A church in any area cannot simply be started according to what men think it
should be, but it must be started according to the original. Whenever a new church
is "planted" in an area it will have the same characteristics as the original plant, just
as the seed of a tomato will always bring forth a tomato plant but never a potato or
a cucumber. I once heard Bro. Ronny Wade put it this way, "If a goose picked up
an apple seed on one side of a creek, then swam to the other side and dropped the
seed, would we expect the seed to sprout a gooseberry? Of course not! It would
sprout another apple tree. In Matthew 15:13 we read "Every plant that my Heavenly
Father has not planted will be rooted up." This should be enough motivation for
anyone to examine the church they attend to see whether it is the same plant as the
original or if it is a hybrid or a mutant, or another plant altogether. Let's look at the
characteristics of the original plant.
The original was built by Jesus. It was part of Jesus’ purpose on this earth to build
the church, and he promised to do just that. “And upon this rock I will build my
church” (Mt. 16:18) We must attend a church that was founded by Jesus. Many
churches may seem like fine institutions, but if they were not built by Jesus, then
we must not trust their workmanship. If just any man was capable of building the
church, then God would not have given Jesus the task. The fact that Jesus alone in
history has been appointed the task of founding a church is further stressed by the
warning that we previously noticed, “Every plant which My heavenly Father has not
planted will be uprooted.” (Mt. 15:13)
Secondly we’ll note that the original church was built on a firm foundation. Let’s
return to Mt. 16:18 for a moment, Jesus not only promises to “build his church” but
states that it will be built “upon this rock.” What rock is he referring to? We must
look back to the statement made by Peter that Jesus is now referring to, which was
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Mt. 16:16) Jesus blesses him for
this good confession and then states that it is upon this rock that he will build his
church. The church is built on the very fact that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
Some will say that “upon this rock” refers to Peter. We will not get the lexicon out
to show that this is not the case, but simply provide you with other scriptures
which refer to Jesus as the foundation.
1) “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus
Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11)
2) “having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ
Himself being the chief cornerstone. (Eph. 2:20)
3) “The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone”
(Psalms 118:22). Jesus refers to this prophecy as being about him in Matthew 21:
42, and Peter also applies this prophecy to Jesus in Acts 4:11.
Any church "planted" today must also be founded on Jesus, a church built on the
thoughts, feelings, doctrines, creeds, etc. of men is unstable, like a house built on
the sand (Mt. 7:26,27)
Thirdly, the original church was founded at Jerusalem. The first reference we’ll
look at comes from Isaiah 2:2,3:
“Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord’s house
Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the
hills; And all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, ‘Come,
and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob;
He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.’ For out of Zion shall
go forth the law, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
We will come back to Isaiah’s reference to “the latter days” but for now, we’ll
notice that whatever is being spoken of in these verses is not referring to any
worship having to do with Israel because the statement is made, “all nations shall
flow to it.” Worship for the Jews was not open to “all nations” but only to those of
the nation of Israel. Lets now see what he means by “the house of the God of
Jacob.” Paul states in 1 Timothy 3:15 “…the house of God, which is the church of
the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” Paul understood “the house of
God” to refer to the new testament church, and Isaiah stated long ago that the
church would begin at Jerusalem. There are other old testament prophecies that
could be referred to, but let’s skip ahead and read the words of Jesus in Luke 24:46-
49:
“…Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise
from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be
preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses
of these things. Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the
city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
Again we see that repentance and remission of sins are to be preached beginning at
Jerusalem. Let’s see what happened when such was preached in Jerusalem by
Peter and the other apostles on the day of Pentecost. In Acts 2:37 we see that in
the midst of Peter’s sermon, many in the audience being convinced of his words
cry out, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” to which Peter responds in verse
38 by telling them, “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
So we see Peter and the apostles preaching exactly what Jesus instructed them to
preach starting in the place he told them to preach it, Jerusalem. We will see that
the result is that for the FIRST time we see people being added to the church! Let's
read verse 47 where the scripture states, “…And the Lord added to the church daily
those who were being saved.” So we can see that God wanted His church to be
started in Jerusalem (click HERE to see where some human built churches were
founded) and continue from there into “all nations." The original "plant" sprouted at
Jerusalem, if your church cannot trace its "roots" back to Jerusalem, then it has not
been planted by God.
Fourthly, The day of Pentecost is the scriptural time in history that the church was
founded. There is a wealth of scriptural evidence for this fact and a number of
ways to approach the subject. For this reason, we will study this idea in further
detail in another article (to be posted soon - JWM). For now we will let a few
scriptures suffice.
First leading up to Pentecost, we see that the church is spoken of in the future
tense. For example:
~Isaiah 2:2,3 & Micah 4:1,2 - Both prophets speak of the church coming in "the
latter days" in Jerusalem.
~Matthew 3:1,2 - John the Baptist says the kingdom (kingdom and church refer to
same institution, will explain in another article soon) is "at hand."
~Mark 1:15 - Jesus echoes this and says the kingdom is "at hand."
~Matthew 6:9,10 - Jesus taught his disciples to pray for its coming.
~Matthew 16:18 - Jesus says "I will build my church."
~Mark 9:1 - Jesus tells his disciples that some of them will still be living when the
church comes into being "with power"
~Luke 10:9 - The kingdom has "come near" (but hasn't come yet)
~Luke 22:18 - Jesus states "until the kingdom of God comes..." still a future event...
Moving forward to the day of Pentecost AD 33 (a day that incidentally always fell
on the first day of the week) we'll notice the following:
~Acts 2:16-21 - Peter says that what is happening at that moment is exactly what
Joel prophesied (see Joel 2) and Joel stated that these things would happen in the
LAST or LATTER days! This is in harmony with the prophecies of Isaiah and
Micah. You see when the Jews heard about the "latter days" they understood this to
mean the last days of the law
of Moses. See Hebrews 1:1,2 for more about the "latter days."
~Acts:1:12;2:1-5 - They were at the scriptural place at this time, Jerusalem.
~Acts 2:1-5 - Power came as Jesus said in Mk 9:1 and Luke 24:49.
~Acts 11:15,16 - Peter refers to "the beginning" as being when the Holy Spirit came
upon the apostles. This happened on Pentecost (acts 2:1-5).
~Acts 2:41 - THREE THOUSAND SOULS ADDED! What a day! 3000 added to
the church through baptism!
After the events of Pentecost, scriptures speak of the kingdom, or church, as
already being in existence:
~Acts 2:47 - We see people being "added to the church daily."
~Colossians 1:13 - Paul speaks of Christians as those who have been "conveyed"
into "the kingdom of the Son of His love."
Pentecost was no doubt the day that the church was founded. As has been
documented, all scripture before Pentecost speaks of the church in the future
tense. On Pentecost we see the church being established with the fulfillment of all
prophecy concerning its coming. After Pentecost we see the church spoken of in
the past or present tense. Any church that cannot be traced back to Pentecost day
AD 33 is a different plant than the original and must be rejected. (Click here for a
video sermon on the topic of the establishment of the kingdom)
Fifthly, for a church to be pleasing to God, it must look to the scriptural head and
operate under the organizational model revealed in the scriptures. Many "religious
bodies" today will confess Christ and say that he has all authority, yet their actions
show they believe otherwise. Instead of giving Christ the final say, they go to
councils, synods, general assemblies, summits, conferences, etc. where church
policy and doctrine is decided by majority vote, effectively destroying the monarchy
with Christ the King handing out the law and turning it into a manmade democracy.
If men were capable of deciding matters of righteousness on their own then we
wouldn't need Christ to begin with! Worse yet, some groups like polygamous
Mormon groups, some charismatic organizations, the group calling themselves the
"International Church of Christ" and of course the Catholic Church entrust all
matters of salvation and doctrine to one or two people called, "Prophet" (how many
Mormons have now claimed to be the infamous "one mighty and strong"?),
"president" or "Pope." Giving one man ultimate power over any group of people has
historically been a bad idea... We could site ancient examples like king Saul and
emperor Nero to more current villains like Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein. God
knows men's hearts, that is why he chose not man but deity to reign as head over
the church!
Enough commentary though, read the scripture as laid down in the Bible:
~Colossians 1:18 - And He {Christ} is the head of the body, the church, who is the
beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the
preeminence.
~Ephesians 1:22,23 - And He put all things under His 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.
We will let this suffice. After Christ the head, the bible simply gives us the example
of EACH congregation taking care of its own leadership, through the offices of
Elder and Deacon where there are men qualified to these posts. In Titus 1:5, Paul
instructs for elders to be ordained "in every city." Paul refers to elders as
"overseers," or "shepherds," in acts 20:28 (acts 20:17 makes it clear that he was
speaking to elders). Ephesians 4:11 refers to these as "pastors" (the men and
women that many denominations refer to as "pastor" are actually evangelists or
simply teachers). In other places and other versions, this same office is referred to
as "bishop"or "the presbytery." Elder, Bishop, Pastor, Overseer, Shepherd, the
Presbytery are all different names which refer to the same office, this is backed up
scripturally and agreed upon by lexicographers, such as W.E. Vine. The bible
always speaks of more than one elder in each congregation and never of one man
overseeing a plurality of congregations, as many have perverted the office today.
Beyond this the bible speaks of Deacons in 1 Timothy 3:8-12 who serve under the
direction of Elders. Neither of these offices exist to decide matters of faith or
doctrine, but to oversee the work of a congregation and to be sure that things are
done by the precepts ALREADY laid down in the scriptures. No ecclesiastical
system of government can be seen in the pages of scripture and therefore must be
discarded as an innovation of man.
Lastly (for this article anyway) we'll note that if we buy a packet of seeds that is
labelled "tomato" we expect those seeds to sprout tomato plants. It would be
foolish for seed packagers to label tomato seeds as squash or broccoli. In the same
way it would be foolish to think that a church that was built by and founded on
Christ and looks to Him as its head would wear the name of an earthly man or
system of doctrine. If the church you attend does not bear the fact that it is
Christ's then it must be rejected. The Church is Christ's, it is His bride, it was
purchased with His blood (Acts 20:28). Romans 16:16 says "the churches of Christ
salute you." No church bearing the name of any man, whether an apostle, saint,
preacher, etc. can be identified with the original "plant."
Does your church bear the same characteristics as the church we can read of in the
Bible? If not it cannot be accepted by God and will be uprooted. We must not
accept any hybrid or any plant that is not the same as the original. Gardeners weed
out any plants among the rows that are not what they planted there. Jesus will do
the same when He returns to gather His true church. Let's all be sure we belong to
the church of Christ that the scriptures reveal to us and not to any church built on
the thoughts and doctrines of foolish mortal man.
Perhaps the things you have read here are new to you. If this is the case, please go
back and note that these ideas are not mine or any man's but each precept is taught
plainly in the Bible. As Christians or seekers of the truth we must be ready at all
times to throw off false teachings and doctrines of men and follow the word of
God. Please prayerfully consider the scriptures presented here. As you may
expect, God did not stop at telling us about the basic structure of the church, He
has also directed us in the way that He expects the church to worship Him. To
learn more simply follow the links below to the next article.
"Where did your church come from?"
