Unity In Christ
DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, JANUARY 7, 1866,
BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in
Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in
Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may
believe that You sent Me." John 17:20,21.
FOR several years I have thankfully received the text of the first
Sabbath in the year from a venerable clergyman of a parish in the
suburbs of our city. Spared by a gracious Providence, my good Brother
has sent me, with his Christian salutations, these two verses for my
subject. As we have enjoyed together for several years a true communion
of spirit in the things of God, I can only hope, that until one or the
other of us shall be taken up to dwell above, we may walk together in
holy service, loving each other fervently with a pure heart.
The most tender and touching prayer of the Master contained in this
chapter opens up to us His inmost heart. He was in Gethsemane and His
passion was just commencing. He stood like a victim at the altar where
the wood was already laid in order and the fire was kindled to consume
the sacrifice. Lifting up His eyes to Heaven, with true filial love
gazing upon His Father's Throne, and resting in humble confidence upon
Heaven's strength, He looked away for a moment from the strife and
resistance unto blood which was going on below. He asked for that upon
which His heart was most fully set. He opened His mouth wide that His
God might fill it.
This prayer, I take it, was not only the casual expression of the
Savior's desire at the last, but is a sort of model of the prayer which
is incessantly going up from Him to the Eternal Throne. There is a
difference in the mode of its offering. With sighs and tears He offered
up His humble suit below–but with authority He now pleads enthroned in
Glory! But the plea is the same–that which He desired while still
below is that which His soul pants after now that He is taken up and is
glorified above. It is significant, Beloved, that the Savior should, in
His last moments, not only desire the salvation of all His people, but
should plead for the unity of the saved ones–that being saved they
might be united.
It was not enough that each sheep should be taken from the jaw of the
wolf. He would have all the sheep gathered into one fold under His own
care. He was not satisfied that the members of His body should, each of
them, be saved as the result of His death–He must have those members
fashioned into a glorious body! Unity lying so very near the Savior's
heart at such a time of overwhelming trial must have been held by Him
to be priceless beyond all price! It is of this unity that we shall
speak this morning–on this wise–first of all, we will have a little
to say upon the unity desired. Then upon the work necessary–namely,
that the chosen be gathered in. Thirdly, upon prayer offered. Fourthly,
upon the result anticipated, and fifthly, upon the question suggested.
I. First, then, UPON THE UNITY DESIRED. These words of the Savior have
been perverted to the doing of a world of mischief. Ecclesiastics have
fallen asleep, which, indeed, is their ordinary condition. And while
asleep they have dreamed a dream–a dream founded upon the letter of
the Savior's words of which they discern not the spiritual sense. They
have proved in their own case, as has been proved in thousands of
others, that the letter kills, and only the spirit gives life.
Falling asleep, I say, these ecclesiastics have dreamed of a great
confederation presided over by a number of ministers, these again
governed by superior officers, and these again by others, and these
topped at last by a supreme visible head who must be either a person or
a council. This great confederacy, containing within itself kingdoms
and nations, becomes so powerful as to work upon States, to influence
politics, to guide councils and even to gather together and to move
armies. True, the shadow of the Savior's teaching, "My kingdom is not
of this World," must have caused an occasional nightmare in the midst
of their dream, but they dreamed on!
And what is worse, they turned the dream into a reality, and the time
was when the professed followers of Christ were all one. When looking
north, south, east, west–from the center at the Vatican–one united
body covered all Europe! And what was the result? Did the world believe
that God had sent Christ? The world believed the very opposite! The
world was persuaded that God had nothing to do with that great
crushing, tyrannous, superstitious, ignorant thing which called itself
Christianity.
And thinking men became infidels, and it was the hardest possible thing
to find a genuine intelligent Believer north, south, east, or west. All
professors were one, but the world believed not–the fact being that
this was not the unity which Jesus had so much as thought of. It was
never His intention to set up a great united body to be called a Church
which should dominate and lord everywhere over the souls of men. He
never intended a Church within its ranks, kings, princes and statesmen
who might be worldly, ungodly, hateful, sensual, and devilish. It was
never Christ's design to set up a conscience-crushing engine of
uniformity.
And so the great man-devised machine, when it was brought to perfection
and set to work with the greatest possible vigor, instead of working
out that the world should believe that the Father had sent Christ,
worked out just this–that the world did not believe anything at
all–but became infidel, licentious, and rotten at the core! And the
system had to be abated as a common nuisance and something better
brought into the world to restore morality. Yet people dream that dream
still–even good people do so!
The Puritans, after they had been hunted and hauled to prison in this
country, fled to New England, and no sooner had they seated themselves
upon the shore than they began to say, "We must all be one! There must
be no schism!" And the big whip was brought out for the Quaker's back,
and the manacles for the Baptist's bleeding wrists, because these men,
somehow or other, would not be one after this kind of fashion, but
would think for themselves and obey God rather than man.
Nowadays Dr. Pusey dreams that the Anglican and the Russian Church may
be united, and then perhaps the Romish may chime in–and so once more
all may be one. A mere dream! A mere chimera of a kindly but whimsical
brain! If it should ever come to be a reality it would prove to be an
upas tree at the roots of which every honest man must at once lay his
axe. But what did the Savior mean, "That they all may be one, as You,
Father, are in Me"?
We must begin at the beginning. What were the elements of this unity
which Christ so anxiously desired? The answer is very distinctly given
us in this chapter. The unity was to be composed of the people who are
here called "they." "That they all may be one." Will you let your eyes
run down the chapter to see who they are? Look in the second verse:
"That He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him."
The unity, then proposed, is of persons specially given to Jesus by the
Father! Not, then, of all men who happen to dwell in any particular
province, district, or city–but a unity of persons who have received,
not common life as all have–but life eternal. Special persons, then,
who have been quickened by God the Holy Spirit and have been brought
into vital union with the Person of the Lord Jesus are to be one.
Further, they are described in the sixth verse as persons to whom God's
name has been manifested–people who have seen what others never
saw–and have beheld what others cannot know. They are men given out of
the world, so the verse tells us–chosen men, taken out from the
ordinary mass–not, then, the multitude. Not kingdoms, states,
empires–but selected persons. They are persons who have been schooled
and have learned unusual lessons–"Now they have known that all things
whatever You have given Me are of You." And they have learned their
lesson well, for we find it written, "They have kept Your Word. They
have believed that You did send Me."
They are described in the ninth verse as being prayed for by Christ in
a sense in which He never prays for the world at all. They are people,
according to the tenth verse, in whom God is glorified–in whom the
name of Jesus shines with resplendent luster. Look the whole chapter
through and you will discover that the unity which the Master intended
was that of chosen persons who, by the Holy Spirit conferring life upon
them, are led to believe in Jesus Christ! They are spiritual-minded men
who live in the realm of spirit, prize spiritual things, and form a
confederacy and a kingdom which is spiritual and not of this world.
Here is the secret. Carnal minds hear that Jesus is to wear a crown of
pearls–they find pearls in shells–they try to join the oyster shells
together and what strange thing they make! But Jesus will have no union
of the shells–the shells must be struck off as worthless things! The
jewels, and the jewels, only, are to be joined together! It is rumored
that the
King is to wear a crown and that pure gold is to form that brilliant
circlet. Straightway men bring their huge nuggets and would fashion the
diadem of masses of rock, earth, quartz, and I know not what. But the
King wears no such crown as that! He will refine the gold. He will melt
away the earth. The crown is to be made of pure gold, not of the
material with which that gold happens to be united.
The one Church of God–of what is it composed, then? Is it composed of
the Church of England, the Congregational Union, the Wesleyan
Conference and the Baptist body? No, it is not. Is not, then, the
Church of England a part of the Church of Christ, and the Baptist
denomination a part? No! I deny that these bodies, as such unrefined
and in the gross, are a part of the great unity for which Jesus prayed.
But there are Believers united with the Church of England who are a
part of the body of Christ. And there are Believers in all
denominations of Christians. Yes, and many in no visible Church at all,
who are in Christ Jesus, and consequently in the great unity.
The Church of England is not a part of Christ's true body, nor any
other denomination as such. The spiritual unity is made up of spiritual
men, separated, picked out, cleared away from all the mass with which
they happen to be united. I have spoken very boldly perhaps, and may be
misunderstood. But I mean this–that you cannot take out any visible
Church, however pure, and say that as it stands it belongs to the
spiritual unity for which Jesus prayed. There are in the visible
Churches a certain number of God's elect, and these are of the body of
Jesus Christ. But their fellow professors, if unconverted, are not in
the mystical union. Christ's body is not made up of denominations, nor
of presbyteries, nor of Christian societies–it is made up of saints
chosen of God from before the foundation of the world–redeemed by
blood, called by His Spirit and made one with Jesus.
But now, passing on, what is the bond which keeps these united ones
together? Among others, there is the bond of the same origin. Every
person who is a partaker of the life of God has sprung from the same
Divine Father. The Spirit of God has quickened all the faithful alike.
No matter that Luther may be very dissimilar from Calvin–Luther is
made and created a new creature in Christ Jesus by that same fiat which
created Calvin. No matter that Juan de Valdes, in the same age, may
hide himself in the Court of Spain and scarcely be recognized as a
Believer, yet when we turn over his volume today we find in his, "One
Hundred Considerations," the very same spirit of Divine Grace which
breathes in Calvin's "Institutes," or in Luther's "Bondage of the Human
Will."
And we discover there the same life in each–they have been quickened
by the same Spirit and made to live by the same energy! And though they
knew it not, they were still one. No, more–all true Believers are
supported by the same strength! The life which makes vital the prayer
of a Believer today is the same life which quickened the cry of a
Believer two thousand years ago. And if this world shall last so long
as another thousand years, the same Spirit which made the tear trickle
from the eyes of a penitent then is that which this day makes us bows
before God Most High.
Moreover, all Believers have the same aim and object. Every true saint
is shot from the same bow and is speeding towards the same target.
There may be, there will be much that is not of God about the man, much
of human infirmity, defilement and corruption–but still the inward
spirit within him which God has put there is forcing its way to the
same perfection of holiness, and is, meanwhile, seeking to glorify God!
Above all, the Holy Spirit, who indwells in every Believer, is the true
fount of oneness. Some of the Christians in this land of ours two
hundred years ago were strangely different in outward manners from
their Brethren of 1866. But when we talk with them through their old
folios and octavos, we find, if we are the Lord's people, that we are
quite at home with them. Though the manifestation may vary, yet the
same Spirit of God works the same Graces, the same virtues, the same
excellencies–and thus helps all saints to prove themselves to be of
one tribe.
I meet an Englishman anywhere in the wide world over and I recognize in
him some likeness to myself. There is some characteristic or other
about him by which his nationality is betrayed. And so I meet a
Christian five hundred years back in the midst of Romanism and
darkness, but his speech betrays him. If my soul shall traverse space
in one hundred years to come, although Christianity may have assumed
another outward garb and fashion, I shall still recognize the
Christian! I shall still detect the Galilean brogue. There will be
something which will show to me that if I am an heir of Heaven I am one
with the past and one with the future–yes, one with all the saints of
the living God.
This is a very different bond from that which men try to impose upon
each other in order to create union. They put straps round the outside.
They tie us together with many knots and we feel uneasy. But God puts a
Divine life inside of us and then we wear the sacred bonds of love with
ease. If you get the limbs of a dead man you can tie them together and
then if you send the body on a journey and the carriage jolts, a leg
will slip out of its place and an arm may be dislocated. But get a
living man and you may send him where you will and the ligatures of
life will prevent his dropping asunder. In all the truly elect children
of God who are called, and chosen, and faithful, there is a bond of
Divine mysterious love running right through the whole. And they are
one and must be one–the Holy Spirit being the life which unites them.
There are tokens which evidence this union and prove that the people of
God are one. We hear much moaning over our divisions. There may be some
that are to be deplored among ecclesiastical confederacies, but in the
spiritual Church of the living God I am really at a loss to discover
the divisions which are so loudly proclaimed. It strikes me that the
tokens of union are much more prominent than the tokens of division.
But what are they? First there is a union in judgment upon all vital
matters. I converse with a spiritual man and no matter what he calls
himself, when we talk of sin, pardon, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and such
like themes, we are agreed. We speak of our blessed Lord. My Friend
says that Jesus is fair and lovely: so do I. He says that he has
nothing else to trust to but the precious blood: nor have I anything
else. I tell him that I find myself a poor, weak creature: he laments
the same. I live in his house a little while: we pray together at the
family altar–you could not tell which it was that prayed– Calvinist
or Arminian. We pray so exactly alike and when we open the hymn book,
very likely if he happens to be a Wesleyan he chooses to sing, "Jesus,
lover of my soul." I will sing it, and then next morning he will sing
with me, "Rock of Ages, cleft for me."
If the Spirit of God is in us we are all agreed upon great points. Let
me say that among true saints the points of union, even in matters of
judgment, are ninety-nine, and the points of difference are only as
one. In experimental points, as face answers to face, so does the heart
of man to man. Only get upon experimental topics concerning
soul-dealings with God–leave the letter and get to the spirit, crack
the shells and eat the kernel of spiritual truth–and you will find
that the points of agreement between genuine Christians are something
marvelous!
But this union is to be seen most plainly in union of heart. I am told
that Christians do not love each other. I am very sorry if that is
true, but I rather doubt it, for I suspect that those who do not love
each other are not Christians. Where the Spirit of God is there must be
love, and if I have once known and recognized any man to be my Brother
in Christ Jesus, the love of Christ constrains me no more to think of
him as a stranger or foreigner, but a fellow citizen with the saints.
Now I hate High Churchism as my soul hates Satan. But I love George
Herbert, although George Herbert is a desperately High Churchman. I
hate his High Churchism, but I love George Herbert from my very soul
and I have a warm corner in my heart for every man who is like he is.
Let me find a man who loves my Lord Jesus Christ as George Herbert did
and I do not ask myself whether I shall love him or not! There is no
room for question, for I cannot help myself–unless I can leave off
loving Jesus Christ, I cannot cease loving those who love Him!
Here is George Fox, the Quaker–a strange sort of body it is
true–going about the world making much noise and stir. But I love the
man with all my soul because he had an awful respect for the Presence
of God and an intense love for everything spiritual. How is it that I
cannot help loving George Herbert and George Fox who are, in some
things, complete opposites? Because they both loved the Master! I will
defy you, if you have any love to Jesus Christ, to pick or choose among
His people. You may hate as much as you will the shells in which the
pearls lie, and the dross with which the gold is mixed, but the true,
the precious blood-bought gold, the true pearl, Heaven-dyed, you must
esteem! You must love a spiritual man wherever you may find him.
Such love exists among the people of God, and if anybody says it does
not I can only fear that the speaker is unfit to judge. If I come
across a man in whom there is the Spirit of Christ, I must love him. If
I did not I should prove I was not in the union. Oneness in judgment,
in experience, and in heart are some of the evidences of this union.
But if you want more plain and palpable union, which even carnal eyes
can see, note the unity of Christian prayer. Oh, how slight the
difference there! Well-taught Believers address the Throne of Grace in
the same style, whatever may be the particular form which their Church
organization may have assumed.
So is it with praise. There, indeed, we are as one, and our music goes
up with sweet accord to the Throne of the heavenly Grace. Beloved, we
are one in action–true Christians anywhere are all doing the same
work. Here is a Brother preaching. I do not care about that white thing
he has on, but if he is a genuine Christian, he is preaching Christ
Crucified. And here am I, and he may not like me because I have not
that white rag on, but still I delight to preach Christ
Crucified. When you come to the real lifework of the Christian, it is
the same in every case, it is holding up the Cross of Christ.
"Oh," you say, "but there are many Christians in the world preaching
this and that and the other." I am saying nothing of them or about
them. I am saying nothing about their ecclesiastical belongings. I am
saying nothing about those who merely cling to the Church. I am
speaking of the elect, the precious ones, the simpleminded
Christ-taught men and women. Their motive of action is the same and
there is among them a true union which is the answer to our Lord's
prayer. He did not plead in vain–what He sought He has obtained–and
the truly quickened are this day one, and shall evermore remain so.
I think I hear someone saying, "But I cannot see this unity." My answer
is, "One reason may be because of your lack of information." I saw a
large building the other day being erected. I do not know that it was
any business of mine, but I did puzzle myself to make out how that
would make a complete structure. It seemed to me that the gables would
come in so very awkwardly. But I dare say if I had seen a plan, there
might have been some central tower or some combination by which the
wings, one of which appeared to be rather longer than the other, might
have been brought into harmony. The architect, doubtless, had a unity
in his mind which I had not in mine.
So you and I have not the necessary information as to what the Church
is to be. The unity of the Church is not to be seen by you today–do
not even think it–the plan is not worked out yet. God is building over
yonder and you only see the foundation. In another part the top stone
is all but ready but you cannot comprehend it. Shall the Master show
you His plan? Is the Divine Architect bound to take you into His studio
to show you all His secret motives and designs? Not so! Wait awhile and
you will find that all these diversities and differences among
spiritually-minded men, when the master plan comes to be worked out,
are different parts of the grand whole! And you, with the astonished
world, will then know that God has sent the Lord Jesus!
I go into a great factory. There is a wheel spinning a way in which it
is perfectly indifferent and careless of every other wheel. There is
another wheel going in an opposite direction! All sorts of motions
concentric and eccentric–and I say, "What an extraordinary muddle this
all seems!" Just so–I do not understand the machinery. So when I go
into the great visible Church of God, if I look with the eyes of my
spirit I can see the inner harmony. But if with these eyes I look upon
the great outward Church, I cannot see it, nor will it ever be seen
till the hidden Church shall be made manifest at the appearing of the
Lord.
The reason why you do not see the unity of the Church may be because of
the present roughness of the material. See yonder a number of
stones–here, a number of trees. I cannot see the unity. Of course not.
When these trees are all cut into planks–when these stones are all
squared–then you may begin to see them as a whole. The various stones
of the Divine building of the Church are all out of shape at
present–they are not polished. We shall never be one till we are
sanctified. The unity of Christ is a unity of holy, not unholy beings.
And as we, each of us, grow more and more prepared by the work of
Christ for our own place, we shall discover more and more the unity of
the Church.
Perhaps, too, let me say, we cannot see the unity of the Church because
we ourselves cannot see anything. Is that a hard saying? Who can bear
it? There are thousands of professors who cannot see anything. Do not
suppose, dear Friends, that the unity of the Church is a thing that is
to be seen by these eyes of ours. Never! Everything spiritual is
spiritually discerned. You must get spiritual eyes before you can see
it. Many people say there is no unity. I should be astonished if there
were any which they could see or feel! They are not in Christ
themselves. Their hearts have never felt what spiritual life means–how
should they be able to understand that into which they have never
entered?
See what carnal-mindedness does with Christ's teaching. Christ teaches
His people that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood.
Carnal-Mind Says, "I know what that means." And straightway he runs to
the pantry and brings out a loaf of bread and a cup of wine. Spiritual
men weep at such ignorance. Jesus says, "That they all may be one, as
You, Father, are in Me." "I know what that means," says
Carnal-Mind–"They are all to worship after the same fashion, and use
the same ritual." That is all poor Carnal-Mind knows about it! He
confuses the outward with the inward and misses the Lord's meaning.
But, Beloved, you know better than this! You do know, I trust, and feel
this very day in your soul that the true saints of the living God are
one with each other at this very moment. You understand that they
recognize and discover this unity in proportion as they become like
their Lord and Master, and are conformed to His image, and made fit for
the place which they are to occupy. Just as Professor Owen can take up
a bone, and from that one bone can discover the whole structure of the
entire animal, I do not doubt but what there is a mutual dependence and
consistency between every Christian and his fellows. And it is such
that if we understood the science of spiritual comparative anatomy, as
we may do in Heaven, we should be able to form from any one Christian
the fashion of the entire Church of God from the mutual dependence of
one upon the other!
But it would not be according to the fashion of the beast that was, and
now is, and is yet to come, which calls itself the Church of Christ,
and is nothing better than Antichrist. It would take the fashion of the
Lord from Heaven, of whose body we are members.
II. I have talked too long upon this matter of unity to spare much time
for the other points, and therefore only a hint at them. The second
head was to be, THE WORK THAT IS TO BE DONE BEFORE THIS UNITY CAN BE
COMPLETE. There are many chosen ones who have not yet believed in Jesus
Christ and the Church cannot be one till these are saved. Here is work
to be done–work to be done by instruments. These chosen ones are to
believe–that is a work of Divine Grace, but they are to believe
through our work. Brethren, if you would promote the unity of Christ's
Church, look after His lost sheep–seek out wandering souls.
If you ask what is to be your work, the answer is in the text–it is to
be concerning Christ. They are to believe in Him. Every soul that
believes in Christ is built into the great Gospel unity in its measure,
and you will never see the Church as a whole while there is one soul
left unsaved for whom the Savior shed His precious blood. Go out and
teach His Word! Tell of the doctrines of Grace as He has given you
ability. Hold up Christ before the eyes of men and you will be the
means in God's hand of bringing them to believe in Him–and so the
Church shall be built up and made one.
Here is work for the beginning of the year! Here is work till the end
of the year! Do not sit down and scheme and plot and plan how this
denomination may melt into the other–you leave that alone. Your
business is to go and–
"Tell to sinners round What a Savior you have found," for that is God's
way of using you to complete the unity of His Church. Unless these are
saved the Church is not perfect. That is a wonderful text that, "They
without us cannot be made perfect." That is to say, saints in Heaven
cannot be perfect unless we get there. What? The blessed saints in
Heaven not perfect except the rest of Believers come there? So the
Scripture tells us, for they would be a part of the body and not a
whole body–they cannot be perfect as a flock unless the rest of the
sheep come there.
They beckon us from the battlement of Heaven and say to us, "Come up
here, for without you we cannot be one as Jesus Christ is one with His
Father. We are an imperfect body till you come." And we, from our
position of Grace, turn round to the sinful world and we say to the
chosen of God from among that sinful world, "Come to Jesus! Trust
Jesus! Believe in Him! For without you we cannot be perfect, nor can
the heavenly ones themselves be, for there must be one complete Church!
The city must be walled all round–if there is one gap in the wall the
city will not be one. Come, then, put your trust in Jesus, that His
Church may be one."
III. The third point was to be, HERE IS PRAYER OFFERED. Beloved, Christ
prays for the unity of His Church that all saints who have gone to
Heaven in days gone by–that all saints who live now–that all who ever
live may be brought into the unity of the one life in Himself. I fear
We do not attach enough importance to the power of Christ's prayer. We
think of Joshua fighting in the valley, but we forget our Moses with
hands outstretched upon the hill.
We are looking at the wheels of the machine–go back to our old
figure–and we are thinking that this wheel, and that, and the other,
is wanting more oil, or not working exactly to its point. Ah, but let
us never forget the engine, that mysterious motive force which is
hidden and concealed, upon which the action of the whole depends!
Christ's prayer for His people is the great motive force by which the
Spirit of God is sent to us and the whole Church is kept filled with
life! And the whole of that force is tending to this one thing–unity!
It is removing everything which keeps us from being one. It is working
with all its Divine Omnipotence to bring us into a visible unity when
Christ shall stand in the latter days upon the earth.
Beloved, let us have hope for sinners yet unconverted! Christ is
praying for them! Let us have hope for the entire body of the faithful!
Christ is praying for their unity, and what He prays for must be
effected! He never pleads in vain! He prays that the Church may be one,
and it is one! He prays that they may be perfect and complete, and it
shall be amidst eternal hallelujahs!
IV. Then, there was THE RESULT ANTICIPATED FROM THE WHOLE. "That the
world may believe that You have sent Me." The effect of sight of the
complete Church upon human minds will be overwhelming. Angels and
principalities will look at Christ's perfect Church with awe. They will
all exclaim, "What a marvel! What a wonder! What a masterpiece of
Divine power and wisdom!" When they saw the foundation laid in the
precious blood of Christ, they gazed long and wistfully–but when they
see the whole Church complete, every spire and pinnacle, and the great
top-stone brought out with shouting, all built of precious jewels and
pearls, fashioned like the similitude of a palace– why they will make
Heaven ring again and again!
When the world was made they sang for joy. But how shall the vaults of
Heaven echo when the Church is all complete and the new creation shall
have been perfected? What will be the effect upon men? Astonishment
will be the effect upon angels, but what upon men? Why the world, that
wicked world which rejected Christ, that wicked crucifying world which
would have none of Him and which now will have none of His people–that
wicked world which hates His saints and has strived with all its might
to pluck down the walls of His Church will BELIEVE! They will be
compelled to believe that God has sent His Son!
They will bite their tongues with rage! They will gnash their teeth
with horror! But there will be no doubt about it. Do not suppose that
the world will ever be convinced so as to believe in Christ and to be
saved by the unity of the Church. It is not anticipated in this chapter
that the world ever will be saved! That is not dreamed of the whole
chapter through–the world is spoken of as something for which Christ
does not pray–whose enlightenment is not anticipated. But that world,
though it weeps, and wails, and curses, and abhors, shall be made
distinctly to recognize the divinity of Christ's mission when it shall
see the entire unity of the Church!
Why, before my astonished gaze this morning there seems to me to rise
up as from a great sea of confusion a wondrous building! I see the
first stone sunk into the depths of that sea dyed with blood. I see the
top of it just emerging above lofty waves of strife and confusion. Now
I see other stones built on that, all of them dyed with blood–the
first Apostles–all of them martyrs. I see stone rising upon stone as
age succeeds age. At first nearly all the foundations are laid in the
fair vermilion of martyrdom, but the structure rises! The stones are
very different–they come from Asia, Africa, America, Europe–they are
taken from among princes and from among peasants.
These stones are very diverse. Perhaps while they were here they
scarcely recognized that they belonged to the same building, but there
they are–and for 1860 years that building goes on, and on, and
on–building–every stone being made ready! We know not how many more
years that masterly edifice will take, but at the last, despite all the
frowns of Hell and all the power of devils, that edifice will be
completed–not a single stone being lost, not one elect child of God
being absent–and not one of those stones having suffered any injury
nor been put out of its place! And the whole so fair, so matchless,
such a display of power and wisdom and love, that even the hateful ones
whose hearts are hard as adamant against the Most High will be
compelled to say God must have sent Christ! They cannot restrain that
confession when all the Church shall be one as the Father is one with
Christ. O happy day!
V. The concluding suggestion was to be this–ARE WE PARTS OF THAT GREAT
UNITY? There is the question! It is not this morning, Are you members
of a Christian Church? "I know how you get at it," you say, "Well, a
certain number of Churches are evangelical and orthodox. They make up
orthodox Protestantism. Now, I am a Baptist. Very well. I am a Baptist,
and the Baptist churches are orthodox, therefore I am a Christian. I am
an Episcopalian, and Episcopacy is one branch of Protestantism. Very
well, I am a Protestant, I am a Christian."
Ah, that is your carnal way of talking! You may be very grievously
mistaken if that is your argument. But if you can go another way to
work and say, "I have received eternal life for I have believed in the
Lord Jesus Christ and I am given of the Father unto Him." Why then,
Beloved, you come at it directly! Being one with Christ you are one
with His people! But do not, when you are looking for this unity, look
for an outward but for an inward thing. Do not look for a matter that
is to be written on sheets of paper, on rolls and books–look for a
bond written on hearts, and consciences, and souls!
Do not be looking for all saints in one room, but in Christ! All living
upon heavenly bread, and drinking of the wines on the lees well refined
that come from Christ Jesus. Look for a spiritual union and you will
find it! If you look for the other thing you will not find it, and if
you did find it, it would be a great and awful thing from which you
might pray God to deliver His Church. As spiritual men, look for
spiritual unity–but first begin by asking whether you are spiritual
yourselves. Have you been born into the family? Have you been washed
with the blood? Have you passed from death unto life? If not, even if
you could be in the body you would be as a dead substance in the body
working a fester, a gangrene–necessitating pain and suffering–you
would be a thing accursed to be cast away.
But are you alive by the life of Christ? Does God dwell in you, and do
you dwell in Him? Then, my dear Brother, give me your hand! Never mind
about a thousand differences if you are in Christ and I am in Christ!
We cannot be two, we must be one. Let us love each other fervently with
a pure heart. Let us live on earth as those who are to live together a
long eternity in Heaven. Let us help each other's spiritual growth. Let
us aid each other as far as possible in every holy, spiritual
enterprise which is for the promotion of the kingdom of the Lord.
And let us chase out of our hearts everything which would break the
unity which God has established. Let us cast from us every false
doctrine, every false thought of pride, enmity, envy, bitterness that
we, whom God has made one, may be one before men as well as before the
eyes of the heart-searching God.
May the Lord bless us, dear Friends, as a Church. May He make us one,
and keep us so. It will be the dead stuff among us that will make the
divisions. It is the living children of God that make the unity! It is
the living ones that are bound together. There will be no fear about
that–Christ's prayer takes care of us–that we shall be one. As for
those of you who are joined with us in visible fellowship and are not
one with Christ, may the Lord save you with His great salvation, and
His shall be the praise. Amen and Amen.