The Church is One Ps 133; Ex 19:1-6; Eph 4:1-6; John 17:1-26
Introduction https://youtu.be/YDBeFDQl8k4
Whilst the recent census statistics suggest that Christianity in Australia is in steady decline[1], since the fourth century, the majority of Christians have confidently testified[2] [in the words of the Nicene Creed (381 A.D.),] “We believe…in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church”[3]. This is a testimony representing the Church’s identity in a way that has been forced upon her since the very beginning through internal opposition and external persecution[4]. Whilst accepting there are other valid approaches[5], such as the distinction between the invisible and visible Church[6], by faith[7] we affirm that there can only ever be one Church. This truth seems contradicted by the existence of what we now call “denominations”, some of which claim to be the only true Church. This is most the case with the “Roman Catholic Church”, some Orthodox bodies, but also various Protestant Churches[8]. Unity in scripture and tradition is not the same as uniformity. Unity is something we believe already exists, it is NOT something to be created by our efforts[9] but a spiritual reality[10] to be realised and expressed visibly. The Church must live as one because it is one.
Denominations
[People argue about just how many denominations exist[11] (23,000? 33,000?), but the clear answer is “Too many!”] when non-Christians ask me why there are so many “churches = denominations” my simple answer is, “humans always find ways to rebel against the revealed will of God”. How could anyone who has heard our scripture readings today come to a different conclusion? Let me modify this a little. Going back to the 16th century godly leaders of the Church had little option but to separate themselves from the Catholic Church of the day with its shocking immorality[12]. The Bible however never tolerates divisions between Christians[13], listen to Paul scolding the Corinthians[14]; “one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas/Peter,” or “I follow Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Cor 1:12-13). No group should ever think of itself as superior to any other. My complicated journey, with Donna accompanying, bears testimony to this.
Coming from a non-Christian background[15] I started to read the Bible and a popular book lent me by a lapsed Christian friend about miracles through the life of a Pentecostal pastor[16], soon some Christians sent me along to a local Pentecostal assembly. The longer we were there however[17] the more my theological reading came in conflict with the leadership’s authoritarian style, so we moved to Donna’s old Baptist fellowship and sensed a call to study at an Anglican Evangelical theological college in Melbourne[18], where, against my prejudices[19], I decided to candidate for the Anglican ministry. Following rejection by 2 very different dioceses[20], the Lord graciously opened a door into the diocese of Wangaratta (north-east Victoria). Here my church problems intensified [after a very healthy first placement,] In my second placement the bishop was forced to move me because the rector threatened to starve me out by withholding funds needed by the diocese for my stipend[21]. On my last occasion of sharing a service with him, I clearly recall approaching him during the “passing of the peace”, looking him directly in the eyes, and saying, “You know I forgive.” To which, he replied, “Yes.”
Moving to Brisbane to finish my studies [at the secular Queensland University] we ended up in a Church run like a cult by a priest and his wife, things became more and more bizarre there[22]. After I preached a sermon, secretly recorded[23], he dropped a letter in my letter box informing me I could no longer minister or attend with my family in the parish. I remember going out into the bush and praying, “Lord, I have nowhere to minister or worship, but if I have you, I have everything.” Moving to Perth I was very immaturely responsible for a church split, which through God’s overriding grace recreated a dead parish[24], here the church problems escalated into what I can only a “riot”(with one day people walking out after making remarks during my preaching others shouting out false accusations (“You are in it for the money, for the house for the car.”) many there weeping)[25]. After a short period of seeking the will of the Lord this trauma led to my resignation from the Anglican ministry, then time in a house church network (where the leader eventually visited my home to tell me he didn’t want to relate to me anymore), ministry in a Churches of Christ fellowship, where things were terminated because the eldership was “manipulated”[26], then involvement in an independent Evangelical congregation[27], then a Lutheran Church, where the Lord showed me through a dream to leave, and finally to St Marks Bassendean where we have been happy for the last 10 years. This extraordinary journey[28] (there are numerous other details) has taught me to accept believers across a wide range of groupings according to my personal motto, “any friend of Jesus is a friend of mine.” The journey continues out it present. This week I received an email headed PRIORITY from the regional bishop’s secretary. He visited the church to tell me there had been an anonymous complaint[29] about my sermon on 19th June, and that in his estimation he could not see how I could continue in ministry with the archbishop’s licence, and he strongly urges me to make an appointment to see her. Which is happening, with Dale Appleby present as an advocate, this Tuesday at 12.30. Please pray for his, that the will of God be accomplished for his glory.
Since not everyone has a call like mine with its many painful details, it is vital we turn to Scripture in its teaching on the oneness of the Church.
One Church
Why bother at all with the Church, why not just accept the status quo, that at the level of function at least, the Body of Christ is hopelessly divided? This would be a great mistake[30], as it would testify Sunday after Sunday to “the ruler and authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph 3:10) that we don’t see other believers included with us in the one indivisible plan of God in Christ[31]. It would be a denial of the power of the gospel. As God divided the nations at Babel (Gen 11:1-9), he has reunited them at Pentecost by the outpouring on “every nation under heaven” of the same Spirit by Jesus as a gift from God the Father (Acts 2:5; 33). This profound trinitarian action[32] alone can heal the distrust that lies between Christians. In our Ephesians reading today (Eph 4:1-6) Paul emphatically states, “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, zone baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Jesus Christ does not have a harem of Brides, the Father doesn’t have a multitude of families, and the Spirit has only a single holy Temple to live in[33]. The issues of the practical unity of the Church are so important that the devil has been extremely successful in creating confusion about the biblical teaching on these matters. Where he is working is not invisible/indiscernible[34], it is always the place where the pre-eminence of name of Jesus (Col 1:16) is set aside.
[Since the unity of God is made real for us in the coming of God as a human being in Christ[35], it follows that] the words and work of Jesus contain the key to unified Christian cooperation. Take the common use of Psalm 133, it is a beautiful picture of how the dwelling together of brothers and sisters in unity is like the anointing oil poured over the head of the High Priest. What everyone[36] seems to miss is that this precious oil (Ex 30:22-33) was to anoint the High Priest to offer sacrifice, something fulfilled when Jesus “the anointed one”[37] was strengthened[38] to offer himself (Heb 9:26) on the cross. The precious unity symbolically/typologically spoken of in the psalm is created from the suffering of the cross. A reality powerfully expounded in the longest of Jesus’ prayers in John 17.
One Glory
There is nothing deeper, nothing more substantial in God than his glory. When God reveals himself it is his glory which is experienced by mere mortals[39][40]. As the enfleshed “Lord of glory” (John 1:14; 1 Cor 2:8; James 2:1) Jesus has complete authority to pray to his Holy and Righteous Father (John 17:11, 25). “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and cloved them even as you loved me.” (v.20-23). How are we “in” the Father and the Son, and what is the glory given to Jesus handed on to us, so that as people in the world look at the Church, they are persuaded he was sent by the Father?[41]
The Father “sent” the Son for a single wonderful purpose, that the honour he received as Creator and Judge might be fully received by Christ through his great act of judgment on the cross (John 5:23-24 cf. 7:18; 12:31; 13:20; 16:11)[42]. The Church shares in this single eternal glory (John 17:1-5) by accepting through faith that together as a single Body we by grace have become united with the righteousness of God in Christ (Acts 17:30; 1 Cor 1:30)[43]. Our extremely individualistic Western worldview makes it very hard for us to see that, “When we were dead in our trespasses, (God) made us alive together with Christ—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” (Eph 2:5-6)[44]. This community emphasis is everywhere repeated, “if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” (Rom 6:8; 2 Tim 2:11).
The unity of the Church is created by God the Father in the power of the holy Spirit (Heb 9:14) since in the death of the one Lord and Messiah all have died and all are raised in him and all will together with him be totally glorified (Rom 8:29). The perfect oneness of the Church is contained within the reality of God gathering us all up into Jesus in his death, resurrection and glorification. To judge other Christians in a “purely human way” (2 Cor 5:16) is disastrous for the functional unity of the Church. We must not see people merely as they present in a natural way with all their difficulties and deficiencies but see people in the Spirit according to the mind of Christ (Rom 8:9; 1 Cor 2:16). To put all this in a slightly different way, every ecclesiological/Church problem is first of all a Christological problem. Our perspective on the beautiful Bride of Christ is too small because we fail to believe that Jesus has saved all of us completely/to the uttermost (Heb 7:25). The implications of believing that we are encompassed in the glory of God are enormous.
Living in the Word
As I prayed about Jesus’ prayer in John 17 recently, I had a profound sense of how his heart was filled with an awareness of being loved by the Father in the eternal glory of God and an amazement[45] that all this eternal wealth of grace and goodness was meant for his people! We are called to love the Church as Jesus knows he is loved by the Father, a love measured for him and for us, by the depths of the sacrifice of the cross. This is the foundation rarely embraced by Christian people because we all “know” that other Christians can be proud, arrogant, elitist and self-sufficient, in other words, not easy to love. But the cross was not an easy decision for the Father and the Son, they could only go through with this great act of self-sacrifice in the power of the Holy Spirit[46]. I have outlined in this sermon very briefly my journey through the Church, a history of multiple painful rejections. I recall starting a sermon on prayer (in Kalamunda) with a statement that it was only by the Lord’s call, and enablement, to pray an hour at the start of each day that I was able to keep ministering, and later sharing with a pastor in another place what I genuinely felt at the time, “Dave, if it doesn’t work out here, I think am finished.”[47]. Well, it didn’t work out there; but the Spirit of the Lord has kept me going because in Christ I know that the Church is one and can only ever be one, now and forevermore. This is the transforming power of the sacrifice of the cross.
Review and Repentance/ Conclusion and Application
We have fallen far below Jesus’ prayers and what he saw in the Spirit of the will of God [his Father] (John 17)[48]. An early Church Father put forth a prevailing prophetic principle; “No reformation able to be effected by them will be of great enough importance to compensate for the damage arising from their schism.” [49]. It is impossible for us to confess and repent for past actions of others, but we can look back with sorrow on the need for the Protestant Reformation and so the creation of the Church of England[50]. If we cannot undo the multiplication of divisions, what can we do?
I once worked for some years with a group that boldly, and in hindsight, proudly, stated that most “churches” are really clubs[51]. Whereas a club exists for the sake of its own (paying) members[52], a past Archbishop of Canterbury famously said, ‘“The Church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members”. Whilst today we witness larger churches swallowing up members from smaller churches in a way that is opposite to the prayers of the Lord[53], we need to go back to Jesus’ original vision for us, that St Marks will move beyond being a community who supports mission groups (which is good) to being a missionary community bringing the life of Christ to the world around us, to Bassendean and beyond.
[1] https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/2021-census-shows-changes-australias-religious-diversity
[2] This ecumenical creed is today recited in the liturgies of the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Moravians, Lutherans, Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Anglican Communion, and by members of the Reformed Churches
[3] This is faith-filled testimony to the indestructibility of the Church, not in every place, but as a whole.
[4] The epistles abound with references to “false apostles” (2 Cor 11:13; Rev 2:2), “false brothers” (2 Cor 11:26; Gal 2:4)”, false teachers” (2 Pet 2:1), those who have “gone out” (1 John 2:19) and so on. The Nicene Creed itself emerged out of the Arian controversy, the most significant dispute the people of God have ever faced.
[5] In the 39 Articles of Religion of the Anglican Church, we read, in article XIX. Of the Church. “The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.” This position has been influenced by Martin Luther’s emphases in opposition to Roman Catholicism.
[6] There may be those inside the assembly who do not really belong to it because of a lack of faith and godliness (1 Cor 5:13; 2 Tim 2:20; 1 John 2:19).
[7] Remembering that the Creeds are more than personal/private confessions, we confess as part of a community faith in these 4 marks of Church.
[8] Such as the True Jesus Church, https://tjc.org/intro-to-basic-beliefs/ , some Bible Baptist Churches and so on.
[9] Such as the modern ecumenical movement.
[10] Rom 15:5 – 7; 1 Cor 1:10; 2 Cor 13: 11; Eph 4:3; Phil 1:27; 4:2; Col 2:2; 1 Pet 3:8
[12] Not the least being the merciless persecution of earlier Reformers, John Hus being a prime example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hus
[13] Cf. Eph 4;4 –6; cf. 1 Cor 3:3 –4; Gal 5:19 – 20; Jude 19)
[14] There are no examples in the New Testament of true believers separating on the grounds of doctrine; heretics are excluded as they do not belong to the body of Christ at all, and relational ruptures within a congregation are to be dealt with by discipline.
[15] I am not even sure of what denomination my parents originally belonged to.
[16]David Wilkerson and the foundation of Teen Challenge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cross_and_the_Switchblade
[17] It was a great place for inspiration and the manifestation of spiritual gifts.
[18] Primarily because the of the reputation of the then principal, Leon Morris.
[19] Primarily against using a book for worship, the notion of episcopal leadership (bishops) and infant baptism.
[20] Melbourne and Armidale.
[21] This was a very painful experience with a lot of weeping both by me and others. I was moved, rather reluctantly, back to my first placement. Praise God, the Lord’s purpose prevailed and we saw quite a move of God there.
[22] E.g. we witnessed physical abuse where people were prevented from leaving the church building until they submitted to “discipline”.
[23] I am abbreviating greatly about this because the mature Christians with whom we had become related began to leave.
[24] St Barnabas W. Leederville, which is still flourishing.
[25] This was so intense that it caused both me and one of the children present to suffer long term PTSD. Praise God I have recovered from this.
[26] Language used by the chairman of the elders in a later confession to me.
[27] Which was led by 3 sincere women who definitely had no authority from God to be elders.
[28] Not insignificantly, Donna was for 20 years a teacher at a Catholic High School where she made Catholic various friends e.g. becoming godparents.
[29] In contempt of the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 18:13-20, which is very clear on the order of dealing with church disputes.
[30] In Bassendean, as well as the Anglicans, we have the Catholics and Seventh Day Adventists down the street, and the Church of Christ, Presbyterians and Baptists the other side of the railway line.
[31] After all, Jesus taught that our words reveal our hearts, so no prayer means no heart presence (Luke 6:45).
[32] Compare, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and mall were made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Cor 12:12-13).
[33] How could I ever be standoffish to a person in whom Christ lives in the most intimate relationship, forever??
[34] “Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, 11 so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.” (2 Cor 2:10-11).
[35] John 1:14; Rom. 1:3; 8:3; Gal. 4:4; Phil. 2:7, 8; Col. 1:22; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 2:14; 1 John 4:2; 2 John 7.
[36] Not all teachers in print, but all that I have listened to. This is a solid effort: https://www.nateholdridge.com/blog/a-guide-for-the-climb-chapter-14-war-for-unity-psalm-133
[37] What Messiah/Christos literally means.
[38] At his baptism (Luke 3:21-22), but also on his passage to the cross (Matt 26:6-13).
[39] E.g. the holy seraphim perpetually testify, ““Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”” (Isa 6:2); as Stephen proclaims, “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham” (Acts 7:2). This theme is used by God to draw attention to himself in both the Old Testament (Isaiah 42:8) and New Testament (Revelation 14:7) and includes all the divine attributes. So, for example, God’s wisdom is a feature of his glory, for his wisdom is glorious.
[40] Arguably, such a revelation humble us as for the inheritance of our salvation.
[41] Jesus said, “A new commandment uI give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”” (John 13:34-35). The early Church Father Tertullian remarked that pagans looking at the relationships between Christians would remark, “See how they love one another!”
[42] “being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus bevery knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:8-11). Note also the parallels between the honour, praise and worship accorded God as Creator in Rev 4, and that directed to the Lamb in Rev 5.
[43] From a massa damnata to a massa bona (Augustine).
[44] Cf. “having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead….you have been raised with Christ…seated at the right hand of God” (Col 2:12; 3:1)
[45] As a genuine human being, much like what we see breaking into his experience in Luke 10:21-22; In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.2 22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
[46] Nikolaus von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) was the father of modern ecumenism and of Protestant missions following an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the church in Europehttps://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/denominationalfounders/nikolaus-von-zinzendorf.html. David du Plessis (1905-1987) was a South African filled with the Spirit as a teenager who went on to spread the ministry of unity across the global Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_du_Plessis
[47] It didn’t work out, I was dismissed, rather unjustly.
[48] Let alone the teaching of the rest of the New Testament.
[49] Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.33.7.
[50] Understanding that “Church of England” was meant to be the single Church of the realm.
[51] Whereas there were many clubs (collegia) in the Roman Empire that existed for the benefit of their members, and an ever-increasing number of religious societies, only Christianity was overtly evangelistic as a way of life.
[52] So there can be liberal as well as conservative clubs.
[53] Unforgettable testimonies of true love involve situations where e.g. in Toowoomba, a band of churches united to financially save a local fellowship from closing down.