"For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I might present you a pure virgin to Christ" (II Corinthians 11:2).
The New Testament, of course, will be the standard to which we must turn to for our evidence. The word "church" comes from the Greek word ekklesia and simply means "called out." The church of the New Testament was composed of people--people who were called out of darkness into the light of the Son of God. Such a group of "called out" people in any locality was called the "church" in that community. Hence, we read of the church at Corinth (I Cor. 1:2), the church at Thessalonica (I Thessalonians 1:1), the churches of Galatia (Galations 1:2), and such like.
John the Baptist said: "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom" (John 3:29). Paul told the brethren who composed the church at Rome that they had "become dead to the law" and that they "should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead" (Romans 7:4). And to the church at Ephesus, he said: "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body" (Ephesians 5:23). Thus we learn that Christ is the husband, and the church is the bride. As there is just one husband, so there is just one bride.
Christ promised to build but one church. "Upon this rock I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18). He died for but one. "Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it" (Eph. 5:25). The words "the church" mean but one, and the pronoun "it" can refer to but one.
Paul said that God "gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body" (Eph. 1:22-23). Not only does the Bible tell us that the church is the body of Christ, but it also tells us that it is the exclusive body. In Eph. 4, Paul lists seven elements in the unity of the Spirit--"one God, one Lord, one Spirit, one hope, one faith, one baptism and one body." In the fourth verse, he plainly says, "Ther is one body." If the "one God" is an exclusive God, and the "one Lord" is an exclusive Lord, the "one body" is an exclusive body. In I Cor. 12:20, Paul declared: "But now are there many members, yet but one body." Since there is "but one body" and "the body is the church," then there must be "but one church" of the New Testament.
"If any man speak, let his speak as the oracles of God" (I Peter 4:11).
Don H. Noblin
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