“For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 12:13
The Holy Spirit leads the believer to be baptized in water, thus putting them in that one body, the local, visible church: “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Ephesians 4:4-5
The universal church view, which originates with the Roman Catholic church, says that the Spirit baptizes all believers into one universal church body. In 1 Corinthians 12, the church is compared to a human body with various members such as the eye, the hand, etc. Have you ever seen a universal body made up of hands, eyes, feet, ears, etc.? No! There is no universal living body that can hear, speak, feel, etc. The body spoken of is the church which is visible and local.
“Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” 1 Corinthians 12:27. This is the kind of body where one member suffers, then all the other members can suffer with them. Why can they do this? It is because the members of the local church can know each other and suffer with and rejoice with each other. A world wide universal church makes it impossible to know about the suffering of other Christians around the world.
Many believe there are two kinds of bodies, but not so: “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” Ephesians 4:4-6. There is only one kind of body, which is the local, visible church.
The word church in the New Testament is translated from the Greek word ‘ecclesia,’ which means “a called out assembly.” Most of the time, it is used specific of an individual church or churches, such as the church at Antioch, the church at Jerusalem, the churches at Galatia, the churches of Asia, etc.
In some instances, the church is referred to as an institution. We speak of marriage as an institution, and we are not speaking of a universal marriage! If we bring it down to what a marriage is, it is the joining of one man and one woman together as one flesh. We often speak of the home being the foundation of civilized society, but we are not speaking of a universal home. Likewise, when we speak of the church in the institutional sense, we are not talking about a universal church, for there is no such thing. Bring it down to what a church is, and what we find is a body of scripturally baptized believers who are joined together in a visible church that has covenanted together to carry out the great commission – Matthew 28:19-20
The Roman Catholic (which means universal) church invented the universal, visible church theory. The Protestant movement modified it for themselves as the universal invisible church. Neither are Biblical.
–Edited from an article by E.L. Bynum, “The Church That Never Existed”
SHARING
