The One Body

Mark Dunagan
08/30/15 - Sunday Morning

The One Body

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6).

Most people who claim to be Christians have no problem believing in one God and believing in one Jesus, one Holy Spirit and believing in one heaven and one hell. But when someone says that there is only one church/body mentioned in the Bible they freak out. Yet the same set of passages that teach one God, one Jesus, one Holy Spirit, one faith, one baptism and one heaven equally each one church. Because the one body mentioned above has already been defined in the first chapter of this letter, “and gave Him head over all things to the church, which is His body” (Ephesians 1:22-23). 

What We Have Heard

While the Bible stresses unity among believers (Ephesians 4:3), the religious world has celebrated or at least justified the presence of many different religious bodies all claiming to be “Christian” and yet teaching and practicing doctrines that conflict with each other. Growing up many of us heard from the religious culture the following:

• “Attend the church of your choice”.
• “All the denominations make up the one body, like individual pieces of a pie make up a pie”.
• “All the denominations really worship the same God but are just taking a little bit different path”.
• “The denominations may teach and practice different things, but they all agree on the basics”.

What the Bible Actually Says

• “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church” (Matthew 16:18).

I never find Jesus promising to build any denominations, but I do find Him promising to build His church. He did not promise to build churches, but rather, My church. This is the same church that He purchased with His blood (Acts 20:28) and is the same church He is going to save (Ephesians 5:23).

• “Praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved” (Acts 2:47)

Upon hearing the gospel, faith, repentance, confession and baptism (Acts 2:37-38), Jesus added those who submitted to baptism to His church. I never find Jesus adding anyone to a denomination. Neither do I find any denominations mentioned in the New Testament. In fact, if I just follow the New Testament plan of salvation I will simply be added to His church. Obviously I must follow something other than the Bible plan of salvation to end up in a denomination.  To put it another way: In the New Testament when people believed in one God, followed the one Lord, listened to the one Spirit, embraced the one faith, accepted and obeyed the one baptism, and looked forward to the one hope, they ended up in the one body.

Problems with Denominationalism

• The first problem is that no denominations are mentioned or authorized in the Bible.
• “For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body” (Ephesians 5:23).

The denominational picture of the one body being divided up into many separate and conflicting religious bodies does not agree with the above analogy.  Jesus is not the husband of many wives. Neither is He the husband over religious bodies that are not respecting His teachings and authority.

John 15:5

“I am the vine, you are the branches, he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit”.

For years some among the denominations have justified their existence by claiming that Jesus is the vine and the denominations are the various branches in the vine. Yet there are major problems with this argument:

• The branches in the context are not religious groups or bodies rather they are individual believers in Christ (15:3,4,5, “If anyone”). 
• The denominations have violated the basic principle in the context, that is, they have not remained in Christ, for they are practicing and teaching things that are in direct violation of Jesus’ words (15:7). They are not keeping His commandments (15:10). If they did follow Jesus, they would cease to exist, because they would simply teach the Bible plan of salvation and the church that Jesus established, to which Jesus adds baptized believers.

John 17:20-21

“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me”

• Observe that Jesus prayed for unity, the kind of unity that exists between Jesus and the Father, among those who believed in Him because of the teaching of the apostles (“their word”).
• Thus the basis for unity among His disciples would be agreement and conformity with the truth revealed through the apostles. It would be a unity that would involve an agreement with the doctrine that the apostles revealed. On this point many other passages agree: Acts 2:42; 1 Corinthians 14:37; Galatians 1:6-9; 2 Timothy 4:2-4; 2 Peter 3:2; 2 John 9.
• The purpose of such unity is that the world see Jesus’ disciples united in the same belief and teaching and thus believe themselves.
• The denominational world of contradictory and conflicting teachings completely undermines Jesus’ desire and earnest prayer in this chapter. If one is really serious about serving Jesus they should be willing to give up and abandon any teaching or practice that is not found within what the apostles revealed.
• Many among the denominations have admitted that such an arrangement does not fit Jesus’ desire in this passage and that such an arrangement has only turned people off from the truth and undermined the credibility of the gospel message. How many non-Christians have observed the divided denominational world and thought, “Hey if they can’t agree on what the Bible says and get along – why should I even try?”

1 Corinthians 1:10

“Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment”

Some have argued that either this verse is unworkable or practically impossible or that it is only teaching that God’s people need to agree on just a list of very basic things, such as, that Jesus died for our sins. Yet, that contradicts the teaching found in the rest of the letter and other passages. God expected the Corinthians to agree on everything in this letter. And the letter included many topics or doctrines, including what to do with an unfaithful member (chapter 5), lawsuits (6), God’s standard for moral behavior (6:9-11), marriage, divorce and remarriage (7), meats sacrificed to idols (8), paying preachers (9), the Lord’s Supper (11), the use of spiritual gifts (12-14), and the resurrection of the dead (15).

1 Corinthians 1:12-13

“Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, ‘I am of Paul’, and ‘I of Apollos’, and ‘I of Cephas’, and ‘I of Christ’. Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”.

The Corinthians were wanting the divide up the church along the lines of following different inspired men. Observe that this is condemned.  How much more is dividing up the church along the lines of following different uninspired men or women? Carefully note the last two questions. If I really love God, then I will both follow and call myself after the person who died for me and the person into whose name I was baptized. Thus I wear the name “Christian” (Acts 11:26), because “Christ” died for me and I was baptized into Christ. In addition, the church that I will support will be the one that wears His name as well, that is, the “church of Christ” (Romans 16:16). 

Mark Dunagan | mdunagan@frontier.net
Beaverton Church of Christ | 503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net