[metmom]

A person who never heard the Gospel before and picks up a Bible and puts their faith in Jesus for salvation by grace through faith, can only trace his *lineage* back by years, and yet is as surely a member of the body of Christ as someone who is a true believer in an old denomination.

This business of appealing to lineage and old established denominations sounds way to much like appealing to pedigree as if people are dogs and someone is trying to establish credibility or something.

Since it’s not the church that saves, denominational affiliation is MEANINGLESS. A person would be unwise to risk trying to worship in an organization which doesn’t preach the Gospel found in the NT, but that still would not mean he is unsaved.

[smvoice]

A person who puts their faith in Jesus for salvation by grace through faith, can only trace his *lineage* back to the moment he was saved and placed into the Body of Christ.

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." 2 Cor. 5:17. And:

"Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do." 1 Tim. 1:4.

The Westminster Poodles of Faith Pedigree does them no good.

[Iscool]

A person who never heard the Gospel before and picks up a Bible and puts their faith in Jesus for salvation by grace through faith, can only trace his *lineage* back by years, and yet is as surely a member of the body of Christ as someone who is a true believer in an old denomination.

Exactly...We were saved by the same Jesus who saved Paul and the lesser Apostles...