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Christian Unity – Week 27 / June 30th
“….with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering,
bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
Ephesians 4:2-3
There is nothing more important to God than the unity of His people. This gives testimony to the power of redemption and that this redemption has been sincerely embraced by those that testify to it. The hallmark of sin is alienation and so the hallmark of salvation is reconciliation or unity; unity (harmony) with God and with those who belong to His family. When this unity is damaged our testimony is left in tatters and the Spirit of God cannot and will not work amongst us.
Moreover, as will be noted from this passage, unity is not something we have to struggle to attain to. No, when we embrace Jesus as our Lord and Savior unity is given to us, by His Spirit, and so our calling is to preserve it. We have to “keep it” and not get it! This business of keeping the unity that God has given us in Christ has challenged the Church down through the centuries and no less today. Also this unity is not silly in that it does not mean that we all have to unite in one big global church. No, rather it means that Christians in local churches remain united and that these churches, given that they are Bible believing etc, are united by their leadership and the “cross pollination” of ministry between congregations. Paul wrote to the churches in Galatia not the Church; they were united by the ministry gifts that served them. (Galatians 1:1-2)
This passage in Ephesians tells us how to keep what God has already given. Given our divisions we would do well to heed its advice.
1. Unity of belief. (V4-6)
In these verses Paul gives us the basic doctrinal beliefs around which we are to unite. They are all vital and important and to abandon any of these is to disqualify ourselves from being Christian. In other words we are called to major on the essentials of our faith and minor on the non-essentials of our faith. Sadly we have too often done the reverse in that we have majored on the non-essentials and minored on the essentials! Consequently we have disagreed on styles of clothing, head coverings, what we should handle, eat and drink and a host of relatively unimportant things. (Note Colossians 2:20-23 and Romans 14:17) By contrast we should uphold the unity of the Godhead (Trinity), the importance of the Body of Christ, the significance of Baptism and the nature of our calling because of Christ’s finished work on the cross. These matters are not negotiable and yet today almost all of them are under assault and indeed, because we are not projecting what true unity is, a false unity and great deception is emerging that is witnessing many Christian leaders seeking to reunite with Rome.
2. Unity in diversity. (V7-12)
The Body of Christ is unique because, by His ascension, Jesus has multiplied Himself by giving His ministry gifts to men by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is why we must be in a local church because none of us have all the ministry gifts of Jesus. He has distributed these amongst us and thus as we submit to one another so we expose ourselves more fully to the ministry of Jesus. He has therefore given us Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers. These ministries, united in diversity, equip the believers so that they can themselves become effective ministers and all of this will edify the body of Christ. We should encourage such unity and look for it to be manifested in our communities!
3. Unity in faith. (V13-16)
The goal of the unity of the Spirit and the unity in diversity is that we should embrace the unity of the faith. This means that we are all transformed into the likeness of Jesus in that our natures come to the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Paul warns that if we fail to embrace this unity we shall ultimately be like children “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine.” There are far too many people like this in the Church today and all because we have not given attention to Paul’s exhortations about unity in this passage.
Unity is important to God and we should strive to keep it because by it God will do great things amongst us. This means that every believer should recognize that, how he lives his life impacts on the blessing of God in his church. We cannot hide from Him, with whom we have to do (Hebrews 4:13), and therefore, whether we like it or not, we are all making a contribution of unity or disunity to our local church. The question is; what is it? Is it one of unity or division? I sincerely hope that it is the former.
Malcolm Hedding
©Malcolm Hedding Ministries
2014Devotional