SOME HAVE SAID all the various denominations are part of Christ’s “one church,” but this belief cannot be harmonized with the Bible…

In John 15:5, Jesus said He is the vine and His people are the branches.  Since a single vine does not produce different fruits, the one church built by Christ cannot consist of different beliefs and practices.  This point is also demonstrated by the parable of the sower (Mark 4:3-20).  When the seed (the word of God) is sown, it cannot produce a variety of religious plants (i.e., denominations).

A principle from the earliest of time (Genesis 1:25) is “everything brings forth after its kind” (KJV).  If truth and only truth is sown, the church of the New Testament will always be the result.  If some truth and some error are sown, the result will not be a local congregation that models the church Jesus built.  When some truth and human tradition or make-made councils or earthy headquarters are combined, we will have the result that is now throughout the world:  thousands of different denominations.

If the modern concept of denominationalism is right (God accepts nearly any religious group designated as Christian), why did Paul dedicate so much energy to correcting the division at Corinth (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:2, 13)?  If religious division is good (and this is what modern denominationalism says), Paul should have left the Corinthians alone in this regard.  He should have congratulated them on their diversity and encouraged it.  Paul refused to leave the problem of religious division alone.  He also promised to address the lack of unity, if the Corinthians refused to correct this problem themselves (2 Corinthians 10:1-6, 8-11).

There is only “one faith” (Ephesians 4:5), and this faith is practiced in every congregation of Christ’s church.  When we become a Christian as the Bible describes, we are members of “the church of the Lord” (Acts 20:28) and the “temple of God” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).  The church consists of those who are “in Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 1:2).  People enter into Christ through baptism (Galatians 3:27).  Brad Price

“Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”  1 Corinthians 1:10; cf. 1:11-17; 3:1-4

–Mike Benson