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. Is it? It is a subject worthy of 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 1600'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 1600'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. Add to that more denominations are being established all the time.

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.  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 restored to what it was on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 in terms of initiation into it and whose work, worship, and organization is defined and limited by the New Testament scriptures. What is true for an individual Christian is also true of a group of Christians, namely, a church: "Anyone who does not remain in Christ's teaching but goes beyond it does not have God." (2 John 9 CSB)

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Catholicism’s Denial of The Holy Spirit’s Teaching

If the teaching of the Holy Spirit in the pages of the New Testament is truth, then whatever denies that truth is false, is false teaching and error. The thesis of this article is that the Roman Catholic Church has rejected the Holy Spirit's teaching that there was an all-sufficiency of doctrine given in the first century sufficient to save the souls of humanity across all time to come.

I am sure the Catholic Church would deny this, but how can they? Reason says that if everything needed to save mankind's souls was given in the first century, there is no reason or need for additional doctrines in the centuries following. Yet the Catholic Church has piled new doctrine upon new doctrine, seemingly without end, down through the ages until our own time, and on and on it goes.

The Catholic Church has no set doctrine. The best that can be said is that it is set for a time. But time flies by and new doctrine is added. What once was, is history, is past, and the new replaces the old. The old Catholic Church is revised with each newly added teaching and thus becomes the newest edition of the church. In doing so it differs from the old and is therefore not the old.

One can go online and do a search and readily find when various doctrines came to be added to the Catholic Church. Do not think for a moment that the Catholic Church of the 21st century is the same as the one in earlier centuries; it has been and continues to be a transforming institution compounding doctrines. God does not change (Malachi 3:6), the Catholic Church does. This continual addition of new teachings flies in the face of the teaching of scripture.

Jude says as clearly as language can make it that "the faith...was once for all delivered to the saints." (Jude 3 NKJV) When? Then! Then in the first century. Everything needed for salvation from the hand of God was delivered to mankind "then." The faith Jude speaks of is that body of doctrine given through Christ and his apostles and prophets in the first century, in Jude's lifetime. It was once for all delivered, meaning it was complete then and there. There was nothing to be added to it. That means that the Catholic Church has nothing to offer to mankind today that is of value as far as salvation goes. That was all provided for in the first century. We also must remember Jude wrote by inspiration. The book of Jude is the Holy Spirit's writing.

But Jude is not alone. Peter says, "His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness." (2 Peter 1:3 NKJV) When? Then! If so, what does Catholicism's additional doctrines added down through the ages profit us? Does "all things" mean all things? Again, we have the Holy Spirit writing through human agency, through the inspired apostle Peter. If "all" means all, then we need no more than what was available in the first century and available to us in scripture.

James says in the first century the implanted word was able to save their souls (James 1:21), in that time. Are we to believe it is not able to do so in our time? What weakened it? They had the implanted word available in James' time. There was no need to wait for the development of Catholic doctrine. James' words were the Spirit's words.

Paul, speaking to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, commended them "to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified." (Acts 20:32 NKJV) When? Then! They did not need additional doctrines for salvation handed down centuries later.

Writing by inspiration, Paul says, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for … that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Tim. 3:16-17 NKJV) He wrote that in the first century. Paul said "scripture" made a man complete, not scripture plus church tradition. Here again, you have the element of time. You could become complete in the first century. There was no need to wait for generations to come until you could get the full deposit of Catholic Church doctrine, which is impossible anyway, for there is no end to its additions.

Paul told Timothy that "the Holy Scriptures...are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." (2 Tim. 3:15 NKJV) That is not so if a man must believe any of the added Catholic doctrines down through the ages. Paul said by inspiration "the Holy Scriptures," not scripture plus tradition.

Were the people on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 saved when they obeyed Peter's preaching? They were not, if you must believe any of the added Catholic doctrines for salvation. You can say the same thing about all the others who believed and obeyed the gospel in the first century recorded in the book of Acts.

How is it that under Catholicism a man or woman can be saved at one time and yet at a later time another individual must believe additional doctrine to achieve the same end? If that is the case, then does not that make multiple gospels versus just one? I use the term gospel in the sense of the body of faith one must believe for salvation.

The Bible teaches there is "one faith" (Eph. 4:5), one body of truth to be believed. Which one is it in Roman Catholicism? Is it the truth of 800 A.D., 1300 A.D., 1900 A.D., or 2026 A.D.? Or, set your own dates. You will readily see things have changed, and who can believe we have seen the end of it?

The Bible teaches that the gospel of Christ is the power of God to salvation (Rom. 1:16), that was the gospel taught in the first century, but that was before Catholic tradition kicked in during the later centuries. Did not Paul, the writer of that Roman passage, foresee that later Catholic tradition when translated into doctrine was essential?

In the book of Acts much is written about "the word" of God being preached, heard, believed, and obeyed. Here is a question for all who have an open mind. Did that word include any of the Marian dogmas Catholics teach today, even one word? Did it include teaching on the rosary, indulgences, transubstantiation, and the list could go on and on? An honest person knows the answer.

One might argue the book of Acts only records examples of initial gospel obedience, evangelizing. I respond, Paul spent 3 years in Ephesus, as an example, did he never preach Christian doctrine during that entire time? Several of the books he wrote were written to places he had evangelized – Corinth, Ephesus, Galatia, Colossae, Philippi, and Thessalonica. Did Paul preach modern-day Catholic doctrine in those locations? Be honest with yourself.

Paul, by inspiration, wrote Second Thessalonians in which he wrote of a future "falling away" (2 Thess. 2:3), other translations use the words "rebellion" or "apostasy." The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the one true church. If so, when is it going to fall away, or has it already? If it has, or when it does, can it be said it is the true church? One must think long and hard about that.

If I as an individual fall away from a team, a business, or an institution of any kind that I was involved in, then I am no longer a part of it. If the church becomes apostate, it is no longer the church. It becomes something entirely different, which is exactly where the Roman Catholic Church is today. Do not claim to be what you once were if you are no longer what you once were.

I believe the Roman Catholic Church grew out of the original church of the New Testament. That one church in its apostasy evolved into the Catholic Church. Paul taught that the original church would fall away (2 Thess. 2:3). If it is not what it once was, then it is not the church of the New Testament, not any longer, not in its fallen state.

The Roman Catholic Church of today is no longer similar to the church one reads about on the pages of scripture; it is not that church. As a result of its innovations, it is as much separate from true Christianity as Islam, Buddhism, or any other non-related religion. The Catholic Church readily admits scripture is not enough for them. They have their tradition, and it trumps scripture when push comes to shove. What was good enough for people in the first century is not good enough for them. They will have more and more, but one must always remember that whether having more of a thing is good or bad depends on what that thing is. More of self-will and less of God's will is not good.

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