DENOMINATION
"Is it Pharisaism to assert that we are not a denomination?"
There have been cases of certain people calling a hypocrite anyone who disagrees with the "institutionalization" (in the form of denomination) of the New Testament assemblies.
To answer this question objectively, we must briefly define: who we are, what we mean by a "denomination", what is Pharisaism and what the Bible says about it.
WHO WE ARE
Assuming that the readers are like me, I state that we are believers in Christ, saved by the grace of God through the faith we have in the redemptive work of Christ, who is our Lord and Saviour, and we are in the process of sanctifying our lives by obedience to what He tells us to do through His Word, the Bible.
The main commandment of our Lord is to love our God above all things and our brethren in faith just as He loved us and gave His life for us. This love is a practical love, of service and of mutual support.
At first, those who put their faith in Christ, being baptized in His name if they were Jews, and in the name of the Trinity if they were Gentiles, gathered together in the temple of Jerusalem, and continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, the communion of everything they owned, breaking bread from house to house, and together ate their meals, prayed and praised God. This assembly of believers is what the Bible calls "church."
They sprung in different places, and so they were called churches of the place where they were. All believers saved by faith in Christ belong to Him, like sheep belong to their shepherd owner, and we are part of a group like sheep are part of a flock, and this great group is called the Church of God, or of Christ. So as not to be confused with a local church we call it the Universal Church, still in formation, and on the day when it is completed the Lord Jesus will come to take it up entirely to be with Him for ever, so including both the living and the risen dead believers.
Since those early days, almost two millennia ago, the local churches have gone through great transformation, through internal and external influences. I urge all those who can, to read the book "The Pilgrim Church” by E. H. Broadbent, a valuable instructive work containing the result of extensive research into the past by the author.
Through the centuries, there have always been congregations throughout the world who sought to obey the Bible's teaching, though often persecuted, tortured and even killed due to the opposition of religious institutions allied to secular power. Our desire, like theirs, is to obey the instructions contained in the Bible in our worship and personal conduct, and in our meetings with other Christians, fleeing from innovations, traditional or not, which lead to disobedience.
WHAT WE MEAN BY "DENOMINATION"
In a general sense, denomination is a name or title. Believers started to be called Christians quite early (Acts 11:26) and that name appears three times in the Bible. It was a word of contempt, often linked to suffering (1 Peter 4:16).
In a narrower sense, “Denomination” is a name given: a) to a church, b) to a religious institution which also calls itself a “church”, c) or a sect.
At first, to distinguish a local church from another, each was called by its locality, like a city or a house where the meetings were held: for example, Phoebe was a believer of the church in Cenchrea and there was a church in the house of Priscilla and Aquila. This is still done today, and obviously no objection can be made to this on a biblical basis.
Today most churches meet in buildings, and some mistakenly think that the church that meets there has the name of the building: for example: some call "House of Prayer" a church that meets in a building given this name (in fact, it is apparently the name that will be given to the new temple in Jerusalem). "Temple", "Chapel," are other names of buildings. Some churches do not give any name to the building in which they meet, just to avoid this mistake!
Religious institutions emerged very early, with the union of two or more local churches under one umbrella, completely foreign to the teaching and experience of the early churches. The oldest and still very influential and powerful today are the ones which started calling themselves "Catholic" or universal: the Roman, and some Orthodox, from which many others emerged during the Reformation, which have been multiplying.
From a doctrinal point of view, they vary greatly, from the apostates who are the largest and replaced the Word of God for human traditions and dogmas, even to those most devoted to evangelization, to the study and teaching of the Bible, to whom we owe much, including the actual translation, and distribution of the Bible at affordable prices throughout the world.
But there was nothing like them when the New Testament was written, so it is not surprising that they are not mentioned there. However, virtually all of them are based on a system where there is a clear separation between the clergy and laity, the latter being submissive to the former. This system, which we call clericalism, was predicted in the prophetic letters to the churches of Ephesus and Pergamum where we find reference to the doctrines of the Nicolaitans (dominion over the people), whose works the Lord Jesus hates (Revelation 2:6,15).
The "clergy" are prepared in schools, Bible colleges and seminaries, in the doctrine of their institution; they receive an "ordination" from it and then take on the leadership of the local churches submitted to their institutions, forming a class apart with honours and privileges, like the Israelite priests and Levites. The laity, in turn, are utilized in one form or another, but the action of the Holy Spirit for their development and maturation is more or less hampered.
The primitive local churches, however, were independent of each other, each one was an organism put together by the Holy Spirit, symbolically a miniature of the universal Church which is the body of Christ, and every believer belonging to them participated with his gifts in the spiritual growth of the others, some being recognized for supervising according to a criterion that the apostle Paul wrote down in two of his letters. Our desire is to follow the example of these early churches, approved by the apostles in their time. We do not want to hinder the free action of the Holy Spirit among us, making the same mistake as the institutions.
The sects began to appear already in Corinth, where we read that there were factions within the church. To differentiate themselves, each "schism" or "party" took the name of a leader: Paul, Apollos, Cephas or Christ! Although severely condemned, these factions were permitted so that the believers which were "approved" might be recognized (1 Corinthians 11:19). In other words, the sectarians, taking a name to distinguish themselves, moved away from the believers which were true to the Apostolic teaching, so these could be recognized.
If we are of those who want to be among the "approved", this is one of the best arguments in favour of not assuming another name than what was originally given us: Christian. Another characteristic of sects is their exclusiveness: they only extend fellowship to their members and to those who think or gather just like them. Unfortunately, this also happens among some local nondenominational New Testament churches, becoming easy prey of the Diotrephes among their members.
WHAT IS PHARISAISM
The Pharisees were a sect - the word comes from the Hebrew which means "separatist." There were two others early in that century, the Sadducees and the Essenes.
At the time of the Lord the Pharisees were very influential among the people, being punctilious and demanding in all matters concerning the law of Moses. Even the Apostle Paul was a dedicated Pharisee before his meeting with the risen Christ. There was much truth in what they believed and taught, but their religion was an external and formal veneer, to be seen and imposed upon others while their heart was hard and ungodly. They saw themselves as virtuous and were very proud, often being reprimanded by the Lord for that. However, their moral level was low, and were called a generation of vipers by the Lord Jesus, together with the Sadducees. They did not bear the doctrines of our Master, became his enemies, and sought every way to destroy His influence over the people.
But when pharisaism is mentioned now, it is not in the sense of being sectarian, but of being a hypocrite. The Lord called the Pharisees and scribes hypocrites, telling them "well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: 'this people honour me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'” This is pharisaism.
CONCLUSION
If we answer the question "is it Pharisaism to state that we are not a denomination?" the straight answer is "NO", because making a statement like this was not a characteristic of the Pharisees, as we see above. There is a suggestion in this question, that by not wishing to take a name other than "Christian", we have become different from others who, although also declaring themselves to be Christians, assume a denomination. This being the case, we would be a denomination "without a name" and, like the Pharisees, proud to obey the Word of God faithfully, despising others for being subject to a denomination "with a name".
Returning to the definition of what it is to be a "denomination", we see that this is not true. Consider three cases:
a) A church? - The name of the building where we assemble, be it "temple", "chapel", "house of prayer", or some other, does not make us a "denomination". Some still think that because we are "brethren" in Christ and our local congregation is a "church of the brethren," we are a "denomination". But every believer in Christ is our "brother" in the faith, and is participating with us of the privilege of being a son of God by adoption, regardless of the building where he meets, so we are not a separate "denomination" because of the name of our building.
b) An institution? – As a local church we do not submit to any institution, company or individual. Our doctrine is the doctrine of the apostles, which is our foundation on the cornerstone who is Christ. Each local church is responsible to Him only, and does not accept outside interference in their management, although it is always ready to collaborate with others in order to preach the Gospel to the lost and to equip the saints. I want to make it clear here that the religious institutions mentioned here have nothing to do with the legal entities created by local churches for the purpose of complying with the laws of the country, to give legal protection to their property and other possessions, and absolutely only for legal purposes, tax and banking. Authority should never be given to these legal entities over the conduct of the local church itself.
c) A cult? - Any cult is characterized by a leader who gives spiritual guidance and directs the activities of his group. We do not subject ourselves to any particular person - our assemblies are each run by a plurality of its own overseers (bishops or elders in biblical language), they only submit to Christ as the supreme Head directly over each assembly, and the whole Bible is their rule of faith. Again, therefore, we can comfortably declare that we are NOT a cult.
Finally, I want to emphasize that we are believers in Christ, but we are not, nor do we have the arrogance to think that we are absolutely the only ones! Within institutions and even within sects there may be found many others, and I say again, we may find many who serve the Lord more than we do and are more dedicated to the study and teaching of Scripture than we are.
How many souls were saved by the "denominations" before neo-testamentary independent churches were formed, and are still being saved! Our attitude towards these brothers in Christ must be love, as we have been commanded by Him because we love and serve the same Master. They may be out of line with what we understand to be the Lord's desire for the conduct of their local churches, but it is He Who we all serve, and it is He to Whom we shall give account as to how we conduct ourselves here.
On the other hand, institutions are not all alike, and the fact that they call themselves "Church" or "Christian" does not mean they are within the least of the desirable biblical standards. Many do not preach the Gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ, or the necessity of new birth, which makes us doubt the existence of a true believer in their midst.
Others further still have introduced great heresies such as papal dogmas, visions of angels, false prophecies, promises of material wealth. Usually they are the richest and most powerful of all because of the commercialism in which they engage, and their great apostasy somehow unites them in some way, for they attach little or no value to sound doctrine, and, after the ecumenism of our days (where they say "love unites, doctrine divides"), they will join the other religions to form the religious Babylon of which we read in Revelation 17.
We cannot consider those who belong to these institutions as "brothers in faith" because their faith is different, and we must preach the true Gospel of Christ to them so they learn of the way to salvation that they do not have.
R David Jones