Today, more than ever, we have to ask our­selves, “Why are there so many dif­fer­ent church­es and denom­i­na­tions?” when the New Tes­ta­ment makes no men­tion of Roman Catholic, Ortho­dox, Luther­an, Calvin­ist, Bap­tist, Adven­tist, Pen­te­costal (and many more) church­es. In order to gain a sat­is­fac­to­ry answer to this ques­tion, the first and most impor­tant thing to know is how the church was under­stood in the New Tes­ta­ment and what the church should be like accord­ing to God’s will.

1 The Term “Church”

The Old Tes­ta­ment “church” or con­gre­ga­tion was the assem­bly of the cho­sen peo­ple of God. In Deuteron­o­my 7:6–8 we read:

For you are a peo­ple holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has cho­sen you to be a peo­ple for his trea­sured pos­ses­sion, out of all the peo­ples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in num­ber than any oth­er peo­ple that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peo­ples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keep­ing the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slav­ery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

God chose the descen­dants of Abra­ham, who put his faith and trust in the only God, as his nation. They were to be a nation which was dis­tinct from oth­er nations, sep­a­rat­ed from all idol­a­try and from every­thing impure and unholy in God’s sight. With great patience he led his nation, send­ing them judges and prophets who con­stant­ly called them to repen­tance and obe­di­ence. He bore them until the ful­fill­ment of time when he sent the Mes­si­ah, the Ser­vant of God, whose task it was to car­ry the light to the ends of the earth (i.e. to the Gen­tiles):

And now the LORD says, he who formed me from the womb to be his ser­vant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gath­ered to him—for I am hon­oured in the eyes of the LORD, and my God has become my strength—he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my ser­vant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the pre­served of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my sal­va­tion may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isa­iah 49:5–6)

The first Chris­tians wit­nessed the ful­fil­ment of this prophe­cy. They under­stood them­selves to be the new nation of God, con­sist­ing of peo­ple from among the Jews and the Gen­tiles who Jesus led togeth­er bring­ing them into fel­low­ship with him­self and with the Father. Jesus him­self spoke of this:

And I have oth­er sheep [Gen­tiles] that are not of this fold [Jews]. I must bring them also, and they will lis­ten to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shep­herd. (John 10:16)

The usu­al Greek word used in the New Tes­ta­ment for church is ekkle­sia. It is derived from ek-kaleo which means “to call out” or “to choose some­one from among oth­ers”.¹

God wants to call every per­son into eter­nal fel­low­ship with him­self. This call went out to peo­ple through Jesus. Those who accept­ed him as the promised sav­iour and want­ed to fol­low in his foot­steps formed and con­tin­ue to con­sti­tute the church, the fel­low­ship of believ­ers who have been cho­sen and called out of the world.

The mem­bers of the church are all those who God calls “into his own king­dom and glo­ry” (1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 2:12), who through the gospel “obtain the glo­ry of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 2:14). Peter describes them as “a cho­sen race, a roy­al priest­hood, a holy nation, a peo­ple for his own pos­ses­sion, that you may pro­claim the excel­len­cies of him who called you out of dark­ness into his mar­vel­lous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

These words demon­strate how con­scious Peter and Paul and their broth­ers in faith were of the high call­ing bestowed on all peo­ple who, by fol­low­ing Jesus become chil­dren of God, thus form­ing his nation, the church.

2 What are the Distinguishing Marks of the Church?

And he (the Father) put all things under his (Jesus) feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the full­ness of him who fills all in all. (Eph­esians 1:22–23)

In the New Tes­ta­ment we read of the church as the body of Christ. Because God became man in Jesus Christ and the church is his body, its char­ac­ter­is­tics reflect God’s nature. Just as he is holy, so also should the church be holy. Just as he is one, so also is the church unique and unit­ed. Just as he is love, so also is the church built on love. Just as God is the source of the truth, so also is the church the pil­lar and but­tress of the truth and is oblig­ed to hold on to the teach­ing deliv­ered once for all by the apos­tles.

The scrip­ture also says that God is light (1 John 1:5). In the same way the church should also be the light of the world, a city on a hill, whose light can­not be hid­den from peo­ple, as Jesus told his dis­ci­ples:

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill can­not be hid­den. […] In the same way, let your light shine before oth­ers, so that they may see your good works and give glo­ry to your Father who is in heav­en. (Matthew 5:14,16)

The church is the vis­i­ble tes­ti­mo­ny of the grace of God which sets peo­ple free to love and deeply unites for eter­ni­ty all who humbly entrust their lives com­plete­ly to him. Now let us exam­ine the var­i­ous points in more detail.

2.1 The Church is Holy

Peter writes:

As obe­di­ent chil­dren, do not be con­formed to the pas­sions of your for­mer igno­rance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your con­duct, since it is writ­ten, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:14–16)

These words explain what the Chris­tians under­stood by being holy: one’s old life, ruled by pas­sions, is laid aside; a new life of obe­di­ence to God’s will begins. The holi­ness of the church results from the desire of each Chris­t­ian to be obe­di­ent. The aim of Jesus’ own giv­ing of him­self was to puri­fy and sanc­ti­fy the church, as Paul writes in Eph­esians 5:25–27:

… as Christ loved the church and gave him­self up for her, that he might sanc­ti­fy her, hav­ing cleansed her by the wash­ing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to him­self in splen­dour, with­out spot or wrin­kle or any such thing, that she might be holy and with­out blem­ish.

God’s intense con­cern for the holi­ness of the church and the grave respon­si­bil­i­ty which is con­nect­ed with build­ing the church are expressed in 1 Corinthi­ans 3:16–17:

Do you not know that you are God’s tem­ple and that God’s Spir­it dwells in you? If any­one destroys God’s tem­ple, God will destroy him. For God’s tem­ple is holy, and you² are that tem­ple.

Thus it is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the church to make sure that every indi­vid­ual mem­ber wants to live for God’s hon­our. This takes place first and fore­most through broth­er­ly love, the day to day mutu­al help and devo­tion, the fel­low­ship and the deep con­nect­ed­ness which results:

Take care, broth­ers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbe­liev­ing heart, lead­ing you to fall away from the liv­ing God. But exhort one anoth­er every day, as long as it is called “today”, that none of you may be hard­ened by the deceit­ful­ness of sin. (Hebrews 3:12–13)

If a per­son nev­er­the­less wants to cling to his sins, he destroys the basis for being togeth­er, because he proves that his life is no longer deter­mined by love for God and for the broth­ers and sis­ters. Jesus gave the church the respon­si­bil­i­ty in such a case to dis­con­tin­ue the fel­low­ship so that the per­son con­cerned does not com­plete­ly hard­en him­self in sin, but comes to his sens­es and repents:

If your broth­er sins, go and show him his fault in pri­vate; if he lis­tens to you, you have won your broth­er. But if he does not lis­ten to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three wit­ness­es every fact may be con­firmed. If he refus­es to lis­ten to them, tell it to the church; and if he refus­es to lis­ten even to the church, let him be to you as a Gen­tile and a tax col­lec­tor. (Matthew 18:15–17, NASB)

If the church makes such a deci­sion in agree­ment with the will of God, the aim is that church should remain church; for if sin is tol­er­at­ed, it spreads like yeast. Paul warns us of this in 1 Corinthi­ans 5:6:

Do you not know that a lit­tle leav­en leav­ens the whole lump?

It is not an expres­sion of mer­cy but of indif­fer­ence if the church does not exclude a sin­ner who does not want to repent while they stand by and watch as he dis­tances him­self more and more from God. We would sure­ly remove a rot­ten apple from the bas­ket of apples “mer­ci­less­ly” in order to pre­vent the oth­er apples from becom­ing rot­ten.

Hebrews 12:14–15 also warns of the neg­a­tive influ­ence of sin in the church:

Strive for peace with every­one, and for the holi­ness with­out which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bit­ter­ness” springs up and caus­es trou­ble, and by it many become defiled;

God wants a pure nation, which, moti­vat­ed by his grace, is zeal­ous for good works, thus giv­ing glo­ry to its Lord and Sav­iour, and wait­ing for his return…

For the grace of God has appeared, bring­ing sal­va­tion for all peo­ple, train­ing us to renounce ungod­li­ness and world­ly pas­sions, and to live self-con­trolled, upright, and god­ly lives in the present age, wait­ing for our blessed hope, the appear­ing of the glo­ry of our great God and Sav­iour Jesus Christ, who gave him­self for us to redeem us from all law­less­ness and to puri­fy for him­self a peo­ple for his own pos­ses­sion who are zeal­ous for good works. (Titus 2:11–14)

See also: Repen­tance and Sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion

2.2 The Unity of Believers in the Church

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glo­ry that you have giv­en me I have giv­en to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become per­fect­ly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (John 17:20–23)

This excerpt from Jesus’ prayer makes it very clear how impor­tant uni­ty was for him, not only among the apos­tles but also among all who would become Chris­tians through them. This pas­sage also shows us how this uni­ty can be achieved: He lets us par­take in his rela­tion­ship with the Father. In this way, being led by his spir­it, we are able to rec­og­nize the will of God in the var­i­ous ques­tions con­cern­ing our faith and life. The con­di­tion is that every believ­er is glad­ly will­ing to sub­mit him­self in every­thing to God. For the church to sur­vive, every mem­ber has to con­stant­ly pur­sue this aim.

The New Tes­ta­ment let­ters also appeal to the believ­ers to be in uni­ty, e.g. 1 Corinthi­ans 1:10.

I appeal to you, broth­ers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divi­sions among you, but that you be unit­ed in the same mind and the same judge­ment.

The lan­guage Paul uses here makes it clear that uni­ty should not be lim­it­ed to the very basic issues of the Chris­t­ian doc­trine, e.g. the belief that Jesus is the sav­iour. The spir­it-worked uni­ty should run all the way through the life and doc­trines of the Chris­tians in every point, as Eph­esians 4:1–6 express­es:

I there­fore, a pris­on­er for the Lord, urge you to walk in a man­ner wor­thy of the call­ing to which you have been called, with all humil­i­ty and gen­tle­ness, with patience, bear­ing with one anoth­er in love, eager to main­tain the uni­ty of the Spir­it in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one bap­tism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Among Chris­tians the uni­ty of the Spir­it is pre­sup­posed and ought to be main­tained. This uni­ty was and is a real­i­ty already here on earth; how else could it be a sign for the world?

Each Chris­tians’ repen­tance led him to a fun­da­men­tal change of atti­tude; his life is no longer direct­ed by the flesh, that is the self­ish, sin­ful wish­es, but by God’s spir­it who shows us the will of God. He is the one who cre­ates this uni­ty. How­ev­er, when this uni­ty is not present among peo­ple who call them­selves Chris­tians, it is also a sign…

There is also a growth in uni­ty, which is vis­i­ble from the vers­es in Eph­esians 4:11–14:

And he gave the apos­tles, the prophets, the evan­ge­lists, the shep­herds and teach­ers, to equip the saints for the work of min­istry, for build­ing up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the uni­ty of the faith and of the knowl­edge of the Son of God, to mature man­hood, to the mea­sure of the stature of the full­ness of Christ, so that we may no longer be chil­dren, tossed to and fro by the waves and car­ried about by every wind of doc­trine, by human cun­ning, by crafti­ness in deceit­ful schemes.

The uni­ty which all should attain to is not some­thing that will only become real­i­ty in heav­en. The point being made is much rather that young Chris­tians need instruc­tion for their spir­i­tu­al growth. That is why Jesus gave the church gifts which should equip the believ­ers for their min­istry. It is espe­cial­ly impor­tant that they become firm in the right teach­ing, so that they can see through and refute false teach­ings, thus attain­ing uni­ty with all oth­er Chris­tians.

See also: The Uni­ty of all Chris­tians

2.3 The Love Among Christians

A new com­mand­ment I give to you, that you love one anoth­er: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one anoth­er. By this all peo­ple will know that you are my dis­ci­ples, if you have love for one anoth­er. (John 13:34–35)

Jesus stressed the impor­tance of love among Chris­tians. They will be rec­og­nized as his dis­ci­ples if they fol­low his exam­ple of love.

It is impor­tant to be aware of what that means prac­ti­cal­ly. The dis­tin­guish­ing marks of a Chris­t­ian are not pow­er­ful ser­mons, mir­a­cles, exor­cisms etc. If any­one wants to assure him­self that he belongs to Jesus because of such things, he should remem­ber the fol­low­ing words of Jesus:

On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not proph­esy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will I declare to them, “I nev­er knew you; depart from me, you work­ers of law­less­ness.” (Matthew 7:22–23)

Who­ev­er is not ready to lay down his life for his broth­ers and sis­ters is not a dis­ci­ple of Jesus, because broth­er­ly love is a fea­ture of every per­son who has received sal­va­tion. It is a fruit of the self-sac­ri­fi­cial love Jesus had for us, as John writes:

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the broth­ers. Who­ev­er does not love abides in death. Every­one who hates his broth­er is a mur­der­er, and you know that no mur­der­er has eter­nal life abid­ing in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the broth­ers. (1. John 3:14–16)

Cer­tain­ly Jesus’ sac­ri­fi­cial love is demon­strat­ed most clear­ly by his readi­ness to die on the cross. But it also includes his whole life and min­istry. Through­out the dura­tion of his min­istry he was always avail­able for his dis­ci­ples and the peo­ple who want­ed to lis­ten to him.

The Gospel of Mark reports an event which gives us insight into his readi­ness to lay down his life:

And he said to them, “Come away by your­selves to a des­o­late place and rest a while.” For many were com­ing and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a des­o­late place by them­selves. Now many saw them going and rec­og­nized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had com­pas­sion on them, because they were like sheep with­out a shep­herd. And he began to teach them many things. (Mark 6:31–34)

The dis­ci­ples expe­ri­enced how self­less­ly Jesus loved; they saw that he set no lim­its on his devo­tion, but was in every way focussed on the sal­va­tion of peo­ple. Fol­low­ing this exam­ple of devo­tion, the Chris­tians began after Pen­te­cost to share their lives togeth­er, putting broth­er­ly love into prac­tice in their dai­ly lives. For a more detailed descrip­tion of this you can read the first cou­ple of chap­ters of the book of Acts, or our arti­cle about The Life of the First Chris­tians.

What we see in today’s so-called church­es falls a long way short of this life of devo­tion. Where people’s readi­ness to have “fel­low­ship” is lim­it­ed to attend­ing church events and a few com­mon leisure activ­i­ties, the word “love” can­not be applied. John clear­ly says, “Who­ev­er does not love abides in death.” He also says:

Beloved, let us love one anoth­er, for love is from God, and who­ev­er loves has been born of God and knows God. Any­one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7–8)

See also: God is Love and Are Chris­tians Allowed to Judge?

2.4 The Church is Visible

A wide spread view in reli­gious cir­cles is the false doc­trine of the “invis­i­ble church”. Put briefly, this teach­ing claims that with­in the var­i­ous reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions there are a num­ber of scat­tered Chris­tians, or “true” believ­ers. They make up the invis­i­ble church which Jesus will gath­er togeth­er in heav­en as a vis­i­ble church only when he returns. It is sup­posed that there will nev­er be a “per­fect church” on this earth.

From the New Tes­ta­ment we can see that the church was and should be a vis­i­ble tes­ti­mo­ny for the world. Per­fec­tion was not the issue. At that time there were var­i­ous prob­lems and chal­lenges the church had to face with God’s help, strength and lead­ing. Nev­er­the­less, the church was not a mix­ture of a few “born again” believ­ers and many nom­i­nal Chris­tians. In Acts 2:44–47 we read:

And all who believed were togeth­er and had all things in com­mon. And they were sell­ing their pos­ses­sions and belong­ings and dis­trib­ut­ing the pro­ceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attend­ing the tem­ple togeth­er and break­ing bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and gen­er­ous hearts, prais­ing God and hav­ing favour with all the peo­ple. And the Lord added to their num­ber day by day those who were being saved.

It also says:

Now many signs and won­ders were reg­u­lar­ly done among the peo­ple by the hands of the apos­tles. And they were all togeth­er in Solomon’s Por­ti­co. None of the rest dared join them, but the peo­ple held them in high esteem. And more than ever believ­ers were added to the Lord, mul­ti­tudes of both men and women… (Acts 5:12–14)

To “believe in the Lord” at was not about being bap­tized as a baby, attend­ing church “ser­vices” on Sun­day and more or less adher­ing to Chris­t­ian val­ues. It meant chang­ing one’s life and con­vic­tions pro­found­ly in accor­dance with the teach­ing of Jesus, which is out­ward­ly clear­ly vis­i­ble. Peo­ple who did not share this con­vic­tion did not dare to join the church.

Paul also con­firms that there should be a clear dif­fer­ence and bor­der between Chris­tians and every­one else…

Do not be unequal­ly yoked with unbe­liev­ers. For what part­ner­ship has right­eous­ness with law­less­ness? Or what fel­low­ship has light with dark­ness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what por­tion does a believ­er share with an unbe­liev­er? What agree­ment has the tem­ple of God with idols? For we are the tem­ple of the liv­ing God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my peo­ple. There­fore go out from their midst, and be sep­a­rate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will wel­come you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daugh­ters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” (2 Corinthi­ans 6:14–18)

The church is a bea­con of hope for every­one who seeks and loves God. It will only remain so if there is a clear sep­a­ra­tion between light and dark­ness, right and false doc­trine, faith and reli­gios­i­ty, obe­di­ence and play­ing down sin etc. That is why Paul encour­ages Chris­tians to sep­a­rate them­selves and to touch no unclean thing, so that God can be their Father.

This includes the readi­ness to sep­a­rate from peo­ple who want to cling to sins in spite of all the help they received from God and the church.

I wrote to you in my let­ter not to asso­ciate with sex­u­al­ly immoral peo­ple— not at all mean­ing the sex­u­al­ly immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idol­aters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writ­ing to you not to asso­ciate with any­one who bears the name of broth­er if he is guilty of sex­u­al immoral­i­ty or greed, or is an idol­ater, revil­er, drunk­ard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judg­ing out­siders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those out­side. “Purge the evil per­son from among you.” (1 Corinthi­ans 5:9–13)

We can­not and should not leave this world. At school or at work etc. we are sur­round­ed by peo­ple who do not share our faith and for whom God is of no impor­tance. We should be a light for them (Matthew 5:14–16). From our words and actions they should be able to rec­og­nize who our Lord is and what he is like.

But it is not pos­si­ble for a per­son who wants to live in sin or hold to unbib­li­cal teach­ings to remain in the church long-term because the church should be able to be dis­tin­guished from every­thing else that is in the world. It should be rec­og­niz­able as the place where every­thing is deter­mined by the love and grat­i­tude to God, and to which God can lead every per­son who is seek­ing him and the truth.

See also: The Vis­i­ble Church

2.5 The Apostolicity of the Church

… built on the foun­da­tion of the apos­tles and prophets, Christ Jesus him­self being the cor­ner­stone, in whom the whole struc­ture, being joined togeth­er, grows into a holy tem­ple in the Lord. (Eph­esians 2:20–21)

What we mean by the apos­tolic­i­ty of the church is that the church, in its teach­ing and life, holds faith­ful­ly to the teach­ing and exam­ple of the Apos­tles, which we know from the New Tes­ta­ment. Jesus entrust­ed his teach­ings to the Apos­tles, his dis­ci­ples. It is from them that we have received the apos­tolic tra­di­tion, the teach­ing of Christ. It has been record­ed in the New Tes­ta­ment and we must clear­ly reject every­thing that devi­ates from it.

Every­one who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teach­ing of Christ, does not have God. Who­ev­er abides in the teach­ing has both the Father and the Son. If any­one comes to you and does not bring this teach­ing, do not receive him into your house or give him any greet­ing, for who­ev­er greets him takes part in his wicked works. (2 John 9–11)

Con­cern­ing the first church we read that the believ­ers devot­ed them­selves to the apos­tles’ teach­ing (Acts 2:42). At that time the Chris­tians were aware that the apos­tles were the ones who had received author­i­ty from Jesus to pro­claim his teach­ing to the world, as he said:

Go there­fore and make dis­ci­ples of all nations, bap­tiz­ing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spir­it, teach­ing them to observe all that I have com­mand­ed you. (Matthew 28:19–20)

The apos­tles ful­filled this com­mis­sion, mak­ing dis­ci­ples of peo­ple who were then able to call oth­er peo­ple to become dis­ci­ples. The great com­mis­sion is valid for all Chris­tians, but the apos­tles laid the foun­da­tion for this by pass­ing on the teach­ing of Jesus which, in con­trast to all oth­er Chris­tians, they received direct­ly from him.

Paul, who is count­ed among the apos­tles in the Bible, also went to great extents to ensure that the orig­i­nal apos­tolic teach­ing is pre­served. He wrote to Tim­o­thy that faith­ful peo­ple should hand on what they heard:

You then, my child, be strength­ened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the pres­ence of many wit­ness­es entrust to faith­ful men who will be able to teach oth­ers also. (2 Tim­o­thy 2:1–2)

The let­ter to the Gala­tians also shows how clear­ly he con­demns every devi­a­tion from the Gospel which the Chris­tians received from the apos­tles:

I am aston­ished that you are so quick­ly desert­ing him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turn­ing to a dif­fer­ent gospel— not that there is anoth­er one, but there are some who trou­ble you and want to dis­tort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heav­en should preach to you a gospel con­trary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. (Gala­tians 1:6–8)

These words are just as rel­e­vant today as they were 2000 years ago. What was pro­claimed as the true doc­trine back then remains the true doc­trine today as well. For just as God does not change, nei­ther does the truth change. If the church is the pil­lar and but­tress of the truth (1 Tim­o­thy 3:15), its role in pro­claim­ing and pre­serv­ing the truth is very sig­nif­i­cant. For this rea­son we must vie with great fer­vour to hold onto the apos­tolic teach­ing that was once for all deliv­ered to the saints. Jude encour­ages us to do this:

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our com­mon sal­va­tion, I found it nec­es­sary to write appeal­ing to you to con­tend for the faith that was once for all deliv­ered to the saints. (Jude 3)

We still want to briefly address the claim to so-called ‘apos­tolic suc­ces­sion’ made by the Roman Catholic Church. It claims that the Roman Bish­op (the Pope) as the head of the Roman Catholic Church is the direct suc­ces­sor of the Apos­tle Peter him­self, who was sup­pos­ed­ly the first Roman bish­op, through an unbro­ken chain of bish­ops.

The Catholic church his­to­ri­an Brox writes about this in his book Kirchengeschichte des Alter­tums (Church His­to­ry in Antiq­ui­ty):

Final­ly, con­cern­ing the tra­di­tion of a chain of Roman Bish­ops link­ing back to Peter, there is a list of their names (in Ire­naus, Adv. Haere­ses III 3:3), but it was only com­piled in the late 2nd cen­tu­ry and is based on the­o­log­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions, not on his­tor­i­cal research.³

It is not on the base of dubi­ous suc­ces­sion lists that we are with­in the apos­tolic tra­di­tion, but only when the con­tent of our faith is in agree­ment with the teach­ing of the Bible.

2.6 The Church is Catholic (Universal)

The term ‘catholic’ is not found in the writ­ings of the New Tes­ta­ment. But because both the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed use this tech­ni­cal term, we too would like to deal with this fre­quent­ly men­tioned fea­ture of the church.

The church has been described as ‘catholic’ since the ear­ly 2nd cen­tu­ry. This word stems from the Greek katho­like and means ‘gen­er­al­ly valid’ or ‘uni­ver­sal’. This cor­re­sponds to Jesus’ words in Matthew 28:18–20:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All author­i­ty in heav­en and on earth has been giv­en to me. Go there­fore and make dis­ci­ples of all nations, bap­tiz­ing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spir­it, teach­ing them to observe all that I have com­mand­ed you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

All nations are called to observe all the words of Jesus. At the “apos­tles’ coun­cil” James also spoke about a “peo­ple from among the nations” (Acts 15:14).

Because the church con­sists of peo­ple who have received a new life through Jesus, what Paul express­es in Colos­sians 3:11 and Gala­tians 3:28 is the real­i­ty in the church:

Here there is not Greek and Jew, cir­cum­cised and uncir­cum­cised, bar­bar­ian, Scythi­an, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (Colos­sians 3:11)

There is nei­ther Jew nor Greek, there is nei­ther slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gala­tians 3:28)

Just as Christ is all, and in all, this ‘catholic’ church also is one. At all times from the time of the Apos­tles till the return of the Lord, in all places from Jerusalem to the remotest cor­ner of the globe, the church believes in the same doc­trine and lives the same love every­where and always.

This is also in agree­ment with Vin­cent of Lérins’ (died before AD 450) well-known def­i­n­i­tion of the term ‘catholic’:

More­over, in the Catholic Church itself, all pos­si­ble care must be tak­en, that we hold that faith which has been believed every­where, always, by all. For that is tru­ly and in the strictest sense “Catholic”.(Com­mon­i­to­ri­um 2)

If a group which calls itself a church has teach­ings which have not been believed every­where, always, and by all, i.e. doc­trines which the church did not hold from the begin­ning, this group is not catholic accord­ing to this def­i­n­i­tion, even if it bears this title in its offi­cial name.

The uni­ver­sal­i­ty of the church is not secured through a world-wide hier­ar­chi­cal sys­tem, but through the rela­tion­ship of each indi­vid­ual rela­tion­ship with God, who con­tributes to build­ing Jesus’ Church through the lead­ing of the Holy Spir­it.

3 Summary

From the New Tes­ta­ment we can see how the first Chris­tians under­stood and lived out church. The church was not an orga­ni­za­tion found­ed by men and held togeth­er by a hier­ar­chy; it was not a place where peo­ple were invit­ed to vis­it an event. The clear dis­tin­guish­ing fea­tures of the church are the love among Chris­tians, the pur­suit of deep uni­ty, the com­mon strug­gle for holi­ness and hold­ing fast to the teach­ings of the Apos­tles.

God became man in Jesus in order to open our eyes to see how we stand before him, to see how much he wants us to turn to him so that he can for­give us our guilt and give us eter­nal life. The love, uni­ty and holi­ness of the church are a fore­taste of heav­en. They are the fruit of the will­ing­ness of every indi­vid­ual Chris­t­ian to devote his life to serv­ing God and allow­ing God’s Spir­it to work in his life.

1. We are aware that we can­not derive too much from the ety­mol­o­gy of the word “ekkle­sia” alone, because this word is also used for a nor­mal assem­bly of cit­i­zens of a city (cf. Acts 19:40). Nev­er­the­less, the aspect of being called out of the world is stressed in sev­er­al New Tes­ta­ment pas­sages, e.g. Acts 2:40; Philip­pi­ans 2:15. ↩
2. the Greek is plur­al ↩
3. Nor­bert Brox: Kirchengeschichte des Alter­tums; Düs­sel­dorf 3rd Edi­tion, 1989, p. 106 ↩