Was there salvation outside the ark? Was there iglesia cerca de mi of the nation of Israel? Is there salvation outside the church of Christ? The answer to all of these questions, per the Bible, is actually “no”.

Before your emotions obtain the best of you, calm yourself down and consider two preliminary points; (1) I grew up in one of the largest, main-stream denominations in the us – not in the church of Christ, therefore i can speak right to this problem. What I’m going to share with you originates from years of personal study, debating, argumentation, and absolute have a problem with idea that salvation is in only one church. (2) Jesus said in Matthew 22:29, “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” Many “religious” people have formed their ideas about salvation by themselves opinions, pre-conceptions, and statements that they’ve heard again and again since they’ve been children (rather than the Bible).

The Bible says that there surely is no salvation found outside the church of Christ. The Apostle Paul said in Colossians 1:18 that Jesus may be the head of your body, the church. The body and the church are one in exactly the same. Paul told the Ephesians, in Ephesians 5:25, “…even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.” The church is singular around, and Jesus gave Himself for the church. In Ephesians 5:23, Paul said, “…even as Christ may be the head of the church: and he could be the saviour of your body.” For an individual to say they can be saved without being an associate of the church of Christ reveals their ignorance of the Scripture, as the Apostle Paul says that Christ is the “saviour” of the body, and the body may be the church.

How many “churches” was Paul speaking of? Now watch this; exactly the same Paul told the Ephesians, in 4:4, that there is one body. If your body is the church, as Paul stated, and, as he also stated, that there surely is only 1 body, then there’s only one church. A kid can understand why simple Bible teaching.

Although, this begs the question, “Which church is the one church?” Well, let’s use a simple example. Martin Luther was an excellent man with the noble desire to make contact with the Bible. After Luther’s death, his follower’s established the denomination bearing his name; the Lutheran Church. Now, was this the one church that Paul spoke of in his epistles? How could it possibly be – the Lutheran Church didn’t exist when Paul wrote his epistle. The truth is, the Lutheran Church was established some 1500 years after Paul spoke his inspired words; therefore, it isn’t logical, reasonable, or biblical to conclude that the Lutheran Church may be the one church of the Bible, because it simply didn’t exist at that time (the first century)!