When Was the Church of Christ Established?

I think the first time I came across the phrase “restoration heritage” as a description of churches was when I was living as a missionary in Australia. A professor at a brotherhood school in the United States had made a trip there to conduct a joint worship service between a progressive congregation in the city where I worked and a church that was a member of the Council of Churches of Christ in Australia (CCCA). Churches that are a part of that latter fellowship are historically connected with a 19th century British restoration movement (which, incidentally, existed largely independent of the American restoration movement), but they have long since abandoned the restoration plea to fall more in line with other churches in the denominational world. The event the professor coordinated though highlighted that both groups had a “restoration heritage,” and sought to create unity between the groups on that basis rather than common doctrine and practice.

Restoration heritage is often used as a description of churches to tie certain groups together and to tie the origin of said groups to an 18th or 19th century movement. When members of the church of Christ adopt this terminology for themselves, they effectively abandon the plea and purpose of restoration. Restoration isn’t about returning to the roots of an 18th or 19th century movement; it’s about forsaking the creeds, dogmas, and doctrines that have divided Christianity and returning to a pattern taught by Jesus and His inspired apostles and prophets in the first century.

We’re going to ask and answer the question, “When was the church of Christ established?” In so doing, we’re not going to be reflecting on Alexander Campbell, Barton Stone, Walter Scott, or any figure of the last 300 years. Instead, we’ll be demonstrating how the Bible points with singular purpose to the events of a Pentecost Sunday about 2000 years ago. We’ll see that on that day not just a church but a kingdom that belongs to Jesus Christ was established, and then we’ll reflect on what that means today.

While the Old Testament is littered with prophecies surrounding Jesus, we’ll consider two for the study at hand. The first was delivered over 700 years before the birth of Jesus by the prophet Isaiah and is recorded in Isaiah 2:2-3. Isaiah prophetically peered into the future and saw something that would happen in “the latter days.” Peter said that Joel’s prophecy surrounding “the last days” was happening in his day (Joel 2:28-32; Acts 2:16-21), and the Hebrews author later said that we are living “in these last days” (Hebrews 1:1-2). Isaiah therefore saw the New Testament era.

Three details are of note concerning what Isaiah saw. First, he saw the establishment of “the mountain of the LORD’s house” (Isaiah 2:2). The temple was standing when Isaiah uttered these words; clearly, he intended another house. Since he was looking at “the latter days,” it stands to reason that he saw the establishment of “the house of God, which is the church of the living God” (1 Timothy 3:15). Second, he saw “all nations” flowing to it. This mirrors the situation found in the church, where nationality finds equality in Jesus (Galatians 3:26-28; Romans 10:11-13). Third, he said the message would go forth “out of Zion,” which is exactly where the Gospel was first proclaimed as Jesus said it would be (Luke 24:46-47). It appears that Isaiah saw the Pentecost Sunday described in Acts 2.

Two hundred years after Isaiah, another prophet was given a glimpse into the future when he was called to interpret the meaning of a Babylonian king’s dream. This king, Nebuchadnezzar, dreamed of a statue comprised of various materials: gold, silver, bronze, iron, and iron mixed with clay. Daniel revealed that God was making known through the dream what would “take place in the latter days” (Daniel 2:28), the same period Isaiah was allowed to see. Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon were symbolized by the statue’s “head of gold,” and thus the various other parts and materials of the statue symbolized the kingdoms that would rule after her (Daniel 2:38). Though the subsequent kingdoms aren’t named, comparing the statue to a timeline of world history, one can discern that the dream went on to identify the rule of Persia (silver), Greece (bronze), Rome under the senate (iron), and Rome under the rule of Caesars (iron mixed with clay). It was “in the days of these kings,” that is, during the reign of the Roman Caesars and the various vassal kings that paid them tribute like the Herodian dynasty, that God would “set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed” (Daniel 2:44).

It’s reasonable to conclude that Isaiah saw the establishment of the church. Did Daniel see the same thing, or something different? Let’s consider what the New Testament reveals about the establishment of an eternal kingdom.    

The New Testament does speak about an eternal kingdom, but it does so using two different grammatical tenses: future and past. Effectively, these grammatical tenses form two paths – one leading forward and one leading backward. When we follow these paths, we’ll be led to Pentecost just like Isaiah was.

Before Pentecost, the New Testament speaks of a kingdom that is coming and coming soon. Both John the Baptizer and Jesus began their ministry by saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” i.e., the kingdom is near or close (Matthew 3:2; 4:17). Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “Your kingdom come,” and when He sent them to preach, they were to say just like Him, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 6:10; 10:7). He later told Peter, “I will build my church… And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” using “church” and “kingdom” synonymously but still speaking of both as coming in the future. Later still, He gave both “at hand” and “I will build” a concrete time frame by saying, “Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power” (Mark 9:1).

At Calvary, the forward motion of the path prior to Pentecost seems to come to a halt. Realizing his error in earlier mocking Jesus (Matthew 27:44), one of the thieves crucified with Jesus penitently turned to Him and said, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” Jesus responds by saying, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:42). Later, before He breathed His last, Jesus added, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Note that He did not say, “I am finished,” but, “It is finished.” What was finished? While the Lord may have had several things in mind with such a statement, at least one thing that was finished when Jesus died was the payment for the church, “which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28).

The path after Pentecost formed by grammatical tense does a complete 180-degree turn. The church stood on that day, as believers were “added to their number” (ESV), or as some manuscripts read, “added to the church” (Acts 2:47). That the church Jesus died to establish existed as of Pentecost isn’t really debated no matter how the Greek text reads is in Acts 2:47; what occasionally is debated is the status of the kingdom. However, grammar also confirms that Jesus’ kingdom stood as well. Though the Hebrews author speaks of us actively “receiving” a kingdom in the sense of participating in its work and enjoying its benefits (Hebrews 12:28), in terms of admittance into the kingdom, Christians like those in Colossi had been “conveyed/translated/transferred… into/to the kingdom” (Colossians 1:13 NKJV, KJV, ASV, ESV, NASB). John wrote Revelation as a “brother and companion in the… kingdom… of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 1:9).      

Whether we examine the prophecies of the Old Testament or the grammatical paths of the New Testament, we are led to the day of Pentecost. What makes this day so important when Jesus finished His work prior to it?

Remember, Jesus promised the kingdom would “come with power” (Mark 9:1 KJV, ASV, ESV, NASB). Luke’s gospel ends with Jesus telling the disciples, “Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). However, when Luke picks up the inspired pen again, he reveals that Jesus later added, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). Three things were therefore tied together: the coming of the Holy Spirit, the coming of power, and the coming of the kingdom. A chapter later, the Holy Spirit came and filled Peter and “the eleven” with power enabling them “to speak with other tongues” so each person in the audience could hear “in his own language” (Acts 2:4, 6, 14). Since the Spirit and His power came, it's only reasonable to conclude that the kingdom came as well.

Also, as we noted before, while the church may have been paid for when Jesus died, its establishment was also connected to Peter’s use of keys (Matthew 16:18-19). Keys enable admittance. Before He died, Jesus said that admittance to His kingdom would come through a new birth: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). Examining Pentecost, one can see both of these keys at work: Peter preached a sermon about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus through the power and revelation of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:14-36) and led his audience to the waters of baptism (Acts 2:37-41). So it was on Pentecost that people first entered the kingdom even as they were “added to the church” (Acts 2:47).

Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches” (John 15:5). Even though Jesus was talking to individual disciples when He said this, the religious world tends to interpret the “you” part of that statement as representing the various denominational churches of the world. To them, modern churches of Christ are restoration heritage churches, a branch of the restoration movement which itself is a branch of the broader Christian movement.

Instead of thinking about churches in terms of a vine, what if we thought in terms of seed? Jesus on at least one occasion compared the Word of God to a seed (Luke 8:11). The Bible reveals that seed bears fruit “according to its kind” (Genesis 1:11). What does the word of God yield when it is planted in good soil, i.e., honest human hearts (Luke 8:15)? It doesn’t bear Catholicism, Orthodoxism, or Protestantism. It won’t lead a person to Mormonism or Adventism; it won’t make one a Christian Scientist or Jehovah Witness. Just like the prophecies of Isaiah and Daniel and the grammatical paths of the New Testament, it will lead one to Pentecost. Listening to Peter and responding to the message he preached that day, a person will be added to the eternal kingdom of Jesus: the nondenominational, undenominational, pre-denominational church that belongs to Jesus Christ.  

When was the church of Christ established? It was established when Jesus “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3) and received from “the Ancient of Days… dominion and glory and a kingdom” (Daniel 7:13-14). Humankind gained citizenship into that kingdom first on Pentecost, and the kingdom continues to grow even as people continue to hear “the word of the kingdom” (Matthew 13:19), obey it, and find themselves conveyed into it (Colossians 1:13). So, let’s not preach the restoration heritage or claim to be a part of an 18th- or 19th-century movement; let’s “preach the Word” and claim to be a part of Jesus’ kingdom, “His body, which is the church” (2 Timothy 4:2; Colossians 1:24).

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org