What is the church and why do so many denominations exist?

Ishmael LaBiosa: Welcome to the You Ask Podcast, where the goal is to answer common questions about Christianity. Let's listen in as Pastor Rusty answers today's question. Today's question is: what is the church? And then a secondary question to that is: why do so many denominations exist? Well, let's try to start with this basic question today: what is the church? Or we could ask a related question, like, what is a church? And the idea of the church is some type of idealistic definition, it would seem, and a church may just be like, what constitutes a local church? Those questions are deeply related to one another, but there is some level of separation. You know, it's interesting that when you ask the question like, what is a church? It would appear that this question would be easily answerable due to the fact that a church or the church has existed for 2,000 years and expanded virtually over the entire world. I would like to also notice that when you talk about the conception of a Christian church, there are actually three great streams within Christian church history. And Those three streams are the Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Protestant Church. Those are the three great streams. Interestingly enough, some theologians, when they try to answer the question, what is a church or what is the church? ⁓ have actually given up on trying to define what a church is in its essence and They basically say all we're going to attempt to do is understand the church in its existence and try to talk about the 2,000 years of church history and the varieties of churches that have existed. Now, the reality is as an evangelical, I think that we can do better answering the question about what is a church by looking at what the church has been. I feel like there are some guides in the Bible to what the church should be. So let's just start with some basic ideas. When we try to define the term church, we ought to know what the term church actually means. I hesitate to use Greek words, but it's important that we understand that the term church isn't a vacuous word that we can fill with whatever meaning we want. It to have that the term church came from the Greek word, which you might have actually heard this Greek word, ecclesia. And the word ecclesia in Greek actually meant like a gathering or an assembly. And I would actually define or translate the word ecclesia as community. So the first thing I think we ought to notice about the idea of church is that church means community. I often think in an American context, we think very individualistically, but when we think about the church, the church is seen collectively. You can't have a church by yourself. You know, some people say, well, I am the church. I think it might be better to say you're part of the church, because the church is a community. That's kind of its definition. And Interestingly, the Apostle Paul uses the term church more than any other biblical writer, and the church can refer to a local church, and it can refer to a global church. Actually, in the New Testament, the idea of the local church is referred to more than the global church. I think again, this is another corrective. A lot of people will say, Well, I I'm I'm a Christian, so I'm part of the church globally. That's true, the church universally. But in the New Testament, it would seem that the way one shows oneself part of the church universally is that one is represented in the church locally. And some of these concepts that are just pretty basic to the idea of church and its most rudimentary explanations in the New Testament can sometimes be missed. So a quick review. When someone says, well, what does the term church mean? It means community or gathering. And the church is both local and universal. But the way one shows oneself to be part of the church kind of big C universal is to have one participating in the church little C and locally. So I think that a Christian that is not embedded in a church. Is very out of step with normative Christianity. I know there are a lot of other people who say, Well, I'm a Christian, I don't go to church, and sometimes it has to deal with people have been hurt, they can't find a church in the area. So I'm sympathetic to those things, but the truth is a Christian should be part of a church. Now there is a dilemma here, and I get this question quite often. Why there so many denominations? Well, so denominations exist in Protestantism. And in America, Protestants are in the majority. And so you look around, and while there are Roman Catholics in America, the vast majority of Americans who are religiously affiliated affiliate with Protestantism. So I just want I'm going to talk about Protestants here in just a moment. And this is all in the conversation of why do so many denominations exist. Now, when you talk about Orthodox Christianity, there was a schism, a division at a time in church history, 1054 A.D., the great schism that divided the Eastern Church from the Western Church. Okay? So if you go east on a map looking at Europe, you are one direction is more towards Russia and Greece. That's east. And then west, you can see there's you know, Italy and France and all the rest. So just think about that's the East-West division. 1054, there's a Great Schism. That's actually what it's called, the Great Schism. And the Eastern Church divides from the Western Church. The Western Church Develops into what it would be known today as Roman Catholicism. And the Eastern Church would develop into today what is called the Orthodox Church. And the Orthodox is represented as in Russian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox, for example. Now, both Roman Catholicism and the Orthodox Church are going to declare that they are connected to the apostles. That's that's kind of So there's these two ⁓ streams that would s even Catholicism, although I don't think it's correct at this particular point, I don't try to be overly antagonistic to Roman Catholics, but ⁓ they would try to make the case that from the Pope there's a direct line from Simon Peter, who they would say is the first Pope all the way to the modern day Pope. I think there's a lot of historical problems with that ⁓ assertion. But what is underlying that is this idea. That both the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church say we are historically connected, historically connected to the original church. That there is kind of an unbroken chain of succession and tradition from the apostles to the present day. Now, clearly I'm a Baptist minister, so I'm neither Roman Catholic nor Orthodox. You understand their understanding of the church is we are the church. Orthodox and c Roman Catholics are going say, we are the church because we stand in historical continuity with the original church. That's going to be very much a part of their kind of their understanding. Protestants had an idea, and since I am a Protestant, I agree with this, the Protestants said, well, There is the visible church, the church that is seen, and there's the invisible church. There's a church that is not seen. And clearly the visible church, the buildings, the ministers, the people, clearly the visible church includes a mixture of true believers, nominal believers, and sometimes even the gathered so-called church has non-believers in it. And so Protestants said that there's got to be this understanding between the visible church, which might actually not be the real church, because to be part of the church, you need to be a believer. So what you see on Sunday morning might not actually be what is actually the case in the invisible church. Okay. So they began to began to deal with this idea that. Well, maybe what we see in front of us isn't the real church, because the visible church isn't a one-to-one correspondence to the invisible church, which is the true pure church of regenerate believers. Okay. So I think that's a another ⁓ first step. And it would be at this particular moment, additionally, that Protestants say, Well, we're not necessarily trying to argue. I mean, they're not arguing for the fact that the Protestant movement since it began in the period of the Reformation can't say that it was connected all the way back to the Apostles. But this is what the Reformers did say. They said that the type of church that we are attempting to live out in the present is theologically connected to what the apostles are saying. And what the reformers attempted to say While they certainly did have affinity to the true believers of all time and in all places, the Protestant reformers clearly had affinity for them. They did not say that the historical church, as it has existed at every time and every place, was the true church, and that the church needed to continuously reform, not just to be in some type of historical continuity with the apostles. But try to be in theological continuity with the apostles. Like the way in which we worship today is consistent with the New Testament and consistent with the Christian scriptures. And this is the big difference, one of the big differences between Protestantism, Catholicism, and Orthodox Christianity. So what are we to make of this? Actually, Protestants would say that a church. To be a church needed to possess like certain marks. And they would say that if a church doesn't like faithfully proclaim the gospel, that even if it calls itself a church, it's not actually a church. Even if it says it's in some type of historical stands in historical continuation, if it doesn't preach the gospel, it's not the church. If the church doesn't administer baptism of the Lord's Supper, it's not the church. So there had to be some. Basic things that the church did beyond saying that they were just in historical continuity, to actually for a church to be a church. Now, this is particularly the reason that in Protestantism there's going to be a lot of denominations. Because if you say it's not enough just to say we stand in historical continuity with the church historically. But you say we need to stand in continuity with the church theologically, then people are going to have different opinions on how to do certain things. And once you start setting the standard to say we want certain things to be the case because we want to stand in real theological continuity with the Bible, here's the deal: people don't agree. Fully what the Bible says. It's not like there's no agreement. Actually, just so you can know this, that there are places where Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism agree completely. And on like some major things, like who is God? All of them would agree. We would all affirm the same creeds and councils in many of those places. So it's not like there's no unity, but especially when it comes to other areas and very important areas, like the nature of justification was a major issue between Protestants and Catholics. The nature of the Lord's Supper, a major issue between Protestants and Roman Catholics. The nature of baptism, a major issue between Protestants and other people, and even a major issue between themselves. So what am I trying to say? When we answer the question, what is the church? The reason that there are a host of denominations is because Protestants say it's not enough to say I stand in some type of historical continuity with the apostles because my church came after the church before it, they came after the church before it, which was connected to the apostles. That Protestants say, no, we need to go back to the sources, that scripture is the authority and that the current Presentation that we have of the church needs to be consistent with the church. And once you make that statement, then good people are going to disagree in areas of theological interpretation, which will lead to different forms of worship, which will therefore naturally develop into denominations. Now, I would say this side of heaven, I I think there are places where, like I said, the church, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants, we can agree on areas like the Trinity. We would all affirm that. But there's plenty of places that we disagree. I think we ought to be charitable. I think we ought to be kind. And we also ought to remember, John seventeen, Jesus' prayer is for his church to be one. And I I think we ought to hear that prayer. I don't think Jesus's prayer is going to be answered until we reach eternity. But We should be kind to one another. We should be loving to one another. We should also hold our convictions. And we should try to say this is what we understand and this is what we believe the Bible to say. And then it will come time when it's time to worship that we won't be able to necessarily worship together because we're going to have some pretty fundamental differences about. Very key areas like the nature of preaching, the nature of baptism, the nature of the Lord's Supper. And because of that, we won't be able to worship together in harmony. But ⁓ one day, when it's all said and done, the true church, God's glorious bride, will be fully revealed and we will worship Christ forever. So I hope this helps you. What is a church? Well, it's a very interesting question to think about and come up with an answer. My idea was that it's a community of genuine believers. That's what a church is. You should go to church. A Christian should be embedded in the local church, which is part of the church global. And that I think a true church is not just one who has some generic historical connection to the apostles, but has real theological connection to the scriptures. And that we ought to try to faithfully live out a A proper understanding of the scriptures, and because of that particular move, we probably aren't going to agree, or maybe certainly we're not going to agree, and thus denominations are the natural outgrowth of that. Well, pray for unity while holding convictions. I hope this ⁓ helps as you think through this important area. Thank you for listening to the You Ask Podcast. This is a ministry of Liberty Baptist Church, and we pray this podcast enables you. more faithfully live out your Christian life.