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 12:12,1312For 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. 13For 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. (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 8:3333They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? (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.