A voice from the past: Raymond Crumbliss

While staying in Portland, TN conducting a gospel meeting some time ago, I came across a booklet titled The churches of Christ salute you compiled by Ralph O’Neal and David East.  While perusing I came across the following article and when I saw the writer, well, it was worthy of reprising.  Raymond Crumbliss served as the preacher at the East Side church of Christ (where I currently labor) from 1963-1967 and continues to be revered and honored by those that were attending East Side at that time.  It is worthy to post here since, well, one time bro. Crumbliss proclaimed the gospel…literally…from the Wildwood.

IS CHURCH MEMBERSHIP NECESSARY?                                                                 Raymond Crumbliss (deceased)

                Membership in the Lord’s church, as it is revealed and described in the New Testament, is indeed necessary, if we would please God here, and live with him hereafter.  Contrary to many of the confused notions which infest the religious world of our day, the church is not merely a convenience to which God is indifferent.  Nor is it a body into which men may enter, or refuse to enter, and be equally approved of God.

                The church was in eternal plan of God, Eph. 3:8-12.  Part of the will of God which Jesus came to do, was the building of the church, Matt. 16:18.  His blood was its purchase price, Acts 20:28.  The church is described as his body, and Jesus is himself the head of it, Eph. 1:22, 23.  It is this body in which responsible, mature, individuals, must have membership, if they would please God to the saving of their souls.

                It is necessary in this twentieth century to make a distinction that was not necessary in the first century.  Then, there was but one church, the church of Christ, of which we read in the New Testament.  But now, there are hundreds of additional churches, none of which can be found in the pages of God’s book. 

Then, no one would have asked the question: “Of which church must I be a member?”  There was but one, variously designed the church, the churches of God, the churches of Christ, etc. (Col. 1:18; 1 Thess. 2:14; Romans 16:16).  Now, with the existence of so many churches of human origin, with human teaching, and with human governments, the question can be very earnestly asked: “Of which church must I be a member?”

                A multiplicity of churches in addition to the one which God purposed is not God’s will, nor is membership in them is pleasing to Him.  It was (and is) His intent to reconcile all men unto Himself in one body, Eph. 2:14-18.  He is not with the discordant hodge-podge of churches of human-devising existing today, 1 Cor.1:10-13.  God is not the author of such confusion, 1 Cor. 14:33.  There is only one church which is God’s “plant”.  All others will one day be disclaimed, dishonored, and destroyed, for Jesus said: “Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up”, Matt.15:13.

                To be a child in the family of God, a citizen in the kingdom of God, a stone in the temple of God, a member of the body of Christ, and a member of the church of Christ, are all terms indicative of one thing, i.e., being in a saved condition before God.  All are accomplished by one and the same process, which: that the grace of God permits our faith to exercise itself in obedience to the commands of Christ to the salvation of our souls.  We are baptized into one body, 1 Cor. 12:13.  By that same baptism (for there is but one baptism, Eph. 4:5) we are baptized into Christ, Gal. 3:26-27.  In that same baptism we are born of water and of the spirit, thus entering the kingdom of God, John 3:5.

                Although membership in no humanly devised church can profit one at all in the eternal view, membership in the Lord’s church is an absolute necessity for every responsible being who longs for heaven hereafter.  It is so vital that the Bible pictures the Lord himself as presiding at the induction of every obedient believer!  In Acts 2, those sinners who heard the first gospel sermon, believed.  They were told to repent, and to be baptized.  About 3000 gladly received the word, and were baptized.  Verse 47 says: “And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”