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Do We
Need Christian Unity?
There is no reasonable doubt but that if our present
widespread education was also accompanied by a seventeenth
century belief in Cod that social legislation—and social
morality—would have lifted the lot of the workingman to
a place far above what it is today.
We have not drifted from our subject. Our thesis is
that this crisis in beliefs and in morals is a stern
challenge to the church to rid itself of the smothering
incubus of denominational division and to rise with all
its might to meet the most dangerous situation it has ever
seen in all history. Men are saying everywhere that
Protestantism is dying; and it is open to the friends of
evangelical Christianity to meet the questions of sincere
thinkers with the utmost frankness. And when these tell us
that division is one of the greatest hindrances which
modern Christianity is forced to labor under, let us
bravely admit it, instead of questioning their motives or
evading the issue.
But more compelling reasons may be found—if more
compelling reasons were needed—in the very nature of the
Christian religion itself. The apostle of old has asked a
question which rebukes our division. "Is Christ
divided?" he enquired of the sectaries of ancient
Corinth. If he were in America would he not ask the same
of us today?
Christ is one; and it is the universal belief of
Christendom that every saved soul is a member of his
mystical body—is, in fact, a member of the living
Christ. It is one of the scandals of Christendom that we
have interpreted the doctrine of the spiritual unity of
the church in a way to justify organic division; whereas
it must be apparent to the meanest intelligence that the
spiritual unity of the church is one of the strongest
arguments why there should be an organic, visible unity to
demonstrate that spiritual unity to the unbelieving world.
The Bible teaches a spiritual unity between husband and
wife, similar in nature, in fact, to that which subsists
between Christ and his church (Eph. 5: 2532). Does this
spiritual unity between husband and wife justify them in
separating on the theory that they are in unity anyhow?
Every thinking person knows that the spiritual unity of
husband and wife is the tie and bond which makes their
visible unity possible and necessary. Does a couple
demonstrate their spiritual unity by quarreling,
separating, and living apart? Everybody knows that they
demonstrate the existence of spiritual unity by
manifesting a love which enables them to get along
together in visible unity.
The visible unity of all true Christians would set up
such mighty tides of spiritual power that the strongest
saint in Christendom would become a more devout and
spiritual person; and the laggards and near backsliders
would be quickened by a thrill of enthusiasm which would
hearten every weary and discouraged Christian in the
world. Every interest of the church would spring forward
like an old fashioned carriage which was dragged out of
the deep mud onto a concrete pavement.
No thoughtful reader of the New Testament needs to be
told that that foundation document of the Christian
doctrine is replete with exhortations and commands to
Christians to maintain a visible unity among themselves.
Over and over the theme is stressed.
"Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and
that there he no divisions among you; but that ye be
perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same
judgment" (I Cor. 1: 10).
It was Paul's desire " that there should be no
schism in the body; but that the members should have the
same care one for another" (Ch. 12: 25). This means
that all Christians (the members) of Christ should have
the same care one for another. Let us try to understand
it, as we doubtless shall at the judgment seat of Christ.
That means that a Lutheran should have the same care for a
Methodist or Presbyterian as he has for a brother Lutheran
and vice versa. If he does not he sins against the
commandment of St. Paul. If he does he will probably find
that the denominational organizations are a hindrance
rather than a help to him in carrying out the apostolic
injunction.
Paul condemned divisions more strongly than scarce any
modern responsible writer would be able to condemn. He
wrote: "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as
unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in
Christ . . . For ye are yet carnal for whereas there is
among you envying, and strife, and [78] divisions, are ye
not carnal, and walk as men ? " (I Cor. 3 :1-3).
This was what Paul thought about the factionists in
Corinth who had done no more than to form parties within
the congregation itself and had evidently not split off
from the public worship of the church. What would he think
and say of those who should split the mystic body of
Christ into dozens of separate divisions and organize
those divisions so tightly and incorporate them under the
law so thoroughly that they never could be done away with
except through the most extraordinary means,
The writers of the New Testament set their faces so
sternly against division that it is hard to see how devout
people of today can possibly overlook their teaching and
disregard their solemn warnings. Doubtless nothing but the
force of inveterate habit could make pious and godly folk
indifferent to these solemn words of Holy Scripture:
"Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause
divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye
have learned; and avoid them . . . For your obedience is
come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your
behalf; but yet I would have you wise unto that which is
good, and simple concerning evil" (Rom. 16:17, 19).
According to the specific and definite teaching of the
New Testament all the ministers of Christ are called to
promote unity among believers quite as much as they are
called to preach repentance and the good life. Here are
their instructions from the constitution of the Christian
church itself: "And he [Christ] gave some, apostles;
and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some,
pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body
of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and
of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ" (Eph. 4: 11-13).
Here the divine ideal of the church is revealed as far
transcending the faith of many modern Christians. Most of
us regard unity of faith as a matter of the utmost
difficulty, and unity of knowledge as impossible. The
Twentieth Century New Testament translates as follows:
"And this shall continue, until we all attain to that
unity which is given by faith and by a fuller knowledge of
the Son of God."
The common idea is that knowledge is what separates us;
but in reality it is our lack of knowledge— for one
thing, at least. Let us have more faith to pray for the
consummation of the apostle's ideal; and let us pray
constantly for clearer light to come to all the faithful,
so that that unity which is given by a "fuller
knowledge of the Son of God" may be the blessed
heritage of all Christ's people.
Last of all there is the spiritual compulsion of
Christ's prayer, previously referred to, that "they
all may be one" (John 17: 21). As long as Christ's
will is law in his church, so long must the consciences of
Christians, once they are awakened to the significance of
his words, bend like the ripened wheat, to the wind,
before the majestic imperative of his High Priestly
Prayer. As long as there is division in his church from
any cause there is a powerful moral stress upon the soul
of every Christian in the whole world.
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