A DEAD CHURCH?
It was an ancient belief that the churches of the first century had a linage of churches. Was the apostolic church born dead? Did it have a succession? Was the belief wrong?
In order for church succession not to have happened two questions must be asked….. but before we address these questions let it be noted that church succession did in fact exist. There was never any question by the early church “Fathers” that up until the fifth century all churches were joined in a common heritage.
However, let us suppose for a moment that the church which Jesus built did cease and not leave a succession of churches. Two questions begged to be answered. First, when did it die? Second, how did it meet its demise? What would it take to remove the church from the world?
Of all the men writing of the cessation of the church there is not one who tells us when this happened. At what point in history could not the church be found? The Church of Latter Day Saints, through Joseph Smith’s testimony, declares that the church had died and that God had directed Smith to rebuild His church (which incidentally began with Smith’s authority to baptize). Joseph Smith is not alone in this opinion; for many of the reformers believed the same thing and that they also had the same mission of rebuilding the lost church. Many pastors and preachers today are on a quest of leading people to recapture what had assumedly been lost of the church. But sane and reasonable people should not just mindlessly accept what they preach but ask these men when was it lost? Give us the day, the year, or the century when you say the church died! Prove to us what you claim. They cannot answer, for they have no answer. It is just a fact assumed in their own minds which must be true without any debate. If it cannot be established when the church ceased then why should it believed that it ever ceased at all?
The second question is just as vital as the first: How did the church die? We are not speaking of one church, or a group of churches, but of every church which was an extension from the first church of Jerusalem. For the first twelve centuries it was never questioned that churches were anything but successions of the first church. Never was it asked of any church if they had a lineage to Jerusalem, it was just accepted by all that this was the case. Consider the following written by Irenaeus of Lyons approximately 175 – 185:
“The Church, having received this preaching and this faith [of the Apostles], although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points [of doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. . . For the Churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world”
This status lasted until the mid-forth century when Novatian broke with the church at Rome, and then in the early fifth century Donatist broke from the Carthage church and was condemned by the Catholic church, and Augustine. A large number of churches, but not the majority, were falling into heretical doctrines and vicious practices, but even they had a physical church succession. The dissenters of the Catholics judged that those churches had ceased to be true churches of Christ. So that by their abandoning the gospel delivered to the saints their succession had ended.
The first notable establishment of a protestant church occurred through the efforts of Peter Waldo in the middle to end of the twelfth century. Prior to this several unsuccessful attempts were made to reform the Catholic Church. All throughout the centuries there was another church besides the Roman Catholic and Greek orthodox churches. The most ancient were the Waldensians of the Piedmonts whose history and existence is written in their blood shed by unimaginable persecutions.
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