VIII
Extra-Biblical Standards
There is one fact which I want to emphasize further. In every case of denominationalism some authority other than the Bible has been recognized. Otherwise denominations could not come into existence, and denominations could not continue to exist. The extra-Biblical authority might be the man whom they call the Pope at Rome. It might be your preacher in some denomination which you look up to as being the final authority. It might be the creed of the denomination to which you belong. It might be the people among whom you move. It might be your own feelings in the matter. It might be tradition or family heritage. But I don’t care what it is, if it is outside the Bible, it is not a true source of authority in religion. The existence of so many denominations today is not caused by people’s being unable to see the Bible alike. They are here because, while a few people take the Bible as their only guide, a great many take something else as their standard.
You meet a great many people who claim to take the Bible as their only rule of faith and practice, but when you press them to cite the scriptural authority for certain of their practices they are utterly unable to do so. If one takes the Bible as sole authority in religion, then he ought to be able to point to the Scripture which gives the authority for everything he does. So don’t let a man get by with a mere statement “We take the Bible as our guide.” If you talk to him a few minutes, you will possibly find that he is following some preacher, following his feelings, or following the church to which he belongs. You may hear him use such expressions as, “What does your church believe on this point?” or “What does the church of Christ teach on a certain matter?” Well, I don’t have any church. And the church of Christ doesn’t teach anything on a certain point. If it did, its teaching would not necessarily be of any value. Such questions, such expressions betray a wrong conception of the church. The question should be: “What does the Bible teach in reference to a certain matter?”
If you can’t find authority in the Bible for your position, you’d better not depend upon it. Most of the people who are at worship this very hour belong to a church whose name they cannot find in the Bible. Yet the preachers who preach in those churches will tell you, “Yes, we take the Bible as our only guide.” To refute their claim you need only ask them one question: “Where did you get your name?” They would probably say, “It’s a nickname. Someone else gave it to us.”
“Well, how come you to acknowledge it?”
“Oh, we just got tired of objecting to it so we finally acknowledged it.”
“You didn’t get it out of the Bible then.”
Friends, think about how ridiculous it is for a man to say, “We follow the Bible, and the Bible only,” when the very name of the church to which he belongs cannot be found from Genesis to Revelation. The sad part of it is that a great many of the members don’t know the difference. I have asked people who wore an extra-Biblical name if they could find their name in the Bible. Frequently, they say, “Yes. I don’t know where it is but I’m sure it is in there somewhere.” It just isn’t there. I knew it wasn’t there, but the poor folk thought it was because they had heard some preacher say they were following the Bible.
Again I protest the statement that denominations are caused by people’s being unable to see the Bible alike. That is an insult to my God and I object to it. It is because many are following something besides the Bible. They may deny it but they are. Otherwise there could be only one church on this earth because there is only one church in the Bible.
If you belong to something this morning that you cannot read about in the Bible, won’t you come out of it? Won’t you say, “From this morning on, I will take the Bible as my guide. I will take one step at a time as that step is revealed in God’s word until it leads me home to heaven at last”?