Does Christ have the ability to perpetuate His church? To contest this is to deny the Deity of Christ. If He could not do what He wanted to do, then He was not God. Since Jesus Christ is Divine and has all power in Heaven and on earth, the continuity of His church is assured to all Bible believers.

Some critics cry, “But we have no record of the churches back to the personal ministry of Christ.” But let us remember Christ promised to preserve His churches; He did not promise to preserve all the records of these churches among men. We know from history that many of the ancient documents were burned by their enemies, yet enough of these remain to convince an honest inquirer of church succession.

The fact that I have no reliable unbroken record back to Adam is not sufficient ground to deny that I am a descendent of Adam. To deny the churches have been perpetuated from the Jerusalem church in the first century until now because we do not have the personal records of them all through the ages is nonsense. We do have the historical records of some churches all the way back through various groups until they mingle with the apostolic churches.

In Matthew 16:18 Christ promised this new institution He had established a natural, outward succession in the world. He promised that He would keep alive this new assembly, which He had already formed. There is no promise here of a spiritual succession of principle, of inward, vital heart-felt religion as the advocates of the invisible church claim. Certainly the true principles and practices would be kept alive because Christ’s church would be here as an institution to keep them alive. It is foolishness to assume that Christ addressed a pile of abstract principles in Matthew 16:18. Instead, He spoke directly to a local assembly of baptized believers.

Church succession, like all other doctrines, stands or falls upon the teachings of the Scriptures. The succession of Baptist churches is not so much an historical question as it is a Biblical one. Apart from any historical evidence, there is ample proof of church succession in the Bible.