In previous articles, we set out that the Bible should be our guide or standard. It must be used to identify the Lord's church. Identity is to be determined by certain distinguishing marks or traits. We know that it is of divine origin, and not from man. We also know that it belongs to Christ and wears his name.
We can know the Lord's church can be reproduced. It was not only divinely purposed and planned (Eph. 3:8-11), but was also perpetuated. Christ put some unchangeable marks by which to identify, recognize and reproduce it in any age of the world.
"Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom..." (Matt. 13:18-19). "Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God" (Luke 8:11). The word of God is the seed of the kingdom. In Matt. 16:18-19, we read where Jesus said: "I will build my church," but then he told Peter he would give him the keys to it, he called it "the kingdom." How long was this church or kingdom to last?" "And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up his kingdom, which shall never be destroyed"(Dan. 2:44). And Christ said, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18).
It is sometimes asked: "Where was the church during the apostasy?" If there were no true active churches then, it existed in the "seed." The life is in the seed.
If one wanted to grow an Arkansas watermelon in Missouri, he would not have to plant the melon in Arkansas and let the vine cross the river into Missouri. He could just pick up the seed and plant it in Missouri. It would produce the same there as it did in Arkansas.
In like manner, the seed of the kingdom doesn't have to be "in the ground and growing" all the time from the first century until now. Wherever the seed, which is the word of God, is planted "in good ground," which the Lord describes as an "honest and good heart" (Luke 8:15), it will only produce a child of God. Children, collectively, are the church of Christ.
From the very beginning, God's law of procreation has been that kind produce after its kind (Gen. 1:1-12). Let's suppose three men bought a bag of seeds and agreed to plant their fields with the seed from the bag. The first man's seed produced watermelons; the second's produced pumpkins; the third's produced cucumbers. Who could believe that?
When the seed of the kingdom is planted, we are expected to believe that it will produce hundreds of different kinds of denominations. There are no denominations found in the New Testament. God's law on reproduction is: seed produces after its kind. Therefore, the pure word of God cannot possibly produce even one denomination. When one plants a watermelon seed, it is not possible that it will produce a pumpkin. When one plants the seed of the kingdom, the word of God, it is not possible that it will produce a denomination. It can only produce a child of God, a Christian (Acts 11:26), not some kind of hyphenated Christian, just simply a Christian.
"If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God." (I Pet. 4:11).
Don H. Noblin
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