A. This promise of Christ to the church established the fact that churches identified with this first church would be in existence in all ages and would never lose that identity.
B. That church exists today – or the promise of Christ has failed.
Inentifying the New Testament today.
A. There are literally hundreds of denominations religious sects, etc. in existence today. Someone has
numbered over 1,600.
B. The Lord has only one church. Ephesians 4.4.
C. How are we to know of which of all the many different churches is the one that Christ established? There are three things that serve to identify today’s New Testament church. Historical perpetuity.
a. Reliable historians can trace the history of today’s Baptist church back to Christ.
b. Beginning of some other denominations.
(1) The Catholic church has its germinal beginning with Constantine in the 4th century,
(2) The Lutheran church was founded by Martin Luther in 1520
(3) The Episcopalian church was founded by Henry Vill in 1534
(4) The Presbyterian Church was founded by John Calvin 1536
(5) The Congregational was founded by Robert Brown in 1580.
(6) The Methodist church was founded by John Wesley in 1740.
The Church of Christ was founded by Alexander Cambell 1827.
Doctrinal conformity. The New Testament church today will believe the same doctrines as the first church. Spiritual affinity True Christians and churches of all ages have been bound together in spiritual ties through felowship in a common faith and doctrinal unity.