Stone-Campbell Restoration Movements

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ),
Churches of Christ, International Churches of Christ

A deep love for Yahuwah and a heartfelt desire to live in obedience to His will have led many, over the years, to withdraw from churches clinging to error. The various denominations that developed out of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movements have steadfastly sought to restore Christianity to the purity of the apostolic church. Thus, they have set aside many practices and traditions not in keeping with the practices of the early Christian church.

Not all of their beliefs, however, are free of error. Following is a list of some of their beliefs that are inconsistent with Scripture.

• Formal worship services are conducted on Sunday in honor of the day on which it is believed Yahushua was resurrected. Such a belief is problematic for nowhere does Scripture authorize a change of worship day from the seventh-day Sabbath to the first day of the week. This practice is based on the assumption that the modern week is identical to the week at the time of the crucifixion. A careful study of Scripture and history reveal that neither Saturday nor Sunday existed in the calendar of the Saviour’s day. Only the luni-solar calendar of creation can find the real seventh-day Sabbath [lunar Sabbath] of Scripture and the true day of Yahushua’s resurrection.

• While members of these churches are careful to avoid the pagan observances of Christmas and Easter, they are dispensational, believing that the Old Testament laws and feasts of Yahuwah were nailed to the cross and are no longer binding. This is inconsistent with both Scripture and the practice of the early Christians who kept all of Yahuwah’s holy convocations for hundreds of years after the resurrection.

• Members accept the twin errors of the immortality of the soul and an eternally burning hell. Scripture declares that Yahuwah “is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality.” (1 Timothy 6:15-16) Immortality is a gift given to the over-comers. The Word of Yah states: “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of Yah is eternal life . . . .” (Romans 6:23) Death, not eternal life in torment, is the punishment of the wicked.
  
  The Bible teaches there is no consciousness after death: “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6)

• These churches teach that the redeemed will inherit Heaven. Scripture, however, teaches the immortality in the earth made new is the reward of the saints.

• The majority of these churches are Trinitarian, a theology not supported by Scripture, which states: “Hear, O Israel; Yahuwah our Eloah is one!” A triune godhead is a belief stemming from paganism. The Bible makes plain that Yahushua, while born of a virgin, is a human being - not a diety.

• These churches are amillennialists. While Scripture supports neither a secret rapture or postmillennialism, the millennium referenced in Revelation 20 is not a mere symbolic number of a time period that has begun already. Rather, the millennium is a very real time period on earth, following Yahushua's return.

• The danger of salvation by works creeps into the doctrines of these believers in that baptism is viewed as a requirement of salvation. Therefore, if a person surrenders his life to Yahuwah and believes on Him but is killed before he has the opportunity to be baptized by immersion, he is still lost. Such a belief misses the whole point of baptism! Baptism is an outward sign of the inner belief – the acceptance by faith in the gift of Yahuwah: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of Yahuwah: not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)