True Christian Unity by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Dec 29, 1910

True Christian Unity

By F. M. W.

CHRISTIAN unity is a Bible doctrine. It is taught by the great Head of the church in his prayer for his disciples, as recorded in John 17:20, 21: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all 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.” The Father and the Son are separate personal beings, but they are one in spirit and one in purpose. While each member of the church possesses his own individuality, God designs that these separate units composing the church-membership shall be blended together in one united whole. This can be done, not by the surrender of individuality and the casting aside of individual responsibility, submitting the conscience and mind to the judgment of another, but by each recognizing Christ as the Head, and his

Spirit as the controlling, guiding impulse.

Says our Lord to his disciples: “One is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.”

In his epistle to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul declares: “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” Each believer is to recognize that while Christ is his head, his brethren with him compose the body. He should, therefore, labor to preserve such harmonious relations to the other members of the body that there shall be concert of action. While he should pray for the leadings of God in his own experience, he should recognize that God teaches and directs his brethren likewise. He should, therefore, seeks for the leadings of God, not alone through the exercise of his own mind, but in the light which God has given to his associates. Says the apostle Peter: “Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.”

The one who is in the greatest danger of self-deception is he who lifts up his judgment above the judgment of his brethren, and wilfully chooses the impressions and leadings of his own mind, contrary to the convictions of those with whom he is associated. The apostle Paul exhorts the church at Corinth: “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”

Such unity as this can come to the church of God only by humble submission of each soul to Christ and submission of each to the other. A common faith, a common purpose, with humble prayer for divine guidance in every detail, and with a humility which leads each to esteem other better than himself, will bring this perfect unity into the church of God. This is the unity for which Christ prayed, a unity of love and not of hate, of loving submission and not of forced subjection. It differs from the worldly type, in that selfish considerations play no part in it.

This true Christian unity is widely different from that held before us as the model by many religious teachers of the present day. Much is said of church federation and unity of Christian effort. Such unions are usually sought and advocated on the basis of one church subordinating itself to the beliefs of another in religious faith, the subjection of the weaker to the stronger, without regard to the merits of the faith held or surrendered.

The Roman Catholic idea of unity is the subordination of every church to Roman Catholicism, to the recognition of the Pope of Rome as the visible head of that church. This is well illustrated in the recent words of Cardinal Gibbons in a sermon in the Baltimore Cathedral on December 4, as reported in the Washington Post of that date. Expressing appreciation of the efforts being made by some of the Protestant Episcopal Church toward church unity, he says:—

There can not be unity of faith, however, if there is to be more than one church, or if there is to be more than one head. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ never intended that there should be many churches, because in Holy Writ he always said, in speaking of the church, “One shepherd and one fold.” To have perfect church unity and harmony, we should be bound by the same tie of faith, should listen to the voice of one shepherd, should fly from all false prophets as the sheep fly from the wolf. My dear brethren, common sense alone, without divine revelation, ought to impress upon us the absolute necessity of unity of faith.

All this is well and good, and if the cardinal stopped at this point in his remarks, we might even conclude that he was arguing for the one true unity enjoined by the Scriptures of truth; but not so. His next statement shows the source to which he is looking for the unity of Christendom. He does not believe in that unity which subordinates every man to Jesus Christ, recognizing him as Head, and all his disciples as brethren; nor yet the unity which makes each member of the church subject to one another; but in a unity which recognizes one central controlling power, and that power the Roman Catholic hierarchy; and one human head over the church, and that head the bishop of Rome. He adds:—

Where only can this unity be found? — My brethren, in the Holy Roman and Catholic Apostolic Church, of which the Pope of Rome, the representative of Christ, is the head.

This is Rome's conception of unity, and not only Rome's conception but the conception of many a would-be reformer who is advocating the principle of church federation at the present time. Each favors unity, provided his particular church is recognized as the church, and the principles for which he stands, as the basis of faith and doctrine.

This union is a purely human, selfish conception,— a conception which makes might right, which subordinates the minority to the majority, the weaker to the stronger. Through all the history of the past this has been the method by which Rome has enforced the doctrine of unity. It has been the unity of fear, not love; of force, not of willing subjection; of worldly wisdom, not the unity of the divine Spirit.

That the Roman Church has even maintained this unity is questioned by every page of history. Deflections from her membership have been enormous. The contentions and janglings between her monks and various church orders, and even between contending popes, each claiming to be the legitimate successor of St. Peter, have been unparalleled in the history of any religious movement. If she has succeeded in holding together, under one head, the larger portion of her following, it has been by appeal to force, or to superstition, or to selfish principles.

There can be no true unity outside of that which comes from the operation of the Holy Spirit. That unity recognizes the supremacy of no human judgment, no man as spiritual master, no committee of men as infallible in judgment. But it recognizes the Lord Jesus Christ as the ruler of life and conscience, and the members of his body equal in their several spheres. This is the unity enjoined by the Holy Scriptures, and for this unity every disciple of Christ should devoutly pray and earnestly labor.

F. M. W.