CHRISTIAN UNITY
We
were sitting outside our hut on the Mount of Olives in the brief Eastern
twilight, and down below us, across the valley and up the other hill, lay the ancient city of
[* It’s a common but mistaken
belief amongst regenerate believers that the Holy Spirit, since His descent at
Pentecost, will remain with each and every child of God. But it is unwise to rest one’s belief on
certain texts which, at first glance, would appear to teach this. When we compare Scripture with Scripture, we
discover that His indwelling in the lives of regenerate believers is
conditional. That is, His
Presence and Power is conditional upon their obedience to Christ and good behaviour
in the world toward all others. Acts 5:
29-32; Matt. 5: 44. cf. Rev. 3: 1. If the Holy Spirit’s Presence was always
assured, on the basis of regeneration alone, then there would be no need for
real Christians to ask God for it! (Luke 11: 13).
The teaching of the five wise and five foolish virgins,
is to the same effect, Matt. 25. The foolish, “when
they took their lamps, took no oil with them”; and
afterwards said to the wise: “Give us of your oil;
because our lamps are going out”: (verse
8). Since ‘Oil’ is typical of the Holy Spirit, how could their
lamps ever have been lit in the first instance if they never had any oil? To the same effect the lost son was “dead” while in a distant country squandering his
wealth in wild living; but upon his repentance and return to his father’s
service, his older son objected to the celebrations. This proves to us that the lost son was a
true family member before he left his father’s service. His condition before he came to his senses is
described as, “Dead”: but after his return, he
is said to be “ALIVE AGAIN.” He was
spiritually “alive” before he left! In what sense then was he “dead” before his return? He was actively engaged in disobedience to
his father will while in the far country; so the only other possible
explanation is that, at that time, he was described as “dead” the Holy Spirit had left him to pursue his own will and evil desires.. And is this not precisely the truth which Jesus
teaches us in another place when He says: “… many will
come from the east and the west, and will take up their place at the feast with
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom” - (That
is, regenerate believers who refuse to obey Christ and serve Him now.) - “will be thrown
outside, into the darkness, where their will be weeping and gnashing of teeth:”
(Matt. 8: 11, 12). cf. Gen. 27: 34, 37.]
As
one after another spoke of these central things, I could not possibly have
guessed to which particular communion he belonged. This is perhaps the final fact, greater than
all other facts - that we are solidly one in all the great affirmations of our
faith. Praise God, wherever we may
separate, we can gather round the cradle and the cross, and sing our songs of
adoration and praise.
-
DR. JAMES BLACK.
*
* * *
* * *
I
have few greater happinesses
than when I find myself in spiritual oneness with a Christian from whom, on grave
subordinate points, I differ. I am amply
sure that full explanation may greatly reduce the area of real disagreements.
-
BISHOP HANDLEY MOULE.
*
* * *
* * *
The
first thing we note is the Master's
profound concern for truth. He wants
His disciples to be "sanctified in the truth"
(John 17: 19). The petition is more than once repeated, and
leads straight on to the petition for unity.
It is most important to get this relation between truth and unity clear. In the first instance, no doubt, it was
mainly zeal for truth that led to the various separations of the Churches from
one another, even though it was not always a zeal of
the wisest and purest kind. Certain errors had to be protested against,
certain truths insisted upon at any cost.
But what was not always realized, and still is not always realized, is
that whatever truth may be preserved by division, some truth is almost
inevitably lost. There is
loss as well as gain. The riches which
are ours in Christ are in fact grander and fuller than any one section of His
Church can possibly grasp. We need to learn from one another, and we
are not arbitrarily to decide for ourselves from whom we will learn.
Second,
we note the Master's insistence on the supernatural nature and standard of the
unity of His disciples. It is a unity which comes from His
indwelling in them, and its pattern is the unspeakably high one of His own
relation to His Father.
“That they may be one even as we are one." Now whatever else this may mean,
it certainly means a unity of the closest possible kind. It is impossible to imagine one closer. We may well think that such an ideal lies,
and must lie, ever beyond us in this sinful world, but that does not make it
irrelevant. Far from
it. Just because it is beyond us,
we must ever be seeking to attain it, we must ever be
judging ourselves by it.
- DR. HERBERT H. FARMER.
*
* * *
* * *
If
a man denies me the right to teach or practice something which I have learned
in God's word, that becomes a test of fellowship; he has made it so. I may extend to him my fellowship, despite
some matters in his teaching in which I think he is at variance with the
Scriptures, but if he demands silence on my part where I find the Scriptures
speak, I cannot lend co-operation in such case.
A principle is involved on which depends progress in the Truth. That
principle it is neither my right nor prerogative to compromise. Some serious trouble has come at this very
point. It is well that we keep the real
issue clear.
- STANFORD CHAMBERS.
*
* * *
* * *
We have no right to say that a man may be in the Church
and yet not belong to the body of Christ, that he may belong to the Church's invisible
soul but not to her visible body, to the Church in the broader sense but not to
the Church in the narrower. Anglicans have sometimes said to me in argument
such things as this:- "Oh
yes, you are a genuine Christian all right, because (apart from anything else)
you have been baptized; and in a certain broad sense you may be reckoned as
within the Church: but you are not a member of the 'historic' Church (or the
'Apostolic Church,' or the 'Church Catholic') because you do not accept so-and-so." All
such distinctions are inadmissible. If one is truly within the Church at all,
then one is in the historic Apostolic, Catholic, Universal Church, in her
body as well as in her soul. Only one sense of the term “the Church” in the singular can be admitted as
legitimate.
J. R. Seeley said of our Lord:- "Without excluding any, He suffered the unworthy to exclude
themselves." A like policy
would seem to be best for His Church also.
- PROFESSOR C. J. CADOUX, D.D.
*
* * *
* * *
The
basis of our union ought always to be as broad as the conditions of [eternal]
salvation. No man has any right to make
his plea for union narrower than this. It is wrong to make anything a condition
of fellowship which is not essential to [one’s
initial] salvation. We draw the line here. That which will damn a soul and separate us
in the next world should divide us in this; nothing else should.
- F. D. SRYGLEY.