DENOMINATIONALISM = Organization of the chursh (PAT FARISH)

DENOMINATIONALISM  =  Organization of the church

   The religious world is confused about many things in connection with the church for which Jesus died; among them most significantly is the matter of organization.

  First, there is "one body" ( Ephesians 4:4)The language indicates that the church in the universal sense is under consideration. The Bible teaches that He promised to build the church, that the church was bought with His blood that it is His body and He is the head of it and that He is in heaven (Matthew 16:18; Acts 20:28; Ephesians 1:20-23). There is only one church that has been built, bought and headed by Jesus - Who is in heaven. So all the denominational churches with earthly "heads" and headquarters by that expose themselves as being other than the "one body".

  The Bible speaks of the church - the one body - in two ways. It is, as we have been noticing the church universal, with Jesus as its head an no other organization; but it is also used in a local sense: the church at Philippi, the seven churches of Asia. The church is composed of saints. members of the body, in the local sense; AND in the universal sense as well, Just as the church in the local sense is composed of saints (Phillipians 1:1), so is the church in the universal sense, The church universal is not composed of churches; it is composed of saints.

  It is the local church that has responsibility of action assigned, The local church has duty in evangelism, in edification and in benevolence, and we see it at work as recorded in the New Testament. Organization has been provided for it so that it can work; Paul addressed the Philippians epistle to "all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the overseers and deacons". (1:1). No organization is revealed for the church in the universal sense: Jesus is the head, all the saints are members; and no other functionaries ( such as bishops or deacons)are revealed.

  The churches of men are a different matter entirely. If they have elders, the qualifications are ignored: if they have deacons, they are working in areas the elders are supposed to attend to;

their local churches are bound together is associations about which the Scripture knows nothing. Their practices are indifferent to the teaching of Jesus: they are denominations, not the one body.