2Co 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ. [asv]

Mat 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Ephesians 5:25-29 (nkjv)

25 . . . just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. . . . 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. 30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.

Our subject could well be entitled “True Christianity." By this we mean pure and simple New Covenant Christianity, without addition, subtraction or substitution. This necessarily means undivided Christianity -- undivided by sects or parties, and so we refer to non-sectarian Christianity; and un-divided by names, and so we refer to non-denominational (or un-denominational) Christianity.

Probably the greatest progress the Cause of Christ has ever experienced in America was during the days of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when the emphasis of preaching was upon restoring first century religion. "Restoration preaching," it was called. As I read the sermons of some of the most influential preachers of the last century and before, I see plea after plea was made for simple, pure, non-sectarian, un-denominational Christianity. Distinctions were made between believers and non believers, and subsequently the one spiritual body of Christ and the various manmade, man-named, man-ruled religious institutions and organizations that covered the land.

But is this true today? I would think not! Individual relationship to the Almighty God through the Lord Jesus has been subjected to an “up the organization” church preaching, and by my judgment it is undermining the saving of souls, the development of individual spiritual understanding of Scripture, and the failure of the great commission. The editor of one of our largest journals recently wrote that he did not know of one single congregation that was growing as a result of the Gospel being preached. I hope this is not true, but know it is true in many congregations of this area.

This subject of simple, individual, personal Christianity, it would seem to me, is inadequately discussed today from the pulpit and in the classroom. It seems that many of our most influential leaders and preachers, if we may judge by their language, no longer recognize these distinctions, or perhaps do not themselves understand these distinctions. (Giving all these the benefit of any doubt, it could well be that they have simply grown tired of trying to convince minds that resist conviction, and thus have drifted back into an accommodating frame of mindset of “choose the local church of your choice.” While not agreeing that this is as it should be, I can at the least understand it.)

We will agree at the outset that the matter of understanding and teaching the importance of true, New Covenant Christianity, and clearing up all the false ideas that have separated God's people around the world, will not be easy. This is true for a number of reasons:

The religious world has become so accustomed to thinking of the church of the New Testament in terms made popular by denominationalism, that it is nearly impossible to disassociate the simple truth of simple and pure Christianity from these denominational terms and ideas. Yet, sincere and careful students of the Scriptures can soon know that they are not the same. When one reads in Scriptures about the Gospel being preached, the saved added together in Christ, the oneness and unity that was preached, prayed for and practiced, no one can in his wildest imagination think that modern denominationalism (Churchanity, it is called by some) was ever intended by Jesus. No one could suppose that Paul, or any other apostle, "belonged to," or ever intended there to be, multiplied religious denominations such as we have in abundance today. Of no conversion set forth in the Book of Acts is there even a hint that any one ever did join, or ever was expected to join, any religious denomination such as we have in abundance today. He was baptized into Christ, and was added to all the others who had been redeemed through their obedient faith.

To illustrate this point, we today frequently hear the question, "What church do you belong to?" Such a question in apostolic times would have been meaningless, if not ridiculous. There were of course, on the Lord's Day and on other special occasions, many collections, groups, or congregations of Christians in the time of Paul, but they were all of the same kind and spirit. And, they were all of the same name! That's right -- of the same name! Their name? Simply "the church." It was "the" church, referred to simply as "the church at Ephesus," or, "the church in Jerusalem," etc. No congregation was ever named -- and this is what the word denominated means -- and if there was a group of saints that met for worship and edification in a certain house it is simply described as "the church in that house."