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 17:2828For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For 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.