Welcome friends. I commenced this column last time with a focus on the divided nature of Christendom, and I thought I might pursue this some more. Imagine a scenario where all the denominational churches in a city decide to hold a series of public meetings to preach the gospel. Preachers from each church would present the lessons and to overcome the problem of their fractured beliefs, each agreed to omit their individual denominational idiosyncrasies, creeds and catechisms and just preach the word of God as in the first century.
Now, suppose all the preachers kept the agreement and by the end of the series twenty people who attended, believed and obeyed the gospel. Who are these people? They have listened to preaching by Catholics, Protestants, and Calathumpians so are they Catholic, Protestant or Calathumpian? How would you determine this? On the last night of the meetings the preachers all made an impassioned plea for the twenty to “join their church”. None of the twenty responded. The preachers were dismayed and asked for an explanation.
One of the twenty responded on behalf of the group and said that they had done a little further study and found that the New Testament did not teach that they should join any denomination. Rather, he said, there were no denominations in the first century and when people obeyed the gospel and were thus saved they were added by the Lord to the church (Acts 2:47). They had no intention of joining a denomination.
So, who were these twenty people? Were they Christians? Yes. Were they members of the church? Yes. Were they contributing to division or showing a way out? There is an old saying, “He who drives the wedge splits the log”, and it is the introduction of man-made creeds and dogmas that produce denominationalism. It has ever been that way.
Imagine another scenario. A preacher comes to town to conduct a series of meetings. At the first meeting he declares salvation is by faith only, but in the second he says it is by obedience to the gospel and not by faith alone. In the third meeting he says baptism is sprinkling, pouring or immersion, but in the fourth he says it is immersion only. In the fifth he says parents ought to baptise their babies only in the next he says penitent believers are the only scriptural candidates for baptism. At the seventh service he preaches “once saved, always saved” but in the eighth he tells the people it is possible to fall from grace. In the ninth he says its alright to have human creeds but in the tenth he says we should take the Bible as our only guide in religious matters.
I tell you something, no thoughtful person would continue to listen to a preacher like that! However, the sad state of affairs is that many are prepared to accept these differing doctrines if they are preached by ten different preachers, believing that God has sent them all!
When Jesus came into the world He came into a fractured religious scene. There were Pharisees, Saducees, Essenes, Zealots, Herodians, Hellenists and so on. Jesus never joined any of these groups, even though He was born under the law as a Jew, and neither did He encourage His disciples to do so. Did He do right? Did He contribute to religious division? Should He have aligned Himself with a major Jewish denomination for the sake of peace and harmony? If He did, say, join the Pharisees, would that have made any worthwhile contribution to unity?
Perhaps one may think that all such talk about unity is like tilting at windmills, and that nothing will change the present status quo. Sadly, I fear that this is so. There are those who are proud of their denominational marque and will defend it to the death. There are those who believe their current position is a part of their family heritage. Jesus didn’t change the religious division in His time, but He didn’t give in to it either.
True Christianity is characterised by a oneness. There is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all (Eph.4:1ff). In other fields we recognize that a unified approach is possible and necessary. For example traffic laws require universal conformity. When people violate these laws we recognize it is “human nature” but we also recognize it is not excuseable.
When the church in Corinth began to denominate itself into factions that followed Paul or Peter or Apollos, the apostle Paul quickly criticised them (1 Cor. 1:10-13), and told them to all speak the same thing. One inescapable conclusion is that it must be possible to be united in Christ. It is true that there were differences amongst the early congregations, but they were all taught the same thing! One of the major reasons for the letters sent to these congregations was to correct departures from God’s word.
What was a localised problem in Corinth is a full-blown one today – only the names have been changed (but not to protect the innocent). Paul, Peter and Apollos have given way to Calvin, Luther, Joseph Smith, Ellen G. White, the Pope and so on. Men have been following these men (and woman) for centuries and probably this will continue to happen, but one does have the choice to leave that system and follow only Christ.
