, since Pentecost of the year 30. However, the time has come for the loose ends to be picked up, the unity of the Church of Pentecost to be restored and current Christianity to be reunified in one single structure dressed in the magnificent Joseph’s coat of many colours.
To man it may sound farfetched, but God’s plan for the diversification as well as reunification of the Church was divinely decided upon and drawn into humanity’s blueprint before the foundation of the current Aion. God who said: “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other” (Gen.11:7) also said: “… so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isa.55:11)
Listen Church: God was in control:
When mankind diversified!
When the Church diversified!
When Apartheid was born from an unholy union between church and state!
When the DRC birthed three illegitimate, legitimate Babies!
When the DRMC became the Firstborn Child in 1994!
and…
God is in control for the imminent:
Reunification of Christianity! And…
Reunification of physical mankind!
Apartheid has its roots in the destroying of the unity of mankind at the confusion of Babel. Apartheid in South Africa did not just fall out of the air: God was always in control.
WHY THE DRMC?
Why and how did God set the DRMC apart for this Mission? The answer lies in the correct interpretation of Daniel’s explanation of the troubling dream of King Nebuchadnezzar in Dan.2.
This dream is not about successive kingdoms of some leading ancient world powers. The text is noticeably clear that these kingdoms are global and are all destroyed with a single flick of a “Rock”, which gives a different perspective. These are kingdoms within kingdoms and relates how the world is run just before the ushering in of a totally new world order.
The TRUE interpretation of the Statue of Daniel 2
1: The Head – GOLD! Yes, King Money rules the roost! This is even accentuated on the money of America, which is the leading economic world power. The power of money certainly permeated every nook and cranny of every society in the world. Money is power, money is education, money is health care, money determines where you live, money is God! “IN GOD (King Money) WE TRUST”!
2: Chest and arms – ARMS! This is the rule of the concrete jungle. The strongest is king! Long live the king… at least for as long as arms can prop up his arms! Even countries where the citizens live in absolute squalor, the arms can be of the most expensive and destructive!
3: Belly and thighs – The current systems of government, whether it be democracies, theocracies or autocracies are all third-tier kingdoms in this Statue of Slavery!
4: Legs – The Law! This is the fourth Kingdom within the Global Kingdom. The rule of Law, whether it be religious or secular or both. It is the iron fist with which governments keep their citizens on a leash. The law has such great power that it can even “crush and break” (v40) any of those kingdoms higher up in the hierarchy, including the value of King Money!
5: Feet – This is an indication of what the first four tiers of the global Kingdom stand on – Human beings! Yes, without humans to rule, no kingdom has any feet to stand on. That the statue’s feet are “partly of baked clay and partly of iron” (v41) indicates that basically there are two kinds of humans: the secular (iron) and the spiritual (baked clay), and the connection between these two is very “brittle” and “disunited” (v42)!
6: The Rock – The “Rock is Jesus." Period! (1Cor.10:4)
7: The Chaff – “Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble (CHAFF), and the day that is coming will set them on fire," says the LORD Almighty. "Not a root or a branch will be left to them.” (Mal.4:1)
8: The Wind – The Spirit of God will be the Force that will eventually blow away all traces of the current system of global rule, after the demolishing “Rock” has done its work.
So, now we can answer the question: Why the DRMC? The answer is clear. Although the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) has its roots in the Netherlands, the DRC became the product of an alliance between the physical resentment of all humans that were not “white” and the need to partake in the Great Commission, to “make disciples of all nations.” (Mat.28:19)
In South Africa there was (is!) a big divide between “white” and “black”, but the DRC responded to their “alliance”, by officially establishing a “black” DRC, the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (DRCA) in 1859. By 1881 the resentment became too much for those who fell into the chasm between “white and “black”, the so-called “coloureds”, and three breakaway congregations formed the nucleus of the DRMC!
In South Africa “whites” call themselves a nation, and “blacks” call themselves a nation, but the so-called “coloureds” are the people of no nation. The “whites” called them “’n Nasie in wording” (a nation in the making)! But God had other plans for this special people: "I will make you envious by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding." (Rom.10:19)
South Africa with its history of physical Apartheid, and the DRC with its history of Spiritual Apartheid has maneuvered itself perfectly into the sights of the “Rock’s” target on the Statue of Nebuchadnezzar, with the DRMC in the cross hairs.
THE DRMC KAIROS MOMENT
So, was Dutch Reformed Mission Church just a name? Certainly not! Although many Christian Denominations in the world had Mission Churches which was the result of their missionary work and “mission” a common name, the “Mission” in DRMC comes from God, who has a special mission for this “church of no nation”, like the common name Jehoshua (Joshua) which means “the Lord saves” became a Mission Name when it was given to Him we know as Jesus – “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus (Joshua), because… he will save his people from their sins.” So, only to Jesus, the meaning of the Name Joshua was adjusted to become “the Lord WHO saves”!
BELHAR, burning bush of the DRMC
Through the ages God gave many “burning bush” experiences, but every burning bush needs a “Moses”. Saul had his “burning bush” experience on the road to Damascus; Abram’s was when “a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those pieces” (Gen. 15:17); Jacob had his at Bethel (Gen.28); and yes, Belhar became the “burning bush” experience for the DRMC when the Confession of Belhar was drafted in 1982.
Like God needed a Moses to lead His People out of bondage in Egypt, he needs a Church within greater Christianity to lead His People from the bondage of the boxes of different theologies that they preached themselves into, resulting in the spiritual Babylonian confusion Christianity currently finds itself in.
“Then I heard another voice from heaven say: 'Come out of her, my people,' so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues…” (Rev.18:4)
Moses was very reluctant to accept the Commission of God and most likely the URCSA will also be reluctant to accept such a great responsibility, but Moses eventually succumbed and became the biggest prophet of the Old Testament and became like a “friend of the Lord”. (Ex.33:11)
Will the URCSA take on the mantle of Moses in leading Christianity out of her bondage in Babylon?
FROM DRMC TO URCSA TO UDRMC
When God wants to make humans aware of a special calling, he often changed their name to make the calling compulsory. Like He changed Jacob’s name to “Israel” to indicate the 12 Tribal Fathers He wanted from Jacob’s loins. He changed Abram’s name to Abraham because He needed a Father for all His spiritual nations.
Yes, God is so precise, that he changed the name of the DRMC to URCSA, to show this Church exactly what her calling is about: In the first place, reuniting the Dutch Reformed Family of Churches in South Africa, to bring this House to unity, but in the second place, expanding the mission of this Church beyond the borders of South Africa and that of the Dutch Reformed identity into a worldwide mission to reunite the Universal Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. To underscore this Mission, the reunited DRC Family will be rechristened again to become the United Dutch Reformed Mission Church (UDRMC), until the Roman Catholic Church is also fully reformed and reunited with the UDRMC, when Christianity will receive her final Blessing of a name change as well as a motto that will truly reflect her Mission in the world, in the words of Jesus to His Bride-to-be: (You are) “THE LIGHT OF THIS WORLD.” (Mat.5:14)
And with these name-changes, God made this calling compulsory.
URCSA, GOD HAS PUT YOUR KAIROS MOMENT IN YOUR HANDS - USE IT!
A final word:
Although the DRMC had the connotation that it was a "Church for the Untouchables" in South Africa, the world will soon realize that in God's eyes the Dutch Reformed Mission Church was never a "kleurling kerk" ("coloured" church), but always the Ace up His sleeve to lead the grossly divided spiritual and physical world back to unity again. In the next article you can get more insight into the URCSA and the Belhar Confession. Also read the article The crucifixion and resurrection of Holy Communion to see how critically important it is for the Church to reunite.
AMEN.
P.S. The disunity in Christianity is a big headache for many leaders as well as the rank and file of the different Denominations. In desperation to do something about this matter things like syncretism is put on the table, even implemented, in order to make Christianity more "acceptable" internally and even to other faiths, Is this God's way to go? Will a Dolled Up Christianity be acceptable to God? Read here to find out more.