One Head, one House, one Family

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 11^th 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.