Jerry C. Brewer
Members of the church that Jesus built do not denominate themselves into parties by their names. There were no hyphenated Christians in the first century, such as “Baptist-Christians,” “Methodist-Christians,” “Presbyterian-Christians,” or Anglican-Christians.” Then, and now, the saved were, and are, simply “Christians” (Acts 11:26; 26:28; 1 Pet. 4:16) and all Christians are in the church of Christ. The church that Jesus built (Matt. 16:18) did not have a name. None was needed because He built only one (Eph. 1:22-23; 4:4). The term, the church of Christ is not a name, but a designation of ownership. Local congregations are designated as “churches of Christ” (Rom. 16:16) and every saved person on earth is in Christ’s church. Not a single person is saved in a denomination.
Paul said that, “all spiritual blessings” are in Christ (Eph. 1:3) and that includes salvation. It is also manifest that those in Christ are in His church, for the church “is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:22-23). To be in Christ is to be in His church and to be in His church is to be in Christ.
Those blessings in Christ are enumerated by Paul in Ephesians, chapter one. Those in Christ are the “chosen” of God (Eph. 1:4), God’s adopted children (Eph. 1:5), made acceptable to God (Eph. 1:6), redeemed and forgiven through Christ’s blood (Eph. 1:7), and heirs of heaven (Eph. 1:11). No one is in Christ who has not repented and been baptized into Him (Acts 2:38; Gal. 3:26-27).
When the gospel was first preached on Pentecost (Acts 2), 3,000 souls obeyed its message by repenting and being baptized, and the scripture says they were added to the church (Acts 2:38-41, 47). Now, this question arises: “To which denomination were they added?” The answer is “none.” Were the apostles, and others in the first century, members of a denomination? Absolutely not! No such thing as a denomination among professing Christians then existed. Those 3,000 souls were added to the church of which you should be a member—the church which Christ, its Founder, will save (Eph. 5:23). Not a single person in Acts two was added to any denomination. The church is the saved body of Christ and rejects denominationalism. God has only one family and all of His children are in that family. Paul told Timothy, “These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly: but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God” (1 Tim. 3:14-15). This passage identifies God’s “house” as the church. As used in this context, the word “house” means “family.” The church is God’s family and it is so designated in Ephesians 3:15 as well.
God has only one family and to insist that He has children in all denominations is to accuse God of adultery. He has no children outside of His family.
Denominations are not the family of God and are no part of that family. They are man made “families” unknown in the word of God. The church of which you should be a member—the one you read about in the New Testament—rejects denominationalism because it blasphemes the name of God in its pretense that God has children in many different “families.”
