The last decade or so has seen the church in Australia grow familiar with the challenge of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:21: “that they may all be one. As you Father, are in me and I in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may know that you have sent me”. With many places in the western world experiencing “unity fatigue” we need a deeper examination of the context of the intercession of Jesus if his heart desire is to be answered in our land.
We often neglect that Jesus’ progress to the cross dominates the relevant section of John’s Gospel. Amazingly, he speaks of his future journey to death and resurrection as something already complete: “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.” (John 17:4). The nature of Christ’s full assurance of the completion of God’s work in his life is the foundation for our assurance that Christian unity can bring revival to Australia.
True unity is always based on diversity. Father and Son are equal (John 10:33) but different in such a way that it is true that they are one (John 10:30) and the Father is greater than Jesus (John 14:28). The greatness of the Father relates not to character but to his superior power (John 14:12, 28). The Father does not suffer from the limitations of Jesus the Word. Only the Son has become one with our flesh in all its weakness (John 1:14; 4:6; 19:28).
This means that Jesus’ part in the divine unity is to surrender his life to the Father in the ultimate weakness of death (John 19:28, 30). The Father’s part in the divine unity is to powerfully raise Jesus from the dead (John 21:14). Jesus is resolved to glorify the Father by the cross, the Father is resolved to glorify the Son by the resurrection (John 12:16, 27- 28). It is the perfect complementarity of weakness and strength, death and life that is the unity that Jesus prays we share with him and the Father.
As those who follow in the way of Jesus there are some things that we can do and some things that he alone can do. As men and women we are called to die to all self -interest and to trust God to revive us. Death, so to speak, is our work (Romans 6:11; 8:13), whilst spiritual renewal is God’s work. Humiliation is in our hands, exaltation is in God’s hands (James 4:10; 1 Peter 5:6).
God is calling Christians across this nation to release to him all the good gifts and graces that he himself has given us, and to release these for the greater good of the body of Christ and the world. Only as we lay these down (“our” churches, “our” ministries, “our” anointing) on the altar of sacrifice and death can we anticipate experiencing a spiritual resurrection in Australia as unpredictable in its content as the resurrection was in the experience of Jesus himself.
The cost of unity is the key to unity. Glory only comes through suffering (Luke 24:26, 46). As it was for Jesus with the Father, so it is for us with Jesus. The benefits of revival are enormous, but the cost of revival is total, death to all control of the things that God has given us. We surely know that unity is the only way forward, but are we able to count the cost (Luke 14:25-33)? If we do not, no number of appeals to unity made in this magazine or our pulpits will see any fundamental change in the disastrous spiritual situation of our nation.