A message spoken at a combined church meeting:
When I was asked to speak about unity I thought about all the Christians who I have found it very difficult to get on with and consequently avoid ever speaking to. I know that these people are believers and so there is unity between us, and at the same time I really can’t accept what these people say and don’t actually like them. This may just be my personality, since I have strong opinions. However, it does present a question for me about unity. It is all very well to be idealistic about unity but it does require actually being able to deal with other Christians. My personality clashes may serve to illustrate the fact that unity has both objective and subjective elements. This is why Paul can write in Ephesians 4 two statements about unity which seem contrary to one another. He says both that unity is an objective fact and that we need to attain unity.
The first statement is at the beginning of Ephesians 4.
“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit– just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call– one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph. 4:1-6 ESV).
This is a statement about the objective nature of Christian unity. Unity is a given and we must maintain it, not create it. The passage uses the word ‘one’ repeatedly: one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God. We are united by the fact there are no other options. We cannot have two bodies of Christ or two Holy Spirits. We cannot have two Lords or two Gods. So as Christians we can maintain the unity of the Spirit, because objectively we are one. This says nothing about doctrinal disputes or about personality clashes or different ideas about what worship should look like etc. These things are secondary to the oneness. If a person is united to Christ by the Spirit then we are objectively one with them. What is required is maintaining that unity in the bond of peace, that is,working on getting along with one another.
But in the next section of Eph 4 there is a statement about attaining unity.
“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:11-13 ESV).
This passage acknowledges that we have not attained to unity yet, that there is work to do to arrive there. I believe that unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God here refers both to agreeing on matters of doctrine, in the sense of agreeing on who the Son of God is, as well as coming to a place of relational knowing and obedience to the Son of God.
To reinforce this idea of relationally knowing and obeying the Son of God, let’s consider a passage in John. Not long before he went to the cross, Jesus told his disciples:
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (John 14:15-20).
In this final discourse before his death, Jesus said a lot about who he is and how he would send the Spirit to the disciples. This is very relational stuff. We know the Holy Spirit because he dwells within us. We are not left alone without relational knowledge of the Father and of Jesus – they come to us. We know that Jesus is in the Father, that is, he knows the Father in a way which goes beyond any intimacy that humans can experience. They are one (John 10:30). But then Jesus said, “you are in me, and I in you” (14:20). To be a follower of Jesus is to experience being in Jesus and him in us. It is to experience an intimacy of relationship.
The point I am trying to make here about unity is that it must centre on the knowledge of the Son of God. This is both knowledge in the sense of knowing facts, that is, knowing the gospel clearly and truly, and also knowing Jesus in a relational way. As the body of Christ gathers around Jesus and knows him in a more and more relational way then we mature individually and corporately. This is the key to genuine Christian unity.
How can we know Jesus in a more intimate relational way? John 14:15 tells us, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Growing in knowledge of Jesus must surely involve growing in obedience to his commands. His greatest command is to love one another (John 13:34). The outworking of love for one another will be respect, deference, and putting others before ourselves. But this will also involve speaking the truth in love so that we might mature. This is not a matter of following a set of ‘Christian’ rules of conduct. Love for one another flows out of the love we have for Jesus and this grows as we get to know him better. There can be no substitute for prayer and time in the Bible. If we do not grow closer to Jesus as individuals then we cannot grow into a mature body of Christ together.
So the upshot of all this is that I believe that Christian unity must be centred on Jesus. He is always the key. But we cannot live practically unified simply based on doctrine. In my experience people don’t change their minds on doctrine easily. Rather, we can be more practically unified as we each work on our relationship with Jesus through prayer, Bible reading and obedience to what we hear from Jesus. The love which flows out of individual relationships with Jesus will bring about practical unity within the body.