Views: 3<\/p>
[Note<\/strong>:\u00a0 <\/strong>This MS is available in larger font on our Brief Articles 3<\/strong>\u00a0 page.]<\/span><\/p>\n The title above is one of several questions a visitor to my Website, TheScripturecache.com, <\/em>submitted on December 28, 2017. His reading my MS, \u201cThe Church of Christ Is Not a Denomination,\u201d provoked the questions (obviously disagreeing with my MS). I have not revealed his name since it is not relevant either to his question or to my response (I will identify him to individual inquirers). Below is the querist\u2019s full response to my MS:<\/span><\/p>\n Isn’t it true that the phrase “church of Christ\u201d isn’t in the Bible? How can the one and only church be called something that even God never called it? Isn’t it true that “churches of Christ” refers to LOCAL churches just as in the same context of churches of the Gentiles? What is the Biblical name of the universal church?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I responded to his questions as follows: <\/span><\/p>\n Dear ______,<\/span><\/p>\n Thanks for visiting TheScripturcecache<\/em>, and for reading at least one of my MSS. There is no single Biblical \u201cname\u201d for the church that Jesus built upon the fact of His Deity and bought with His blood (Mat. 16:16\u201319; Acts 20:28). Contrary to your denial, church of Christ <\/em>is in the New Testament\u2014in the very terminology you quoted from Romans 16:16 (i.e., churches of Christ<\/em>). There could hardly be a plurality of \u201cchurches of Christ\u201d without the existence of an individual \u201cchurch of Christ.\u201d Further, of what were the several \u201cchurches of Christ\u201d from which Paul sent greetings to the \u201cchurch of Christ\u201d in Rome, if not the \u201cuniversal\u201d \u201cchurch of Christ\u201d? While the NT prescribes no exclusive \u201cname\u201d for the church in the sense that you are asking for one, the NT employs descriptive terms or designations for it, the most common of which is simply \u201cthe church.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Paul employed church of God <\/em>in the \u201cuniversal\u201d sense repeatedly (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:9; Gal. 1:13; 1 Tim. 3:5). Were Christ and His Father one in all matters, as the Lord declared (John 17:21)? This being so, they had\/have only one church. Thus we may Scripturally\u2014and logically\u2014substitute the church of Christ <\/em>each time Scripture uses the church of God<\/em>. Further, the KJV reads in Acts 20:28, \u201cthe church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.\u201d God the Father never had any blood, so the obvious reference is to Christ\u2014and, using the KJV verbiage\u2014referring to Him as \u201cGod\u201d is a powerful testimony to His Deity. However, it is quite likely that the ASV is the correct rendering here: \u201cthe church of the Lord which he purchased with his own blood.\u201d Note that Paul does not here refer to a single congregation, but to the church in the aggregate, embracing all the individual<\/span>\u00a0assemblies. Clearly, church of the Lord <\/em>is but another way of saying church of\u00a0Christ. <\/em>However, all one need do to understand that church of Christ <\/em>is a Scriptural term for the \u201cuniversal\u201d church is to remember who built it, bought it, and to Whom it belongs.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n ______, from my knowledge of you over the years, I am sad to see that you are still bogged down in an apparent cynical denial of some of the most basic and simple teachings of God\u2019s Word. I pray that you will one day repent of your liberalism and help us \u201cfight the good fight of the faith\u201d that you may \u201clay hold on the life eternal\u201d (1 Tim. 6:12).<\/span><\/p>\n Yours in the Cause,<\/span><\/p>\n Dub McClish<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Attribution: <\/strong>From TheScripturecache.com<\/em>, owned and administered by Dub McClish.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Views: 3[Note:\u00a0 This MS is available in larger font on our Brief Articles 3\u00a0 page.] The title above is one of several questions a visitor to my Website, TheScripturecache.com, submitted on December 28, 2017. His reading my MS, \u201cThe Church of Christ Is Not a…<\/p>\n