By many accounts there are over 30,000 denominations within
Christendom today. To me, this prospect is quite unsettling and it leads to me
to ask the question: why? Why is “the church” (note singular) plural today? And
further to this, the church is not just plural, but downright conflicted with
some groups ranging from suspicious to outright dismissive of the others. How
can we all claim to be right, while we remain in conflict with one another? If all 30,000+ of us are reading the same
scriptures and all claiming to be led by divine interpretation and not our own,
then either God is confused or we are. I know that God is not the author of
confusion, so it must be man – again. I
guess we’ll have to do some digging to see when this divisiveness in the church
actually began.
History teaches us that Catholicism was at one time the only
universal church until the “Great Schism” in the 11th century which
led to the formation of two branches in Christendom: the Catholic church and
the Eastern Orthodox church. However, the confusion didn’t stop there. Across the
years, decades, and centuries; and across the countries, kingdoms, kings, and
emperors, thousands of other branches of Christendom came into being. And today
we stand at over 30,000 denominations, sects, sub-sects, cults, and break-away
groups of one supposed faith. Christianity today is arguably the largest
religion in the world, yet, in my opinion, it is the most confused and divided
of all other faith groups. Yet I
digress, and the truth is that division was occurring during the days of the Apostles, but that is another topic.
So why does history talk about the Catholic church as the
original universal church when Christians believe that their faith started with
Yeshua (Christ is a Greek translation)?
This is a quandary because Yeshua was Jewish. While Catholicism teaches
that Kefa (Peter) was the first “Pope” of the Catholic church, again there remains
the quandary of Kefa’s Jewish heritage.
In fact, all of the Apostles were Jewish, with the exception of Luke
that some say was a proselyte or Jewish convert. And we all love to highlight Sha'ul's (Paul's) teachings, but again, he was a Jew who even took steps to prove that he did not renounce his Jewish-ness as seen in Acts 21. So, it appears that there are some stark
contrasts that need to reconciled – if possible.
Before we go on, I want to preface that my intent is not to
judge any denomination, but to bring to the forefront our perception of what we
think, or who we think the church is. So
let’s take a closer look.
Catholic, which means universal, has its headquarters in Rome. So the Vatican is the headquarters of the
“universal” or Catholic church. However, our Lord and Saviour, Yeshua, was born
in the city of Beit-Lechem (Bethlehem)
which is in Israel. Note that Israel is both the name of a
country and the name of a nation of people.
Secondly, our Lord and Saviour, Yeshua, is returning to Israel for his second coming where he shall
reign for a millennia; he is not returning to Rome.
Thirdly, the book of Revelation says that Yerushalayim (Jerusalem)
is the new city that shall descend from heaven adorned
as a bride unto our God, not Rome. And the gates of the new Yerushalayim are
named after the twelve Jewish tribes of Israel, and the twelve foundations of
the city are named after the twelve Jewish Apostles. No name of any denomination that man has made
is adorned on the heavenly city.
So, let’s do a history recap: God called a man named Avraham
(Abraham) to follow him, through whom would come the seed of promise for the
redemption of mankind. God also made a
promise of inheritance to Avraham, which included the possession of the land of Israel.
Eventually through Avraham came the nation of Israel
whom God wed in marriage at Mount Sinai. Israel committed adultery soon
after covenant was made with God, but their seed still inherited the promised
land after forty years. Some time later,
a Jewish king is raised up who conquered the enemies of Israel and his
name was David, a man after God’s own heart.
14 generations later, again due to Israel’s
adultery against God, the people are carried away by pagan nations into exile
while a remnant (Judah)
remains. Then another 14 generations pass before the first coming of Messiah,
Yeshua, to Yerushalayim. Before his
crucifixion, Yeshua rode into Yerushalayim on a donkey, as a humble king of his
people. Yet when Yeshua returns, he is
coming to conquer the world and reign as king over his kingdom, Israel. The same land that God promised to Avraham thousands
of years ago, is the same land that God shall reign as king – time has not
changed God’s plans.
Now in terms of the church, it was established at Mount Sinai when God made covenant with a people. You could say that the first member of the church was Adam, but God's relationship with man wasn't documented in writing until Mount Sinai when he said he would be a husband to Israel. Yet, despite His bride's sin, God sent his Son,
Yeshua, to take the punishment for their sins in order to reconcile His bride, Israel,
back to Himself. In addition to this,
God extended the opportunity to enter into covenant with Him to anyone else
outside of Israel
who would believe. As such, when we come
to God through Yeshua, we come into his family, Israel. There are no denominations
with God. There is only a people named Israel, a land of our inheritance called Israel, and the place where God shall establish
His kingdom forever, which is Israel.
God does not change folks.
Romans 10 uses
the branch and vine analogy to teach us that we are one family. Israel are branches of the vine,
and the vine is Yeshua. However, because
Israel committed adultery, like
a branch, Israel
was cut off from the vine. The good news
is that through Yeshua’s sacrifice, the branches that were cut off due to sin, can
now be grafted back in to where they belong. We, the non-Jews, were not originally
of the vine, we were wild branches (of a pagan heritage). However, through grace we are grafted into
the vine (Yeshua). The moral of the story is that all of us, Jew and
non-Jew, are branches that need the gift of salvation to be grafted into
the vine. The only difference is that
the Jew is a natural branch of the vine, while the non-Jew is an unnatural
branch. Indeed, no man can graft himself
into the vine, so we dare not boast, as only God through his grace and love can
bring us into his family.
Understand that before the coming of Messiah, the Jews were saved by
grace (the Passover) and had covenant with God, but committed adultery. So it's through Yeshua that the Jews can be re-grafted
into the place they belong. Put simply, they can come back into right fellowship with
their husband again. While the
non-Jew, who never had covenant with God, through Yeshua’s sacrifice, can now
be grafted into God’s family for the first time. So, the non-Jew ought to learn from the
mistakes of those before us. As the children of Israel were at one time cut off
because of sin, so it can be for us today.
None is better than the other for we are all saved by grace.
Yeshua came so that we can be “born-again” in him. That is, be a new creature, one who can enter
into a new covenant with God once the old man is dead. The terms of the covenant remain the same, we
are the one’s who are new. Yeshua is
also the head of the church which was established at the Mount, and the name of the
church (or his family) is Israel. This is the name that God gave to his family
before you and I were born. Israel was the
name of his bride before he married her at the Mount, and although Israel committed adultery soon after the “I do’s” were said, God has, and will
always remain faithful to the covenant of marriage he made to Israel thousands
of years ago. The bottom line is that God married Israel
friends, not the Baptists, or the Anglicans, or the Catholics, or any of the
other 30,000+ denominations that we can make up. So, when we accept Yeshua as our Lord and
Savior, we now come into God’s singular family.
He remains the husband of one house - the House of Israel.
And let us not perceive the House of Israel as an ethnicity,
for many nations belong to it. There is no discrimination with God. So it
matters not what country you were born, your race, ethnicity, the language you
speak, your cultural heritage or any other factor. An example of unity is described in the Jamaican motto which says: “out of many, one
people.” I believe this is how we should think of
God’s House. There is no division, there
is only one.
Shalom.
