Why are there so many Christian denominations?

In our days when, in many places and in different countries, men and women are led to believe on the Lord Jesus by the grace of God, we can learn a lot from these details of the growth of the early church. It is true that we live under completely different circumstances. The wonderful picture of the outward unity of the assembly has disappeared once and for all so far as its time on earth is concerned. The members of the body of Christ are often divided and are found, sometimes mixed with unbelievers, in many churches, denominations, and groups. We must recognize with shame and sorrow that the cause of this fragmentation is to be found exclusively in human self-will. Disobedience to the Word of God and party spirit have brought about these circumstances.

The same want of faith has operated, though in a different way, in matters of church order. Instead of believing that God cares for His Church, and has left ample rules for its government, man has sought to form a code of his own; and as human wisdom has been the source of this code, each man has had his own judgment; so that in proportion to the freedom with which man could act, different codes and different sects have multiplied. Every departure in this way has been by the addition of something to the word of God — the assumption of powers which the word of God does not give, or the adoption of rules which the word of God does not enjoin. The simple faith which could receive what God has said, leaving difficulties to Him, would have prevented the schisms caused by various theological schools. The simple faith which could accept the teaching of God's word as sufficient guidance on all matters of church order would have prevented the schisms caused by various denominational schools. There would still, of course, have been different measures of intelligence; but even the most unintelligent, if subject to Scripture, would have seen that these furnished no excuse for sectarian separation.

But whence comes this disruption of outward, visible unity? The differences are on points of doctrine, discipline, organisation and other similar matters. It may be said that on such subjects there must always be difference from the various structure of the human mind. No doubt if man's will and judgment are allowed to work at all, such differences must exist. But God opens no door for man's thoughts to enter. He has not left those matters to be settled by the human mind. Had the Church been faithful, Christ's presence in its midst would have decided all questions. With the Word as the infallible guide, and the Holy Ghost as the infallible interpreter, no diversity of judgment could have manifested itself. What brought in difference of judgment was want of subjection to God's thoughts. Man put his own wisdom in the place of God's. The Spirit's guidance was no longer sufficient for him, and he began exercising his own judgment, dragging in worldly philosophy, choosing teachers according to his own tastes, and forming schools of doctrine to suit his own inclinations.

No doubt this arises from the constitution of' man's nature. But does this excuse it? To the spiritual eye, it only proves more conclusively how evil it is. "The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God." To say, then, that it is natural, is only to say that it is contrary to God's mind. Does Scripture palliate these divisions because they are natural? Nay, this is just the ground on which it condemns them. "And I, brethren," writes the apostle. "could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal; for whereas there is among you envying and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one says, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal?" (1 Cor. 3:1-4). Here, then, the Holy Ghost clearly teaches that sects and divisions are not of God, but of man, that they are the results of unspirituality, carnality, and walking as men. Yet Christians defend them as the result of man's nature. "We are only walking as men," they say. "If you are walking as men," replies the apostle, "you are carnal, and I cannot speak to you as spiritual." What a fearful chasm between the thoughts of Christians and the thoughts of Christ!

The Holy Ghost has shown in another portion of this same epistle the true origin of these divisions, and God's judgment concerning them. He says — "In this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come together, not for the better, but for the worse. For, first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions (or schisms) among you; and I partly believe it. For there must be also sects among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you" (1 Cor. 11:17-19). Now here He names these divisions as matter for blame, and declares their assembling to be for the worse, and not for the better, while these exist. True, He says, they must be — but why? In order that the faithful may be separated from the unfaithful. Does this, then, sanction the divisions? Our Lord says — "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence comes!" (Matt. 18:7). Here Jesus distinctly declares that offences must come, but does He, therefore, sanction or excuse the offence? He knew what was in man, and predicts the sad result, but only to denounce judgment against him who brings it about. In like manner the Holy Ghost, speaking through Paul in the passage above quoted, foretells, what indeed was already partly visible, the divisions which man's will and infidelity to the truth would introduce into the Church, and the sifting process through which the faithful would thus be called to pass. But He no more sanctions those divisions than Christ sanctions the offences which He declares to be necessary. On the contrary, although He foresaw them to be inevitable from man's nature, He distinctly declares them to be evil.

The history of the church shows the constant endeavour of the enemy of God as to His church, to weaken in the members of the body of Christ the consciousness and sense of that membership. Once having succeeded in this, the "accuser of the brethren" found it no difficult task to bring about all the sad schisms, divisions, and sects, which we perceive, and in these "last days" more than ever.

All this will be fully admitted in human affairs; but, in the things of God, men think themselves entitled to exercise their private judgement. It is a fatal mistake. God has given us His word; and that word is so plain that wayfaring men, though fools, need not err therein. Hence, therefore, if we were all guided by that word; if we were all to bow down, in a spirit of unquestioning obedience, to its divine authority, there could not be conflicting opinions and opposing sects. It is quite impossible that the voice of holy scripture can teach opposing doctrines. It cannot possibly teach one man Episcopacy; another, Presbyterianism; and another, Independency. It cannot possibly furnish a foundation for opposing schools of thought. It would be a positive insult offered to the divine volume to attempt to attribute to it all the sad confusion of the professing church. Every pious mind must recoil, with just horror, from such an impious thought. Scripture cannot contradict itself, and therefore if two men or ten thousand men are exclusively taught by scripture, they will think alike.

But we find, in fact, that those who justly insisted on the importance of individual faith as the saving principle for the soul, and as that which alone glorified God, began to collect together at last, sometimes in a country to themselves, and then again, when in that country there began to be divergences of opinion among them, they made their own distinct churches. If they did not like the great public church of the country, they chose to split off into different religious societies, all essaying to become churches. One was, as they considered, as good in principle as another, but the best church was that which suited a man's own mind. This was the individual idea carried out to its natural results, and such is exactly what we find around us now.

Another evil connected with each ruling prince being head of the church was that it split up the church of God into as many parts, each with its own head. And although they were all at first called reformed churches, they soon began to be different in doctrine, in practice, and in general order; and eventually adopted different names, and refused communion one with the other. As far as in them lay, they were separate and distinct churches.

We have seen in Thyatira Jezebel's word claimed as inspired and authoritative; we have seen, too, in Sardis, a separation from and refusal of such claim: yet the Church, though no longer inspired, teaches still. There is, as men say, an open Bible, (blessed be God for it!) and with this, a certain necessary diffusion of light. The Reformation creeds insist upon the fundamental truths of the gospel, and these have been sealed by the lives and deaths of the martyrs. At the first, also, these creeds are in harmony with the convictions of those who subscribe them, although very soon dissent has to be embodied in a separate creed. Then a strife of creeds begins which has been the shame and reproach of Protestantism, — which has added schism to schism and sect to sect.

(Vv. 18, 19). First, the coming together in assembly, instead of expressing their unity, as members of the one body, as set forth in the one loaf, only manifested the spirit of division that existed among them. There were divisions (or “schisms”) amongst them, which were leading to heresies (or “sects”) being formed in the assembly. The two words are distinct, conveying different ideas. The division, or schism (Gk. schisma), is a difference of opinion, thought and feeling existing within the assembly. A heresy (Gk. hairesis) is a sect, or party, formed among the saints to maintain a particular opinion, or to follow a chosen teacher. At Corinth both apparently existed within the assembly; but division or schism within, if unjudged, will soon lead to a heresy or sect without, or even the entire breaking up of the assembly into different sects. The condition of the assembly had apparently become so bad that God had allowed these divisions to work out into sects or parties, in order to make manifest those who stood for the truth, here called “the approved”. The evil had reached such a pass that there was no other way of maintaining a witness for the truth. It was necessary to allow the evil to declare itself, so that the truth might be made manifest. (Compare Titus 3:10, where the heretic is to be rejected.)

The Christian is told to depart from iniquity, but making division by insisting on one's own opinions is contrary to the doctrine we have learned from Scripture. There we are taught to endeavor "to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. 4:3). Therefore only when righteousness, truth, and holiness can be maintained in no other way than by separating from those among whom iniquity is practiced and upheld, is division among professed Christians justified in Scripture (see II Cor. 6:14-18 and II Tim. 2:19-22).