Church of Christ Studies

What Church To Join?

I cannot but be delighted at the presence of such a splendid company, manifesting thereby your continued and genuine interest, as I believe, in those matters that are here discussed from time to time. I am duly appreciative, I trust, of the interest that you thus show. The intelligent and courteous hearing that you give serves as a great inspiration unto me in trying to present what I believe to be the truth of the Bible.

 

I have for study to-night a matter about which the world has varied opinions, and I am not unconscious of the fact that, in the presentation of the theme, things may be stated contrary to what you have hitherto believed. All I ask of you is this: that you consider very carefully and thoughtfully, in harmony with the Scriptures, the things I shall say, weigh them well, and accept only that part thereof that you know to be taught in the word of God. Because we may differ regarding these matters, I pledge you that I shall think none the less of you; and wherever I chance to go contrary to your opinions, I do so with no disposition to wound your feelings or disrespectfully refer to you in any way whatsoever. I think it a compliment to all of us that we have our individuality and are willing to discuss and think together, and then to act upon the very best judgment possible.

 

I want to talk to you about the church of the Bible, and I believe that in the announcement of it I shall put it in this form: "What church ought a man to join ?"

 

I believe every person that is not an atheist nor infidel expects really before he dies and goes hence to become a member of some organization known as a church. I can hardly think of a man who claims to believe the Bible going through life resolved never to give the question of this kind favorable consideration. Why is it that such a small per cent of the human family are church members? I may not know the full answer thereto, but I believe the reason is that the world has not yet decided just what church a man ought to affiliate with and with which one he ought to be united.

 

Now, in this country of ours, according to the last statistics, I noticed, there are one hundred sixty and four organizations, claiming to be churches, beckoning and begging for membership. Now, we have a wonderful opportunity—if, indeed, you could call it such—in picking out from this number which one we ought to join; but numbers of men that are not biased nor prejudiced can hardly decide just which one to select. For instance, a man goes to this organization over here, and he finds plenty of good people in it. Nobody can question that many splendid things are taught; but, of course, some things he cannot indorse; and he passes to the next. There he finds equally good people, a great many good things therein taught, but some objectionable features. Thus he makes the rounds; and when he gets through, I think it would take a wiser than Solomon to analyze and discriminate and pick out just the one that really ought to enlist his deepest concern.

 

Now, will you think it strange of me to make this suggestion ? And I do not speak beside myself to-night or without having thought the matter out as to what to say; but what would you think if I were to advise you that have favored me so kindly to join all of the churches within reach? Just think on that for a moment.

 

Where did the man get it into his head that he ought to join just one church? You cannot say that this is not the way we act, for I have found men universally to the contrary. There are various clubs and organizations of a social and business nature in the city of Nashville. Do you think it possible to find some one of your best citizens that is a member of more than one club at the same time? I do not think such would be hard to find. I almost guarantee, ladies, that you have husbands that are members of the Masonic Lodge, and also members of the Odd Fellows' Lodge, and also members of the Pythian Lodge, and then they join the Woodmen of the World.

 

Why, nobody thinks anything about it. Now, what made them do that?   Well, the Masonic Fraternity, according to what information I have regarding it, represents certain principles which a man believes to be good. He goes and identifies himself therewith. Then he recognizes that the Odd Fellows' Lodge has some things in it that maybe the Masonic Lodge does not offer; and, notwithstanding the fact that he has already joined the Masons, he does not hesitate to go and join the Odd Fellows.

 

Well, as a matter of fact, upon the basis that both of these lodges are good, and I am not here to question that, would it not follow that the man who has joined both of them is better than the man who has never joined either or stopped with just one of them? If that result does not follow, I think I would make a motion to disband both of them. Then here is the Pythian Lodge that affords many things, really splendid things, that are not found in the others. Well, is not this man that joins both or all of them a better man than he who joins just one? Why, the former has all the latter has, and more besides. And so he joins so many lodges that his wife cannot have his company a single night in the week.

 

Well, now, why not do the churches that way? Here is a fine religious organization. Some of my friends are in it. There are many good things about it—things I like; let me go and join it. Over here is another one with equally as good people in it, friends just as dear as those in the former, and some things in this one that you cannot get in that— things that I like. Why not let me join this in addition? Would I not be a better man than if I stopped at just the first one? Where will you draw the line? I will tell you. As a matter of fact, if I were in the joining business, I would join some eight or ten or a dozen or maybe twenty of the religious institutions of the land; and I think in the justification thereof I could hold my own and maintain all consistency in so doing.

 

I do not hesitate to join any of the different insurance companies and take out a policy from this one. Notwithstanding that I have done that, it does not keep me from taking out another thousand dollars in a second company and likewise in a third. That is the way we do about everything else on the earth except the church; and so I am going to suggest to you to-night, if you are going to join any church at all, I think honestly I would throw the gate open; I would join quite a number on the ground that there are good people in them and that they teach good things, and that you may get in one things you cannot get in the others. But you notice that my suggestion along that line was prefaced by a conditional clause. Now, get this: I never have mark it—I don't expect to to-night, and so long as God lets me live on earth I never expect to advise or ask any man to join any church under the shining stars above us. Coming from a man that sometimes tries to preach, that may seem to you remarkably strange. I would say to you, ladies and gentlemen, I have never joined any single, solitary church in all my life. Now, are you thinking: "If I had known that, I would not have come to hear you preach." Do you think that I mean to say by that that I do not claim to be a member of the church? If so, you are wrong in that presumption. I want to make you this statement, just plainly and in a very practical manner: Do you, ladies and gentlemen, honestly and thoughtfully—do you know that neither God nor Christ nor the Holy Spirit nor any inspired man ever did ask or suggest or admonish anybody to join the church since Adam was created ? Well, some one says: "That is a radical statement." I know it is. In view of the way I was reared, it is a wonderfully radical statement. The question is: "Is it so?" That is the one point of interest to you now. Is that statement the fact in the case? Do you know right now, any of you, of a single passage of scripture in all the Bible to which you can turn and find the expression, "Join the church?" Where is it? It is not in Genesis, nor in Exodus, nor in Leviticus, nor in Numbers, nor in Joshua, nor in Judges, nor in Ruth, nor in Samuel, nor in First and Second Kings, nor throughout the entire thirtynine volumes or books of the Old Testament. Well, you cannot find it in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, nor in any book on down to Revelation. Where is it?

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Now, watch the suggestion I am making. Do you know, of a single passage in all the Bible to which you can turn when you get back home and find anything ever said about joining a church? Why, my friends, where I was reared, on the western side of the Tennessee River, there were two expressions that were just as near and as sacred to me as a boy as any other two in all my vocabulary. Here they are: I was taught in early life that I ought to "get religion ;" and then, after that, my friends and those who really loved me and were interested in me said that, in addition to "getting religion," I ought to "join some church." Well, I took that as a matter of fact, and excused myself on the ground of my indifference and unconcernedness. But I have found out, and I now thoroughly believe, that in all the Bible neither one of these expressions is to be found. They originated in the minds of uninspired men. The Holy Spirit never directed the pen to make a declaration nor to record a statement like unto either of these.

 

Now, these things being true, and my word for it until you have had time to search and investigate, I would not advise you to join any church. Just to be plain and frank about it, it is none of men's business to be joining religious organizations—that is to say, the word of God does not authorize, command, or demand such an act on our part.

 

But what is the church? Maybe that all the time I have been talking we are confused because we are not a unit in thought as to the matter just discussed. When I talk about the church, I am not talking about a material building that is more properly styled in the country, the "meetinghouse." I really think that is what it is. It was purely an accident that I first learned the truth about that.

 

Back where I was reared we called them "meetinghouses." When I went to the little town in which I have lived since, some of my people said I ought not to style these buildings such, but that I must talk about the "church" up yonder at the corner of the streets; and I did, not knowing any better.

 

I did just what they recommended, but I have gone back very largely unto my first habit along that line. I pass along in your city and look at the splendid houses, representative, as they are, of immense sums of money, beautiful, commodious, and attractive, and I do not think they are churches. I do not believe there is quite enough money in the city of Nashville and enough material in the great State of Tennessee out of which men can erect a church of God.

 

The church is a building all right enough, but it is not made of material things. It is a building composed of men and women that have been born again, that have passed out of darkness into the light of the Son of God. So let's get it out of our minds that any of the fine structures that men can erect constitute a church, and it is strange that that idea has always been on the earth. When Paul went to the city of Athens and stood on Mars' Hill, in condemnation of their manner of worship (Acts 17:24), he said: "Howbeit, the Most High God does not dwell in temples made by the hands of men." O. they had their splendid structures there, very fine buildings, representing immense sums of money, and Paul said: "Gentlemen, you are wrong about it. The God of Heaven, the God that made the earth and the sea and the things therein—that God does not dwell in temples made by men's hands." And hence, let's eliminate the idea that the church we read about in the Bible is any kind of a material building—of stone, brick, or marble.

 

Well, what is the church? I want to suggest to you this as a definition thereof: The church of the Bible is that spiritual realm over which Jesus Christ reigns as head and in which the Holy Spirit dwells. It is the body of Christ, composed of members that have been born again, that have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Hence, Paul said, in Eph. 1: 22, 23, that God "hash put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all." And, again, in Col. 1: 18, Paul said: "And he [Christ] is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the first born from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence."

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So, then, the church of God, according to the direct statement of the word of God, is none other than the body of Christ. Jesus, the Christ, the head; Christian men and women as the members thereof; the Holy Spirit dwelling within, giving life, strength, vitality, and power "hereunto."

 

Now, I have in mind to suggest another thing for your consideration and study. My friends, the church of the Bible is used only in two senses—one of them a universal application, and the second in its reference to local assemblies. It has been said by some who have taken the time to count it that the word is found one hundred and ten times in the New Testament; that of the one hundred and ten times, eighteen times it refers to the redeemed in the aggregate to that body composed of all the Christian people everywhere—and ninety-two times referring to local congregations. I give you just a sample of these two ways. For instance, in Matt. 16: 18 Christ said: "Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." I think, in common with you, that he was referring unto that organization in its general sense, embracing and embodying all of the redeemed and all of the ransomed and saved of our earth. Again (Eph. 5: 25): "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it." Now, which one was that? What church was it that Christ loved, and which one was it for which he died ? The answer: The church of God in the universal sense. As but illustrative of the other, I have only to call your attention to Paul's and others' letters unto the church—for instance, the church at Rome, Corinth, Sardis, Pergamos, Philadelphia, Thyatira, Ephesus, etc.—not that they are different in theory, practice, or manner of worship, but purely in geography and location.

 

Well, this thought then follows, and ought to be of interest to every living soul (mark it): Is the church of the Bible a denomination? I would have you think candidly, unprejudiced and unbiased in mind, as you thus contemplate. I repeat it: Is the church about which you read in the Bible, the church for which Christ gave his blood, the church of which Christ said: "Upon this rock I will build my church"—is that a denomination? If so, which one?

 

Out of the one hundred and sixty-four, which one is Christ talking about? Why, as a matter of fact, my friends, for fifteen hundred years after the Son of God died a felon's death on the cross there was not a denomination known in all the annals of history. Our denominationalism is of modern origin. It does not so much as belong to the study of ancient history, but to medieval and modern; and, as a matter of fact, I believe, in common with you, that when we read the Bible in the privacy of our homes and in the anxiety of our souls to learn God's will—when we read about the church there, I doubt if any of us then have in mind that we are reading about some denomination. The fact is that out of the one hundred and sixty-four that are mentioned in our government records, there is not a shadow of a record of any of them in the word of God.

 

Why, of course, when you go to find out how many denominations there are on the earth, you don't need the Bible; you need the Federal Authorities' Report; for you can take the Bible and memorize it from lid to lid, and you would be no wiser about denominations than at the beginning. Why? Because the Bible says not a word about them.

 

Will you help me try to differentiate and distinguish between a denomination and this organization spoken of in the Bible?

 

Now, a denomination—what is it? I think the follow ing will prove true: A denomination is a religious organization larger than any local church on earth and yet smaller than all the Christian people on earth. Think of the statement thus made. What is a denomination? It is a religious organization larger than a local church, smaller than the redeemed in the aggregate. Therefore it comes in between, separate and distinct from, the church of the Bible at both ends of the line. How is the church used? It is either a local congregation or it embraces all Christians.

 

Now, a denomination stands between these, and, therefore, it is a thing unheard of and unknown in the Bible; and I say that cautiously, respectfully, and yet firmly.

 

Well, then, does a man have to become a member of a denomination in order to be saved? Why, there is not a man on earth that would tell you he does. Get it! If I can, therefore, be saved from sin and be saved in heaven without becoming a member of a denomination, then what reason is there upon the earth for the existence of a thing that is admittedly nonessential to the salvation of the souls of men?

 

"Well," says one, "try the church in that line. Can a man be saved and not become a member of the church?"

 

Now, I appreciate the fact that there are those to the contrary; but let me say it: No man yet, under the banner of Christ, under the reign of Jesus Christ as King, has ever been saved except by virtue of the fact that he has become a member of the church of the Bible. Salvation is not in the devil's territory. Salvation is not in the kingdom of His Satanic Majesty, but salvation is in God's family, and there are just the two.

 

Now, I refer to a principle stated a few days ago with reference to God's immutable law. I said that God located the life of a fish and put that location in water; and if a fish ever enjoys that kind of life, it must get into that realm where God saw fit to designate and locate it. Just so has God Almighty located the life of a Christian. Where has he located salvation ? Mark the idea. Just two places, just two kingdoms—the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil. Where are God's children? They are inside of God's family. It is not complimentary for you to suggest that God has children outside of the family. That is not even complimentary to say regarding men. God's children—Christians, the saved, the redeemed—are in the family of God, which is the church of God, "the pillar and ground of the truth."

 

Now, I have this to ask: Can a man become a member of the church of the Bible and yet not be a member of any denomination? You say: "Yes, for Jesus Christ certainly did not establish an institution and then leave it impossible for men to become identified therewith." Granting that statement, you have exactly the conception that is in the mind of your humble servant—namely, I want to stand a member of the church about which you read in the New Testament, and at the same time not a member of any denomination under high heaven.

 

The Corinthians thus stood. Nobody had ever been to Corinth preaching the gospel except Paul, and he thus established the church by the proclamation of the gospel.

 

The people accepted the simple terms thereof; and when he went away, he saw fit to write unto that same body, and here is the way he began (1 Cor. 1: 1): "Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes, our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth." What denomination was it? Absolutely none. He said to them in 1 Cor. 12: 27: "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." The body is the church (Col. 1: 18.) I want you to think of what that statement, or those statements, would imply for the world.

 

There are numbers and numbers of professed Christians in the city of Nashville, a city known far and near for its schools and churches; and yet this city, like all others, is cursed—by what? By religious division, by controversy, by denominational rivalry, each denomination trying to out strip and to outshine every other denomination within the corporate limits. What would the teaching of the Bible do for Nashville? It would cause the people, all of us, to drop every kind of an organization under heaven of a religious nature except the one talked of and spoken of in the Bible. Well, what about it? Not a single, solitary man would have to give up or sacrifice a single principle or a matter of faith in so doing; and if you, as our capital city, unto which the State looks with pride and with pleasure, could present a solid phalanx and a combined front, the influence thereof would spread from the rivers to the ends of the earth. We would plant ourselves upon God's Book, that and that alone. We would be members only of the church for which Christ died. We would have no discriminating terms; we would not be divided, but we would be joined together, heart to heart, hand in hand, while infidelity, skepticism, and all things antagonistic to the forward march of Christ would fly away like mist before the morning sunlight. We would have God's word as the creed, as the discipline, as the confession of faith. We would talk about God's church, not mine. I do not have a church and never expect to. Jesus Christ said: "Upon this rock I will build mine." If you have one, it is prima facie evidence that it is not the one spoken of in the Bible, because that one is not yours. And, hence, when you go around talking about "my church," you publicly—however, you may not intend to do it; but that is a public advertisement that yours is different from the one in the New Testament, because that is not yours. I beg to state to you that it is not mine; and, therefore, there can be no partisan spirit; there can be no littleness, nor narrowness, nor sectarian ties. Why, it is not ours. It belongs to Him who died and shed his blood for the purchase thereof.

 

The church of the New Testament has different appellations by which it is known. When I speak of it Collectively, it is styled the "church of the first-born." Jesus Christ, then, being the first-born, it would be the equivalent of saying the "church of Christ." It is styled "house of God," "God's building," "God's temple." It is thus called in a collective sense. Further, referring to the different congregations, it is called the "churches of Christ." All of these names are Bible names, and none of them can be questioned nor correctly criticized. But when you put over the door some other name, then you advertise, as it occurs to me personally, a lack of due regard for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

I can look back to-night more than twenty years and remember, I think very distinctly, the two statements that first attracted my attention toward Christianity. I heard a man preach, whose name would be very familiar to you all, who said this: "We propose to call Bible things by Bible names." As a schoolboy, I thought that sounded sensible. If it is a Bible institution, if it is a Bible thing, and God has named it, then let's continue to call Bible things by Bible names.

 

The second statement that followed (and I can now see the man standing and announcing it) was this: "We propose to speak where the Bible speaks and to be silent where God's word is silent. We propose to regard the authority of the Bible, and not to presume to go by its silence." I owe my first listening ear and receptive heart toward Christianity, so far as I recall, unto the emphasis and the force and weight of those two statements. For twenty years, therefore, I have been trying to tell that same thing, and have never found reason or right to change the announcement or the policy embraced therein.

 

"Has God an institution on earth?" "Yes, sir." "What is the name of it?" He didn't call it the "Masonic Fraternity," with all due respect unto that body; he didn't style it the "Democratic Organization," with equal deference to the feelings of all Democrats. What did God call it? He called it the "church of the first-born." He called it the "household of faith." He called it the "church of Christ," if you please. "On this rock I will build my church." He called it the "church of God." I am perfectly content to strike hands with any man that will say: "On that we stand together. We will not let some name unknown to the Bible come in to divide us."

 

Well, with reference to the individual. There are different names for them. Sometimes the Bible calls the individuals "saints ;" sometimes, "disciples ;" sometimes, "brethren;" sometimes, "Christians." It just depends on what particular phase you want to place the emphasis as to what we should be called. If you have reference to the fact that we are students and pupils, then it is right to speak of the members as "disciples," because that is what the word means; if you have reference to the purity and the sanctity thereof, then we ought to speak of each other as "saints." If you refer to our respective relationships one with another, then what? It is right to speak of us then as "brethren." But if you allude to our relationship unto our federal head, unto "Him from whom all blessings flow," then our proper name is "Christian"—a name which carries with it the honor and respect unto Him who is the Head over the body of which we are a part.

 

But I stated to you at the beginning that I had never joined a church in all my life. I stated to you, further, that I have never asked other people to do so, and only in an accommodative manner do I ever talk about joining the church.

 

Are you wondering how on earth that I came to be a member of it? Is it a fact that a man cannot be a member of a thing unless he joins it? Well, I think not. Bear with me just a minute. I am a member of the Dr. J. B. Hardeman family, of McNairy County, Tenn. I have been a member of it all these years. Nobody that knows my parents and that knows me, by virtue of the striking relationship and distinction, has ever questioned or challenged a statement of that kind. Wherever I go and say that I am a member of the Hardeman family, I have never found the man yet so unkind as to even question it or raise a doubt. Well, some one says: "I accept that as a fact." All right. I am a member of it. Let me tell you: I have been a member of that family for more than forty years. God being my helper, I speak the truth; I never did join it in my life. Now, there is one thing that never did happen at my father's home. There were eight of us children. He never did pretend or presume to open the doors of the Hardeman family and let us children join. Maybe he should have done it, but he didn't.

 

Now, I give the question back to you, to all of you—the Smiths and the Joneses: Did you ever join the Smith family? You say: "No, I don't believe I did." "Are you a member of it ?" "Yes, sir." "How came you to be a member ?"

 

Now, friends, the beauty about all of that is its absolute simplicity. Why, listen: I was born into the Hardeman family, and did not have to join it; and the very minute, the very second, the very ten-thousandth part of a second that I opened my eyes in physical birth, I was then and there a member of the Hardeman family, by virtue of the fact that I was born into it.

 

Well, just the same way I claim to be a member of Christ's family. I claim to be a member of the household of faith, of the church of the first-born. I didn't join it. "How came you in it?" I was born into it. I was born of water and of the Spirit, as the Savior said; and the very ten-thousandth part of a d that I opened my eyes, having been born again—born from above, born of water and of the Spirit—that minute I was a member of the church of Christ, the pillar and ground of the truth.

 

And with that, God would have me rest my case. No joining about it. It is a man's duty to hear the gospel and believe the gospel, to repent of all sins and publicly confess his faith in the Christ, to be buried with the Lord in baptism, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and that will make any man on earth that does it with an open, honest, earnest heart—it will make him a child of God and a member of the New Testament church at the very same time.

 

I come, therefore, again, my time having been exhausted, to ask: Do you want to stand to-night a member of God's family? Do you want to be initiated into that splendid institution over which Christ reigns as head and has authority? If so, I beg of you that while we sing the song you submit to Heaven's terms, be born again, and God will translate you out of darkness into the light of the kingdom of God and of Christ. Let us together stand and sing, and won't you come while the opportunity is afforded?​