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Do We
Have Unity?
First, however, let us examine the facts to determine
whether we already have that which all Christians desire.
It is the opinion of many good Christians that discussion
of Christian unity is more or less futile; for, they say,
we already have Christian unity. The unity of the church
is spiritual; nothing can destroy it.
Early Protestantism was reproached by the Roman
Catholics with having broken the age long unity of the
church. Protestant theologians felt the charge very
keenly; and finally answered it by maintaining that the
unity of the church is spiritual, and as such nothing can
destroy it. Christians might be divided up into various
denominations just as they are divided into different
nations and cities. Organic unity is unnecessary and even
undesirable.
This attitude of mind passed into a tradition in
Protestantism. The following excerpt from the writing of
Richard Baxter, famous Puritan divine of the seventeenth
century, is fairly typical of the classical Protestant
excuse for division in the church. He says:
"My next address is to them that are so solicitous
to know which is the true church among all the par ties in
the world that pretend to it. Silly souls! they are
hearkening to that party, and to that party, and turn it
may he to one, and to another, to find the [ true
universal church. I speak not in contempt, but in
compassion. You are in the wood, and cannot find it for
trees; but you ask, 'Which of these sort of trees is the
wood? Is it the oak, or the ash, or the elm, or poplar? Or
is it the hawthorn, or the bramble? Why, it is all
together. You are studying which of the members is the
man: Is the hand the man? or is it the foot? or is it the
eye? or the heart? or which is it? Why, it is the whole
body and soul, in which all parts and faculties are
comprised. You wisely ask, 'Which part is the whole? Why,
no part is the whole. Which is the Catholic Church? Is it
the Protestants, the Calvinists, or the Lutherans the
Papists, the Greeks, the Aethiopians, or which is it? Why,
it is never any one of them, but all together that are
truly Christians. Good Lord! What a pitiful state is the
poor church in, when we must look abroad and see such
abundance running up and down the world, and asking which
is the world? whether this country be the world, or that
country be the world? They are as it were running up and
down England to look for England, and ask, whether this
town be England, or whether it be the other? They are as
men running up and down London to inquire for London, and
ask, whether this house be London, or that street be
London? or some other? Thus they are in the midst of the
church of Christ inquiring after the church, and asking,
whether it be this party of Christians, or whether it be
the other? Why, you doting wretches, it is all Christians
in the world of what sort so ever, that are truly so, that
constitute the Catholic Church. "
There is much in what the old theologian says here
which must engage the assent of all evangelical
Christians; but it is quite evident that he means to liken
the divisions of the church to the different countries of
the world, the different houses of a town, and the
different parts of the human body, thus justifying their
existence in the body of Christ.
The same sentiment was expressed by the great preacher,
Henry Ward Beecher: "A physical union of all
denominations is manifestly impossible. There can be no
such union. Nor will identity of intellect (that is
doctrinal sameness), or identity of instruments (that is
ecclesiastical institutions), ever constitute a true
union. That is to consist in the mass of men, of the same
quality which makes each one of them a child of
Christ—namely, the dominant spirit of a pure
benevolence. You may attempt to bring churches together;
but it is easier to weld iron that is cold than to unite
churches by simply making them think and act alike ....
The union of love is the only union which Christ sought to
establish, or which is attainable in this world. "
Here, too, there is much in which we must all concur;
but the burden of it all seems to be that organic unity is
impossible and undesirable because we already have the
only real unity of the church— the unity of the spirit.
The present writer is not working in any polemical
spirit, therefore he can gladly acknowledge that there is
a certain amount of truth in the claim that the church of
today has a kind of unity, and that spiritual unity is a
real unity. It is most certainly true that all genuine
Christians are at one in acknowledging the lordship of
Jesus Christ. They are one in their knowledge of him in
his power to save. They are one in the blessed membership
in his mystical body.
The fallacy in the argument of Baxter is in likening
the towns of England to the denominational divisions in
the Christian church. At a time when England was united
under one government working in orderly fashion it would
indeed be vain to ask which town is England; but if a
rebellion should arise in which the different towns should
side each with a separate government such a question might
not be so silly.
Five years before the Civil War in America there was no
occasion to ask whether a town in Virginia or Alabama is a
part of the United States; but during the Civil War the
question was not so absurd. During the Revolutionary War
there was a tremendous debate whether or not the Thirteen
Colonies belonged to England. Finally the Colonists won
the debate in favor of the proposition that the Thirteen
Colonies had no connection whatever with England but were
absolutely and irrevocably independent.
Anybody who knows law and logic knows that the various
denominations are just as independent of each other as
England and America are at the present time. As a matter
of fact there is a closer connection between England and
the United States than there is between many of the
Christian denominations to day.
A man may signify to the American government that he
wishes to visit England; the government will then issue
him a passport which the British government is not indeed
obliged to accept, but which it generally will accept.
This man can stay in England for years, freely eating
English food and following English customs; and at the end
of his visit he can return to the United States with his
citizenship in no wise impaired nor subject to question.
So rigid are the denominational walls that it seems
absurd to the point of jesting even to suggest such an
interchange of courtesy between denominations. It is a
well known fact that such churches as practice close
communion will not even permit a member of another
denomination so much as to eat one crumb of bread with
them at the table of the Lord. And a Christian of another
denomination might visit inside the house of a sister
denomination, but he could not visit inside the churchly
fellowship without surrendering altogether his membership
in his former denominational home.
Another fallacy in Baxter's reasoning is to liken the
different denominations to the members of the human body.
In the first place this analogy is not correct. The
several members of the human body are intimately combined
in one interacting organism. When the muscles on one side
of a limb contract the opposite muscles relax. When the
mouth wants something the eyes search for it and the legs
bear the body to it and the hands secure it and transport
it to the mouth. The stomach affords a capital of food and
warmth to every member of the body.
It is simply a mere statement of fact to say that this
is not the condition in the denominational field. To make
the analogy true it would be necessary for the Seventh Day
Adventists and the Episcopalians to run their publishing
houses as one, or for the Nazarenes and the Presbyterians
to operate a college or a mission station on a partnership
basis. To complete the analogy it would be necessary for
the other denominations to collect money for the Roman
Catholic Church and then that church disburse the funds so
collected to the Greek Catholics, Baptists, Methodists,
Adventists, Nazarenes, and so forth, as they might have
need. It does not require a microscope nor the exact
methods of the laboratory to discern that this is not the
case at the present time; and history affords authentic
evidence that it never was so.
In the second place the assumption that the
denominations are related to the body of Christ in the
same way as the bodily organs are related to the human
body is in opposition to the teaching of St. Paul. IIe
says: "Now are ye the body of Christ, and members in
particular. And God hath set some in the church, first
apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers,"
etc. The individual persons, some of whom were teachers
and office bearers in the church, were the several members
of the body of Christ—and not rival social
organizations.
Besides this it is also true that the relation of the
individual persons to Christ as members of his body is not
a mere parable or figure of speech, but the description of
an actual reality. If Christianity means what the Apostle
understood it to mean individual Christians are not simply
figuratively but really and actually members of the body
of Christ: "For we are members of his body, of his
flesh, and of his bones" ( Eph.. 5 :30) .
That this is something more than a careless figure of
speech is shown by the fact that the same idea was
repeated by the Apostle again and again. For instance, he
says: "Know ye not that your bodies are the members
of Christ?" (I Cor. 6: 15). This shows that he was
not referring to social organizations but to individual
persons. And when he said " . . . your body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost . . . " (vs. 19) he
indicated a relationship with Christ which is more than a
mere figure of speech.
The same thought is expressed by our blessed Lord when
he likened the individual members of the church to the
branches of a vine. He said: "I am the vine, ye are
the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the
same bringeth forth much fruit" (John 15:5). Here we
have the same thought: obviously one cannot distinguish
between the vine and the branches. It takes the branches
to complete the vine. They are a part of the vine.
Just as Christians are said by St. Paul to be members
of Christ's body, and temples of the Holy Ghost " . .
. for the temple of Cod is holy, which temple ye [21]
are" (I Cor. 3 :17), so here Christ says they are
members of himself as a holy vine.
It is often said that Christ here had reference to the
various denominational organizations of the world. This is
palpably incorrect; for there was not a denomination of
the present day in existence then. Besides, Christ made
his meaning as plain as a grammatical arrangement of words
can make it. He said: "If a man abide not in me, he
is cast forth as a branch" (John 15: 6). Not a
church, nor a denomination, is named, but a man.
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