Although both the Churches of Christ and evangelical Christianity often use the same “Christian” words and phrases, it usually does not take long before each begins to notice some significant differences in areas that one would think are accepted practices throughout Christianity today.
A perfect example, I believe, would be over the observance of Christmas or Easter, the use of instrumental music, or the observance of Communion and the Lord’s Supper.
For those within evangelical Christianity, one cannot help to be curious over why the Churches of Christ are often so dogmatic, and tend to make such issues so emphatically important.
And conversely, there are those within the Churches of Christ who are just as perplexed over why many methodology issues and worship practices seem to be of so little concern among other Christian movements today.
To be rather candid, issues of worship sometimes become all important to those in the Churches of Christ simply because of their view of justification.
If righteousness is provided to the believer only through their own cooperation to the commands and laws of the New Testament, then it becomes imperative that the correct methodology and procedure is used in worship in order to be saved.
Therefore, by understanding that the Churches of Christ often take an Old Testament approach to salvation and apply it directly to the New Testament, we can certainly begin to understand their concern.
As Deuteronomy 6:25 says, “And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”
The good news of the Gospel, however, is that the righteousness God requires He also provides. As Romans 10:4 says “Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”
This is why evangelical Christianity believes that good works by Christian believers are only the result of their faith and the working of divine grace in them, not their own personal contribution to their own salvation.
Christ is the only Savior; One does not save oneself.
For those determined to try and save themselves through their own obedience and cooperation to the moral and religious requirements of God, consider for a moment the righteousness that God provides on the basis of faith that the Apostle Paul talks about in Phil. 3:1-9:
“Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh— (i.e. those in the church who want to mix works with grace).
“For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
“If others think they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:
“Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
“What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.
“I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—
“The righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.” Phil. 3:1-9