“The Promise of Unity!”

Jesus prayed for unity of His disciples in John 17:11: “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.”

The key motive for our unity is the very essence of God! God is unity and we are to be like God!

The promise of unity is at the heart of God and how God has revealed Himself to us throughout the Bible and through His Son Jesus Christ because God within God’s self is a perfect unity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Listen to the ancients in the Athanasian Creed (approximately 450-600 AD) call us to a unity of faith in the unity of the Godhead:

[Our] faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal. And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal. As also there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensible, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible. So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty. And yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; And yet they are not three Gods, but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord; And yet they are not three Lords but one Lord. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity [true foundational principle] to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord; So are we forbidden by [our faith] to say; There are three Gods or three Lords. The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits. And in this Trinity none is afore or after another; none is greater or less than another. But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal. So that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.^[1]

I like the old creeds. Of course, all creeds are secondary to rightfully interpreting Scripture. The history of creeds and councils is focused on the unity of the faith and our fellowship. They sought to clarify through creeds what we believe about God. They sought to give the Church a consistent and reliable language for a great unity of faith and practice.

Paul was passionate about the unity of the Church, too! He opened his first letter to the Corinthians with a plea for unity in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17:

Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one would say you were baptized in my name. Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void.

In their excellent book Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible, E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien explain about the situation Paul was communicating to the Church in Corinth:

We might ask ourselves what caused the divisions in Corinth. All we know is what Paul tells us: “One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’; another, ‘I follow Cephas’; still another, ‘I follow Christ’” (1 Cor 1:12). What likely goes without being said for us is that the church was divided either theologically or over devotion to different personalities. These are two common causes of church divisions in the West. We tend to fall out along doctrinal lines or because we are drawn to one charismatic pastor over another.

It is possible, though, that the divisions among the churches in Corinth were not theological. We may be failing to note ethnic markers that Paul sprinkled all over the text. Apollos was noted as an Alexandrian (Egyptian) Jew (Acts 18:24). They had their own reputation. Paul notes that Peter is called by his Aramaic name, Cephas, suggesting the group that followed him spoke Aramaic and were thus Palestinian Jews. Paul’s church had Diaspora Jews but also many ethnic Corinthians, who were quite proud of their status as residents of a Roman colony and who enjoyed using Latin. This may explain why Paul doesn’t address any theological differences. There weren’t any. The problem was ethnic division: Aramaic-speaking Jews, Greek-speaking Jews, Romans and Alexandrians.^[2]

Built on this deep disunity, that still exists today, Paul said to the Church in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 3:21-23, “So then let no one boast in men. For all things belong to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all things belong to you, and you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God.”

I am joining with Paul in declaring 2,000 years later that we only have one unity, and it is the same unity that the Church has been declaring and defending through councils and creeds for thousands of years: Jesus Christ crucified, risen, and coming again!

The unity of God’s people is intended, by God, according to Jesus’ prayer, to reflect the very unity of God Himself! This is our greatest gift and our hardest fruit—our unity which bears the character of Christ, the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23)! This is our mission; along these same lines, Paul said in multiple places such teaching as Galatians 3:26-29,

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.

Based on this teaching on the promise of unity, I call you to three mindsets, which are action items for our congregation and for the Church through the world:

With this rich understanding that our unity needs to rise above all human boundaries and distinctions, as well as all human fear and ambition, let us hear Jesus’ prayer for His Church from John 17:20-26:

I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even 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 sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.

You can listen to the message here:

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Historic Creeds and Confessions, electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Lexham Press, 1997). For a diagram that visualizes this creed see https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasian_Creed.

[2] E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 66.