| The Fallacy of "The One True Church", Part 3 |
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| Written by David Lawrence |
| Monday, July 28 2008 00:00 |
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We are continuing to consider why it is fallacious for any group to advance the claim that it alone is the one true church. We have seen that Jesus said His kingdom (church) did not come with observation but existed within or among them (Luke 17:20). Yet Christians are called into holy assembly (the very meaning of the word church). Why would we suggest that the one true church is by nature invisible? The reason is that, although the visible church represents true Christians who have been called inwardly by God to salvation in Christ, it includes more than these. Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares clearly teaches that the kingdom includes false disciples, those who profess to believe but do not. Although they often leave and thereby prove they were never “of us” (1 John 2:19), sometimes they stay. They may be spouses of believers who have never come to faith, or children (although we are told to expect that they shall), or others who attend for whatever reason. Paul mentions unbelievers coming into the assembly (1 Cor. 14:23), and his dire warning against taking the Lord’s Supper while not discerning the Lord’s body implies that there are those present who are disingenuous (1 Cor. 11:27). He writes to this same church encouraging people to examine themselves as to whether they are in the faith or not, lest they be reprobate (2 Cor. 13:5). Christians from earliest times, as did St. Augustine, recognized that the church was permixed, that is, it was composed both of true believers and hypocrites. When people who only profess to know the Lord attend Christian assemblies, they are not to be expelled unless they are unruly. In one sense, they come in contact with the covenant and are sanctified (1Cor. 7:14). All children born of at least one Christian parent are also in this sense sanctified and come, in a sense, under covenant. Thus one cannot advance any congregation or denomination or group as a manifestation of the true church, for none is. Although we may assume that any congregation, of whatever denomination, that confesses the triune God, preaches the gospel of grace including justification by faith, keeps Christ’s sacraments, and the conduct of whose members exhibit godly character certainly would include true believers and should be recognized as a church of Jesus Christ, no church or denomination can exhibit itself as a required model or advance claims of exclusivity. What then is the true invisible church? To that subject we turn next. |
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