THE TRUE CHURCH

Where is this one true Church? What is this one true Church like? What are the marks by which this one true Church may be known? You may well ask such questions. Give me your attention, and I will provide you with some answers.

1. The one true Church IS COMPOSED OF ALL BELIEVERS IN THE LORD JESUS. It is made up of all God's elect - of all converted men and women - of all true Christians. In whomsoever we can discern the election of God the Father, the sprinkling of the blood of God the Son, the sanctifying work of God the Spirit, in that person we see a member of Christ's true Church.

2. It is a Church OF WHICH ALL THE MEMBERS HAVE THE SAME MARKS. They are all born again of the Spirit; they all possess "repentance towards God, faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ," and holiness of life and conversation. They all hate sin, and they all love Christ. (They worship differently, and after various fashions; some worship with a form of prayer, and some with none; some worship kneeling, and some standing; but they all worship with one heart.) They are all led by one Spirit; they all build upon one foundation; they all draw their religion from one single book - that is the Bible. They are all joined to one great center - that is Jesus Christ. They all even now can say with one heart, "Hallelujah;" and they can all respond with one heart and voice, Amen and Amen.

3. It is a Church WHICH IS DEPENDENT UPON NO MINISTERS UPON EARTH, however much it values those who preach the gospel to its members. The life of its members does not hang upon Church-membership, or baptism, or the Lord's Supper - although they highly value these things when they are to be had. But it has only one Great Head - one Shepherd, one chief Bishop - and that is Jesus Christ. He alone, By His Spirit, admits the members of this Church, though ministers may show the door. Till He opens the door no man on earth can open it - neither bishops, nor presbyters, nor convocations, nor synods. Once let a man repent and believe the gospel, and that moment he becomes a member of this Church. Like the penitent thief, he may have no opportunity of being baptized; but he has that which is far better than any water-baptism - the baptism of the Spirit. He may not be able to receive the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper;but he eats Christ's body and drinks Christ's blood by faith every day he lives, and no minister on earth can prevent him. He may be ex-communicated by ordained men, and cut off from the outward ordinances of the professing Church; but all the ordained men in the world cannot shut him out of the true Church.

It is a Church whose existence does not depend on forms, ceremonies, cathedrals, churches, chapels, pulpits, fonts, vestments, organs, endowments, money, kings, governments, magistrates or any act of favor whatsoever from the hand of man. It has often lived on and continued when all these things have been taken from it. It has often been driven into the wilderness, or into dens and caves of the earth, by those who ought to have been its friends. Its existence depends on nothing but the presence of Christ and His Spirit; and they being ever with it, the Church cannot die.

4. This is the Church TO WHICH THE SCRIPTURAL TITLES OF PRESENT HONOR AND PRIVILEGE, AND THE PROMISES OF FUTURE GLORY ESPECIALLY BELONG; this is the Body of Christ; this is the flock of Christ; this is the household of faith and the family of God; this is God's building, God's foundation, and the temple of the Holy Ghost. This is the Church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven; this is the royal priesthood, the chosen generation, the peculiar people, the purchased possession, the habitation of God, the light of the world, the salt and the wheat of the earth; this is the "Holy Catholic Church" of the Apostles' Creed; this is the "One Catholic and Apostolic Church" of the Nicene Creed; this is that Church to which the Lord Jesus promises "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," and to which He says, "I am with you always, even unto the end of the world"(Matt.16:18; 28:2).

5. This is the only Church WHICH POSSESSES TRUE UNITY. Its members are entirely agreed on all the weightier matters of religion, for they are all taught by one Spirit. About God, and Christ, and the Spirit, and sin, and their own hearts, and faith, and repentance, and necessity of holiness, and the value of the Bible, and the importance of prayer, and the resurrection, and judgment to come - about all these points they are of one mind. Take three or four of them, strangers to one another, from the remotest corners of the earth; examine them separately on these points: you will find them all one judgment.

6. This is the only Church WHICH POSSESSES TRUE SANCTITY. Its members are all holy. They are not merely holy by profession, holy in name, and holy in the judgment of charity; they are all holy in act, and deed, and reality, and life, and truth. They are all more or less conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. No unholy man belongs to this Church.

7. This is the only Church WHICH IS TRULY CATHOLIC. It is not the Church of any one nation or people; its members are to be found in every part of the world where the gospel is received and believed. It is not confined within the limits of any one country, or pent up within the pale of any particular forms of outward government. In it there is no difference between Jew and Greek, black man and white, Episcopalian and Presbyterian - but faith in Christ is all. Its members will be gathered from north, and south, and east, and west, and will be of every name and tongue - but all one in Jesus Christ.

8. This is the only Church WHICH IS TRULY APOSTOLIC. It is built on the foundation laid by the Apostles, and holds the doctrines which they preached. The two grand objects at which its members aim are apostolic faith and apostolic practice; and they consider the man who talks of following the Apostles without possessing these two things to be no better than sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.

9. This is the only Church WHICH IS CERTAIN TO ENDURE UNTO THE END. Nothing can altogether overthrow and destroy it. Its members may be persecuted, oppressed, imprisoned, beaten, beheaded, burned; but the true Chruch is never altogether extinguished; it rises again from its afflictions; it lives on through fire and water. When crushed in one land it springs up in another. The Pharaohs, the Herods, the Neros, the Bloody Marys, have labored in vain to put down this Church; they slay their thousands, and then pass away and go to their own place. The true Church outlives them all, and sees them buried each in his turn. It is an anvil that has broken many a hammer in this world, and will break many a hammer still; it is a bush which is often burning, and yet it's not consumed.

10. This is the only Church OF WHICH NO ONE MEMBER CAN PERISH. Once enrolled in the lists of this Church, sinners are safe for eternity; they are never cast away. The election of God the Father, the continual intercession of God the Son, the daily renewing and sanctifying power of God the Holy Ghost, surround and fence them in like a garden enclosed. Not one bone of Christ's mystical Body shall ever be broken; not one lamb of Christ's flock shall ever be plucked out of His hand.

11. This is the Church WHICH DOES THE WORK OF CHRIST UPON EARTH. Its members are a little flock, and few in numbers, compared with the children of the world; one or two here, and two or three there - a few in this place and few in that. But these are they who shake the universe; these are they who change the fortunes of kingdoms by their prayers; these are they who are the active workers for spreading the knowledge of pure religion and undefiled; these are the life-blood of a country, the shield, the defence, the stay, and the support of any nation to which they belong.

12. This is the Church WHICH SHALL BE TRULY GLORIOUS AT THE END. When all earthly glory is passsed away then shall this Church be presented without spot before God the Father's throne. Thrones, principalities, and powers upon earth shall come to nothing; dignities, and offices, and endowments shall all pass away; but the Church of the first-born shall shine as the stars at the last, and be presented with joy before the Father's throne, in the day of Christ's appearing. When the Lord's jewels are made up, and manifestation of the sons of God takes place, Episcopacy, and Presbyterianism, and Congregationalism will not be mentioned; one Church only will be named, and that is the Church of the elect.

13. Reader, THIS IS THE TRUE CHURCH TO WHICH A MAN MUST BELONG, IF HE WOULD BE SAVED. Till you belong to this, you are nothing better than a lost soul. You may have the form, the husk, the skin, and the shell of religion, but you have not got the substance and the life. Yes, you may have countless outward privileges; you may enjoy great light, and knowledge - but if you do not belong to the Body of Christ, your light and knowledge and privileges will not save your soul. Alas, for the ignorance that prevails on this point! Men fancy if they join this church or that church, and become communicants, and go through certain forms, that all must be right in their souls. It is an utter delusion, it is a gross mistake. All were not Israel who were called Israel, and all are not members of Christ's Body who profess themselves Christian. TAKE NOTICE; you may be a staunch Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, or Independent, or Baptist, or Wesleyan, or Plymouth Brother - and yet not belong to the true Church. And if you do not, it will be better at last if you had never been born.

Words being "spirit" and "life" means that you don't have to take them literally? Do you have an example from elsewhere in Scripture where "spirit" is used to mean "metaphor" or "symbolic"?

Spiritual doen't mean 'metaphorical' or 'symbolic'. It means spiritual. If refers to another realm of being, ... that which God is.

Jesus tells us, plainly, that God is a Spirit. Therefore, when the scripture speaks of the eyes of God ...
Amos 9:8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD.
... do we understand that God has physical eyes. Of course not. We understand that God has spiritual eyes ... not 'metaphoric' ... not 'symbolic', but spiritual eyes.

Likewise, when Jesus responds to His disciples confusion over His previous statements with ...
John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
... He is saying that it is by His Spirit, ... not His flesh, ... that we have His life and that it is through belief in His words, ... by which He has taught us, ... that we receive our spiritual life.
John 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

1 John 4:13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.

14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.

15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.

"I have been in many non Catholic churches and they all accept them as valid "

Oh, I agree most Protestants claim they accept the Nicene Creed, but they really don't -e.g. the communion of saints. Rather, Protestant (partial)adherence to the creeds is an historical artifact necessitated by Protestant reluctance to leave Rome totally, particularly with respect to the Trinitarian view of God. Hence, in order to support a Trinitarian view of God, Protestants maintain their supposed belief in the creeds while manufacturing theologies totally out-of-sync with the theology which undergirded those who formulated the creed. Thus, they really don't believe in the Nicene Creed as promulgated in the 300's. Instead they believe in a creed formulated 1200 years later and then call it the Nicene Creed because they use the same words. Pardon the vulgarity but,... one can pour donkey urine in a wine bottle, but its still donkey urine.

This is, essentially, what many Protestants have done. They've taken the same words as the Nicene Creed (the bottle) and infused them with meanings(the, well, you get the idea) different than those which the councils intended.

Hence, I would argue virtually every Protestant I've ever met really DOESN'T believe in the creeds.

Spiritual doen't mean 'metaphorical' or 'symbolic'. It means spiritual.

Good. I'm glad we agree on that much.

... do we understand that God has physical eyes. Of course not. We understand that God has spiritual eyes ... not 'metaphoric' ... not 'symbolic', but spiritual eyes.

Yeah. Not sure why this is relevant, honestly. God the Father does not really have eyes at all. "Spiritual" or otherwise.

... He is saying that it is by His Spirit, ... not His flesh, ... that we have His life

So you are saying that Jesus is saying that His own flesh is useless? Is the Incarnation pointless? Does Jesus being human, taking on flesh mean anything? Or is it all just "profit nothing?"

and that it is through belief in His words, ... by which He has taught us, ... that we receive our spiritual life.

And now we're right back where we started. We both agree that we can receive spiritual life by Jesus' words. Now, why do you think that this means that we must take Him to be speaking metaphorically?

To me, knowing how important Jesus' words are, I do not automatically say "well, He might have said that, but He doesn't really mean it to be taken literally." I mean, absent any other evidence.

Ah, the classic rejoinder. But if you'll look at it closely with me, I think you'll see that it does violence to the text.

Jesus uses parables as metaphors or symbols, making the complex simple. And when he does, the words used can be meant figuratively.

But in John 6, something strange happens. Jesus starts off with a form of "eat" that can be taken either way (Greek: phagomai). But after Jews question his meaning, what does Jesus do? He switches to a word form (Greek: trogo) that is always taken literally in the Bible and in other ancient Greek literature. If you follow the paradigm that Jesus explains his meanings, then he has clearly gone from the possibly symbolic to the clearly literal.

But what of the appeal to John 6:63? "Bible Christians" say this means that eating real flesh is a waste. But does this make sense? Are we to understand that Christ had just commanded his disciples to literally eat his flesh, then said their doing so would be pointless? Is that what "the flesh is of no avail" means? "Eat my flesh, but you’ll find it’s a waste of time"—is that what he was saying? Hardly.

The fact is that Christ’s flesh avails much! If it were of no avail, then the Son of God was made flesh for no reason, he died for no reason, and he rose from the dead for no reason. Christ’s flesh profits us more than anyone else’s in the world. If it profits us nothing, so that the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ are of no avail, then "your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished" (1 Cor. 15:17b–18).

Note particularly that Jesus does not say "my flesh profits nothing" but "the flesh profits nothing." Where have we heard that before?

In John 6:63 "the flesh profits nothing" refers to mankind’s inclination to think and act using only what their human reason would tell them rather than what God would tell them. Thus in John 8:15–16 Jesus tells his opponents: "You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone that judge, but I and he who sent me." So natural human judgment, unaided by God’s grace, is unreliable; but God’s judgment is always true.

And were the disciples to understand the line "The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life" as nothing but a circumlocution (and a very clumsy one at that) for "symbolic"? No one can come up with such interpretations unless he first holds to the Fundamentalist position and thinks it necessary to find a rationale, no matter how forced, for evading the Catholic interpretation. In John 6:63 "flesh" does not refer to Christ’s own flesh—the context makes this clear—but to mankind’s inclination to think on a natural, human level. "The words I have spoken to you are spirit" does not mean "What I have just said is symbolic." The word "spirit" is never used that way in the Bible. The line means that what Christ has said will be understood only through faith; only by the power of the Spirit and the drawing of the Father (cf. John 6:37, 44–45, 65).

Lastly, look back at your use of Matt 13:11 (...Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven...). What did they know? What did John, the author under question, learn from Jesus and the Spirit? What did John teach his followers? Incredibly, remarkably, beautifully, we have that answer:

"I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire his blood, which is love incorruptible"
-- Ignatius, Letter to the Romans, 7:3 [A.D. 110]

Here we have Ignatius, an immediate disciple of the Apostle John, who learned at the very feet of John, reaffirming the Real Presence.

The Real Presence is something that has been held as true from the very beginning of the church. There are literally dozens of writings from the early church fathers reaffirming the literal meaning of John 6 and no record from the early centuries that even implies Christians doubted that constant Catholic interpretation. Do you appreciate what that means?

And if you really want your socks blown off, look into the meaning and use of the sacrifical paschal lamb throughout the Bible. The pure, unadulterated beauty of its fulfillment within Christ and how the Eucharist is such an incredible gift to us just destroys me.

I gotta question if this church is so right over the other then how come even the 7 churches will be judged??? What I gather its not the catholic, protestant, presbyterian, nor any other whom can claim they are the one true church and it would be against the true nature of GOD and JESUS to even consider that. God claims us as his children. Jesus claims us as his sheep. I don't see anything which refers to a MAN MADE NAMED SECT more right over the other. The only denomination we belong to is the BODY, which includes everyone who is reborn again, of Jesus Christ. He sets at the head and therefore we have no others before him. We all belong to one body and we all have one leader. It's been that way since beginning with Abraham. God nor Jesus have not changed. Its that man has changed them. I don't see my sisters and brother has being in one region on this planet I see them spanning to all four courners of this earth. And I love them all and hope that they love me too not because of what church I attend but because I am saved through Jesus Christ an added member into this family of God. I hope someday we all can see eye to eye on that and know the Lord Jesus requires us to love each other as he loves all his sheep.

Until you consider the source and the rest of the heresy and the belittlement of the Word.

My Bible I am quoting from is not from the Roman Catholic Church, although some Catholics do use it.

Nice try, but you still lose.

Marianism alone should be enough to make anyone who is born again flee.

When I was "born again", thanks to the grace of God Christ, it was because of Jesus' great love for me, for he opened my eyes about His One True Catholic Church by showing me in His Bible the truth of his Mother's immaculate and stainless beauty created in God's grace. She is the Immaculate Conception. God made His Mother all-beautiful in the greatest act of filial piety ever. She is a sign of what He will do for us also if we submit to His Church.

It is, therefore, not a matter of indifference what religion a man professes; he must profess the right and true religion, and without that there is no hope of salvation, for it stands to reason, my dear people, that if God reveals a thing or teaches a thing, He wants to be believed. Not to believe is to insult God. Doubting His word, or believing even with doubt and hesitating, is an insult to God, because it is doubting His Sacred Word. We must, therefore, believe without doubting, without hesitating.

The bible says we must profess Jesus Christ and Christ alone . Without that there is no salvation

You say you mean well, my dear friends; your meaning will not take you to heaven; you must do well also. "He that doeth the will of My Father," says Jesus, "he alone shall be saved." There are millions in hell who meant well.

You are right, there are millions that mean well that will burn in hell..because they trusted in their own righteousness, their own works and rituals that can never save

Act 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

No priest, not pope, no church, no ritual, no tradition..only the name of Jesus .

If you are trusting them to be saved , you are lost

Jhn 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me.

1Cr 3:11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

BTW there is no text that says "he alone will be saved" But that aside I agree that those that do the will of the father will be saved..but no where does it say the Fathers will is to be a Catholic..The entire NT is about salvation by faith

This reminds me of the verse

Mat 15:14 Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

The bible says we must profess Jesus Christ and Christ alone . Without that there is no salvation

You are right, there are millions that mean well that will burn in hell..because they trusted in their own righteousness, their own works and rituals that can never save

Act 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

No priest, not pope, no church, no ritual, no tradition..only the name of Jesus .

If you are trusting them to be saved , you are lost

Jhn 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me.

1Cr 3:11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

This reminds me of the verse

Mat 15:14 Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

Don't even begin on the "communion of saints."

I disagree.

Though variously named and having differing traditions, ... all of the churches (excepting the Catholic Church) see themselves as members one of another, which, ... in their totality and unity of belief and communion of the Spirit compose the body of Christ (the church).

It is the Catholic Church which has consistently stood aloof, all the time maintaining that the other churches must be subject to her, ... rather than united with her.

I said "don't begin." :-)

You miss my point. The Church does indeed teach that other "wayward brethren" who end up "saved" are part of the one communion. So there's no there there.

My point, however, was that Protestants who profess a "communion of saints" invariably consider only the present stage and not those to come. Our communion with the saints is not just of those on earth and alive, but with all who are alive in Christ.

Protestants have varying positions on the earthly dead, but I've heard none of them consider them as we do.

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