We are finishing up our study that we’ve undertaken, now, for a number of months regarding the History of the Church. I want to make this something of a summary class, in a sense—not a review, but just to summarize a few things with us—and then also to see where we are in this day and time.
We began this class many months ago. We began by talking about the fact that the church of Christ—the church that belongs to Christ—was seen in prophecy in the long ago.
Jesus promised that he would build His church, Matthew 16, verse 18 [“And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”]. We note that He said that HE would build it, that it would NOT be built by men.
We note, as well, that the church was purchased with His blood, Acts 20, and verse 28; 1 Peter 1:18-20 [Acts 20:18: “Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His Own blood.” 1 Peter 1:18-20: “…knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 20 He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.”]. It was not purchased with material goods.
Jesus Christ is the Head of the church, NOT a man or a group of men, Ephesians 1:22-23 [“And He [(God) put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all.”]; Colossians 1:18 [“And He is the head of the body, the church, Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.”].
And Jesus is its King, NOT a man, Psalm 110, and verse 1; and Acts 2:32-36 [Psalm 110:1: “The LORD said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.’” Acts 2:32-36: “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. 33 Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. 34 For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself: ‘The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, 35 Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”’ 36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, Whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”].
Jesus promised His apostles that the Holy Spirit would guide them into all Truth, John 14, and verse 26; John 16:13-15 [John 14:26: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” John 16:13-15: “However, when He, the Spirit of Truth , has come, He will guide you into all Truth ; for He will not speak on His Own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”].
Therefore, by the writings of the inspired men who penned the New Testament, whose hands were guided along by the Holy Spirit, we can know what God wants the church to be in teaching, in practice, by following the pattern that has been set forth. The apostles were restricted by God to teach and to practice only that which was divinely authorized. Thus, the Holy Spirit determined the requirement for membership in the Lord’s church. The Holy Spirit prescribed the requirements for acceptable worship by God’s people. The HolySpirit defined and showed us how the local church is to be organized. The Holy Spirit has shown us the work of the church. The Holy Spirit has shown us thename of the church and the name that those who are part of the church should and must wear. And, we are also shown by the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God, how we as Christians are to live.
During the lifetime of Jesus, even before the church was established on the Day of Pentecost that we read about in Acts, chapter 2, our Lord foretold—He prophesied—that there would be false prophets who would come about, Matthew 7, verse 15 [“Beware of false prophets , who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them” Matthew 7:15-20.]. He also warned of anti-christs, Matthew 24, and verse 24, whose work would be to lead men away from the Truth [“Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. 24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand” Matthew 24:23-25].
The apostle Paul would speak later about wolves coming in, disguised as sheep, as Jesus prophesied, who would come in among the flock—come in among the church—to destroy it, Acts 20, and verse 29 [“For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.”]. Paul would say that the Spirit warns of a departure from the faith, 1 Timothy 4:1-3 [“Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, 3 forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the Truth.”]. He also warns of a falling away, 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 3 [2 Thessalonians 2:1-4: “Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.”]. And church history verifies this departure from the faith; this departure from the New Testament principles, the pattern, the teaching, the practices, and so on.
And we have been spending the last several months following the apostasy and seeing how this apostasy took place. We saw the rise of the Roman Catholic Church, of Roman Catholicism, to be—no, not that New Testament church changed to be Roman Catholicism, but there was a morphing process (I guess that probably is not a 1 st Century word, but it’s a word in our day)—it was a morphing process that took place. The church that was prophesied about; the church that Jesus built; that was established on the Day of Pentecost was changed, and one of the discussions that we had was the fact that we believe that the Lord’s church never did disappear; but what was recorded, what was prominent, what we have the history about is primarily the Roman Catholic Church. That became the dominant, the predominant force in both religion and in the government, or in the state. We saw, too, the Catholic Church’s corruption and its abuse of power.
There were men who came along, men such as John Hus, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Zwingli and a host of others, who, when comparing the Roman Catholic Church with God’s Word, determined that indeed what was being called the “church” was not the church at all, but that there had been a complete and a total departure from the New Testament concept. These men were part of the 16th Century European Reformation Movement, attempting to reform the Roman Catholic Church. They found, however, that their efforts were impossible. And thus, they would break away, either by choice or by being excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. And their followers—those who would follow these men—would themselves establish denominations; Protestant denominations in protest of what the Roman Catholic Church was doing. They would, of course, end up wearing the names of men; they would be governed by the creeds of men, and so on. While the aim of the reformers was a noble aim, the results fragmented the religious world. They would exchange the headship of the pope and the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church for the headship and the doctrines of other men.
Well, in recent weeks, we’ve been studying the 19th Century American Restoration Movement. This Movement began a little bit more than two centuries ago. Leaders of that Movement, those who would come to the forefront, did not wish to establish a new church. They wanted, rather, to RESTORE the New Testament church. Among these leaders—and we have mentioned along the way most of these men; we won’t mention them all again—men like Elias Smith and Dr. Abner Jones, who were active in New England in the latter part of the 19th Century; James O’Kelly and Rice Haggard in Virginia; Martin W. Stone in Kentucky; and then, of course, the Campbells—Alexander and Thomas Campbell in Western Pennsyalvania and Virginia (what was Virginia at that time and is now West Virginia). And that plea; that plea that they adopted; that Movement that they attempted is the same plea that we have today.
There are those, though, who doubt that this can be done. There are people who would say, “You can’t take something is that old; you can’t take something that is that ancient and restore it.” There are those, also, who would say, “It isn’t necessary. What was then was then, and what’s now is now; and we need something that fits the time.” There are those—even some who have their roots in the Restoration Movement—who reject it altogether. That’s what the Disciples of Christ have done.
Well, although some may question, and others may even deny, the validity of the Restoration plea, there are numerous ways to demonstrate its validity. You know, we are all aware of and knowledgeable about restoring things. Some of us, perhaps, are involved in restoring old furniture, restoring old cars. There’s something that is quite different from restoring something than to remodeling, or making it over. Restoring has to do with bringing it back to its pristine, original condition.
On television, there is a program about old cars, and they were talking about the value of these cars. Some were not all that old, but some of them were from the early part of the 20th Century. The value of the cars was not so much that they were rare, that they were one-of-a-kind, but because they had been restored; the owners hadn’t cut them down in some way, or put a new engine in, or changed the standard transmission to an automatic transmission, or any of this sort of thing. No, they restored the vehicle to exactly the way it was when it rolled off the assembly line. And that’s what made those cars valuable.
And that is the attempt; that is the desire of what those who were involved in the Restoration Movement were doing. That’s why it is referred to as the RESTORation Movement. They were not trying to make over the Roman Catholic Church or a denomination; not desiring to be just another denomination among denominations, but rather restoring exactly what was established—what we read about on the pages of the New Testament.
And I shared this with you before. Some of you may not have been here, so I’ll just mention it briefly because I think it is an excellent analogy about the ability to restore something. I’m speaking of that baseball analogy that I gave you about how that if baseball went out of fashion for a hundred years, or a thousand years, or whatever, and someone dusted off the official rule book of Major League Baseball; and they set up a diamond, and they had nine players; and they had the equipment; and they followed all the rules in that rule book, then what would they have? Well, they’d have baseball again, wouldn’t they? And the same restoration process is true with the Lord’s church.
Speaking about the validity of the Restoration principle, we find a couple of examples of restoring what God desired in the Old Testament. You remember the story of Hezekiah and of Josiah, kings of Israel, and how that they would desire and be successful in restoring what God had commanded the children of Israel do in the way of worship.
King Hezekiah, you remember, 2 Kings, chapter 18; 2 Chronicles, chapter 29, followed the wicked reign of his father, Ahaz; and Ahaz had promoted idolatry, even to the worshipping of the gods of Damascus. And 2 Chronicles 28, verse 24, says, “And Ahaz gathered together the vessels of the house of God, and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and shut up the doors of the house of the LORD, and he made him altars in every corner of Jerusalem.” Well, wanting to restore the worship of God, Hezekiah sanctified the priests; he cleansed and repaired and sanctified the temple; he gathered the people together, offering up sin offerings and burnt offerings; and thus, we can read later on, 2 Chronicles 29, verses 35, “So the service of the house of the LORD was set in order.” It was restored. How did King Hezekiah know what the Lord desired? By turning to the Word of the Lord delivered to Israel through Moses, the king knew what type of worship God demanded.
And then there is that wonderful story about King Josiah. Manasseh, Hezekiah’s son, would be the next king. He would destroy all the good that his father had accomplished in restoring the true worship of God. Though he later “knew that the Lord was God” and restored the true worship of God, when he died, his son, Amon, would follow in the wicked deeds of his father, Manasseh, who had destroyed the “church” of God. And then, the boy Josiah, the son of Amon, would become king, and he “did what was right in the sight of the Lord.” He began to seek God and to purge from Jerusalem and Judah all of the evil worship that his father, Amon, had reinstated. They had even lost God’s Word; they hadn’t seen it in years. While they were repairing and restoring the house of the Lord, Helkiah ran across “the Book of the Law of the Lord given by Moses”; and he dusted it off, and he had it taken to the king. When the king heard the words of the Law, he tore his clothes, for lo and behold, there was God’s Word and the instruction about what would need to be done to restore true worship to God. He then commanded Helkiah the priest and others to “Go, inquire of the LORD for me, and for those who are left in Israel and Judah, concerning the Words of the book that is found; for great is the wrath of the LORD that is poured out on us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the LORD, to do according to all that is written in this book”2 Chronicles 34:21. And in 2 Chronicles 34, and verse 31, it says, “Then the king stood in his place and made a covenant before the LORD, to follow the LORD, and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the Words of the covenant that were written in this book.”
Well, just as King Hezekiah understood the divine requirements for true worship by reading God’s Word; and Josiah learned things from what was “written in this book,” we today understand what God wants His church to be by reading His inspired Word, the New Testament.
Well, we could talk a little bit about some of the Restoration leaders and be reminded of some of what they would do. For example, we might think about James O’Kelly, that he, together with some associates who had broken away from the Methodist Church, met in Lebanon, in Surry County, Virginia, on August 4 th, 1794. They were discussing what name they should wear. Well, it was one named Rice Haggard, who held up the Bible and said, “Brothers, this is a sufficient rule of faith and practice. By it, we are told that the disciples were called ‘Christians.’ I move that henceforth and forevermore the followers of Christ be known as Christians simply.” The name was determined by God’s Word, not by committee; not by a group of men.
And then, Abner Jones, with about a dozen others, formed a Vermont church in 1801. Jones described the group in this way: He described it as “one that will own no name but that name of ‘Christian.’ The Bible shall be my only article of faith, Christ my only Head, and all true Christians my brethren.”
And then, of course, we’re reminded of the statement that Thomas Campbell would make, which really, in a sense, became not a creed, but a motto of the Restoration Movement, and it’s appropriate even for us today, and we hear it stated and quoted from time to time. Thomas Campbell said, “Where the Bible speaks, we speak; where the Bible is silent, we are silent.” Well, speaking where the Bible speaks and being silent where it is silent is really the only safe route to follow. God’s Word is the only true and dependable guide, 1 John 4, verse 1 [“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”]. This means that all other teachings must be tested. Good things, as measured by Truth, are to be firmly grasped, 1 Thessalonians 5:21 [“Test all things; hold fast what is good.”]. Only those things authorized by God’s Word are to be taught, 1 Peter 4:11 [“If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.”], and this as a pattern for the New Testament church.
What is the status of the Restoration Movement today? What is the Restoration principle that we are following? Is the goal of a restored New Testament church still a valid goal; is the need still there? We know that the road has been a rocky road. We have talked about that at some length, knowing that in the middle part of the 19 th Century there were troubles and problems with those who wanted to introduce instrumental music; problems with the Missionary Society; the Civil War caused brethren to separate, and so on. And then, we saw that in the early part of the 20th Century, in 1906, there was, more or less, that official separation; official division that was recognized in the 1906 religious census of the United States; and there would be from that, then, three recognizable groups—the Disciples of Christ, the Independent Christian Churches and the churches of Christ.
Then we saw that there was great growth in the 20th Century, at least up through about the 1960’s and early 70’s; but there were challenges; there were difficulties even along that way. There were questions about cooperation; there were those who wanted to embrace Premillennialism; there was the issue of non-classes and college and the number of communion cups to use. And we looked at some of the statistics in previous lessons. But we have weathered these storms.
But now, we are seeing, well, maybe not something that is completely new and different, but we are seeing a continued leaning toward liberalism; toward the rejection of the New Testament pattern. In fact, some even from among our brethren would claim that there really is no New Testament pattern to follow; some would claim that there are no commands to be carried out, and so on. And interestingly enough, I’ve done some reading about the Disciples of Christ, and much of what we see going on in our brotherhood today is really a repetition of what the Disciples went through in the first 40 or 50 years of the 20th Century. And that metamorphosis that they have gone through has brought them to the point where, as I mentioned earlier, they out and out reject the Restoration. They are a denomination among denominations; they are proud of it. And we see some of the same things happening among some of our brethren in the church today that are a repeat of what the Disciples of Christ did in the early to mid part of the 20th Century.
I wanted to mention and introduce to you the concept of the fact that the Restoration Movement, of what we are a part of… And I hope you understand that by employing this term; this phrase, I am not suggesting that this is something that is outside of the New Testament. We’re not following something or someone that is outside of the New Testament. I consider the term; the phrase, “Restoration Movement,” to be synonymous with the New Testament pattern. But, is there more to be done? Is there a continuing restoration that we need to be aware of?
Well, we know, as we look back on what we have studied in recent weeks, that the church of Christ indeed is strong; is viable. We continue to embrace the appropriate and the sound doctrine of the New Testament. We continue to do our best to follow the pattern. For example: in the immersion of believers; we also observe the Lord’s Supper, as we see the pattern in the New Testament—observing the Lord’s Supper every first day of the week; we sing and make melody in our heart—we do not embrace the instrument; local congregations are free and autonomous; and in many cases (not all cases), congregations are Scripturally organized, meaning that they are overseen by qualified elders and they have deacons, and so on. And so, we are adhering to these fundamental, these basic, and these obvious principles and patterns that we see in the New Testament.
But it’s an ongoing effort. We need to constantly be on guard; we need to be watching for those wolves who would come in among us that Paul warned those Ephesian elders about; we need to be careful that we do not become enamored, or wooed away, to think that we need to change; to update; to modernize.
But moreover, there are some things that we still need to do better, that we really can concentrate on, such things as evangelism, for example. The New Testament church; the 1 st Century church was very, very evangelistic. They recognized; they knew that their work; that their mission was about evangelism. We need to be reinvigorated; we need to be more like that 1st Century church in our evangelistic efforts.
The early church; those early Christians, their concern for the Lord transcended their concern for material things. We read there in the book of Acts, those first Christians in Jerusalem could sell their house, their lands, their property, and lay the money at the apostles’ feet. Even those poor ones in Macedonia could, in their deep poverty, still give.
Those early Christians believed in the absolute power of prayer. They were a praying people. They prayed continually.
We also note that they continued steadfastly—steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine, but also in service to the Lord; in the joy of being a part of that Christian community. And there was a closeness; a real brotherhood that existed; no, not just in Jerusalem, but we see examples of this in the church in Corinth, the church in Ephesus, the church in Philippi, and so on.
Yes, we must preserve, and we must strive to continue to live up to those obvious; those very objective things that are a part of that New Testament pattern—baptism, partaking the Lord’s Supper, and so on. But there are some subjective areas, I submit to you, that we need to be RESTORING among ourselves all of the time.
Thanks for your attention. I hope that you have received some benefit from this entire study.