(From “The End of the Church Age… and After”)
We read in I Timothy 3:15, “But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”
Is the church the pillar and ground of the truth? Or is God the pillar and ground of the truth? If the church is the pillar and ground of truth, how can it be that one church holds to the doctrine that Jesus died for everyone, while another church teaches that Christ died only for the elect. How can one church teach baptism by immersion and another teaches baptism by sprinkling.
Differences between church beliefs are concerned with a host of doctrines. So how can the church be the foundation of Truth? Only God can be that foundation. The Bible says it very plainly in I Corinthians 3:11, “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
Under no circumstance can the church be the pillar and ground of truth. In is true that during the church age the believers were living stones in the temple (churches). They will even be called a pillar in the eternal temple (Revelation 3:12), but they can never be the foundation of truth. Only Christ who is God can be the pillar and foundation of truth.