Chapter VIII: Extra-Biblical Standards

There is one fact which I want to emphasize further. In every case of denominationalism some authority other than the Bible has been recognized. Otherwise denominations could not come into existence, and denominations could not continue to exist. The extra-Biblical authority might be the man whom they call the Pope at Rome. It might be your preacher in some denomination which you look up to as being the final authority. It might be the creed of the denomination to which you belong. It might be the people among whom you move. It might be your own feelings in the matter. It might be tradition or family heritage. But I don’t care what it is, if it is outside the Bible, it is not a true source of authority in religion. The existence of so many denominations today is not caused by people’s being unable to see the Bible alike. They are here because, while a few people take the Bible as their only guide, a great many take something else as their standard.

You meet a great many people who claim to take the Bible as their only rule of faith and practice, but when you press them to cite the scriptural authority for certain of their practices they are utterly unable to do so. If one takes the Bible as sole authority in religion, then he ought to be able to point to the Scripture which gives the authority for everything he does. So don’t let a man get by with a mere statement “We take the Bible as our guide.” If you talk to him a few minutes, you will possibly find that he is following some preacher, following his feelings, or following the church to which he belongs. You may hear him use such expressions as, “What does your church believe on this point?” or “What does the church of Christ teach on a certain matter?” Well, I don’t have any church. And the church of Christ doesn’t teach anything on a certain point. If it did, its teaching would not necessarily be of any value. Such questions, such expressions betray a wrong conception of the church. The question should be: “What does the Bible teach in reference to a certain matter?”

If you can’t find authority in the Bible for your position, you’d better not depend upon it. Most of the people who are at worship this very hour belong to a church whose name they cannot find in the Bible. Yet the preachers who preach in those churches will tell you, “Yes, we take the Bible as our only guide.” To refute their claim you need only ask them one question: “Where did you get your name?” They would probably say, “It’s a nickname. Someone else gave it to us.”

“Well, how come you to acknowledge it?”

“Oh, we just got tired of objecting to it so we finally acknowledged it.”

“You didn’t get it out of the Bible then.”

Friends, think about how ridiculous it is for a man to say, “We follow the Bible, and the Bible only,” when the very name of the church to which he belongs cannot be found from Genesis to Revelation. The sad part of it is that a great many of the members don’t know the difference. I have asked people who wore an extra-Biblical name if they could find their name in the Bible. Frequently, they say, “Yes. I don’t know where it is but I’m sure it is in there somewhere.” It just isn’t there. I knew it wasn’t there, but the poor folk thought it was because they had heard some preacher say they were following the Bible.

Again I protest the statement that denominations are caused by people’s being unable to see the Bible alike. That is an insult to my God and I object to it. It is because many are following something besides the Bible. They may deny it but they are. Otherwise there could be only one church on this earth because there is only one church in the Bible.

If you belong to something this morning that you cannot read about in the Bible, won’t you come out of it? Won’t you say, “From this morning on, I will take the Bible as my guide. I will take one step at a time as that step is revealed in God’s word until it leads me home to heaven at last”?

Now, if you will do that, the way is simple. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). “But without faith it is impossible to please him” (Heb. 11:6). So if you are going to follow the Bible, the first thing you must do is believe. Again Jesus said, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). So the next thing you will do is repent.

I heard a man say this week that the only thing you had to do in order to be saved was just believe, but the Bible says, “Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish,” and repentance is not believing. Repentance is at least one thing you must do after you believe or else the Bible says you will perish and have no chance to be saved.

And then on the day of Pentecost Peter said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). It is not hard to see that. People who refuse to do it simply don’t want to see it or just don’t want to do it after they see it—one or the other! If you want to follow the Bible, the way is plain, isn’t it? If you take something else for your guide, then no telling where you will land.

But someone may say, “What is baptism?” Let the Bible answer. “Buried with him in baptism, wherein ye are also risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:12). “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). Hence, according to the Bible, baptism is a burial and a resurrection. If you weren’t buried when you were baptized, then you were not baptized; because the Bible says we are buried by baptism. A so-called baptism which doesn’t involve a burial isn’t the kind of baptism the Bible talks about. If you do something else, you don’t get it from the Bible. If you stick to the Bible, you have the matter settled. You can’t get anything else from it except a burial. It doesn’t say anything else.

Incidentally, do you know where the doctrine of sprinkling and pouring came from? It came from the man who is called the Pope of Rome! At the Council of Vienna, A.D. 1311, by no higher authority than the Roman Catholic Church, it was decided that sprinkling and pouring might be practiced for baptism. Most often today the people who accept sprinkling or pouring instead of baptism do not realize that they are following the man over in Rome who claims to be greater than the Bible. You probably got it from your parents, your parents from theirs and their parents from some preacher and so on, but the chain leads back eventually to the Roman Catholic Church. It has no higher authority. The Bible condemns it.

I beseech you in the name of Jesus Christ that you submit unto His will as revealed unto us in the Holy Bible. If you will follow Him, He will take you home to rest at last.