Professing Christianity believes that God’s Church is split into different branches. Perhaps the Methodists best explain the common position of Christianity: “Nourished by common roots of this shared Christian heritage, the branches of Christ’s church have developed diverse traditions that enlarge our store of shared understandings. Our avowed ecumenical commitment as United Methodists is to gather our own doctrinal emphases into the larger Christian unity, there to be made more meaningful in a richer whole” (emphasis ours).
While this sounds honorable, is it what Christ intended? Are there to be many groups of “diverse traditions” all with their own “doctrinal emphasis”?
Even the Roman Catholics, who, for the most part, believe that God’s Church cannot be divided, say this: “Those [outside the Roman Catholic Church] who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church” (Catech 838).
Again, are all these differing groups what Jesus intended?
The Bible is clear that the Church—Christ’s Body (Eph. 1:22-23; Col. 1:18)—is unified. Think about this:
• I Corinthians 1:10: “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”
• I Corinthians 12:25: “…there should be no schism in the body.”
• Ephesians 4:16: “From whom the whole body fitly joined together [Moffat translation: “welded together”] and compacted by that which every joint supplies.”
Do these scriptures describe the condition of the modern Church today? The answer is clear! The world is filled with all sorts of different groups professing to be Christian, and most profess that the other competing groups are also Christian. Yet, notice Christ’s words: “And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand” (Mark 3:25). The Greek word for “stand” can also mean “abide, continue, be established, hold up.” A house or any organization cannot stand—abide, continue, hold up—if divided. Yet, the world of Christianity is divided!
Would Christ have built His Church to contradict His statement in Mark 3:25? Of course not. Simply put, Christ said, “I will build My Church” (Matt. 16:18)—not churches!
My prayer, my new found passion is unification of the church……....God’s united people. If you are a follower of Christ, help me remind our brothers and sisters that the time for division is over. Christ followers must begin to re-unite
dave
Wow! Cuz! I love your question here! I'd like to offer a reply.
ReplyDeleteWithout going into too much detail, I think we have to distinguish between the Church-visible and the Church-invisible. I'm not just making this up. It is all over the Bible, just not in those words.
Not to be too cras, but before the time of Christ you could identify one of God's people by his genitals. Circumcision was the sign of the covenant. If you were circumcised by one of God's people, you became one of God's people. Wives, sisters, and daughters of circumcised Jews were members of the covenant via the men.
The whole thing was very OBJECTIVE. But...
Who do the Sciptures condemn the most? God's people, or the world? God's people. God is constantly warning his people about being cut off and cut out. There is a large group of "God's people" who will NOT enter his rest. In other words, some of "God's people" will not be saved.
Baptism is the sign of the new covenant, as circumcision was to the old. Paul says in Romans 6, "as many of you as have been baptized into Christ Jesus, have been baptized into His death." Baptism brings us into Christ and into His people. It is OBJECTIVE. You can see it.
But that baptism is no more a guarantee of salvation than circumcision was under the earlier covenant. It marks you are a member of the Church-visible. So long as a member of the Church visible remains faithful to the covenant, he can have every confidence of entering God's rest; he will be saved. But...
As Paul warns the Christians at Rome, we should be very careful not to abuse God's grace. For we can be cut out just as the unbelieving Jews were (Romans 10-11).
The point here is that being a Christian is a fairly objective matter. Either you were baptized into Christ or you were not. Anyone baptized into Christ is a Christian.
The question of their faithfulness to the covenant is another question entirely.
Marriage is a good illustration (probably because God designed it as such).
A married man is still a married man, even when he commits adultery. His crime is worse than mere fornication precisely because he IS a husband. We cannot logically say, after his adultery, that he "wasn't a husband to begin with." To say that would remove the charge of adultery; one who is not really a husband cannot really commit adultery.
I'm sorry to ramble so much. Let me recommend a book by Doug Wilson called "Reformed Is Not Enough" (subtitled "recovering the objectivity of the covenant"). There is much written on this topic. A search on Federal Vision will reveal quite a controversy around the idea.
As far as I can tell, Wilson and the other Federal Vision writers really have the best arguments from the whole of scripture.
So...
One Church, yes.
Some members of the Church, as well as some of its denominations, are actually unfaithful to the covenant and will be cut off by Christ.
In the meantime, we must regard a husband as a husband and call him to repentence.