Articles

Denominationalism

Written by Frank Jamerson.

Two weeks ago we published an article defining the word sect, or heresy, and showed that it means the same as denomination. The church was called a sect because men thought that it was simply another division in the Jews’ religion. That was a misunderstanding of the nature of the Lord’s church, and is contrary to plain Bible teaching.

     One of the works of the flesh is heresy (Gal. 5:20). This comes from the same Greek word as sect, and is defined as, “an opinion, especially a self-willed opinion, which is substituted for submission to the power of truth, and leads to division and the formation of sects” (Vine).  A sectarian is one who is separated from another body of people and maintains the spirit of defending the party regardless of truth. The foundation of this spirit was manifest in Corinth, when some said “I am of Paul, or I am of Apollos, or I am of Cephas” (1 Cor. 1:12). That is the spirit of sectarianism.

Denominationalism is basically a development of this concept. A man begins teaching a different doctrine and some like his opinions and decide they are going to follow him, rather than the truth.

Jesus prayed for unity, “that the world may believe that You sent Me” (Jn. 17:20,21). Religious division, denominationalism, is one of the greatest reasons for unbelief in the world today. Suppose that I were to teach one week that baptism is sprinkling and the next that it is immersion; one week that you are saved by faith only and the next that you are not saved by faith only; one week that a believer can fall from grace and the next that he cannot; would you be encouraged to become a Christian? Most would say “that’s ridiculous,” but what about if different preachers teach these different doctrines? Is that consistent with the prayer of Jesus?

The word of God is called the “seed of the kingdom” (Mt. 13:19; Lk. 8:11). If you gave corn seed to three hundred people and all of them planted it, how many kinds of crops would be produced? Would you believe that they had all planted the same kind of seed if they came back and reported three hundred different kinds of crops? You would know that they planted different kinds of seed if they got different crops! Seed always produces after its kind.

What did the word of God produce in the first century? When Paul preached to Agrippa, he said “you almost persuade me to become a Christian” (Acts 26:28). The word of God (the seed) did not make one kind of a Christian in one place and a different kind in another place. The seed produced Christians in the first century and it has not changed!

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