Must One Be In The Church To Be Saved?

Questions relating to the church--its establishment, its nature, its purposes and its ultimate value to the human family--must be asked and answered scripturally, if we are to grasp the significance of New Testament Christianity. What kind of organization is the church of the living God? Is it simply a fellowship of religious men and women? What does it have to do with our salvation? Must one be a member of the church of Jesus Christ to go to heaven? These and other questions arise in the minds of those who have a desire to please God. Can they be answered from a diligent and honest investigation of God’s book--the Bible? Today’s lesson will be devoted to answering some of these vital questions.

Religious teachers and their followers have exhibited some puzzling attitudes toward the church of the New Testament. For example, some religious groups deny that one must be a member of the Lord’s church to be saved. Have they thought seriously about that position? How can they possibly explain Paul’s language in the following passage? Paul commanded the Ephesian elders to “take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). If the church cost Jesus Christ his precious blood, how could anyone even imagine that membership in that church is not essential to our eternal salvation? Did our Lord shed his blood in vain? In Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus, he instructed husbands to love their wives “even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Eph. 5:25). The Greek in that verse literally says that Christ gave himself up for the church. How could anyone argue that membership in the church of the Bible is not essential to pleasing God?

Other religious teachers affirm that one church is just as good as another. If by “church” they mean denomination, I would not disagree. One certainly does not have to be a member of a denomination to be saved. Denominations are of human origin, but the church of the living God is of divine origin. Paul speaks of the church as having been in the mind of God from eternity past (Eph. 3:10-11). Jesus told the apostle Peter, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt. 16:18). Did our Lord, in fact, build his church? Would a man-made church be as good as the one Jesus Christ built? The question sounds almost blasphemous. Of course, no human organization could compare with the church God ordained, Christ purchased with his own blood and the Holy Spirit directed and guided through his word. My friends, every accountable man and woman must be a member of the body of Christ--the church of the living God--to be saved.

One of the most popular views of the church in modern times is called premillennnialism. It asserts that God intended to establish his kingdom when Christ came to this earth, but because the Jews rejected the Messiah, God had to postpone the kingdom. The church had to built as a kind of afterthought. The church has been called an accident or a contingency plan. One example of this erroneous doctrine should be sufficient. Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer, the founder and first president of Dallas Theological Seminary, wrote an eight-volume Systematic Theology (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1947-48). Dr. Chafer argues that “the present age is unforeseen and intercalary in its character” (volume 4, p. 12). The word “intercalary” literally means “inserted into the calendar” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 596). Dr. Chafer believed that God never intended to establish the church, but inserted it into the calendar when he could not build the kingdom. I ask you sincerely, does that sound like Bible doctrine to you? If it does, please listen carefully to Paul. “Unto me, who are less than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world has been hidden in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3:8-11). How can one read this passage and continue to believe the church is a parenthesis, an after thought or a contingency plan? The church of our Lord was in the mind of God before the foundation of the world.

Let us lay aside these false ideas about the church and turn to the scriptures to answer the question: Does one have to be a member of the church to be saved? You know he must be in the church unless you believe Christ shed his blood in vain? But how does one show from the scriptures that we must be in the body of Christ to go to heaven? If you have your Bibles handy, please open them to the book of Ephesians. This great book--more than any other New Testament epistle--shows the nature and essentiality of the church. Will you please examine Ephesians 1 with me today? The great apostle Paul wrote: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3).

If you listened carefully to the reading of that verse, you noticed the expression, “all spiritual blessings.” Paul did not have in mind in using that language material or physical blessings. The material blessings are given to all men. Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount that God “makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Mt. 5:45). Furthermore, when Paul wrote of “spiritual blessings,” he was not speaking of “spiritual gifts.” The “spiritual gifts” (or supernatural gifts, such as, prophecy, tongues and miraculous healings) are discussed at length in 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and Ephesians 4. The spiritual gifts were necessary in the early church to confirm the word, but they are no longer needed and they are no longer available (1 Cor. 13:10).

If “spiritual blessings” are not material blessings and not spiritual gifts, then, what are they? According to Paul, the spiritual blessings are those great blessings which are available to the human family only in Christ Jesus. Paul affirmed that God has “blessed us (Christians) with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” In Ephesians 1, Paul tells us specifically and unequivocally what these blessings are. I shall discuss these blessings with you in a very short time, but let us first examine where the spiritual blessings are. Paul affirms that they are “in Christ.” I have not made a count of the many times the little expression--“in Christ.” is used in the Ephesian letter, but it is used over and over. “In Christ,” “in the beloved,” “in him,” “in whom,” and “in Christ Jesus” are used almost to the point of being monotonous. Why does Paul use these expressions so many times? He wanted to create an impression we simply could not overlook, and that is, “all spiritual blessings are in Christ.” There are no spiritual blessings outside of Christ; they are all in Christ.

The term, “in Christ,” means in the body of Christ, in the church of the living God. There was a time when many denominational scholars would have disputed that conclusion, but, generally speaking, Bible students now recognize the truth I am emphasizing today: that to be “in Christ” means to be in the body, in the church. I shall now proceed to show that to be “in Christ” means to be in his church. Please take note of one significant fact: Paul teaches that we are baptized into Christ (Rom. 6:3) and we are baptized into his church (1 Cor. 12:13). When we confess our faith in Christ as God’s Son, repent of our alien sins, and are baptized into Christ, we become members of his body, the church. How can one be baptized into Christ and not be a member of his church? He cannot do that if the Bible means what it says and it most certainly does.

Now, let us look carefully at the Ephesian letter that we may learn what the spiritual blessings are. We know where they are; they are in Christ, but what are these spiritual blessings? I shall again read Ephesians 1:3 and then read verse four. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” Do you believe being chosen is a spiritual blessing?

The Greek word translated “has chosen” (eklego) means to pick out, to elect. The verb could be translated “God picked out or chosen for himself.” The world I am discussing with you teaches a doctrine of divine election, but not the doctrine of election John Calvin taught. Calvin taught that God elected or selected a certain number of persons to be saved and a certain number to be lost. The numbers cannot be altered. There is nothing man can do to be saved if God has chosen him to be lost; there is nothing he can do to be lost if God has chosen him to be saved. The doctrine of particular and unconditional election makes no scriptural sense. It has discouraged many people from committing their lives to Jesus Christ. It has also appeared to make God a respecter of persons.

If you will honestly study the passage under consideration, you will understand how unscriptural and unreasonable the Calvinistic doctrine of election really is. Paul says that God chose us for himself, but he chose us “in Christ.” “In Christ” refers to the realm of God’s selection and blessing. We are elected “in Christ,” that is, we are to believe in him (John 8:24), repent of our sins (Lk. 13:3), confess our faith in God’s Son (Mt. 10:32-33) and be baptized into Christ for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38). When we have complied with God’s plan for saving man, we are the elect according to the foreknowledge of God. God selects us as his children when and only when we select his Son as our Savior.

Paul affirms that God chose or elected us “before the foundation of the world.” God’s plan of salvation did not originate with Christ’s coming to earth or with his death on the cross; it was in God’s mind before he laid the foundations of the earth. Does that expression mean that God had decided before the foundation of the world which individuals would be saved and which would be lost? Absolutely not! It simply means that God’s plan for saving man was determined before the foundation of the world. He would save men in Christ--in the church of Jesus Christ. My friends, it was the plan which was foreordained--not the man. When we render obedience to the plan which God has given in Christ, our sins are forgiven and we are on our way toward heaven.

One of the purposes for which God brought men out of bondage to sin and set their feet on the path of freedom is explained in Ephesians 1:4: “That we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” God demands that his children be holy, godly and righteous. He wants his church to be without “spot or wrinkle or any such thing… that it should be “without blemish” (Eph. 5:27). The Greek word rendered “without blemish” in Ephesians 5:27 is the same word translated “without blame” in Ephesians 1:4. We are not only to be saved in our relationship to Christ; we are to stay saved by living for him. “Be therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given himself for an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not once be named among you, as becomes saints” (Eph. 5:1-3).

In Ephesians 1:5, Paul mentions adoption as a spiritual blessing. “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Christ Jesus to himself, according to that good pleasure of his will.” Christians are God’s adopted children. What a wonderful blessing that ordinary mortals like you and me can be adopted into God’s family and become his children. I am aware that other figures of speech are used for depicting our relationship to God, such as, being born from above (John 3:3-5), but Paul uses the word “adoption” in our context. Paul used the same figure in the following passage. “For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15).

Before we examine the word “adoption” in greater depth, maybe we should take a closer look at the word “predestination.” The word has given theologians and others some serious trouble through the years. The word literally means to decide or to define beforehand. Please notice Ephesians 1:11: “in whom (that is, in Christ) also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will.” Do these verses from Ephesians 1 even faintly suggest that God determined or decided beforehand what individuals would be saved or lost? If that is what the word means, why do we need the gospel? What would be gained from preaching the gospel? Why would our Lord charge his apostles to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature?” Why would he say, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he who believes not shall be condemned” (Mk. 16:15-16)? If one has already been chosen to salvation, what would believing and baptized have to do with it? If he has been predestined in the Calvinistic sense, how could he be lost even if he did not believe? Can you not see the difficulties with the doctrine of predestination as preached by John Calvin and his followers? The Bible teaches that we are predestinated. We are predestinated in Christ. The Bible also teaches that those who are in Christ can fall out of grace and be lost eternally (Gal. 5:3-4).

Paul affirmed that we have been predestinated “Unto adoption by Jesus Christ.” The word “adoption: means to place in the position of a son. Most modern Bible students understand the meaning of the word “adoption.” Some of us have adopted children into our families or we have close friends or relatives who have done so. Those adopted children become members of our earthly families. We place them in the position of a son or of a daughter. Paul taught that God sent forth his Son “to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore you are not more a servant, but a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Gal. 4:4-7). Can you imagine a greater blessing--to be an adopted son or daughter of the king of the universe?

Paul makes it plain in Ephesians 1 that election and adoption were arranged “according to the good pleasure of God’s will.” Our selection, in other words, did not depend on our merit, but on his grace. God sent his Son to give himself for our sins even when we still in grievous sin (Rom. 5:6-11). God determined how he would save us and then sent his Son to enact the plan. Please note very carefully: God’s grace determined the plan by which election and adoption of human beings as his children would take place. This does not mean, however, that men have nothing at all to do with their own salvation. We did not conceive and initiate the plan of salvation. God decided the means of men’s salvation. In that sense, and in that sense only, salvation is wholly of God’s grace. God decided that men would be saved through Christ. When we accept Christ and obey his gospel, we are saved by the grace of God. We are elected and adopted.

Winford Claiborne

The International Gospel Hour

P.O. Box 118

Fayetteville, TN 37334

Back to Home Page

Back to Transcripts Titles