Biblical Essays
EARMARKS OF THE LORD'S CHURCH
Introduction
Jesus was the builder of His church (Matt. 16:18). His church – His ekkIesia, His “called-out” people make up His spiritual “body” (Col. 1:18). As He had only one physical body, so Biblically there is only “one” spiritual “body” (1 Cor. 12:20; Eph. 4:4).
Christ loved His “called-out” people, His church, so much that He gave His blood (Acts 20:28) for them that He might set them apart, having cleansed them in the washing of the water by the Word, that He might present the called-out people to Himself in splendor, having no spot or flaw or any such thing, but that they might be unblemished and set apart (Eph. 5:25-27).
Those called-out people, His spiritual body, His church are still precious to Him, and He is awaiting the Father’s signal to make His second coming to gather members of His church to take them to His home in heaven, for He is the “savior of the body” (John 14:1-3; Eph. 5:23).
Since His second coming will not be to save those out of His body (cf. John 3:36; Rom. 2:8-9; 2 Thess. 1:7-9), all of us should have only one chief desire: to get into His body, His church; to be a faithful “called-out” Christian ready for the Lord’s coming.
How can one know which of the hundreds of churches is Jesus’ one true church? Jesus did not look with favor on man-made organizations: “Every plant which my heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted” (Matt. 15:13). When Jesus appears in the sky, what are some characteristics, some earmarks by which we can identify Jesus’ church?
Five Earmarks of the Lord’s Church
1. The identity of the builder, Jesus Christ (Matt. 16:14);
2. Where His church was first established – Jerusalem (Luke 24:47);
3. When His Church was established: Pentecost Sunday, A.D. 30 (Acts 2:1-47; KJV);
4. The character of church members: dedicated and clean-living people (1 Cor. 6:11; Col. 1:3-5) with some hypocrites (Acts 5:1-11; Gal. 2:4); and
5. The namelessness of Jesus’ church.
Many students of the Bible, including ourselves, have in the past proclaimed that the Lord’s church had several names, and have even cited book, chapter and verse which we concluded mentioned them 1. However, an old and beloved preacher of the Gospel kindly suggested that we were misusing those verses. Like others who are “set in their ways,” we were hard to convince and decided to do a more in-depth study of each verse that mentions the church. Only then did we begin to realize that perhaps the old, beloved preacher was right after all – the distinguishing earmark of the Lord’s church is its namelessness. In our study, we found that the King James Version of the Bible refers to Christians as the “church” 112 times, as follows:
Jesus calls it “my church” one time (Matt. 16:18), a phrase showing ownership, not a name of the church.
It is called “the church” 95 times (beginning in Matt. 18:17), with no name attached.
It is called the “church of God” 12 times (beginning in Acts 20:28), a phrase denoting ownership: Jesus and His Father are co-owners (John 17:10).
Some Christians were called “the churches of the Gentiles” (Rom. 16:4), a phrase describing non-Jewish members, not a church name.
The phrase “the churches of Christ” occurs one time (Rom. 16:16), a phrase that denotes ownership, not a name for Jesus’ church. In parallel, the phrase “the horses of John” tells who owns the horses, not the names of the horses.
The phrase “the churches of the saints” occurs one time (1 Cor. 14:33), denoting the character of Christians, not a church name.
The phrase “the church of the firstborn” occurs one time (Heb. 12:23). It is not uncommon to find those who think that the word “firstborn” in Hebrews 12:23 refers to Jesus, as in Romans 8:29; Colossians 1:15, 18; and Revelation 1:5, but in Hebrews 12:23 the word “firstborn” is plural, meaning the “firstborn people,” a figurative expression describing the elevated position of Christians. The King James translators knew that the word in the Greek is plural, and so they wrote about “the church of the firstborn which are written in heaven” using the plural verb “are.” Thus the phrase “the church of the firstborn” is a complimentary designation of church members, not a church name.
It becomes evident that none of the 112 Biblical usages of the word “church,” i.e., Jesus’ “called-out” people, supplies a church name. Further, that which has a “name or appellation” is a “denomination” (Webster), and the Lord’s church is certainly not a denomination.
Regarding present day religious organizations: none are historically traceable back to Jerusalem, A.D. 30. All have earmark number four, i.e., good and bad people as members, but were built by the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time to have a connection with Jesus’ church, and they have names. Consider the following few examples (there are many others):
The Holy Roman Catholic Church with a pope in charge of all churches cannot be traced back of 606 A.D., when Boniface III claimed to be the universal bishop. His immediate predecessor as bishop at Rome, Gregory the Great, had condemned as “anti-Christ” anyone claiming to be the universal bishop.
The Lutheran Church, founded by Martin Luther in Wittenburg, Germany, in 1517;
The church of England, established by Henry the VIII in London in 1534;
The Presbyterian Church, established by John Knox, in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1556;
The Baptist Church, established by John Smythe in Amsterdam Holland;
The Methodist Church established by John Wesley in Epworth, England in 1739;
The Mormon Church, established by Joseph Smith in Fayette County, N.Y, in 1812;
The Seventh Day Adventist Church, established by William Miller in 1830;
The Church of Christ, Scientist, established by Mary Baker Eddy in Boston in 1869;
The Christian Church, established by L. L. Pinkerton in Midewya, Ky., in 1859;
The Jehovah Witnesses, established by Charles T. Russell in Brooklyn, N.Y, in 1872;
It is often said that the Church of Christ was established by Alexander Campbell 2 in Washington, Pa., in 1804;
Etc.
Conclusion
Are we at a dead end? Is there any way that people in the 21st century can be sure they are in the church that Jesus built? The Scriptures give us “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3), and they let us know that there is another word besides the ekklesia, the “called out” people, that describes Jesus’ church, namely, “the kingdom” (cf. Matthew 16-18-19; Colossians 1:13; Revelation 1:9; 5:10).
How does the word “kingdom” help us know that we can be sure we are in Jesus’ church? Because the kingdom, the church, is reproduced by a “seed,” which, said Jesus, is “the word of God” (Luke 8:11). The Divine seed, the Word of God, germinated in the hearts of sinners to produce Jesus' church in Jerusalem on Pentecost Sunday, A.D. 30: “they that gladly received His word were baptized” and “the Lord added” them “to the church” (Acts 2:41, 47). Some manuscripts omit the word “church” in Acts 2:47, but they all have that word in Acts 5:11, a reference to the same saved people.
That same seed gives us living hope today. The same Word that produced Jesus’ church in Jerusalem, A.D. 30, is just as powerful 2,000+ years later and will be until Jesus returns. Sinners in the 21st century, exactly like those in the 1st century, can be “born again not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God,” the Word that “abides forever” (1 Pet. 1:23-25).
When the church does not exist in either a locality or in a given period of time, its restoration is as simple as planting seed. Several years ago, there appeared in the National Geographic an account of some lotus seeds, found in an old dried-up Manchurian lakebed. Carbon -f14 tests indicated they were more than a millennium old. When the rock-like crust was filed away, they were placed upon some moist cotton in a culture dish and they sprouted. The article contained a picture of the Horticultural Gardens in Washington, D.C, where today grow beautiful lotus blossoms from those seeds that slept a thousand years.
