Cled E. Wallace
The church of Christ is one thing and a denomination is something else. They are both different and antagonistic. The church of Christ is a spiritual body, consisting of all Christians, while a denomination is purely a sectarian setup. A universal acceptance of New Testament teaching regarding the church would annihilate denominationalism, sink it without a trace; While to the extent that denominationalism triumphs, the apostles’ doctrine is outraged and the prayer of Jesus for unity is mocked. This may seem to some a severe statement for the case, but take a frank look at the problem. A denomination is a partisan brotherhood. A man can be a Christian, continue “steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers (Acts 2:42), and never belong to one, endorse it, or have one thing to do with it. In fact, if he is just a Christian, a member of the body of Christ, and sticks to the New Testament, he is a living rebuke to everything of the sort.
To even suggest that the Founder of Christianity planned that His followers should break up into partisan flocks, adopt human creeds, wear sectarian names is absurd. This sort of thing is open rebellion against His expressed will.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me (John 17:20-21).
Any man who can prove the righteousness of denominationalism by the New Testament is capable of proving that Peter was a Papist, Paul a Baptist, James Episcopalian, Luke a Methodist, and Apollos a Holy Roller. These men belonged to no denomination because there were none in their day, and they roundly condemned even the erring tendencies that squinted in the direction of such things. The disciples admonished to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). Paul told Timothy to “abide thou in the things which thou has learned” and to “guard that which is committed unto thee (2 Tim. 3:14; 1 Tim. 6:20). They would have disobeyed had they wandered off into anything of a denomination character.
Let two honest and capable men start out in quest of the truth on the church question. One takes a New Testament and goes to Jerusalem on Pentecost, where and when the church was set up; the other goes to a modern denominational-infested city in the year of our Lord 2024. What does each one find? The man in Jerusalem on Pentecost finds Simon Peter freshly baptized in the Holy Spirit using the “keys of the kingdom of heaven.” A short time before the Lord had said:
Upon on this rock I will build my church.” After His resurrection and before His ascension He gave the world-wide commission: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved (Mark 16:15-16).
“Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,” now presents infallible proofs to a vast and astonished multitude that Jesus Christ has indeed risen, and “that God hath made him both Lord and Christ.”
