CHRISTIAN UNION by James White

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 8, 1880

CHRISTIAN UNION

By James White

THERE is no sentiment in all the New Testament more strongly expressed than that of Christian union. While Christ was with his disciples, their leader and teacher, he secured to them unity and love. And when about to leave them without a visible leader, to go up to his Father, we should expect his great yearning heart would go out in petition for them in words expressive of true Christian union. “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.” John 17:11. “I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.” Verses 15–17. “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.” Verses 20, 21.

Accepting the testimony of the apostles as expressing the mind of Christ as breathed forth in earnest petition for the unity of his church, we have in Paul’s epistles to the churches at Rome and at Corinth a more complete idea of the subject: “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another, according to Christ Jesus; that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Rom. 15:5, 6. “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.” 1 Cor. 1:10.

Paul exhorts to unity in the high “name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” which means more than kindly feeling toward those who hold opposing views. It reaches almost infinitely beyond the insipid idea of modern times, that the highest type of Christian unity is expressed in the words, “We will differ in love,” and embraces a oneness such as exists between the Father and the Son, expressed by the apostle as being “perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment.”

This is the unity taught by the first apostles of Christ. For this they labored, and to this they exhort Christians of each successive generation since they wrote. But, oh, unhappy church of Christ! that she passed under the shades and into the mists of the great apostasy, down into the wilderness of papal corruptions of the word, where she gathered to herself tradition and superstitions, which even the power of the great Reformation did not tear completely off. What a pity that the reformers left off reforming! The Lutherans stopped with Luther; the Calvinists, with Calvin; the Methodists, with Wesley; and so on, bringing to the present century, as represented in nearly all our cities and towns, the various denominations, presenting a grand babel of confusion of creeds, church covenants, articles of faith, and different forms of church organization and government, for which there is not a single apology in all the New Testament. But, thank God, above all this Babylonish chatter the Pauline note of more than eighteen centuries ago rings forth in all its entreating earnestness, “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.” 1 Cor. 1:10.

Nothing short of the mind of Christ, as seen in his prayer for his church and as expressed in the earnest pleadings of Paul, is the full measure of Christian unity. Christ prays for this. The New Testament pleads for this in plainest terms, and the callings and gifts placed in the Christian church were designed to secure this state of complete unity. “And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Eph. 4:11–13.

Just how this complete state of unity is to be perfected, when it will be reached, and who are to be embraced in it, it is not the design of this article to set

forth. But the writer may be allowed to state that one of the happiest hopes that has cheered him on in battling for Bible truth for more than a quarter of a century, has been this, that pure truth that can be read out of the Bible will call forth a people who shall be keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ, looking for the coming of the Son of man. Then will the two ends of the Christian age be brought round to meet, when our adorable Redeemer shall come the second time and find his waiting people standing in unity and in power, such as was the crown of glory that adorned the church at his ascension.

We hold it to be wrong to differ with others where there are no good reasons to differ. Once an earnest sister asked the writer’s opinion as to the importance of all the church coming to the unity of the faith. Being apprised of the fact that this good woman was dealing in small matters which could be no test of Christian character, we answered, that on all important questions, such as keeping the commandments of God, we thought it very necessary that the church should stand in unity; but in such matters as whether our brethren should plant white beans or striped beans in their gardens we did not regard unity important.

Paul, standing at a period when outward circumcision had ceased, meets the mistaken zeal of those who would still urge it upon the church, with these words “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God is something.” Whiting’s translation of 1 Cor. 7:19. “If thou wilt enter into life,” says the Son of God, “keep the commandments.” In the divine law, and in the gospel of the divine Son, are the tests of Christian character. And it is with an ill grace that those who have been splitting up into petty sects during the nineteenth century over forms of church government, matters of expediency, free and restricted salvation, trinity and unity, whether we may sing any good hymn in church or only the Psalms of David, and other matters which constitute no test of fitness for Heaven, now pounce upon us, and display any amount of religious horror, simply because we regard strict conformity to the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus the only true test of Christian character. J. W.