A Man in Christ: Endeavoring to Keep the Unity of the Spirit

The believer is, as we have seen, entreated to “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith he is called.” Owing everything to grace, and nothing to self, “lowliness and meekness” are obviously becoming, and these are therefore the first qualities he is exhorted to display. Long-suffering and forbearance in love, as the close, and indeed inseparable companions of lowliness and meekness, are also enjoined along with them. These characteristics should under all circumstances distinguish one who is saved by grace, and we shall see how their manifestation is urged in each of the various positions in which the believer is looked upon in this epistle. In none, however, are they more important than in that relationship which takes the first place in the practical exhortations here given; for nowhere does the working of self-will and self-assertion produce such disastrous consequences as in the assembly of God.
We are called through grace into oneness with Christ, as members of His body; and into oneness with each other, as united in Him. If, then, we would walk worthy of our vocation, we must, in accordance with the next practical exhortation, be “endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (vs. 3). How closely this is connected with lowliness and meekness, how constantly it calls for the exercise of long-suffering and forbearance, is too evident to need further remark. If self is made much of, the unity of the Spirit cannot be preserved. It is only as self is dropped out of sight, and Christ becomes the prominent object before the eye, that this exhortation can be followed. But as the church-relationship is the first here taken up in the practical portion of the epistle, and as this exhortation is the first given with reference to the church, it is clear that it demands an especially close and careful examination.
The preservation of unity is obviously the point which the Holy Ghost is here pressing, and the importance attached to it is somewhat intensified by the word which is translated “bond,” but which should rather be rendered “the uniting bond.” The believer is not told to keep the unity of the body, or even the unity of the Spirit, but to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit. The word “keep,” however, is here used in the sense of watching over or caring for, rather than in the absolute sense of maintaining. This latter is clearly beyond man’s power, and can be done by God only. Thanks be to His name, it is safe in His keeping; and however grievously man may have failed in His responsibility, the unity of the body and of the Spirit cannot really be broken. What, then, is the meaning of the exhortation here addressed to the believer? It is manifestly not to maintain that which can be maintained by God only; and yet it is manifestly something after which the believer is to strive. The unity of the Spirit exists, and can never cease to exist; but it may cease to be held, guarded, and watched over by us. It is to this, then, that the exhortation of the apostle is directed.
But how is this to be accomplished? Most Protestants say that the unity here spoken of is an invisible unity in Christ, and that it is quite consistent with sectarian divisions; though believers thus outwardly separated, being really one, should cultivate peace towards each other. This interpretation, however, makes peace the object, and leaves oneness, as a thing which we are to strive after, entirely out of account. Now we are not told to endeavor to keep the bond of peace, but to endeavor to keep “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” The unity of the Spirit is what we are to endeavor to keep, and the bond of peace is the means to be employed. The Holy Ghost does not press that peace should be kept amidst divisions, but that oneness should be kept by peace. How, then, can this oneness be the invisible oneness which exists in Christ? How could believers be told to endeavor to keep that which is solely in God’s keeping? They might as well be told to endeavor to keep the earth revolving on its axis. If they are exhorted to do something, it is because there is something for them to do. And what there is for them to do here is quite plain. Being called into the unity of the Spirit, they are to watch and guard it, to endeavor to keep it in the bond of peace. It is not an invisible unity which they can neither keep nor lose, but something which can be kept or lost according to their watchfulness or negligence. The preservation of this outward unity is to be the object of striving and effort.
If this be so, it is clear that the present divided condition of the church is not according to the mind of the Spirit. It may be well, however, to look at some other scriptures bearing on this subject. In John 17 we find that, whether our Lord was praying for the disciples then with Him, or whether He enlarges the sphere to the whole of those who should believe on Him through their word, in both cases the first petition that He presents concerning them is for their oneness. In verse 21 He prays, “That they all,” that is all believers, “may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.” Here, then, the special object for which the Lord desires this oneness is that it may be a testimony to the world. No invisible unity can be this. The world can receive no evidence but that presented to it, and unless the oneness of believers is a thing discernible by the world, the testimony here spoken of is not given. The church indeed was not formed when these words were uttered, but they were uttered in full view of the fact that the church was soon to be formed; and the formation of the church could not dissolve, but rather cement and define the oneness here spoken of. In 1 Corinthians 12:12,13, we read that “as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” This is clearly the same unity spoken of in Ephesians (church unity), the whole being one with and in Christ. It cannot be said that the unity here named is merely spiritual, and that nothing is said about its practical manifestation to the world; for the very same chapter declares that “God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked, that there should be no schism, [or division] in the body” (vss. 24, 25).
Other parts of the same epistle bring out the same truth with even greater clearness. Thus in chapter 10:17, which speaks of the Lord’s Supper, we find that the reason for our all partaking of one loaf is that our oneness in Christ may be signified. “For we being many are one bread [that is one loaf], one body: for we are all partakers of that one loaf.”
In the first chapter we find divisions denounced in the most solemn and energetic way. The apostle beseeches the believers to “speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions [or schisms] among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?” (vss. 10-13) Now what do we find here? Just the same thing as in modern Christendom. Different sects had already begun to exist in principle, different human teachers or schools of theology to be regarded as rallying-points. True, they had not yet gone the length of separating from one another, and they still, as to outward form, recognized no center of gathering but Christ. But what does the apostle say about it? He asks, “Is Christ divided?” These words can have but one meaning. They show that the division of Christians into different schools or sects, even in the mild form which it had then assumed, was a contradiction of the oneness of the church as the body of Christ. To set up Paul as a rallying-point was like saying that Paul, rather than Christ, had been crucified for them.
If they used Paul’s name as a party cry, they should, in consistency, be baptized in Paul’s name too. Every Christian must be shocked at the thought of Christ being divided, of Paul being crucified for him, or of being baptized in the name of Paul. But the Holy Ghost declares that the divisions of the Corinthians are just as shocking as these suggestions; nay, that nothing but the truth of these suggestions could justify their divisions. Surely a more emphatic condemnation of sects, even in the mildest and least offensive form, it would be difficult to conceive.
But the powers of the human mind are illimitable in escaping unpleasant conclusions. Thus it has been urged that though the divisions of the Corinthians were doubtless wrong, what the apostle condemns was not the divisions themselves, but the spirit in which they were carried out; that the rival schools were probably very bitter, and that it was this bitterness which the apostle censures; whereas modern sects are so loving and amiable, that had he lived in our days he would have commended their spirit, and sanctioned their separate organizations. Now, nothing is more dangerous than seeking to blunt the edge of Scripture so as to escape the wound to our own consciences. The apostle does not say, “I beseech you that ye all speak different things in a friendly way;” but he does say, “I beseech you that ye all speak the same thing.” He does not say, “Let the divisions among you be amiably conducted;” but he does say, “Let there be no divisions among you.” He does not say, “Let there be peace among those of different minds and of different judgments;” but he does say, “Be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”
“Oh, but,” it is objected, “these persons were all in one assembly, and of course their divisions were wrong! But this is quite different from the state of things now.” No doubt it is different; but when the apostle blames them for saying, “I am of Paul, and I of Apollos,” does he mean that the followers of Paul ought to form one sect, and have one sort of meeting, and the followers of Apollos to form another sect, and have another sort of meeting? When he says, “Is Christ divided?” does he mean that the evil ought to be cured by believers widening their divisions, and splitting into different denominations? Surely such reasoning is trifling with Scripture! And is it not a solemn thing to see believers willing to trifle with God’s Word for the sake of hiding from their gaze the evidence of the ruin which stares them in the face. The Pharisees boasted while they were groaning under the Roman yoke: “We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man” (John 8:33). But would they not have been wiser if they had owned their ruined condition, and searched into its cause? Is it not the same with modern believers? Surely it would be better to bow to God’s Word instead of seeking to torture it into sanctioning the church’s failure!
Who can, without stifling his own conscience, maintain that the state of things reproved by Paul at Corinth was wrong, and that the state of things now prevailing around us is right? If the apostle says to the Corinthians, “Ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” if he asks, “While one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?” is it not self-evident that he would have regarded those who are now divided into all sorts of sectarian combinations as carnal too? No doubt this is deeply humbling. It is far pleasanter to be flattering ourselves that we are “rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing,” than to be owning that we are “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” But if this is our real condition, what do we gain by concealing it? We gain nothing, and we lose everything. In the things of God, to judge ourselves is the sure precursor of blessing. If once the conscience is brought into exercise about our state, whether individually or collectively, we are on the way to discover God’s mode of deliverance Among the Jews of old, as among ourselves now, the most fatal thing is that slothful acquiescence in the confusion and ruin around us; that readiness to accept present ease, and to drift on with the current of the day, which at once closes the heart against the entrance of God’s truth, and shuts out self-judgment on account of our own failure. We are quick enough in detecting the folly and fatal results of this conduct among the Jews. How little we often suspect the same blindness among ourselves!
T. B. B.
A Man in Christ: Endeavoring to Keep the Unity of the Spirit
The apostle goes on to enlarge on this subject of “endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” He gives as a reason for this effort the various unities into which we are brought. These may be divided into three classes, comprising, as it were, three concentric, but not co-extensive, circles. “There is,” he says, “one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.” Here we have the innermost circle, consisting only of true believers, those who are really members of the body of Christ, really sealed by the Spirit, and really possessed of the hope of God’s calling as unfolded in the first chapter. Besides this, however, the believer is brought into another circle, including, but far overlapping, the first, the circle of outward profession and privilege, the circle which owns the “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” All Christendom owns, however little it may submit to, the lordship of Christ, and the authority and truth of, “the faith,” while by far the greater part of Christendom is baptized. There is yet another circle, with wider circumference still, presented to us in the words, “One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all.” Here we have the whole race included, God being the common Father, in the same sense in which Paul elsewhere quotes the Greek poet as saying, “We are also His offspring” (Acts 17:28). As such He is “above all,” and His providence ranges “through all,” but it can only be said of believers that He is “us all;” hence in this case only do we find in some of the best texts that the word “us” is introduced.
But why is this sevenfold oneness here urged? As a reason for “endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” “There is one body;” what more unseemly, then, than the divisions by which the unity established by God is obscured and practically denied? There is “one Spirit;” why, then, the endless diversities of judgment, of practice, of order, of doctrine, indicating the multiform action of man’s thoughts rather than the operation of the one Spirit here spoken of? There is “one hope of our calling;” whence, then, the conflicting ways and purposes of men who should all be marching to the same goal? There is “one Lord;” how shocking; then, the setting up of every species of human rule, dividing those who own His lordship into different camps, each under a government of man’s invention. There is “one faith;” alas! what a multitude of faiths and creeds, confessions and professions, have sprung up to hide and choke that one “faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” There is “one baptism;” how sad, then, that those who profess to be “buried with Christ” should be splitting into sects and divisions which show that they are “carnal, and walk as men.” Lastly, there is “one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all;” how bitter a satire, then, on the faithfulness of the church, that even believers, who know this Father, should exhibit, not the reflection of divine order and oneness, but the picture of confusion and division which we see around us in Christendom.
But if sects are thus a denial of God’s teaching concerning the church, what are believers to do? The only organization which claims catholicity is so evidently corrupt that its pretensions to be the one church need scarcely be discussed. Evangelical believers, admitting the practical evils, though denying the unscriptural character, of the divisions in the church, have sought to mitigate them by various devices for friendly co-operation among the sects. Of the kindly feeling thus evinced, and the sincere expressions of brotherly love thus called forth, we would certainly not speak in slighting terms. But a false diagnosis necessarily leads to false treatment. The disease is not the ill-feeling existing among the sects, but the sects themselves; and this disease is neither removed nor altered in character by the occasional “exchange of pulpits,” united prayer-meetings or communions, joint committees and societies for common objects, by which modern evangelical Christians so earnestly seek to promote religious fellowship and good feeling. We have seen that sects are condemned altogether, and no mere rubbing off of their angles will therefore restore the order enjoined in God’s word: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” A mortified limb may exhibit certain superficial wounds; but the most careful dressing of these will not obviate the necessity for amputation. Excision of sects, not removal of a few of their worst features, is what is needed to revert to God’s order.
But here the question necessarily arises, Is this possible? Granted that the unity ought never to have been broken, surely it cannot now be regained? This is quite true; and the Holy Ghost does not therefore exhort believers to keep it, but to endeavor to keep it. Each person is responsible to do all in his power; and though, when ruin has come in, he cannot reconstruct, he can at, all events revert to the principle on which the unity was founded. The passage already quoted from 1 Corinthians 1 shows us how the departure took place, and therefore gives some indication of the way of return. What, then, was the manner in which the ruin commenced? By the believers in Corinth setting up party names and rallying-points. It is clear, therefore, that the first step back towards the original ground is the abandonment of all party names and rallying-points. We are told to gather to “the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;” and are assured by Himself that those thus gathered have His presence in their midst.
It is possible however, as this passage proves, to use the name of Christ as a party name; and no distinction in guilt is made between those who thus used the name of Christ, and those who thus used the name of Paul and Apollos. It is not enough, therefore, merely to renounce all other names, and to meet in the name of Christ only. What, then, is required besides? The apostle exhorts the Corinthians not only to have no party names, but all to “speak the same thing,” and to “be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” Man cries at once that this is impossible; and if man’s mind and man’s judgment are allowed, undoubtedly it is. But surely it is a solemn position to take, thus to challenge God’s Word, and to charge the Holy Ghost with urging impossibilities. Where, then, is the solution of the apparent contradiction? Clearly in the fact that man’s will and man’s judgment are not here allowed, but that God’s will and God’s judgment are put in their place. The same chapter which tells us to be joined together in mind and judgment pours contempt on all human wisdom, and especially declares the incompetence of that wisdom to deal with the things of God. It asserts that God hath “made foolish the wisdom of this world,” and that “the world by wisdom knew not God.” What, then, has God substituted for it? “The foolishness of preaching;” “Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Thus He has “chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.” How clear, then, that in the things of God man’s wisdom can have no place! His mind and judgment are set aside, and the Word of God is given as the only rule.
This brings out the second thing which is needed, if we would escape the evil of sectarian division. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ must be the only center around which we gather, and the Word of God the only guide by which we are led. It is these two things, and these two things alone, that amidst much weakness, and in the absence of any special works, draw forth the Lord’s commendation of the church in Philadelphia, and cause Him momentarily to drop the judicial character elsewhere maintained throughout these addresses, and to declare, concerning this assembly only, “that I have loved thee.”
Are these two things sufficient, then, to remove us from a false sectarian position, and to put us on a true scriptural foundation? Amply sufficient. They are all that the Lord finds in the church in Philadelphia; they are all that can be expected or attained in an age of failure and ruin. They are the two things that lend such a beauty to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, who, amidst all the failure and weakness of the day in which their lot was cast, were kept in the path of obedience and blessing by no other means than their faithfulness to the name of Jehovah and their subjection to the written Word. All the errors that Christendom has fallen into have begun by altering, adding to, or taking from, the Scriptures.
Paul, Apollos, and Cephas were all honored servants of God; but God had given to each his own special line of truth. What, then, was the first error? Believers, instead of taking the truth from all, took only that portion of the truth ministered by one. Instead of recognizing that all things were theirs, “whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas,” their narrowness would only receive one; and in receiving one, rejected and opposed the others. Here we have the root of nearly all doctrinal error. It is almost invariably, at least in its origin, a partial, one-sided application of truth. Instead of the many-sidedness of Scripture, man has generally preferred to build upon some special doctrine; and all the rest he has either wholly neglected, or worked into the shape most suited to harmonize with his peculiar and partial theological system. His faith has not been sufficient to persuade him that all the different lines of Scripture truth are really harmonious; that their reconciliation depends on their origin in God’s wisdom, not on the powers of his own intellect.
The same want of faith has operated, though in a different way, in matters of church order. Instead of believing that God cares for His church, and has left ample rules for its government, man has sought to form a code of his own; and as human wisdom has been the source of this code, each man has had his own judgment; so that in proportion to the freedom with which man could act, different codes and different sects have multiplied. Every departure in this way has been by the addition of something to the Word of God—the assumption of powers which the Word of God does not give, or the adoption of rules which the Word of God does not enjoin. The simple faith which could receive what God has said, leaving difficulties to Him, would have prevented the schisms caused by various theological schools. The simple faith which could accept the teaching of God’s Word as sufficient guidance on all matters of church order would have prevented the schisms caused by various denominational schools. There would still, of course, have been different measures of intelligence; but even the most unintelligent, if subject to Scripture, would have seen that these furnished no excuse for sectarian separation.
Admitting, then, most fully that any attempt to reconstruct or to imitate the original unity is out of the question, the exhortation to “endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” is still perfectly practicable, and indeed binding. To say that because the church of God has become broken up into sects, there is no possibility of taking an unsectarian position, is, in fact, to say that God has shut us up to the path which He has expressly stigmatized, and that He exhorts us to a course which He foresaw to be impossible. Anything more dishonoring to Him can scarcely be imagined. There must be some way of walking in obedience to God’s Word, and the way is clearly pointed out to us. The refusal of every name as a center of gathering, save the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and an entire subjection to the Word of God, will place us, not in the original church unity, but on the divine principle on which that unity was founded, and by the observance of which it could alone have been preserved.
It is objected, however, that in dividing from fellow-believers those who thus gather only form another sect. To this however it is sufficient to answer, that they do not divide from other believers. They find believers divided, each sect meeting round a center of its own, and they say, “This division is wrong; we cannot sanction it or become responsible for it by going on with any of the sects, but we come out from them to the common ground on which all believers are told to gather.” This is not separating from fellow-believers, but separating from that which divides believers, and going on to the ground which condemns such divisions as unscriptural, and a denial of the oneness of Christ. The sectarian position in which other believers still remain may make a separation, but that separation is not caused by those who refuse such a position, but by those who retain it. If only two or three persons are gathered on true scriptural ground, they are met on the principle of the church, and not of a sect. There is a center round which all believers ought to be gathered; and if the majority are absent, preferring to meet round other centers, the charge of sectarianism and division lies against them, not against the few persons assembled in the Lord’s name.
T. B. B.