Christ the Savior of the Church But Which One

Paul tells us, “Christ is the head of the church; and he is the savior of the body.” (Eph. 5:23 NKJV) This passage is clear-cut and easy to understand, save for one thing--what body is he the savior of? The New Testament teaches the body is the church (Col. 1:24, Eph. 1:22-23) so is it the Baptist church, the Lutheran church, the Methodist church, the Nazarene church, or one of the hundreds of others that could be named? Many would say it is all of them taken collectively. It is a subject worthy of consideration, an important study, for if we do not get it right we will be found outside the body Jesus saves on the Day of Judgment.

It is essential that we understand when Paul said Jesus was the “savior of the body” he was talking about the church already in existence, a church that would continue to exist until the end of time. The church is the body, “And he (God the Father--DS) put all things under his (Jesus’--DS) feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” (Eph. 1:22-23 NKJV) Paul says again in Col. 1:18, “And he is the head of the body, the church.” (NKJV) The church is thus Christ's spiritual body, which Christ will save at the last day as he is the savior of the body. Being a church member then is essential for salvation.  There is not a word in scripture about salvation outside the body of Christ, outside the church.

However, we still have the burden of figuring out just which church it is that Christ is going to save as we have hundreds and hundreds of churches today. Is there any help in figuring it out? Yes, quite a bit.

I will start with what ought to be obvious to all. If the church of which a person is a member began centuries after the New Testament was written it is not the church that Jesus said he would save. How do we know? The church Jesus established and over which he was and is the Savior was established in the first century on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2. Let us say just as an example that a church began in the 1400’s. If a person claims the church of which he is a member is the one which Jesus built and is the Savior of and yet it was not begun until the 1400’s one does not have to be a mathematical genius to see the timeline does not fit.

Are we to believe Jesus saved people in a church that did not exist? Are we to believe Jesus saved people in any of the hundreds of churches now in existence before they were founded? A little common sense goes a long way. If people were saved in the hundreds of years before the reformation and the establishment of the multitudes of churches we have today, it only proves those churches were never needed for salvation and were not a part of the church Jesus saved and is saving. It proves they are man-made churches. Jesus promised to save his church, not man-made churches.

That the church was begun in the first century is so self-evident from even a casual glance at scripture I do not want to spend much time on it here. Many of Paul’s salutations in the epistles establish that fact for he often begins with words like, “To the church of God which is at Corinth” (1 Cor. 1:2 NKJV), “To the churches of Galatia” (Gal. 1:2 NKJV), “To the church of the Thessalonians” (1 Thess. 1:2 NKJV). It is hard to write to a body not yet established, to something that does not exist. The church was begun on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 commencing with those who responded to Peter’s preaching that day. In Acts 2:47 the New King James version of the Bible reads, “And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.” Much more could be written on the establishment of the church but that is not the purpose of this particular article.

Every denomination that exists today was built many hundreds of years after Christ built his church. This puts every one of them in a terrible bind. Only emotion can rescue them; there is no hope that reason can. How can one claim his church, speaking by way of accommodation, is the church Jesus built when one takes chronology into account? People were saved and added to the church that Jesus is saving for many hundreds of years before any denomination existed.

If you admit the obvious that your denomination is not the church Christ built then troubling questions arise. Why does it exist? Who built it? Jesus built his church but the chronology says your church is not his church, so who built it? Was Jesus’ church insufficient by itself without your church (denomination)? If he did not build your denomination but man did, who gave man the right? Where is the Bible authority for any man to go out and build a church in addition to God’s church? That is the very thing that happened if God’s church already existed before your denomination.

If your church is not the church Jesus built then how can it be a friend to Christ’s church? It is in competition with Christ’s church. If it taught the same thing Christ’s church taught (the same doctrine), was the same in organization, work, worship, the same in every respect, then it would be his church and not a denomination, and yet I have never known a denominational person willing to declare that his church is the church Jesus built. Why not? Because that would make it exclusive as Christ built only one and that would necessarily exclude others in other denominations.

I think men generally realize these things, it is only common sense, a little logic, pretty much like two plus two equals four, simple reasoning, and yet it is so troubling to allow our minds to dwell on these things that we quickly shut the thoughts off before anxiety sets in. If we do not see an answer, a way out, our mind seems to say let it go. We pretend the problem is not there, is non-existent, and we refuse to think about it lest it cause us worry, concern, and trouble. But, like cancer, if the problem is there it will not go away on its own, and sooner or later, one way or another, we will be forced to deal with it. It refuses to be swept under the rug and forgotten. There is a Judgment Day when we will have to provide answers as to what we did and why in our lives.

Often the answer that comes up is that all the denominations taken together are the church Jesus built. We all know deep down that is not true, but again we do not like to think about it. Every one of them was built hundreds of years after the fact by man, not by God.

We also know that they do not teach the same doctrines nor practice the same things. One denomination is open to gay marriage and homosexuality, to women in leadership roles, to sprinkling for baptism, to this or that while another denomination is one hundred and eighty degrees in the opposite direction on these issues and others. Their doctrines are as far apart as the East is from the West. They are not of one mind nor one practice.

To get everybody to heaven who just believes in Jesus which is a belief commonly held means there is no such thing as truth and that the things Jesus and the apostles taught about Christian living are at best simply good advice, not commandments, and are irrelevant to salvation. In the denominational world, one man’s truth is another man’s lie. Let a Baptist and an Episcopalian get together and talk about Christianity and homosexuality and see what happens. I use that as only an example. Make no mistake about it, if denominationalism with its generally held belief that we are all going to heaven just so we believe is to be accepted, a man must also accept the idea that neither truth nor practice matters. There is just no way in the world of getting around that.

In this article, I have said nothing about the Roman Catholic Church as I have excluded it from the denominational world. However, it does not get a free ride for the question with it is whether a totally apostate church can be saved. However, that is an article for another time.

We can answer the question “Christ the Savior of the church but which one” by saying it is none of the denominations, but it is the church Jesus himself built. It is the church that follows after the New Testament church as described in the scriptures, being as nearly free from sin and error as strictness to scripture can make it. It is the church restored to what it was on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 in terms of initiation into it and in terms of its work, worship, and organization. 

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