Nana Yaw Aidoo
All who are even remotely acquainted with churches of Christ are aware that churches of Christ are a people with a restorative spirit. By this, I mean that they are a people who have determined to go back yonder of all the great ecclesiastical councils in history and departures from the faith, back to the church which began at Jerusalem on the first Pentecost after the resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ and also to plead with all people everywhere to return to that church. Since throwing more light on this plea and the place of churches of Christ in Christian history is the burden of this article, I deem it fitting to begin by pointing out that the Bible speaks of (literally) only one church. Forever, God’s word is settled on this issue. Jesus Christ promised to build only one church when He proclaimed, “I will build My church” (Matt. 16:18). My church (singular) and not My churches (plural). Men may speak of an invisible Church with many branches or denominations, but the Bible speaks of only one, pre-denominational and un-denominational church (Eph. 1:22-23; 4:4). There is only one church just as there is only “one God and Father of all” (Eph. 4:4-6). I have no denomination in mind when I speak of “the church of Christ.” When I speak of “the church of Christ,” I have in mind the only one for which Christ gave Himself (Eph. 5:25).
The Church Promised
This church was not a divine afterthought but the eternal purpose of God (Eph. 3:9-11). In the beginning, when sin first entered the world, there came the promise of a system for the remission of the sins of men, a system that included the church. To the serpent, God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). The bruising of the heel of the seed of the woman referred to the minor wound that Satan gave to our Lord when he influenced men to send Him to the cross. However, Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman, gave a mortal wound (head bruising) to Satan when He resurrected from the grave.
Genesis 3:15 is the first intimation of a Redeemer and His work in all of the Bible, and included in this promise is the church which He would build despite His own death (Mat. 16:16-18). Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the only person in all of history to found a religion and build His church after He died, and that promise is contained in Genesis 3:15.
Furthermore, the church is seen in God’s promises to Abraham. God Almighty said to the faithful patriarch,
… Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves (Gen. 12:1-3).
The land was Canaan. The great nation was Israel. But the third promise to bless all families of the earth through Abraham’s seed (cf. Gen. 22:18) was fulfilled in Christ (Gal. 3:16), “…and in that promise was the church, the body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23; cf. Gal. 3:16) where those blessings reside (Gal. 3:26-27).”
The Church Prophesied
Further down the line in the days of Isaiah, about 700 years before the birth of Christ, the prophet Isaiah proclaimed,
It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem (Isa. 2:2-3).
Notice the similarity between God’s promise to Abraham (see Gen. 22:18) and Isaiah’s prophecy when he said, “all nations shall flow to it.” Evidently, that which all nations would flow to would be the culmination of God’s promise to bless all families of the earth through Abraham’s seed. That which “all nations shall flow to” is “the LORD’S house” that would “be established in the top of the mountains.” The Lord’s house is the church (1 Tim. 3:15) and, thus, Isaiah’s prophecy was about the divine creation known as the church. It would be established “in the last days” and in “Jerusalem.” Around the same time that Isaiah gave this prophecy, Micah also gave a similar prophecy (see Mic. 4:1-2).
200 years after Isaiah and Micah had prophesied about the Lord’s house, Daniel in interpreting a dream by the pagan king, Nebuchadnezzar, also prophesied about a coming kingdom. In the dream, Nebuchadnezzar saw a statue with a head of fine gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, and feet that were part iron and part clay. This statue was broken into pieces by a stone that was cut out without hands (i.e. of divine origin) and which became a great mountain that filled the whole earth (Dan. 2:31-35). Daniel interpreted the dream and noted that the head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzar or the Babylonian empire, the breasts and arms of silver represented the Medes and Persians, the belly and thighs of brass represented Alexander the Great or the Grecian empire, the legs of iron and feet of iron and clay represented the Roman kings, and the stone that was cut without hands represented God’s kingdom (i.e. the church) that would be set up in the days of the Roman kings (Dan. 2:36-45).
In another vision about the kingdom, Daniel noted that someone like “the Son of Man” ascended to “the Ancient of days” and was given an indestructible kingdom. (Dan. 7:13-14). This was fulfilled in the ascension of Christ, the Son of Man (John 3:13), and the events of the first Pentecost after His ascension (Acts 1:9-11; 2:1-36). Thus, the church which existed in promise now existed in prophecy.
The Church Imminent
Now, in the days when the Roman kings ruled the world (Luke 3:1), John, the forerunner of Jesus Christ (Matt. 3:3; Isa. 40:3), came preaching that the kingdom of heaven was at hand (Matt.3:2). After John was put in prison by Herod, Jesus Christ also began preaching that the kingdom of heaven or God was at hand (Matt. 4:17; Mark 1:14-15). Not long after, Jesus Christ picked some men to be His apostles and gave them a message to take to the house of Israel. He said to these men, “And preach as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand’” (Matt. 10:7). In Caesarea Philippi, alone with His apostles one time, Jesus Christ said He would build His church, which He called “the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 16:18-19). Furthermore, He said some of His apostles would be alive to see “the kingdom of God come with power” (Mark 9:1 KJV).
From the foregoing, it is evident that during the preparatory ministry of John the Baptizer and the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, the kingdom or the church that Daniel prophesied would be established in the days of the Roman kings was imminent. It was imminent because both these men preached that it was “at hand.” Two thousand years after John and Jesus Christ, people continue to teach that the kingdom is “at hand.” One can only wonder whether Paul had two thousand years in the future in mind when he wrote this of his death: “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand” (2 Tim. 4:6 KJV). Obviously, the kingdom or the church did not exist in the time of John and Christ. Rather, it being prepared, was preached with a sense of nearness or imminence.
The Church Perfected
After His death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus Christ, in the space of forty days, appeared to His disciples and taught them things that pertained to the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). In the last of these appearances, He charged His apostles to wait in the city of Jerusalem until they be endued with power from on high (Luke 24:47-49). After the ascension of Christ, the apostles returned to Jerusalem, where they waited ten days until the day of Pentecost. On that fateful day, the “power from on high,” which Christ promised the apostles, came. The inspired historian wrote,
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:1-4).
Now watch carefully. In Mark 9:1, Jesus Christ said the kingdom would come with power. That is to say, the kingdom and the power would come at the same time. In Acts 1:8, He also said that the power would come with the Holy Spirit. Therefore, if on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit came, and with Him came the power, then it follows that God’s eternal purpose, the church, which through the ages was promised and prophesied and was in the time of John and Jesus Christ imminent, had come. Let us notice some of the prophecies about the church that were fulfilled:
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It would begin in Jerusalem (Isa. 2:2-3; Acts 2:5).
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It would be established in the last days (Isa. 2:2; Acts 2:17).
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It would begin in the days of the Roman kings (Dan. 2:44; Luke 3:1).
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Christ would ascend first, then the kingdom would come (Dan. 7:13-14; Acts 1:9-11).
Cleary, every prophecy about the church (you name it) was fulfilled with splendid accuracy. From this point onwards, the church is spoken of as an organism in existence. The saved were added to it (Acts 2:47), fear came upon it (Acts 5:11), and it was persecuted (Acts 8:1) among others. Moreover, after Acts the second chapter, the disciples no longer prayed for the coming of the kingdom, nor did they expect it any longer. Rather, we see people already in the kingdom (cf. Col. 1:13; Rev. 1:9). “Thus the church, or the body of disciples, became the continuation of Christ’s ministry and we are the kingdom of God.”
Jesus’ Prayer for Unity
In keeping with the promise to build His church, Jesus Christ prayed that all His followers would be one. The Savior prayed, “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:20-21).
Keep in mind that
Jesus didn’t pray for a multiplicity of religious bodies, in order that we may have a lot of wrangling, squabbling, and division. This is not the way our blessed Lord prayed! But, contrariwise, he prayed that we all might be one. Jesus was honest and sincere in that prayer. If Jesus Christ, after praying that we all might be one, had arisen from that prayer and had established many churches with many different faiths and doctrines to create division, that would have been the very blackest and rankest sort of hypocrisy on the part of the Savior. But Jesus, my friends, did not do that. And certainly we regret and resent any person’s casting a reflection upon the honesty and integrity of our Lord. We know that when Jesus prayed that prayer, he was not appealing to the grandstand, that Jesus meant it, that it was the burden upon his great heart, that he was actually wanting the religious world—all who had believed upon him in and through the words of the apostles—to be one (John 17:20,21).
One Church—Multiple Congregations
Indeed, the church was one in the beginning just as Christ prayed. Paul mentioned that there was and is one body (Eph. 4:4), which he taught referred to the church (Eph. 1:22-23; Col. 1:18). Thus, if there is one body, and the church is the body, then it is evident that there is one church. However, one reads that this church was comprised of different congregations. When the apostle spoke of “the churches of Christ,” (cf. Rom. 16:16) he didn’t mean different denominations teaching, believing, and practicing different things. Rather, these were congregations of the one church which Christ promised to build and which spoke the same thing (Rom. 16:17).
The Virgin Purity of the Church and Predictions of Apostasy
Furthermore, we need to understand that when the church was founded, it was founded just as Jesus Christ wanted it, and, thus, it initially existed in a state of virgin purity. For one to deny this is to claim that there was an error in what God initially founded. In the beginning, the church “cut its teeth” on “the apostles’ teaching.” With the church in existence and the apostles as its leaders, “they were able to ensure the faithfulness of teaching and loyalty to Christ by the disciples for some time – Acts 2:42.” However, insofar as the church is made up of humans, it wasn’t going to be an easy task. Thus, in the New Testament writings, we start to see issues crop up here and there. The epistles to the Corinthians are proof positive of this fact. The issues that began to bother the churches were of various sorts, some of them being doctrinal (cf. 2 Pet. 2:1ff).
We also read of predictions of the apostasy and pollution of the church (cf. Acts 20:29-30). This falling away was going to begin in the church and be spearheaded by one who “takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thess. 2:9). Moreover, it was going to be of such nature that it would include forbidding to marry and abstaining from certain foods (1 Tim. 4:1-3). At this point, it is worth noting that the plea and place of churches of Christ cannot be understood apart from these predictions that the church would fall away and experience a great apostasy.
The Development of the Great Apostasy
In light of these predictions of apostasy, we begin to see evidence of large-scale departure from the original faith right after the apostolic age. One of the very first departures was in the organization of the church where the plan of appointing a council of elders in every church (Acts 14:23) was shelved for the monoepiscopos (i.e. one bishop over a church). While there might have been genuine and practical reasons for this move, it remains the case that changes were forced into all the churches in the issue of organization. This system continued to develop “to the point that by A.D. 350, there were a few powerful bishops practically ruling the church from cities like Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople and major other cities.”
Other practices were also introduced. Holy water was introduced in A.D. 120 and penance in A.D. 157. Infant baptism first practiced in A.D. 251 was made church dogma in 1311 by the council of Ravenna. Instrumental music would become a part of worship when it had been acapella (which means, in the manner of the church) in apostolic times. Many other practices, such as auricular confession which took the place of public confessions, and doctrines, such as belief in purgatory and the resulting sale of indulgences, the veneration and worship of relics and images, and prayers to Mary among others, would later on be added. These changes “brought on the growth and development of the Roman Catholic Church” with the Bishop of Rome claiming all authority over the whole church. Most Christians would thus end up under the authority and umbrella of Roman Catholicism.
The Protestant Reformation
However, pious men from time to time, spoke out against these changes. In the Roman Catholic Church itself, some priests began preaching a return to the Bible and reform of the Church. Men like John Wyclif, Jan Hus, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Luther, Thomas Cranmer, and John Calvin suffered opposition and even in some cases death at the hands of Roman Catholic authorities for teaching ideas that suggested that the Roman Catholic Church was in error. These efforts paved the way for what is today called the Protestant Reformation. We ought to be eternally grateful for the Reformation, without which the world would probably still be under the shackles of Roman Catholicism. Unfortunately, these holy and brave efforts to reform the Roman Catholic Church led to the formation of many protestant denominations which were just as corrupt as the Roman Catholic Church itself.
The American Restoration Movement
Nonetheless, the fire that had been started by these magisterial reformers spread throughout Europe and even to America. On American soil, these protestant groups, while believing they had moved towards a more biblical faith and practice, were yet perpetuating a culture of division with different teachings and practices. Thus, some men from among these protestant groups who were not satisfied with the progress that had been made towards the “ancient paths” began advocating an even more complete return to Christianity as found in the Bible. Men such as Elias Smith (Baptist), Barton W. Stone (Presbyterian), Thomas and Alexander Campbell (Presbyterians and for some time Baptists), James O’Kelly (Methodist), “Raccoon” John Smith (Baptist), Walter Scott (Presbyterian), John Allen Gano (Baptist), among others, gave their energies to the furtherance of what is today called the Restoration Movement. Most of these men worked independently of each other at first and with the sword of the Spirit boldly challenged the denominations that they were part of. They were not perfect. They made many mistakes as they worked their way out of the darkness of denominationalism. However, they were only interested in the authority that comes from the Lord through His word. When they began facing opposition, they left their denominations and started to worship and work together according to the New Testament order. This movement would over time also encounter its share of problems, even an unfortunate and heartbreaking division along the way. However, some in the movement “who held more firmly to the original ideas of the movement…generally referred to themselves as ‘Churches of Christ,’ while the others took various names and moved into a more denominational pattern of things.” It is worth pointing out that while churches of Christ honor the pioneer restorers for their life’s work, churches of Christ do not base their beliefs, teachings, and practices on the works of these people who were but mere men with “feet of clay.” To justify our religious practices because of their teachings would defeat the very reason for which they pioneered the American Restoration (or back to the Bible) Movement.
The Church of Christ in Ghana
Eventually, the churches of Christ in America would begin to focus on worldwide missions, with some evangelists moving to Nigeria and then to Ghana to baptize a man who was an ex-member of the Salvation Army Church. Through these initial efforts, today, the “call for a more simple expression of Christianity” continues to be sounded on our shores. The churches of Christ have congregations throughout the country and until the Lord returns will “continue the plea for the restoration of the faith established by Christ and His apostles.” “The loyalty and service of each and every congregation is to Christ alone. We have no clergy; we are all priests (I Peter 2:9-10). We have no head but Christ (Eph. 1:22-23).” In all humility, we say that we are members of the church of Christ as it existed in the first century.
The Seed Principle
Can today’s churches of Christ be traced through history back to the first century when it was founded? No. As a matter of fact, church tracing avails nothing, and for that reason rather than believe in church tracing, churches of Christ believe in the seed principle. The word of God is called the seed of the church (Luke 8:11). It was this seed that when sown on sincere hearts in the first century led to the formation of the church of Christ. Since every seed brings forth after its kind (Gal. 6:7), the same seed planted today will produce the same thing it produced in the first century. More specifically, since the seed didn’t produce hyphenated Christians but Christians only (Acts 11:26) who were members of the church of Christ, then the same seed sown today will produce the same fruit. This is what churches of Christ have done.
We exist in the world as undenominational Christians, and it is our plea for all human names to be abolished, and for all denominational barriers that separate people to tumble and fall and for people who are divided to be one, in the one body (1 Cor. 12:20). So that is our plea in the religious world. We are neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant. We are just Christians; because back in the first century they were not members of the Roman Catholic Church and they were not members of Protestant bodies; but they were simply New Testament Christians, members of the church that cost the blood of the Son of God divine.
The Restoration Plea in Summary
If you have read everything until this point, you have probably discerned what the restoration plea, the plea of the churches of Christ, is all about. Even so, this is the plea in summary: The church which Jesus Christ founded fell into a state of apostasy. After a few centuries of consistently moving away from apostolic doctrine, what resulted hardly resembled the church of Christ. Thus, pious men across the ages began to plead for a restoration of God’s original plan. The pioneers of the American Restoration Movement were not the first to prize restorationist ideals. Many people of faith, hundreds of years even before the Campbells were born, sought to return to the church that Jesus Christ built.18 They believed that God had provided the means of that restoration, the Sacred Writings (cf. Heb. 8:5). These writings, rightly divided, are a pattern for all people to follow for all time. Thus, so long as sincere people have the Scriptures in their hands and hearts, they can find their way back to the church as God intended for it to be. The restoration plea is therefore the belief that the only way forward is back (cf. Jer. 6:16). It is a plea to return to the Scriptures and God’s original plan and intention for His church.
Conclusion
The foregoing is the plea and place of churches of Christ in Christian history. Permit me to end this article with how one takes the first step to becoming simply a Christian. Notice that according to Isaiah, “…all the nations shall flow to…” the Lord’s house or church. Friends, that could only be possible if the door into the church were opened. Thus, Peter, who was the bearer of the keys of the kingdom or church (Matt. 16:19), had to open the door into the church for “all nations” to “flow to it.” This he did when in response to a question by his auditors on that great Pentecost day (Acts 2:37), he said, “… Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for (unto – ASV 1901) the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Luke records that Peter “testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So, those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls (Acts 2:40-41). The church of Christ has existed for two millennia, and only those from among the nations who repent of their sins, confess their faith in Christ, and are baptized unto the remission of their sins “shall flow to it.” Hopefully, many who read this article, who aren’t members of churches of Christ, will take this initial step and become simply Christians.
Works Cited
Brewer, Jerry. “Liberalism’s View of the Church.” The Blight of Liberalism, edited by Michael Hatcher, Bellview Church of Christ, 2005, pp. 168-183.
Brownlow, Leroy. Brownlow’s Sermon in the Methodist Church. Brownlow Publications, 1958.
McVey, Dan. “Our Place in the History of Christianity.” The Church of Christ in Ghana, World Literature Publications, 1992, pp. 1-17.
Wilken, Robert Louis. The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity. Yale University Press, 2012.
