SALVATION IS IN CHRIST’S CHURCH
If the church of Christ (as that term is defined and used in the New Testament) has nothing to do with man’s salvation from sin, why did Jesus say, “I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Mat. 16:18)? Did not such determination as is set out in our Lord’s foregoing words declare that Jesus thought the church to be important? If not, what would Jesus have to say that would show that He thought the church was important? Did He who came to seek and save the lost do anything that did not pertain to saving mankind from sin (Mat. 18:11)?
In the original 1611 Elizabethan English of the King James Version, the Greek word hades of the foregoing text was translated into our English word hell. The translators of the KJV did this because in 1611 the word hell did not exclusively mean the final eternal abode of the wicked as it does today, but it also meant an unseen place. Thus, the Greek word hades of Matthew 16:18 references the unseen place to which the spirits of men go when they die (Jam. 2:26; Luke 16:22a). When Jesus died on the cross of Calvary (Luke 23:46), He immediately entered that part of the hadean world known as paradise (Luke 23:43). However, in Acts 2:27ff the apostle Peter by inspiration of the Holy Spirit declared that Christ’s spirit was not left in the hadean realm but was raised from the dead to die no more (Acts 2:32). Thus, when Jesus promised to build His church, He also promised that His own death would not stop Him from keeping His promise. Again, this certainly points to the importance Jesus placed on His church in the salvation of mankind.
THE WORD CHURCH
Our English word church translates to the Greek word ekklesia. It is a compound word from the Greek preposition ek, meaning “out of” and kaleo, meaning “to call.” Thus, the church is composed of people who have been called out of the world by the gospel of Christ to faithfully serve Jesus (2 Th. 2:14; Mark 16:15, 16; Rom. 1:16).
Although, the word church never loses its fundamental meaning, the “called out,” however, it is used in three senses in the New Testament. 1) The word church means the one single solitary institution composed only of those saved by Christ from their sins (Mat. 16:18). 2) It also references the largest and smallest organized entity of the universal church in its various geographic locations around the world, such as the church in Rome, or Corinth, or the churches of the Roman province of Galatia, or without specifying the geographic location of the same. 3) Finally, it is used to reference the church convened (assembled) for religious purposes (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:2; 16:16; 1 Cor. 11:20). Thus, the Lord built a company, body, or spiritual building of Christians (Acts 11:26).
PURCHASED BY BLOOD OF CHRIST
In reminding the elders of the church in Ephesus of their singular responsibility to superintend the church, Paul declared that Jesus “purchased” it with “his own blood” (Acts 20:28). In so doing, the apostle was emphasizing the importance of their work by causing the elders to focus on how much and to what extent the Lord loved the church and gave Himself for it (Acts 20:17-28; Eph. 1:22; 5:25). The church of our Lord is worth the purchase price and for the elders of the church to neglect their work is for them to neglect the church Jesus bought with His own blood. Also, to state that the church is not an essential part in our Lord’s work to save men from sin is to make light of and denigrate the purchase price of the church—the blood of Christ. So, when men teach doctrines that deny the important place the church has in the salvation of mankind, they are by implication denying the essentiality of the blood of Christ shed for the remission of man’s sin. If not, why not?
THE CHURCH IS NOT A DENOMINATION
It should also be clearly understood that the New Testament does not teach the denominational concept of the church. Denominationalism teaches that Christ saves a person and then that person joins the church of one’s choice. Thus, according to this false doctrine, all the denominational churches comprise the one church. However, what we know as Protestant Denominationalism arose 1500 years after Jesus established His church (Acts 2). Further, faithful churches of Christ are not in fellowship with and are not a part of denominationalism. Denominations are founded on and sustained by church synods, conferences, councils, and the like. Each one of the foregoing produces various manuals, prayer books, disciplines, catechisms, et al., to guide them. But these human creeds are nothing more than the commandments and doctrines of men. Of such things Jesus said to the Jews, “Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mark 7:7). In man’s relationship to God, the foregoing scripture teaches the truth regarding the same for all time and all people. All denominations teach what they think is the will of God rather than using the Bible and the Bible only to determine the Will of God concerning man’s salvation from sin, the church (its organization, worship, work), and in every area of one’s life (Rom. 12:1, 2; Jam. 1:25).
Sadly, today, most of those who believe in Christ think that the erroneous denominational concept of the church is what the Bible teaches about the church. One major reason the foregoing is the case is because 1) people will not read the Bible (Hos. 4:6; Eph. 3:4; John 8:31, 32; 17:17; Luke 8:11); 2) or they do not know how to study the Bible and will not learn (2 Tim. 2:15; 3:16, 17); 3) or they do not believe what the Bible teaches (Heb. 11:6; Rom. 10:17); 4) or they do not care one way or the other about God, Christ, the Bible, salvation, etc. (Mat. 6:33; 1 Cor. 1:18); 5) or, pride and/or fear get in the way of them renouncing long held doctrines that they have learned from the Bible to be wrong (Psa. 10:4; John 12:42).
Prior to the rise of the protestant denominations, Catholicism reigned supreme for one thousand years among those who claimed Christ as their savior. Before Catholicism, and out of which it developed, was the apostate church—the church that had fallen away from the truth of the gospel. This apostasy of the Lord’s church was predicted by the New Testament (Acts 20:28-31; 1 Tim. 4:1-3; 2 Tim. 4:1-4; 2 Pet. 3:1-3).
Jesus shed His own blood for the remission of man’s sins (Mat. 26:28). Also, we have learned from the inspired pen of Paul that Jesus purchased the church with His own blood. Understanding that it is the case that Jesus purchased the church with His own blood, which blood He shed for the remission of man’s sins, then we should be able to understand why Jesus adds all those He saves by His blood to His church (Acts 2:38, 41, 42, 47). The church is composed only of those who are saved by the blood of Christ and no one else. There are no saved persons outside of His church and there are no saved people in churches that are not His church. No denomination was purchased with the blood of Christ and all of them are tools of Satan to oppose the Lord’s gospel and His church—the church revealed on the pages of the New Testament. No one can teach that the church is nonessential, refusing to be a member of it, and at the same time enjoy divine approval?
JESUS CHRIST, SAVES HIS CHURCH
In Ephesians 5:22-33 the inspired apostle Paul compares the husband-wife relationship with the relationship of Christ and His church. In verse 23 Paul tells us, “For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, being himself the savior of the body.” The message the apostle is sending to the church is that husbands and wives are to look to the relationship of Christ and His church to pattern their relationship with one another.
Do not overlook the fact that Christ is, “the savior of the body.” To the Christians of the first century that point was clear. Remember, there was no denominational churches because such was unheard of in the New Testament system of Christianity in the first century. Paul used what faithful children of God in the first century well knew to convey important lessons about marriage.
Paul, as was the case with all the apostles of Christ and the other inspired writers of the New Testament, knew of no other group of people who had this special relationship with Jesus (Eph. 1:3). Salvation belonged then and now only to the faithful members of church, the one body of Christ (Eph. 4:5; Col. 1:18).
GOD’S FAMILY IS HIS CHURCH
So Timothy might know, “How men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God. . .,” Paul wrote to him concerning the same (1 Tim. 3:15). One thing we learn from the previous scripture pertaining to this study is that the house of God means the family of God (cf. Acts 11:14; 2 Tim. 1:16). The church is God’s family and He only has His children in His own singular family.
Parents add children to their own families either by birth or adoption. Children do not pick and choose the families of which they want to be members. When the seed of the kingdom, the Word of God, is sown (taught) in the honest hearts of those who are willing to obey their Lord, they are born of water and the Spirit when they are baptized in water for the remission of their alien sins as the Holy Spirit instructed (Luke 8:11, 15; Jam. 1:21; Rom. 6:3, 4, 17, 18; John 3:3, 5; Eph. 6:17). Only the foregoing people are those the Lord adds to His family, the church (Acts 2:38, 41, 42, 47). As Peter wrote, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Pet. 1:23; Also see Heb. 4:12; Gal. 3:26, 27). Truly, they are children of God by an obedient faith when they are born of water and the Spirit by being baptized in water by the authority of Christ and into Christ for the remission of their sins (Rom. 6:3, 4, 17, 18; Heb. 5:9). Therefore, with the apostle Paul we too declare, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named” (Eph. 3:14, 15).
WHAT MEN TEACH OR WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES ABOUT THE CHURCH
So, it comes down to accepting what men say or what God says in His Word about spiritual matters and that involves what His Word teaches about the Lord’s church. When Jesus asked His disciples who men of His day thought He was (Mat. 16:13), they gave several different views of Christ. Then Jesus asked the disciples who they thought He was (verse 15). It was the apostle Peter who replied to Jesus, saying that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God (verse 16). Jesus commended Peter for believing the testimony of God rather than the opinions of men.
Any church that teaches that one does not have to be a member of the church revealed on the pages of the New Testament to be saved in heaven is not teaching what the New Testament of Christ teaches about the church purchased with Christ’s blood. As is true of all spiritual topics, so it is true of the church Jesus built—the church He purchased with His own blood, the church that is His family, the church to which He adds all those who obey Him when they are baptized into Christ for the remission of their sins, the church of which He is the only head and its only Savior (Eph. 1:22; 5:23). Will you choose to believe what the Bible says about the church’s essentiality in the salvation of man or will you believe what men say?