The "Church of Christ" & The Water Baptism Gospel w/ @DrewMouzon

Introduction and Why the Church of Christ Matters

What's up, everybody, welcome back to another YouTube video. Thank you guys for joining me today. We have another special interview another special video. Kind of topic that's kind of near and dear to my heart as somebody that's that's been in Christ for a few years.

I'm bringing you guys a lot of apologetic content. I'm gonna try to endeavor to do that more with the help of the Lord today. I have on the channel Jeremiah nortier The apologetic dog on YouTube and we're going to be talking about the Church of Christ.

For those of you who are saying the Church of Christ, do you mean the body of Christ? No, I don't mean the body of Christ. There's a particular sect of people sect of individuals. You can call it a nomination if you want to you can call it a cult you may call it a cult.

We'll find out later from Jeremiah whether or not it is actually a cult. But it is a sect of people that have a differing Belief that is different from orthodox Christianity in its in its precepts. So Jeremiah we bring Jeremiah on Jeremiah.

How are you doing today? What's up, Drew? Thanks for having me, man. Thank you for coming on. I Didn't get to tell them beforehand, but we actually had a scheduling conflict. I was I was on here.

Our.

Hour before we were supposed to be on here. We're both looking around like hey, what's going on here?

So I was chillin with the wife and I heard my phone ding and I'm like, I said, babe I bet you anything. Drew is an hour ahead of me.

Yeah, I'm an hour ahead. So Jeremiah nortier the project dog. He is a pastor of 12 -5 turning in Jonesboro, Arkansas, right. Got it our Kansas baby our Kansas I thought for a long time. I thought it was in the East Coast.

So when I saw that was okay, it's in the East Coast and it's not in the East Coast is central.

We we're yeah, we're central and south. So you hear that little southern twang. It's it's cuz we're deep. Okay.

Well, thank you for for coming on the show today, man. Yeah. Well, thanks for having me.

We got a we got that French background. How do you say your last name? Muzon. Muzon and nortier nortier. Muzon and nortier. Yeah, we put our we put our own spin on it, right?

Yeah, so I've asked Jeremiah to come on today because I wanted to talk about the the Church of Christ. Like I said in the intro Church of Christ is Not much when I say that I'm not talking about the body of Christ.

So a lot of people can be mistakenly thinking I'm talking about the body of Christ and I'm not talking about the body of Christ. I'm talking about a particular quote-unquote denomination or sect of individuals.

And in their beliefs, but before we get into that I want to give Jeremiah the floor real quick to just say a little about yourself. Tell people on my channel I'm tagging you in the title, but tell people about yourself a little bit on my side.

Yeah.

So Jeremiah nortier pastor and elder at twelve five church, please. Look us up at twelve five church comm and if any of your audience drew is in the northeast Arkansas area Please search us out. We'd love for you to come visit our fellowship.

My my main pursuit though online and all the social media platforms. I'm starting to grow in terms of just more of the outreach, but it's through apologetics and so the apologetic dog people are like why dog why beard and.

It's pretty funny drew cuz me my wife we were in our living room trying to think about the apologetics ministry.

And.

She kind of said, you know You know we're reformed and Your audience may be interested in more of what that means and so we have a rich reform heritage. And I'm reformed Baptist is the way out that I would lean but ultimately it's what the scriptures teach at the end of the day.

Right, and so, you know, we we hold to what's called the doctrines of grace. And so you kind of have the DOG there for now. And that's how it started drew. And the more you're talking I was like I don't want it to just be purely on soteriology or the method of salvation, right?

But the more I thought about it and she was like Jeremiah the apologetic dog that has a good ring to it. And so in the logo of the apologetic dog drew. Have you seen the verse that's yeah, and they're referenced in the first in with the 626 620.

Yeah, and so it says Oh Timothy guard, right? To you so it's kind of like a guard dog. Mentality, it's all Christians guarding the gospel of grace, right and with me doing apologetics I study epistemology the the study of knowledge and truth and I'm a student of Cornelius van Till and the presuppositional Apologetic methodology would with basically says in order to know truth at all God would the God of truth would have to reveal himself and so that verse goes on to say avoid irreverent Babel pagan philosophy all these ideologies that rival God's Word and Contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, right?

And all that's code for is saying we stand on the Word of God, right? Jesus said I have it displayed off-screen a little bit but John 1717 says father sanctified them in the truth. Your word is truth.

And so the heartbeat of the apologetic dog is solo scriptura. Scripture alone and all is scripture. Vindicating truth and so that's a little bit kind of behind the the logo of the apologetic dog. Yeah, please check out his channel.

He has some good stuff on there. I've been been watching as I've been prepping for this talk. So definitely check him out. He knows the stuff.

Well, we will see.

You do you do you do so first since we're talking about the the Church of Christ. How did you come to know about this this this sect this denomination and all of that?

Yes, thank you for that question because I tell people I didn't really go searching for this. It kind of just happened right in this way. I Felt the call to do I mean all Christians are called to do evangelism.

And I remember I was in my early 20s and I was sharing my faith more. I was sharing the gospel in my community and I first encountered a Jehovah's Witness who asked me Oh, can you show me one Bible verse that says Trinity?

Well.

They got me on a wild goose chase because I couldn't find it and I about couldn't go to sleep that night. Drew because I was just laying in bed thinking how do I Claim to worship the sovereign triune God and I have no idea how to defend it articulate it much Scripture and so that was good on one hand because that really made me start paying attention in my study and just be more focused.

Right, and as I continued to you know, share the gospel in my community. It seemed like everybody's family members or friends were Church of Christ and at the time We just all thought another denomination kind of like you were saying.

Maybe they just believe a few things a little bit differently. But the more I interacted with Church Christ realized very quickly they believe Remission of sins your sins are washed away in the waters of baptism.

That is where you come in contact with the blood right. Like no, that's not right. You know, I mean like in the back of my mind was no, we're saved by Grace through faith, right? It works not of anything that we do and I'm thinking what they put way too much emphasis.

This one right baptism and Then, you know started doing more research and started figuring out. Oh, man, this this has a deep history we're gonna get into definitions of what makes a cult a cult with especially with the leaders and so I Started I worked my employer for a number of years was Church of Christ.

I worked with Church of Christ a lot of kind people. But just kept having those gospel conversations and over time I started learning the lingo. I do want to I want to talk about this book. Maybe later Christ rescued me from the Church of Christ by Leanne Ferguson.

Oh, yeah.

Give me book Rex because I've been looking forward. So yeah, we'll talk more about that book in a little bit, but.

What's interesting about the Church Christ is book chapter and verse there's gonna be a lot of similar terminology. But we mean different things by what we say and so I say, you know, obey the gospel.

But a Church Christ means something way different when they say you must obey the gospel. My big point is here in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Everywhere is the Church of Christ and you you saw me on cultish with Trey Fisher.

He comes out of the Church Christ. He was in it for almost 20 years, but we both shared something in common. This is our Nineveh, meaning we don't we don't relish in, you know evangelizing specifically the Church Christ but we realize that this is a calling from God and When I started doing more research on the Church Christ, I found almost zero apologetics on the Church Christ.

Yeah.

And so that's kind of one of my main emphasis at the apologetic dog is just equipping the Saints how to deal. Specifically with the cult of the Church Christ. Mm-hmm.

The Restoration Movement and the Origins of the Church of Christ

So perfect, so let's get into a little bit of the history Of the Church of Christ. If you could provide any. If you. If you could provide any history.

Yeah, yeah I'll give some some nuggets and I have resources on my channel as far as like books. But it goes all the way back to Alexander and Thomas Campbell in the early 1800s. They were a part of the restorationist movement where we see the Mormons coming out of the restorationist movement in the seventh-day Adventist.

So in the early 1800s. This was this was basically at the time of the cults and these groups wanted to restore the one true church that was lost that's why they essentially, you know started saying things like no creed, but Christ and When you start hearing that you're like, okay, that sounds like it's a divorced from a historic faith.

Jesus said I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against him. And so you you got to be careful when you're starting to say we're going to reclaim What was lost because when you say that well Jesus promised not to fail right to build the church and he promised the Holy Spirit to guide the Apostles and a church the church essentially into all truth.

And so like I said the Church of Christ go all the way back to 1811 with Alexander and his father Thomas Campbell. I'm gonna got those names backwards, but they The Campbell's moved from the Presbyterians to the Baptists and then eventually started their own sect if you will and so that's a little bit of the the back history and Over time some of the doctrines started to really solidify and what makes them distinct.

They don't like to be called a denomination. They just are by definition, right? And then they just they begged the question in terms of what the one true church is and We can talk about this a little bit more but they repeal to Romans 1616 that just says churches of Christ.

And I'm like, yeah, but what about the first part of that? Okay.

Yeah, I remember saying I remember seeing something like that.

Yeah.

Personal Encounters with Church of Christ Teaching

So like he was saying he had a a run-in with the Church of Christ. I had a similar run-in. I was telling before we started recording. So back in 2011 I went off to school. Went off to college. I wouldn't get University.

So do you graduate 2011? Yeah. No, I graduated in 2015.

Okay, I'm a little bit older. I graduated high school in 2011.

Okay. Yeah, I graduated high school 2011. Yeah. Yeah, I graduated high school 2011 graduated college in 2015. I'm 30 you 30. I'll be 32 in 32. Okay.

Okay.

Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Yeah, so but yeah, so when I went off to college in 2011 at Wingate I grew up in you know a word of faith culture. I grew up in church culture period a church my whole life. One church my entire life.

Going off to school, you know I'm trying to find a church to to go to. My roommate went to the same church as this other girl. Back in back home in Charlotte. So I naturally go with them because I'm thinking okay.

This church has to be like my church growing up because why aren't all churches alike? This is before my eyes were really open to the nominations to different like different churches do different things and that nature.

We go to this church. It's in a building.

And.

Every five seconds somebody is shaking my hand asking telling us that they're glad that they were here. So I thought that was the first thing that was weird. I'm sure that's not a Church of Christ thing that's just just new people in general thing and then The service starts we stand up and they just start singing.

There's no instruments. There's no there's just start singing. And I thought that was weird. I'm just like, okay. And then they start preaching off of a PowerPoint and it's just verses and scriptures and I'm like something's off.

That's not that something's off and this is me at 18 17 18 years old and I'm just like something's off. So I never went back fast forward. I Start working at a Particular job with somebody from my same university he ends up with that what that girl that took us to that church and he's a part of that doctrine and We are going back and forth at our at our job about Doctrines Everything of that nature because I'm trying to invite him to a Bible study.

And then we go on this tangent and I'm asking I'm saying so if our co-worker Was on their deathbed and they're in the middle of nowhere do you believe that they would be saved if they had not got baptized and they're just like no and That kind of opened my mind to like what is this doctrine?

What is the Church of Christ right and then we had several run-ins after the fact where he wanted to debate me. This is like 2017 where I'm not really ready for debates all that much at that point. But he wanted to debate me because he sees me making content people responding to it.

And people's lives getting changed, etc. And we're having run-ins at work about the same the same doctrine mark 16 16 acts 238 the scripture that says one faith one baptism. He says shows me that scripture all these scriptures.

I'm just like I'm trying to refute it the best way possible because I'm like, I know this isn't right and then I go home after the fact I'm in my own Bible and I'm searching it out studying it out I'm like, I know it's not right that scripture refutes it that scripture refutes it that scripture refutes it.

I know it's not right. Okay, cool. I'm settled within myself and I haven't really seen them since but yeah. What I started seeing since then was more people talking about what this Church of Christ stuff is.

So, how do people kind of fall prey to this doctrine? Are these individuals? Do you see or do you think these individuals are growing up in these camps or are they just getting? Getting swayed to the left and right.

Family Tradition, Legalism, and a Cold Deadness

Yeah, it's a number of things a lot of it is family tradition and that's been my experience is their dad was a elder of a Church of Christ Church or you know. Rarely do people move from like being Baptist to Church of Christ.

Usually people don't convert to the Church of Christ okay, and the reason why is it's what you felt when you went there's a cold deadness in the Church of Christ because You got to obey their drones and there's no life the Spirit when I say the Spirit is not in the Church of Christ.

They will tell you they do not believe in the Holy Spirit. Yeah, they're like radical cessation. Yeah, they're radical cessationist. And I'm like, I'm glad y 'all are saying that because at least you're letting people know you don't have the Spirit and that's not right.

So that's the deal. There's a cold deadness, but People grow up in it the very few people that's that I've met that converted into it. They married into a family that was Church of Christ. Okay, I'm not crazy.

All right, you know, you're not crazy.

I'm not crazy that confirms everything. Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so. Now can we we could talk about what is a cult? So could you kind of give me a definition of what you believe is a cult? Yeah.

I'm kind of there's kind of two ways to look at what a cult is. So if you've ever heard of the book kingdom of the cults by Walter Martin. Yes, sir. One of his Distinguishing factors of detecting a cult was a was a cult leader so you can trace a movement back to a central figure.

There we go. Walter Martin now. The reason why I'm glad you kind of show people that that's a really good resource. Yeah, the Church of Christ in the Seventh-day Adventist group. They flew under Walter Martin's radar.

Because they use such biblical term terminology and they sound like Protestants. They sound like evangelicals. So I just want to tell people is even though Walter Martin did a great job in that book He kind of missed the Church Christ in the Seventh-day Adventist group.

But he does give us a few things to look for in a group or in a cult group. Number one you find a central figurehead where the movement was kind of based out of and so in this case It's Alexander Campbell out of the restorationist movement.

Okay, and Cults are going to usually capitulate and distort the nature of Jesus Christ. Or they're gonna distort how to receive Jesus namely the gospel. And so the big reason why the Church Christ or a cult is they add works to the gospel of grace.

Which is supposed to be by faith alone, right? And usually, you know, they're quick to point out that you can't just live however, you want and we're saying you're right the gospel of grace is not a Licentious gospel meaning, you know, it's grace all the time and we can just live.

However, we don't want in fact The Apostle Paul in Romans 6 deals with that very question.

No.

When you've been transformed from the heart. You desire to live a life to the glory of God not to go back to sin that you were saved from. Right, does that make sense? I believe. I believe the Church of Christ.

Commit the Galatian one heresy and Paul says if someone comes and preaches a different gospel.

Then they're a curse, right. Exactly.

And so that's that's biblically why the Church Christ our cult is they preach a different gospel and Kind of outside of just biblical parameters. You can find the the central leader that kind of led that movement.

Okay, cool. Yeah, so that gives me gives us on saying so. Yes. I do believe it's a cult so I believe based off of that definition that Jeremiah just say that then that Definitely fall in the the realm of a cult so with that I Said earlier.

I said the worship. There was no singing. I mean there was no instruments, right? And then there's the whole baptism. Water baptism saved by water baptism debate. What are some other core balloons that the Church of Christ?

Kind of falls under or believe.

Distinctives of Church of Christ Practice and Legalism

Well, it's another one of those things you would look out for a red flag for a cult. Is they claim to be the one? Church if you're not a part of their group. You're damned to hell and usually that's the markings of a cult.

Is you got to join our group and if not You know to heck with it all. Yeah, and you know for one I wanted to say God saves people in spite of bad theology. So, you know, even though I'm reformed Protestant I believe that God works salvation in people and in you know different denominations.

He even works within the Church of Christ. But it's people can be saved and be Church Christ in spite of what is being taught to them that that makes right.

Right, that makes a whole lot of sense. Yeah, so. And we talked about I was. One of my questions was how do they view other dominations? So they look at themselves as the one true church.

They take pride in saying we're the Church of Christ. Romans 16 16 and we could look at that verse here in a moment. Yeah, but they actually disparage. Denominational teaching and so when they hear the term like faith alone, you know, that's one of the battle cries of the Reformation.

They just say oh, that's denominational teaching, right? You've been led astray. And anyway, I've learned the the lingo. I've scaled the language barrier and I know what they mean finally when they say certain phrases when they especially quote certain verses.

Yeah, obviously they're taking verses out of context. But like you said one of the things that's kind of distinct with the Church of Christ as we know it today is their a capella. Which is not bad on right the face.

But once again, this is a legalistic group that right they're trying to work their way like in it all and even if they say They're not trying to earn Salvation they will tell you and I've had them say, okay.

So you're not trying to earn your salvation by your works, but you can't be saved without your works and they're like, yeah I'm like that's a contradiction like you got it. I need to think about that one, right?

It goes it goes back to their understanding of James chapter 2 we can talk about that a little bit more but when you look at Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 about. You know. To sing songs new songs. Yeah.

Yeah.

They look at that as For one you gotta think legalistic mindset so right you got to do it to the T and if you don't you're disobeying God and basically you're lost and. So the way that they interpret those verses is what doesn't say instruments?

And they have a very wooden hermeneutic if that makes sense. Like yeah, and and it goes back and there's a lot of history. And so I've done a lot of episodes dealing with a lot of these things that we were talking about.

So I just want to direct your audience if if they want to hear deeper explanations provide a lot of content for that but anyway, it's a very wooden understanding of Scripture and One of the best ways to combat the Church Christ is any given proof text is just to understand the surrounding context.

Okay, perfect. And I also there isn't there also something about like they take communion with like the literal. Like loaf in like literal like want like they take it like literal right.

So here is the dispute within Church Christ. You got to think legalism will fight itself. Meaning you will have a ton of Church of Christ Condemning each other right because they're interpreting the scripture a little bit differently.

But when you know, you you're very works oriented. Well, if you're reading a verse and you think it's saying this and they're understanding different in your mind. You're like they're wrong. They're lost.

They're going to hell. And so the dispute within the Church Christ world is you have what's called one cuppers or many cuppers and There's a dispute on if you're supposed to have one cup at communion or the Lord's table.

Or many cups. And they will condemn each other based on their interpretation of them. Wow.

Wow, yeah, that's very well. I've never heard of like what I'm it's just making you just add you're just making stuff. Like you're just like it's not there and you want it to be there. So you create doctrine around something.

That's not even that's so crazy. All right. Yeah, I've never heard of that before. Okay. Sheesh, okay. So let's get into this baptism debate so They I would like I was saying earlier. I we can pull out some of the scriptures but They were saying the guy said mark 16 16 and I'll go ahead and read.

And pull it out and read my mark 16 16. So first scripture, so I'm at work and the first scripture the guy Tells me he says mark 16 16. And I started verse 15 in this new King James Version. They said and he said to them go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

Verse 16 he who believes and is baptized will be saved. But he who does not believe will be condemned and the first thing I said to the guy while I was saying it doesn't say baptized on the second part of the verse.

So how doesn't that doesn't that negate like take out take away the first part and then he just went to another scripture.

Mark 16:16 and the Difference Between Faith and Baptism

Yeah, so you threw him off script. Yeah. The only thing I would add is I want to inform your audience so there's actually Dispute and the the textual manuscript tradition, which I don't encourage people.

Yeah, explore the the textual manuscript tradition. Your heart will be enriched about how God has preserved his word. And so when we have such a rich manuscript tradition. We can kind of see what slips in as time goes on so like this this portion of scripture doesn't come onto the scene till hundreds of years later after our earliest manuscripts and.

That's not a bad thing because you know. You have great persecution with the early church and people are trying to handwrite copies. You know the Bibles and give it to each other. And so Mark's style is he's very abrupt, right and Our oldest manuscripts have Mark's gospel ending in verse 8 where they're astonished at an empty tomb.

And that's a very common with Mark to be just short sweet to the point. And so what we what we speculate is, you know, you have a scribe. Reading, you know mark and just thinking man. We know what the other Gospels say.

There's a little bit more detail. And so when you look at verses 9 through 20 you see kind of bits and pieces from the book of Acts and other parts. The gospel almost just to make a better ending here because all the internal language is not marking.

It just there's words that are used for the first time and but here's what I'm getting at. When I'm debating a church of Christ because drew have you looked at the apologetic dog much on my channel?

I've seen a cup. I've seen the interview with The other guy who does apologize with the glasses. I've seen that interview that I see you watch that in full watch both parts and then I've seen the cultures and then I went On your channel there and that's when I saw the set was new and then I saw Another video but yeah, that was about it.

I've only seen stuff related to search cards. So I do tons of debates. Yeah, I've seen yeah that you yeah done. I can never make it through see debates are like three hours long and I like at my attention span after like 15 minutes.

It's like, okay I'm gonna have to sit down cuz I want I want to learn how to debate one day. So I have to sit down and watch one. But yeah, my attention span for those.

What I do this is a little bit of a hack in terms of my learning and things that I've kind of trained myself for. Is everything on YouTube. I listen on times to speed. It's number one. I have a program that reads documents and I Listen and read at times six speed and there's some documents I do on times eight.

So that's that's how I've been able to process a lot of my I've been doing for years. So anyway, I'm just saying don't feel bad about the yeah court attention span because debates are long-winded. But the best part of debates are the cross-examination, you know kind of in the middle there.

But what I'm getting at is in debates. I will not make a textual critical argument of saying the longer of ending of mark is is more than likely not. Inspired because you know, they'll throw up their hands and say I see he's trying to take out passages scriptures that contradict his doctrine.

And I said I tell people even though it's not inspired. It's Historical meaning. Jesus probably said these words. It's done inspired and we have other extra biblical documents that give us a good history of what probably happened.

And so I'm just saying that's good for people who are sincere and want to learn like the longer ending of mark. Probably we should be asking the question How do we know what mark wrote and when you study the the manuscript tradition?

That the longer ending of mark doesn't come to hundreds of years later. Okay, so that's just first qualifier. But let's meet the Church of Christ where they're at because like you're already pointing out there's enough context here to show us.

It's not baptism that declares us right before God right before we look at this verse more in-depth. I want to encourage the audience. There's a few definitions that if you can wrap your mind around these biblical terms.

They will help you with all the verses Old and New Testament. It's justification. Yes sanctification faith and works. Now those those are the four definitions I would say if you understand how they relate and how they're distinguished you'll be able to put a spotlight on Romans or mark 16 16 and you'll be able to kind of navigate and Talk about what's going on.

Now. There are two more definitions that we can continue to talk about. But it's the word obey or obedience and it's actually the word baptize itself and what that means. So when we look at mark 16 16 you rightly pointed out.

There's two clauses right and the first clause includes both believing in baptism. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. First clause. And we look at the second clause and whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Right the thing that condemns is unbelief, right? And when you look at any other gospel, especially John chapter 3 We understand that whoever believes in the Son has everlasting life. But if you do not believe in the Son that you're condemned already.

Right. I mean and so when we go back to the first clause whoever believes and is baptized. Baptism is indicative of what believers do it would be like saying whoever believes and goes to church will be saved.

Whoever believes and reads their Bible will be saved and we're saying yes, because that's what believers do.

Unbelievers.

Stand Justified before God by faith apart from works, right? So that's the whole book of Romans. That's Galatians. Jesus even speaks about that clearly in Luke's account. Old Testament makes that case.

I'm just saying when we look at this we can know whoever believes. We already know that they're Justified before God if you can think justification. So so salvation is a process right. Salvation is a process in this sense.

Believers have been saved justified are being saved. Sanctification and we will be saved by being glorified one day. So whoever believes will be justified. It's baptized. It's part of our sanctification and we will be saved in the future meaning one day.

We will be glorified right but and when people say well, how do you know that's talking about glorification? I'd say we'll look at the second clause. Whoever does not believe will be right we're already condemned but there will be a final day in which we will all have to stand before the just judge all the Earth and give an account of our lives, right?

And if you die in your sin, you'll be condemned in that sense, right? So that's usually enough sauce if you will drew to get the Church Christ off script to get to another proof text, right?

Okay, so and then there's another. And I didn't get to search it before getting on here, but there's a scripture. I believe it's in Ephesians. I believe it's in a piece or five four.

Four.

Four verse five.

Yeah, so one Lord one faith one baptism and. Then you start then you flip somewhere else. So yeah, I don't say you're talking to the poly Jake dog.

I I've had to I've had to memorize these verses. In fact, I preached a whole sermon work. So we're preaching Expositionally through the book of Ephesians. Okay at my church at 12 5 and I serve in a plurality Of elders me and two other gentlemen, and so we rotate preaching and when we got to Ephesians Chapter 4 the elders were like, all right, Jeremiah's got verse 5 and I'm like, okay.