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Denominationalism |
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Author: Otto Bolds |
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Denominationalism - My Last Message to the Church :
Sept 4, 1919
What has denominationalism done for the world?
Before I answer, let me explain that there is a difference between
the spirit of denominationalism, and true Christians who are
actively working within the confines of denominations.
It is true that Christianity is the most civilizing power in the
world. This power, when exercised through saved individuals working
in connection with denominationalism, has caused credit to be given
to it which it not rightfully its own.
Now back to the initial question:
Denominationalism has so flooded the world with different doctrines,
all labeled "Christian," that every person who has any tendency
toward becoming a Christian may find a faith that suits him. Any and
all of these faiths hold out to the person who embraces them the
hope that if he will faithfully adhere to them he will gain a home
in heaven.
There is but one Lord Jesus Christ (I Cor. 8:6) who is the only
Mediator between God and men. (I Tim. 2:5). This Christ has given us
one faith (Eph. 4:5): this faith is contained in the gospel. (Phil.
1:27). Therefore, every faith other than the gospel which Jesus
Christ authored is a counterfeit
The faith of the gospel teaches that "Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the Kingdom of God." (John 3:3). Many church members,
under the influence of some of these false and deceptive faiths,
have been led into a profession of Christianity without even
learning that it is necessary to be born again. They have merely
been catechized and confirmed into some religious faith.
Multitudes of others who have learned more about an experience of
salvation through conversion, but have not learned that salvation
saves and keeps them from sin and enables them to live a sin-free
life, soon become a prey to their own weakness or surrounding
influences, and their religion becomes a mere form.
Thus the world is flooded with lifeless formal professors who
instead of showing the benefits of the Christian religion, drag its
banner into the dust of worldliness, gloominess, grumbling,
sensuality, pride, division, etc., until multitudes who make no
profession of religion have lost confidence in the Christian faith.
Among the sins of denominationalism there is no greater than the sin
of division and sect making. What right has any man or set of men to
establish a religious faith differing from the New Testament which
offers the souls of men a hope of heaven by conforming to that
faith?
Where, when, and by whom did that kind of work begin?
Most Bible students know that the first proposition of the serpent
after opening his conversation with Eve was to call in question the
Word of God, offering a substitute instead. He is still at that kind
of business today and uses human beings to accomplish his work.
Just as Christ and those who are born of Him (His Church),
constitute the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15), so also every
religious body established upon false doctrine (doctrine that denies
the Word of God or any portion of it), is the seed of the serpent.
There is and always has been, (since the time of God's declaration
recorded in Genesis 3:15), and will be (until the time when the
beast and false prophet and those that worshiped his image are cast
into a lake of fire burning with brimstone Rev. 19:20), enmity
between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.
Besides flooding the world with false doctrines and lifeless
professors, denominationalism has divided Christians into hundreds
of divisional bodies so that they can not practice the unity taught
by Jesus Christ.
Even the few religious bodies which embrace the doctrine of holiness
can not live it in their sectarian denominations because holiness,
as an attribute of God, contains within itself the elements of unity
and will not admit division. All who are filled with the holiness of
God must see and flow together. As the early Church was a unit, all
of one heart and of one soul, so must the gathered Church in the
evening time be the same.
No humanly organized denomination can stand upon the Word of God; it
must have a creed of its own. That creed must offer some future hope
to those who conform to it, otherwise there is nothing to induce
people to subscribe to it. And when people are offered a future hope
of heaven by subscribing to a creed, that creed is offered as a
substitute for the Word of God and thus becomes the enemy of the
Word of God.
Denominationalism can not endorse the whole Word of God without
destroying itself, because the Word of God teaches holiness and
unity, which destroys denominationalism. Neither can the Church of
God acknowledge denominationalism as being scriptural without
bringing destruction upon itself.
Remember, God has placed enmity between the seed of the serpent and
the seed of the woman, and as above stated, all false religion is
the seed of the serpent, as the true Church of God is the seed of
the woman.
It is true that Christ directly is the seed of the woman, but all
who are in Him are heirs with Him and share with Him the glorious
triumph over the serpent. As He Himself said to His disciples,
"Satan shall be bruised under your feet shortly," referring to the
coming of the Holy Ghost which would make them more than conquerors.
Also, Jesus said to His Father, "The glory which thou gavest me I
have given them." Thus the body of Christ, the Church, constitutes
with Him the seed of the woman.
I will here quote the words of D. S. Warner from the book The
Cleansing of the Sanctuary, page 265, topic "Exclusiveness."
"The use of this term conveys the idea that all who are not in the
Church that Jesus founded are excluded from salvation and the
Christian's hope. If any person is not disposed to comply with the
conditions of membership in God's Church he cannot turn aside and
join some other church that presents a wider door; for there is no
other.
"There is but one Saviour for all men: 'There is none other name
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.' But all who
are saved by Him are 'baptized [or inducted] by one Spirit into one
body;' so all who are outside of this one body are excluded from the
grace of God.
"Christ is an exclusive Christ; there is none other beside Him. The
faith that He gave us is an exclusive faith; no other saves the
soul. The truth of God is exclusive in its nature; everything
contrary to it is false. The kingdom of Christ is exclusive. It is a
stone that breaks everything else to pieces. The one Church which
Jesus founded and named, and which is His own body, is also
exclusive, for there is only 'one body in Christ.'
"During the reign of pagan persecution the rulers offered to stop
the bloody martyrdom and allow the Christians to worship God in
freedom if they would confess that the pagan idols were also real
Gods. This they could not do, but chose rather to die. And on this
very point of exclusiveness is the present offense of the cross.
People would not seriously object to God's ministers setting forth
the Church as contained in the Scriptures if we would recognize
their earth-born institutions as being also God's Churches. But this
we cannot do and be honest before God and faithful to His Word.
There is but one household of faith. Christ does not have a
plurality of wives. He has but one bride, and she has no sisters.
Thus saith her husband, 'My dove, my undefiled is but one: she is
the only one of her mother.' (Song of Sol. Song 6:9).
"It is true there is in these last days a large sisterhood of
Protestant bodies calling themselves churches, but the Lamb's wife
owns no kin to them. They are of an entirely different family. Their
mother is 'Mystery Babylon, the mother of harlots.' "
As "God is not the author of confusion," His Church can not be a
split-up and confused lot of rival institutions. He recognizes no
sisterhood of churches. If, therefore, there is but one Church that
emanated from God, whence come the rest? Martin Luther would answer,
"Whatever is not of God is of the Devil." Men come to us and say
just what the Devil besought of Christ. "Let us alone." "Go on and
preach what you believe, but let everybody else alone." This is
great blindness.
The Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness can not jointly
flourish, nor even coexist in the same heart. No man can preach the
truth without knocking down error, any more than darkness can yet
hold sway after light has come. "So likewise, the Church of the
living God which is the pillar and ground of the truth" must utterly
exclude every counterfeit church.
God's Church is exclusive like Himself. He who is not willing to
commit himself exclusively to God and to the Church that Jesus
purchased with His own blood is not fit for the kingdom.
While men have held a place both in God's Church and man's creeds
through ignorance, yet when the true light comes they have no cloak
for their ignorance and must cut loose from the one or the other. If
they then refuse to walk in the light, "it shall be taken away from
them that which they have." Or if they only have a form, only seem
to be religious, that which they "seem to have shall be taken away."
The spirit of this age is to place Christ and Belial on an equality;
to call everything religious "God's Church," and thus try to palm
off upon the Almighty the corrupt works of the Devil. This insults
His holiness by classifying with His heaven-born seed those who are
yet sinful, though accepted in the various branches of
denominationalism. But "the Lord knoweth them that are His."
In the work of the salvation of sinners God seeks to save all who
are lost, and He wants us to join Him to that endeavor in other
words, work with Him to accomplish that end. But in the work of
gathering His people out of sectism He only seeks to gather those
who are truly His. All the rest must come by the way of the cross or
the way of salvation. His sheep, using a scriptural term, will hear
the call and obey, but the goats will rebel, then we can preach
salvation to them. May God give us clear vision and grace to do the
work of today. |
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Printed By: Faith Publishing House,
P.O. Box 518, Guthrie, OK 73044 |
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