This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Another Bit of Evidence Showing How the Move from Restoration Movement to Orthodoxy Has Been Relatively Short

I have maintained in another post, that in coming to the Orthodox Church I was returning to the home that my Restoration Movement heritage long pointed me toward. Here are the first several paragraphs of a sermon by an early Restoration Movement leader, Benjamin Franklin (a sort history and biography introduces the sermon), entitled, "The Church--Its Identity". As you read the text, keep in mind that Mr. Franklin argues essentially that the Restoration Movement churches are in fact the Body of Christ. Yet from Mr. Franklin's initial theses to the Orthodox Church is, in many ways, scarcely a full stride. But it is a small shift of eternal significance.

There is a community called, in the New Testament, "the kingdom of God" (John iii: 3); "the Church of the living God" (1 Tim. iii: 15); "one body" (Eph. iv: 4).

To be in this body, Church, or kingdom, is the same as to be "in Christ." It is to be in a justified state, or pardoned state. To enter into it, is to enter into a state of justification or pardon. In entering into that body, we come to the blood of Christ, which cleanses from all sin; to the Spirit and to the life of Christ, all of which are in the body. If we enjoy pardon, the benefits of the blood of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the life of Christ, we must be in the body. God and Christ dwell in the Church, which is the temple of God and the "pillar and support of the truth." To dwell with God and Christ, enjoy the cleansing of the blood of Christ, the remission of sins, the impartation of the Spirit of God, and the new life, we must be in Christ, or in his body--the Church. To be out of the Church is to be separated from God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the blood of Christ, the life of Christ, and justification. It becomes a matter of momentous importance, then, to know that we are in Christ, or in the Church.

It is not enough to know that we are in a Church, but we must know that we are in "the Church of the living God," "the kingdom of God," or "body of Christ." There is not a promise in any other institution or community, but this. The Lord has one Church, and we must not mistake something else for that Church. How can we know that we are members of the Church, unless we know what the Church is? If we do not know what the Church is, we do not know whether we are in the Church or not, whether we are in Christ or not, whether we are justified or not. If we intend to enjoy God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the blood of Christ, and, in one word, the salvation of God, in the kingdom or Church, we must be in that kingdom. To be in the kingdom or Church, we must know what it is. How shall we, then, identify the Church or kingdom of Christ? I lay down the following points for consideration:

I. A body, or community, not built on the foundation which God laid, is not the community which the Lord calls "my Church."

II. A community not founded and established in the right place, is not the Church of Christ.

III. A community not founded at the right time, is not the kingdom of Christ.

IV. No church can be the true Church not founded by the proper persons, Christ and the apostles.

V. A kingdom, with any other law than the one given by the head of the Church, is not the kingdom of Christ.

VI. Any community labeled with a foreign name, or a name not found to designate the body of Christ, in the New Testament, is not the kingdom of God.

A failure at any one of these points is fatal to the claims of any body professing to be the body of Christ. It is due to the greater portion of the religious bodies of our day, called "churches," to state distinctly that they do not claim to be the kingdom of God, or the body of Christ. Excepting a few, the balance only claim to be branches of the body, or Church of Christ. Where a church does not claim to be "the Church," but simply a branch of the Church, the members are only members of a branch, and the officers are only officers of a branch, and not members and officers of the body of Christ