 respond to this article  read responses  The Divided Church and Our Sense of Oneness
December 1, 2008
John H. Armstrong
We walk in the Spirit if we study peace.
Ambrosiaster
Only in Christ are all things in communion. He is the point of convergence of all hearts and beings and therefore the bridge and the shortest way from each to each.
Hans Urs von Balthasar
We have seen how our Lord prayed for the unity of all his disciples. We have recognized that this is an incarnational reality that results in a relational/co-operational unity that existed between the Father and the Son during his earthly ministry. And we have seen that this unity is the basis for our unity with other Christians. We have also begun to see that this unity is inextricably bound with the success of Christ’s mission in the world. My conclusion is summed up by the late Roman Catholic commentator Raymond E. Brown. As in [John] 10:16, believers (evangelized by different disciples) are not one flock, but unity is prayed for. Vital contact with this future generation and all subsequent generations will not be lost, for Jesus will dwell in them. The indwelling of Jesus, the Christian’s earthly share in eternal life, provides the great bond of union connecting Christians of all times with the Father. Jesus’ love for them is the same as his love for his immediate disciples: a love patterned on the eternal love of the Father for the Son. (So perfect is this love that it will force even the world’s recognition!) And they too shall have a share in the eternal glory of the son.1 Christian believers have lived in different nations, cultural contexts, and ethnic settings since the middle of the first century. They have spoken a myriad of languages and have worshiped the Triune God in diverse ways. Yet in Christ they remain one people. There is only one flock and one shepherd. Expressions of the one communion may vary but Christ remains at the center. Whether or not we all live in the same visible, organized worldwide church will continue to be considered and debated, pro and con. But we are already spiritually one, not two or three. This should be at the center of all Christian relationships in this world. My personal understanding of this oneness seeks to combine two elements. These two elements have been commonly separated. The first element obligates us to work in every conceivable way to demonstrate the God-given spiritual reality of our oneness wherever possible. This includes the people we meet as well as the neighbors we know. It especially includes our closest friends and family members who also love Jesus. Whether people are a part of our church communion or another—Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox—we are still one in Christ. Refusing to convene with, listen to, or otherwise respect others who name the name of Christ with us, is all spiritual pride and sinful independency. I thus believe that we should aggressively pursue specific ways to demonstrate our oneness. But I believe much more than this is intended in the purpose of God. Many evangelicals are satisfied with informal person-to-person attempts to express Christian oneness. The church is no more than a voluntary association so they reason that not much else matters. This is good, so far as it goes, but we should not shy away from all serious efforts to bring about a relational and co-operational unity between churches—Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox. This is the second element that needs to be included in our consideration of oneness. We must not settle for pursuing oneness between us and a few other people without trying to bring this concern to bear upon the whole church. I pray for this every day! The facts here are striking. Catholics and Protestants, especially evangelical Protestants, are discovering deep and growing spiritual relationships all over America. This cannot be denied any longer. I find these developments thrilling. I am convinced this is a “God thing.” I am often asked, “Do you think these great divided churches will ever become one church?” I answer with a question: “Who can possibly know what God will do in the centuries ahead?” Who could have foreseen what transpired in the last century if they lived in 1800? Then Catholics and Protestants were still the fiercest of enemies in almost every context. Entire nations and families were divided by these designations. Even bloody wars were fought over them. Following the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century, and then following Vatican Council I in the late nineteenth century, no one could have projected what would then happen in the middle of the twentieth century. What will happen in the twenty-first or twenty-second century if Christ does not return before then? In addition to these observations I must add: How will Christ consummate this historical period before he returns? What will the Spirit do as the world becomes smaller and the church grows even larger? What will happen in Africa where the fastest growing church, and the fastest spreading Islam, exist side-by-side? Even more important to my thesis about the relationship of oneness to the mission of Christ: How will God finally accomplish his purpose to save a people from “every tribe, language, people and nation” (Rev. 5:9)? I see no obvious reason to say that the church must become one organizationally. At the same time I see something that more of my peers are starting to experience—a Spirit given pursuit of unity that defies the old categories of division. I welcome all such serious interaction between churches and individuals who want to pursue the love of Jesus together and pray for relational unity in every way possible. I am reminded that quite often something is impossible only because it is has not been tried. This two-front approach seems obvious to me but then I have told you of my bias—I love the church. This certainly means that I can no longer be an anti-Catholic, in any sense of the word. While I remain an evangelical (Reformed) Protestant, out of deep conviction, I regard both Catholics and the Catholic Church with very high esteem. I have learned more in the last ten years from Catholics than I could have ever imagined. I expect I will continue to draw great blessing from both this tradition and my numerous Catholic friends. Our Sense of Oneness Throughout the first one thousand years of church history the Christian church almost universally maintained interest in unity. After 1054 this was radically and tragically altered. Later, the Protestant Reformation broke the Catholic Church’s unity in Europe. The events that followed produced new visible church communions in Germany, Britain, Holland, Switzerland, etc. Later the Anabaptists, and various Free Church movements, further divided the visible church. Both sides of the sixteenth century debate initially tried to preserve the unity of the church but both made decisions that would eventually make it impossible for this to happen, at least for centuries. I’ve been studying this era for some many years now and have discovered a virtually unknown story—leaders on both sides found compelling reasons to work for unity even as the church was being outwardly divided. Division was never desirable for most of the leaders. Since the sixteenth century there have been countless church splits that have plagued us even more profoundly. Yet, in spite of this schism there has been a deep desire for unity within the hearts of many of God’s people. One prominent Protestant theologian has expressed this sense of oneness well. [This awareness of our unity] has extended to many different lands and races and cultures. . . . It has passed through many different forms. It has been split by innumerable dissensions and disagreements. It has passed through many crises and vicissitudes. It has known ages of the most violent individualism as well as the most submissive collectivism. But for all the legitimate or illegitimate variety it has never lost is ultimate and indestructible unity.2 The ground of this undeniable sense of our oneness is found in the Bible itself. In the Old Testament the Jews were the people of God. They were not two peoples, but one people. Even though they were divided into twelve tribes, and later became two different kingdoms, they still remained one chosen people descended from one single man. When they left Egypt they left as one people, and when God gave them his law it was not a law for many nations and groups but a divine treasure for one people. There were breaks in their divinely given unity, including civil wars. But in the end nothing could destroy the inherent oneness that Israel experienced whenever she focused upon her divine origins and the one covenant that united her. When we come to the New Testament this principle is not altered. The church consists of people from every tribe, nation and tongue but it remains one new person gathered from the many. This principle—of the one and the many—is rooted in the nature of God as Trinity. The ethnic foundation of unity, a part of the Old Testament arrangement, has passed away. In its place came a higher call to unity in the new covenant. This new unity was rooted in the one Savior and in the single organism we call the church. For this reason a prominent historical theologian concluded: “The whole structure of the New Testament church, or churches, shows us that there is a strong and indissoluble sense of unity not only with the local congregation but extending to the church as a whole.”3 This is precisely why I take a two-front approach to unity. We must never become complacent about the disunity of God’s people if we believe what Scripture reveals. This means that we must cultivate a holy discontent about our unholy divisions. When Israel, under the old order, was brought to an end it was not destroyed. It was fulfilled in the new covenant. (This doesn’t mean ethnic Israel has no place in the plan of God; cf. Romans 11. And it doesn’t justify anti-Semitism in any form.) What emerged from the old covenant was not something entirely different but something in line with the holy intentions of God for his one people. What was once confined to a single ethnic people is now a spiritual reality that has become “a holy nation, a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9). This nation, this particular people, is inherently one. Christ is the Lord of the church and Christians are brought into his church through faith in him. Because this is true “it is right and necessary . . . for the church to think of itself as one.”4 We are “living stones” built into a “spiritual house” for the offering up of our collective spiritual sacrifices (1 Peter 2:5). But the entire lesson of the Old Testament, which was the Bible of the early church, was that there could be only be one temple of God, not two or three. If Christians were to truly live out the reality of this one temple of God then there could not set up rival houses or movements against the one temple. There is one place where we worship, the mercy seat of Christ, and there is only one foundation upon which this spiritual temple has been built (Ephesians 2:20; cf. also 1 Corinthians 3:11). This means that Christ must be the cornerstone and the center, with the apostles as the foundation, and we become the blocks that make up this living temple (cf. 1 Cor. 3:16–17; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21–22; Heb. 3:6). Every Christian and church should be horrified by schism of what I have just said is true. Our cavalier acceptance of division demonstrates the low state of our present spiritual condition. I have discovered that true revivals have historically addressed this problem in direct ways. “Preeminently, all true revival is about God bringing glory back to His Son by the power of the Holy Spirit through His church.”5 Frankly the tragic increase of talk about “our church” or “our movement” should mortify all of us. Sadly, we have settled for putting passionate concern for Christian unity near the bottom of our to-do list. For many (most?) evangelical churches it isn’t even on their radar screen! An amazing change has happened since Vatican II. Catholics have often more interested in unity than Protestants, especially evangelical Protestants, at least until recently.
1 Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel and Epistles of John: A Concise Commentary (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1988), 86. 2 G. W. Bromiley, The Unity and Disunity of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958), 9. 3 The Unity and Disunity of the Church, 10. 4 The Unity and Disunity of the Church, 11. 5 An Urgent Appeal (NavPress: Colorado Springs, 2003). I had the joy of working on this wonderful statement about the meaning of corporate revival and strongly urge leaders to read it to grasp a clear understanding of what revival is and is not. If you profit from the ACT 3 Weekly, please help us in two ways: Send this article to friends and encourage them to subscribe, too. We are trying to increase our readership by 200% this year. Become a donor to ACT 3. You can sign up on the Web site and become a recurring donor for as little as you would like. You can also make a one-time gift if you have never done so. Checks are still accepted at:
Act 3
P. O. Box 88216
Carol Stream, IL 60188 respond to this article read responses | 
return to topics
return to articles