[Evangelical]

Originally Posted by A little brother

Evangelical, I am grateful that we can start to go back to the Bible to dig out some truth together.

I would like to share one viewpoint first. In the Bible, there are different types of "languages". Some are plain descriptive ones on events and opinions as in Acts and the epistles. The other uses lots of symbols and types as in Revelation. Understanding the later is more difficult because it depends on how we interpret the symbols and types. Hope you agree that there is an element of guessing so we oftenly cannot be 100% sure.

Well I believe the bible interprets the bible. But agree that we cannot be 100% sure of anything.

Originally Posted by A little brother

So I started to first put away those preconceptions we learned from others on what the symbols and types mean, and go back to the texts themselves. Sometimes I find the messages are actually plain clear even without interpreting the symbols. May be there are further spiritual depths hidden in the symbols, but we should not ignore what is there in the plain text.

ok

Originally Posted by A little brother

So let's try this with your verses...



Let's firstly not care about what Babylon means. In Rev 18:4, who did the voice from heaven call upon? It was calling "my people", God's people. (Have to admit that I have interpreted the voice from heaven as God's voice though) The voice was calling all God's people not to be partaker of Babylon's sins. It did not intend to have any God's people being left behind. So this is not a call for division of God's people or the body of Christ. It is instead a call for oneness to walk away from the sins of Babylon, whatever it represents. If somehow because of that Babylon we part with our fellow brothers and sisters, then probably we are failing God's call.

I have a point to discuss in response. Firstly, I think it's a mistake to interpret this verse without considering what Babylon means, and will lead to wrong conclusions. It's like trying to interpret why the Israelites came out of Egypt without considering who Pharaoh or Egypt was.

Now my point:

Point 1: Coming out of Babylon (or anything) usually means physical separation, division.

Biblical insights: The Israelite's physically came out of Egypt and Babylon, Lot physically came out of Sodom, The early Christians physically left Jerusalem on heeding Christ's words. They all divided from something to obey God's voice.

For the sake of discussion, as you say, let's suppose it means walking away from the sins of Babylon, whatever that means. The next question is how do we walk away from the sins of Babylon and yet retain oneness with brothers and sisters in Christ who do not walk away from the sins of Babylon?

Example: In the case of the Catholic church, the false brothers could be the leaders, the rulers, and we cannot get away from them unless we physically leave. There may be a great many true brothers who decide to stay. So we must separate from them too, physically, though not spiritually.

I think it is obvious that not all true believers left the Catholic church with Luther. They chose to stay. But many left and joined Luther. So there is a division, but it is a right division because it is leaving a situation which cannot be fixed.

Originally Posted by A little brother

Who were the evil persons that Paul mentioned? They are "anyone who bears the name of brother" but "is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler".

Firstly, He might not be talking about true brothers - could be just people who claimed to be a brother. I think we have no issue purging false brothers and definitely this is not a division of the body of Christ.

And even in the very unlikely case some true brothers had sinned (and probably refused to repent after fellowship), Paul named the sins very specifically. The evil persons were to be purged, isolated, or even quarantined if you like this word. There was no mention of splitting up the Corinthian Church. He was definitely not asking the true brothers who had not sinned to walk away to set up a new Church. And there is no mention of having different opinions of what a Church should be as a sin and reason for the purging.

Brother, those two verses did not convince me there are right divisions. They told me the importance of oneness. Please continue to seek.

Let's see what the bible says about false brothers. Here is one verse:

Galatians 2:4
4 And this, because of the false brothers, brought in secretly, who stole in to spy out our freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into Slavery under the law.

This is in no doubt in reference to Judaizers, or Christians who follow the law. Is this not Catholicism which follows good works to get to heaven?

Yet here, the churches in Galatia were genuine churches, with some false brothers in their midst.

Suppose a false brother established Roman Catholicism in the same city, and was named as Pope. Then, we have an entirely different situation, where it is a majority of false brothers and a lesser number of true brothers in their midst. We cannot say that the few true brothers should remain, to preserve a "oneness of the body" that does not really exist between the true and the false.

If 90% of the Catholic church are false brothers, including the leaders, then it makes no sense to ask the true brothers to remain to preserve a false unity with false brothers. In the case of Luther, he had no choice but to oppose it. He had to separate himself from it. Catholicism, is not part of the body of Christ.

In summary, I believe it is right to divide from the false, and wrong to divide from the true.

The issue with denominations is that they were or are often divisions between the true (e.g. baptist and presbyterian people being divided over opinions regarding baptism or salvation), whereas the reformation was division between the true (Bible followers, Luther, et al.) and the false (papal system).

But in reality, the first divisions came about when people decided to start denominations rather than going back to the common ground upon which all Christians can fellowship - the locality. Any two or more Christians can come together and fellowship if they live in the same place.