“God established church denominations to match man’s various religious beliefs.  Denominations enable people having different versions of the Bible to worship together.”  “Let there be NO divisions (denominations) among you” (1 Cor. 1:10).  The Apostle Paul noted that different factions within the church were following after the teachings of different teachers.    This is exactly how the denominational quagmire known as “the church” came into being.  Every church division/denomination/faith, etc. was created by a man in search of a following.  To draw people away from the group he had to have an “improved” version of what God said in His Holy Scriptures.  At present there are several hundred such improvements, denominations, faiths, etc., each group having a different rendition of God’s Word, each calling its version “Bible truth,” each calling itself “the church,” each having received a commission from God to take its unique message to the masses and each ignorant of the fact that it is an abomination unto the Lord which Christ will destroy upon His return.  Christ’s attitude toward the competing, conflicting, contradicting conglomeration of religious cults in existence today is characterized by Jesus Himself in His Words to the church in Laodicea (the final church era) recorded in Revelation 3:15-22: “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot.  I wish that your were either cold or hot.  So then because you (sinners saved by grace) are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew (vomit) you out of My mouth.  Because you say, ‘I am rich, have many things and need nothing, and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked ….”

From whence came the supposed “word from the Lord” telling the denomination creator that all other religious groups are wrong, and that he was to gather around him those who would embrace his new “truth” and would help him take the “new and improved” version of the gospel to the world.  Who would dare to propose divisions in God’s church?  God?  Jesus answers the question in John 10:12: “… the wolf scatters the sheep.”  Spiritually, the wolf represents Satan who knows that the best way to defeat a group is to divide it.  The Apostle Paul addresses the denomination problem which had evidently raised its ugly head within the church at Rome: “Now I beseech (beg) you, brethren, mark (identify) those that cause divisions and offenses contrary to THE (ONE) DOCTRINE which you have learned.  Avoid them that cause division.  For they that cause division do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but rather their own selfish desires.  By good sounding words and fine speeches they deceive those who do not know the Truth.”  Jesus warns about these false prophets in Matthew 24:4,5.

Nowhere in the Holy Scriptures are we told that God has more than one church.  His one and only church is called THE CHURCH OF GOD approximately a dozen times in the New Testament.  “The Church of God” is the corporate name God gave His churches.  They are also called “the churches of Christ,” meaning that Jesus is the head of the different bodies that comprise the Church of God.  Christ is THE one and only head of all of the world’s true churches established by God.  Nowhere in Scripture is a church called by any other name than the Church of God.  If the subject of discussion is the church located in a particular city, that city is usually identified.  For example, “the church of God in _______.”

In order to distinguish themselves from all other religious bodies, those of a particular theological persuasion give themselves a name that will make them stand out from the other so-called “churches.”  “There is ONE BODY (church), one Spirit, even as you are called in ONE hope of your calling (salvation), ONE Lord, ONE faith, ONE baptism, ONE GOD and Father of all ….” (Col. 4:4-6).  The “body of Christ” (the church) is ONE body under One Head (Christ) and ONE Founder (God).  God’s ONE church has ONE SET OF DOCTRINES that do not vary from church to church.  The apostles all “spoke the same thing” and were all “perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10).  Therefore the churches they established all taught and believed the same ONE Truth.  Jesus identified that ONE Truth in John 17:17 as God’s Word.

In 1 Corinthians 1:13 Paul asks the church: “Is Christ divided?”  Christ is THE ONE HEAD of THE ONE CHURCH.  If, as is proclaimed, each denomination is “THE church” that is different from all other churches, then each church must have its own head.  If each denomination is THE church, and there are hundreds of versions of THE church, and Christ is the Head of THE church, THEN CHRIST IS  DIVIDED into as many parts as there are denominations.  The so-called “church” today is not only divided by name, it is divided by doctrine (beliefs/truths).  If not, why is there more than one church?  If there is only “ONE body (church),” why is it called more than one name, and why does it meet in different places? often in sight of one another?  And why does it preach different doctrines?  If not for the trees and buildings, I could see three churches representing three denominations, faiths, cults, sects, etc. from by back yard.

The unchurched world views professing Christendom as a joke, and rightfully so.  That which is called “the church” is Satan’s deadly prank he has been playing on one segment of humanity for generations.  He has other religions available for those of other religious persuasions.  In the eyes of God, all, including so-called Christianity, are “anathema, maranatha” (accursed) because they do not love the Lord Jesus Christ enough to take Him at His Word as stated (1 Cor. 16:22).  There are in fact two religions: (1) God’s tiny church composed of His obedient saints and (2) Satan’s religious conglomerate composed of all heathen groups, including Catholicism/Protestantism.

In 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 Paul points out that the two religions have absolutely nothing in common and must not associate with one other.  He commands that, if one finds himself in Satan’s religious system, one is commanded to “come out of her and be separated from her” and to “not touch that unclean thing.”  Having exited that unclean thing, one must then “cleanse oneself from all uncleanness of the flesh and spirit and perfect personal holiness in the fear of God.”  Only then can one be a child of God.  L.J.