7. Unity and diversity in the church
4:1–16
For three chapters Paul has been unfolding for his readers the eternal purpose of God being worked out in history. Through Jesus Christ, who died for sinners and was raised from death, God is creating something entirely new, not just a new life for individuals for a new society. Paul sees an alienated humanity being reconciled, a fractured humanity being united, even a new humanity being created. It is a magnificent vision.
Now the apostle moves on from the new society to the new standards which are expected of it. So he turns from exposition to exhortation, from what God has done (in the indicative) to what we must be and do (in the imperative), from doctrine to duty, 'from the credenda … to the agenda',1 from mind-stretching theology to its down-to-earth, concrete implications in everyday living.
He begins: I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you … He has taught them, and he has prayed for them (1:15–23 and 3:14–19); now he addresses to them a solemn appeal. Instruction, intercession and exhortation constitute a formidable trio of weapons in any Christian teacher's armoury. Besides, Paul was no ordinary teacher. He uses the emphatic personal pronoun, the egō of self-conscious apostolic authority, as in 3:1. And he again describes himself as a prisoner for the Lord, using a slightly different grammatical construction but the same double entendre, that he is both a prisoner of Christ and a prisoner for Christ, both bound to him by the chains of love and in custody out of loyalty to his gospel. Thus the authority of one of Christ's apostles and the passionate conviction of a man under house arrest because of his vision of a united church, together undergird his exhortation. I beg you, he writes, to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
What this life is to be like can be determined only by the nature of the divine call of which it is to be worthy. What is this? The new society which God is calling into being has two major characteristics. First, it is 'one' people, composed equally of Jews and Gentiles, the single family of God. Secondly, it is a 'holy' people, distinct from the secular world, set apart (like Israel in Old Testament days) to belong to God. Therefore, because God's people are called to be one people, they must manifest their unity, and because they are called to be a holy people, they must manifest their purity. Unity and purity are two fundamental features of a life worthy of the church's divine calling. The apostle treats the unity of the church in verses 1–16 and the purity of the church from 4:17 to 5:21.
During the last half-century and more a great deal has been said and written about the unity of the church. The modern preoccupation with it may be traced to the influential 'Appeal to all Christian People' which was issued by the 1920 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops under the chairmanship of Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury. Following this the movement towards reunion gathered speed, two notable milestones being the inauguration of the Church of South India in 1947 and of the World Council of Churches in 1948. Since then some more united churches have come into being, while other union schemes have foundered; and the movement may be said to be in the doldrums. It is all the more important, therefore, to look with fresh eyes at Ephesians 4:1–16, since this is one of the two classic New Testament passages on the subject of Christian unity (the other being John 17). It should prove both a strong stimulus to concern ourselves with Christian unity and a healthy corrective to a number of misleading notions about it.
Paul elaborates four truths about the kind of oneness which God intends his new society to enjoy. They may be stated in the following four propositions:
1. It depends on the charity of our character and conduct (verse 2)
2. It arises from the unity of our God (verses 3–6)
3. It is enriched by the diversity of our gifts (verses 7–12)
4. It demands the maturity of our growth (verses 13–16)
It will be observed that charity, unity, diversity and maturity appear to be the key concepts of this section.
1. Christian unity depends on the charity of our conduct (verse 2)
Paul immediately portrays the life worthy of our calling as being characterized by five qualities—lowliness, meekness, patience, mutual forbearance and love. He has prayed to God that we may be 'rooted and grounded in love' (3:17); now he addresses his appeal to us to see to it that we live a life of love. This is where he begins, and this is also where we should begin. Too many start with structures (and structures of some kind are indispensable), but the apostle starts with moral qualities. Certainly, in the quest for Christian unity, if we have to choose, we must say that the moral is more important than the structural.
Lowliness was much despised in the ancient world. The Greeks never used their word for humility (tapeinotēs) in a context of approval, still less of admiration. Instead they meant by it an abject, servile, subservient attitude, 'the crouching submissiveness of a slave'.2 Not till Jesus Christ came was a true humility recognized. For he humbled himself. And only he among the world's religious and ethical teachers has set before us as our model a little child.
Moreover, the word Paul uses here is tapeinophrosynē, which means 'lowliness of mind', the humble recognition of the worth and value of other people, the humble mind which was in Christ and led him to empty himself and become a servant.3
Now humility is essential to unity. Pride lurks behind all discord, while the greatest single secret of concord is humility. It is not difficult to prove this in experience. The people we immediately, instinctively like, and find it easy to get on with, are the people who give us the respect we consider we deserve, while the people we immediately, instinctively dislike are those who treat us like dirt. In other words, personal vanity is a key factor in all our relationships. If, however, instead of manoeuvring for the respect of others (which is pride) we give them our respect by recognizing their intrinsic God-given worth (which is humility), we shall be promoting harmony in God's new society.
Meekness (praötēs) was warmly applauded by Aristotle. Because he hated extremes and loved 'the golden mean', he saw in praötēs the quality of moderation, 'the mean between being too angry and never being angry at all'.4 The word was also used of domesticated animals. So 'meekness' is not a synonym for 'weakness'. On the contrary, it is the gentleness of the strong, whose strength is under control. It is the quality of a strong personality who is nevertheless master of himself and the servant of others. Meekness is 'the absence of the disposition to assert personal rights, either in the presence of God or of men'.5 It is particularly appropriate in pastors who should also use their authority only in a spirit of gentleness.6
'Lowliness' and 'meekness' form a natural couple. For 'the meek man thinks as little of his personal claims, as the humble man of his personal merits'.7 They were found together in perfect balance in the character of the Lord Jesus who described himself as 'gentle and lowly in heart'.8
The third and fourth qualities also form a natural pair, for patience (makrothymia) is longsuffering towards aggravating people, such as God in Christ has shown towards us,9 while forbearing one another speaks of that mutual tolerance without which no group of human beings can live together in peace. Love is the final quality, which embraces the preceding four, and is the crown and sum of all virtues. Since to love is constructively to seek the welfare of others and the good of the community, its 'binding' properties are celebrated in Colossians 3:14.
Here, then, are five foundation stones of Christian unity. Where these are absent no external structure of unity can stand. But when this strong base has been laid, then there is good hope that a visible unity can be built. We may be quite sure that no unity is pleasing to God which is not the child of charity.
2. Christian unity arises from the unity of our God (verses 3–6)
Even the casual reader of verses 3–6 (thought by some to be part of a Christian hymn or a creed for catechumens) is struck by Paul's repetition of the word 'one'; in fact, it occurs seven times. A more careful reading discloses that three of these seven unities allude to the three Persons of the Trinity (one Spirit, verse 4; one Lord, verse 5, i.e. the Lord Jesus; and one God and Father of us all, verse 6), while the remaining four allude to our Christian experience in relation to the three Persons of the Trinity. This truth can be expressed in three simple affirmations.
First, there is one body because there is only one Spirit (verse 4). The one body is the church, the body of Christ (1:23), comprising Jewish and Gentile believers; and its unity or cohesion is due to the one Holy Spirit who indwells and animates it. As Paul writes elsewhere, 'By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.'1 Thus, it is our common possession of the one Holy Spirit that integrates us into one body.
Secondly, there is one hope belonging to our Christian calling (verse 4), one faith and one baptism (verse 5) because there is only one Lord. For the Lord Jesus Christ is the one object of the faith, hope and baptism of all Christian people. It is Jesus Christ in whom we have believed, Jesus Christ into whom we have been baptized,2 and Jesus Christ for whose coming we wait with expectant hope.
Thirdly, there is one Christian family, embracing us all (verse 6) because there is one God and Father … who is above all and through all and in all. A few manuscripts read 'in you all', clarifying that the 'all' of whom God is Father means 'all Christians', not 'all people' indiscriminately, or 'all things' (the universe). Armitage Robinson calls this addition of the word 'you' 'a timid gloss'.3 Perhaps it is; and certainly the overwhelming manuscript evidence omits it. Nevertheless, it is a correct gloss. For the 'all' above, through and in whom God is Father, are his family or household, his redeemed children.4
We are now in a position to repeat the three affirmations, this time the other way round and in the order in which the Persons of the Trinity are normally mentioned. First, the one Father creates the one family. Secondly, the one Lord Jesus creates the one faith, hope and baptism. Thirdly, the one Spirit creates the one body.
Indeed, we can go further. We must assert that there can be only one Christian family, only one Christian faith, hope and baptism, and only one Christian body, because there is only one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You can no more multiply churches than you can multiply Gods. Is there only one God? Then he has only one church. Is the unity of God inviolable? Then so is the unity of the church. The unity of the church is as indestructible as the unity of God himself. It is no more possible to split the church than it is possible to split the Godhead.
In stating the matter thus baldly and dogmatically (as the apostle Paul himself did), it is not difficult to imagine what the reader is thinking. You will be saying to me something like this: 'It is all very well declaring that we cannot split the church; the truth is we have been extremely successful in doing the very thing you say we cannot do!' How, then, can the evident phenomenon of the disunity of the church be reconciled with the biblical insistence on the indestructibility of its unity?
At this point a necessary distinction needs to be drawn. It is not just between the 'visible' and the 'invisible' church. That distinction is true, but the concept of the invisible church (whose members are known only to God) has been misused by some as an excuse for opting out of responsible membership in the visible church. So the distinction needs to be somewhat refined. It is between the church's unity as an invisible reality present to the mind of God (who says to himself 'I have only one church') and the church's disunity as a visible appearance which contradicts the invisible reality (causing us to say to ourselves, 'There are hundreds of separated and competing churches'). We are one, for God says so, and in interdenominational conventions and congresses we sense our underlying unity in Christ. Yet outwardly and visibly we belong to different churches and different traditions, some of which are not even in communion with one another, while others have strayed far from biblical Christianity.
The apostle himself recognizes this paradoxical combination of unity and disunity. For in this very passage, in which the indestructible unity of the church is so emphatically asserted, the possibility of disunity is also acknowledged. Consider verse 3, which we have so far omitted and in which we are told to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. This is a very strange exhortation. Paul first describes the church's unity as 'the unity of the Spirit' (meaning a unity which the Holy Spirit creates) and then argues that this unity is as indestructible as God himself. Yet in the same context he also tells us that we have to maintain it! What can he mean? What is the sense of urging the maintenance of something indestructible, and of urging us to maintain it, when it is 'a unity of the Spirit', which he created and is therefore presumably himself responsible for preserving?
There seems to be but one possible answer to these questions, namely that to maintain the church's unity must mean to maintain it visibly. Here is an apostolic exhortation to us to preserve in actual concrete relationships of love (in the bond of peace, that is, by the peace which binds us together) that unity which God has created and which neither man nor demon can destroy. We are to demonstrate to the world that the unity we say exists indestructibly is not the rather sick joke it sounds but a true and glorious reality.
Perhaps the analogy of a human family will help us to grasp our responsibility more clearly. We will imagine a couple called Mr and Mrs John Smith, and their three sons, Tom, Dick and Harry. They are one family; there is no doubt about that. Marriage and parenthood have united them. But in the course of time the Smith family disintegrates. Father and mother quarrel, keep up an uneasy truce for several years, become increasingly estranged and finally get a divorce. The three boys also quarrel, first with their parents and then with each other, and separate. Tom goes to live in Canada, Dick in South Africa and Harry in Australia. They never meet, write or telephone. They lose contact with each other altogether. More than that. So determined are they to repudiate each other that they actually change their names by deed poll. It would be hard to imagine a family which has experienced a more disastrous disintegration than this. All mutual relationships have been severed.
Now supposing we were cousins of the Smith family, how would we react? Would we shrug our shoulders, smile complacently and mutter 'Oh, well, never mind, they are still one family, you know'? We would be quite correct. In God's sight I reckon they are still one family, indestructibly. Mr and Mrs Smith are still husband and wife and still parents of their three sons, who are still brothers. For simply nothing can alter the unity of the family which the circumstances of marriage and birth have imposed upon it. But would we acquiesce in this situation? Would we try to excuse or minimize the tragedy of their disunity by appealing to the indestructibility of their family ties? No, this would not satisfy either our mind or our heart or our conscience. What, then, would we do? Surely we would seek to be peacemakers. We would urge them to 'maintain the unity of the family by means of the bond of peace', that is, to demonstrate their family unity by repenting and getting reconciled to one another.
Just so, the fact of the church's indestructible unity is no excuse for acquiescing in the tragedy of its actual disunity. On the contrary, the apostle tells us to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit. The Greek verb for 'eager' (spoudazontes) is emphatic. It means that we are to 'spare no effort' (NEB), and, being a present participle, it is a call for continuous, diligent activity. Markus Barth expresses the sense vividly: 'It is hardly possible to render exactly the urgency contained in the underlying Greek verb. Not only haste and passion, but a full effort of the whole man is meant, involving his will, sentiment, reason, physical strength, and total attitude. The imperative mood of the participle found in the Greek text excludes passivity, quietism, a wait-and-see attitude, or a diligence tempered by all deliberate speed. Yours is the initiative! Do it now! Mean it! You are to do it! I mean it!—Such are the overtones in verse 3.'5
Where, I ask myself, is this eagerness for unity to be found among evangelical Christians today? Is this an apostolic command we are guilty of largely ignoring?
Take the local church first, for presumably it is to this that Paul is primarily referring. Some Christian fellowships are marred by rivalries between individuals or groups which have been allowed to fester for years. How can we possibly condone such things? We need to be 'eager' for love, unity and peace, and more active in seeking it.
But Ephesians, as we have seen, may have been a circular letter addressed to several churches. Perhaps even in the city of Ephesus itself there were now so many Christians that they met in several distinct house churches. We know, for example, that Aquila and Priscilla had a church in their home when they lived in Rome (Rom. 16:3–5), and probably also when they moved to Ephesus (Acts 18:26). So Paul may have in mind the need for unity between as well as within the churches. If so, his concern would apply to inter-church relationships today. This is not the place to go into the technical terms which are used for various kinds of relations between churches, such as 'open communion', 'intercommunion', 'full communion' and 'organic union'. There is room for differences of conviction among us as to the precise form or forms in which God wants Christian unity to be expressed. But we should all be eager for some visible expression of Christian unity, provided always that we do not sacrifice fundamental Christian truth in order to achieve it. Christian unity arises from our having one Father, one Saviour, and one indwelling Spirit. So we cannot possibly foster a unity which pleases God either if we deny the doctrine of the Trinity or if we have not come personally to know God the Father through the reconciling work of his Son Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Authentic Christian 'unity' in truth, life and love is far more important than 'union' schemes of a structural kind, although ideally the latter should be a visible expression of the former.
Stott, J. R. W. (1979). God's new society: The message of Ephesians. The Bible Speaks Today (144–155). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
--
Regards,
Ryan Chia
4:1–16
For three chapters Paul has been unfolding for his readers the eternal purpose of God being worked out in history. Through Jesus Christ, who died for sinners and was raised from death, God is creating something entirely new, not just a new life for individuals for a new society. Paul sees an alienated humanity being reconciled, a fractured humanity being united, even a new humanity being created. It is a magnificent vision.
Now the apostle moves on from the new society to the new standards which are expected of it. So he turns from exposition to exhortation, from what God has done (in the indicative) to what we must be and do (in the imperative), from doctrine to duty, 'from the credenda … to the agenda',1 from mind-stretching theology to its down-to-earth, concrete implications in everyday living.
He begins: I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you … He has taught them, and he has prayed for them (1:15–23 and 3:14–19); now he addresses to them a solemn appeal. Instruction, intercession and exhortation constitute a formidable trio of weapons in any Christian teacher's armoury. Besides, Paul was no ordinary teacher. He uses the emphatic personal pronoun, the egō of self-conscious apostolic authority, as in 3:1. And he again describes himself as a prisoner for the Lord, using a slightly different grammatical construction but the same double entendre, that he is both a prisoner of Christ and a prisoner for Christ, both bound to him by the chains of love and in custody out of loyalty to his gospel. Thus the authority of one of Christ's apostles and the passionate conviction of a man under house arrest because of his vision of a united church, together undergird his exhortation. I beg you, he writes, to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
What this life is to be like can be determined only by the nature of the divine call of which it is to be worthy. What is this? The new society which God is calling into being has two major characteristics. First, it is 'one' people, composed equally of Jews and Gentiles, the single family of God. Secondly, it is a 'holy' people, distinct from the secular world, set apart (like Israel in Old Testament days) to belong to God. Therefore, because God's people are called to be one people, they must manifest their unity, and because they are called to be a holy people, they must manifest their purity. Unity and purity are two fundamental features of a life worthy of the church's divine calling. The apostle treats the unity of the church in verses 1–16 and the purity of the church from 4:17 to 5:21.
During the last half-century and more a great deal has been said and written about the unity of the church. The modern preoccupation with it may be traced to the influential 'Appeal to all Christian People' which was issued by the 1920 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops under the chairmanship of Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury. Following this the movement towards reunion gathered speed, two notable milestones being the inauguration of the Church of South India in 1947 and of the World Council of Churches in 1948. Since then some more united churches have come into being, while other union schemes have foundered; and the movement may be said to be in the doldrums. It is all the more important, therefore, to look with fresh eyes at Ephesians 4:1–16, since this is one of the two classic New Testament passages on the subject of Christian unity (the other being John 17). It should prove both a strong stimulus to concern ourselves with Christian unity and a healthy corrective to a number of misleading notions about it.
Paul elaborates four truths about the kind of oneness which God intends his new society to enjoy. They may be stated in the following four propositions:
1. It depends on the charity of our character and conduct (verse 2)
2. It arises from the unity of our God (verses 3–6)
3. It is enriched by the diversity of our gifts (verses 7–12)
4. It demands the maturity of our growth (verses 13–16)
It will be observed that charity, unity, diversity and maturity appear to be the key concepts of this section.
1. Christian unity depends on the charity of our conduct (verse 2)
Paul immediately portrays the life worthy of our calling as being characterized by five qualities—lowliness, meekness, patience, mutual forbearance and love. He has prayed to God that we may be 'rooted and grounded in love' (3:17); now he addresses his appeal to us to see to it that we live a life of love. This is where he begins, and this is also where we should begin. Too many start with structures (and structures of some kind are indispensable), but the apostle starts with moral qualities. Certainly, in the quest for Christian unity, if we have to choose, we must say that the moral is more important than the structural.
Lowliness was much despised in the ancient world. The Greeks never used their word for humility (tapeinotēs) in a context of approval, still less of admiration. Instead they meant by it an abject, servile, subservient attitude, 'the crouching submissiveness of a slave'.2 Not till Jesus Christ came was a true humility recognized. For he humbled himself. And only he among the world's religious and ethical teachers has set before us as our model a little child.
Moreover, the word Paul uses here is tapeinophrosynē, which means 'lowliness of mind', the humble recognition of the worth and value of other people, the humble mind which was in Christ and led him to empty himself and become a servant.3
Now humility is essential to unity. Pride lurks behind all discord, while the greatest single secret of concord is humility. It is not difficult to prove this in experience. The people we immediately, instinctively like, and find it easy to get on with, are the people who give us the respect we consider we deserve, while the people we immediately, instinctively dislike are those who treat us like dirt. In other words, personal vanity is a key factor in all our relationships. If, however, instead of manoeuvring for the respect of others (which is pride) we give them our respect by recognizing their intrinsic God-given worth (which is humility), we shall be promoting harmony in God's new society.
Meekness (praötēs) was warmly applauded by Aristotle. Because he hated extremes and loved 'the golden mean', he saw in praötēs the quality of moderation, 'the mean between being too angry and never being angry at all'.4 The word was also used of domesticated animals. So 'meekness' is not a synonym for 'weakness'. On the contrary, it is the gentleness of the strong, whose strength is under control. It is the quality of a strong personality who is nevertheless master of himself and the servant of others. Meekness is 'the absence of the disposition to assert personal rights, either in the presence of God or of men'.5 It is particularly appropriate in pastors who should also use their authority only in a spirit of gentleness.6
'Lowliness' and 'meekness' form a natural couple. For 'the meek man thinks as little of his personal claims, as the humble man of his personal merits'.7 They were found together in perfect balance in the character of the Lord Jesus who described himself as 'gentle and lowly in heart'.8
The third and fourth qualities also form a natural pair, for patience (makrothymia) is longsuffering towards aggravating people, such as God in Christ has shown towards us,9 while forbearing one another speaks of that mutual tolerance without which no group of human beings can live together in peace. Love is the final quality, which embraces the preceding four, and is the crown and sum of all virtues. Since to love is constructively to seek the welfare of others and the good of the community, its 'binding' properties are celebrated in Colossians 3:14.
Here, then, are five foundation stones of Christian unity. Where these are absent no external structure of unity can stand. But when this strong base has been laid, then there is good hope that a visible unity can be built. We may be quite sure that no unity is pleasing to God which is not the child of charity.
2. Christian unity arises from the unity of our God (verses 3–6)
Even the casual reader of verses 3–6 (thought by some to be part of a Christian hymn or a creed for catechumens) is struck by Paul's repetition of the word 'one'; in fact, it occurs seven times. A more careful reading discloses that three of these seven unities allude to the three Persons of the Trinity (one Spirit, verse 4; one Lord, verse 5, i.e. the Lord Jesus; and one God and Father of us all, verse 6), while the remaining four allude to our Christian experience in relation to the three Persons of the Trinity. This truth can be expressed in three simple affirmations.
First, there is one body because there is only one Spirit (verse 4). The one body is the church, the body of Christ (1:23), comprising Jewish and Gentile believers; and its unity or cohesion is due to the one Holy Spirit who indwells and animates it. As Paul writes elsewhere, 'By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.'1 Thus, it is our common possession of the one Holy Spirit that integrates us into one body.
Secondly, there is one hope belonging to our Christian calling (verse 4), one faith and one baptism (verse 5) because there is only one Lord. For the Lord Jesus Christ is the one object of the faith, hope and baptism of all Christian people. It is Jesus Christ in whom we have believed, Jesus Christ into whom we have been baptized,2 and Jesus Christ for whose coming we wait with expectant hope.
Thirdly, there is one Christian family, embracing us all (verse 6) because there is one God and Father … who is above all and through all and in all. A few manuscripts read 'in you all', clarifying that the 'all' of whom God is Father means 'all Christians', not 'all people' indiscriminately, or 'all things' (the universe). Armitage Robinson calls this addition of the word 'you' 'a timid gloss'.3 Perhaps it is; and certainly the overwhelming manuscript evidence omits it. Nevertheless, it is a correct gloss. For the 'all' above, through and in whom God is Father, are his family or household, his redeemed children.4
We are now in a position to repeat the three affirmations, this time the other way round and in the order in which the Persons of the Trinity are normally mentioned. First, the one Father creates the one family. Secondly, the one Lord Jesus creates the one faith, hope and baptism. Thirdly, the one Spirit creates the one body.
Indeed, we can go further. We must assert that there can be only one Christian family, only one Christian faith, hope and baptism, and only one Christian body, because there is only one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You can no more multiply churches than you can multiply Gods. Is there only one God? Then he has only one church. Is the unity of God inviolable? Then so is the unity of the church. The unity of the church is as indestructible as the unity of God himself. It is no more possible to split the church than it is possible to split the Godhead.
In stating the matter thus baldly and dogmatically (as the apostle Paul himself did), it is not difficult to imagine what the reader is thinking. You will be saying to me something like this: 'It is all very well declaring that we cannot split the church; the truth is we have been extremely successful in doing the very thing you say we cannot do!' How, then, can the evident phenomenon of the disunity of the church be reconciled with the biblical insistence on the indestructibility of its unity?
At this point a necessary distinction needs to be drawn. It is not just between the 'visible' and the 'invisible' church. That distinction is true, but the concept of the invisible church (whose members are known only to God) has been misused by some as an excuse for opting out of responsible membership in the visible church. So the distinction needs to be somewhat refined. It is between the church's unity as an invisible reality present to the mind of God (who says to himself 'I have only one church') and the church's disunity as a visible appearance which contradicts the invisible reality (causing us to say to ourselves, 'There are hundreds of separated and competing churches'). We are one, for God says so, and in interdenominational conventions and congresses we sense our underlying unity in Christ. Yet outwardly and visibly we belong to different churches and different traditions, some of which are not even in communion with one another, while others have strayed far from biblical Christianity.
The apostle himself recognizes this paradoxical combination of unity and disunity. For in this very passage, in which the indestructible unity of the church is so emphatically asserted, the possibility of disunity is also acknowledged. Consider verse 3, which we have so far omitted and in which we are told to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. This is a very strange exhortation. Paul first describes the church's unity as 'the unity of the Spirit' (meaning a unity which the Holy Spirit creates) and then argues that this unity is as indestructible as God himself. Yet in the same context he also tells us that we have to maintain it! What can he mean? What is the sense of urging the maintenance of something indestructible, and of urging us to maintain it, when it is 'a unity of the Spirit', which he created and is therefore presumably himself responsible for preserving?
There seems to be but one possible answer to these questions, namely that to maintain the church's unity must mean to maintain it visibly. Here is an apostolic exhortation to us to preserve in actual concrete relationships of love (in the bond of peace, that is, by the peace which binds us together) that unity which God has created and which neither man nor demon can destroy. We are to demonstrate to the world that the unity we say exists indestructibly is not the rather sick joke it sounds but a true and glorious reality.
Perhaps the analogy of a human family will help us to grasp our responsibility more clearly. We will imagine a couple called Mr and Mrs John Smith, and their three sons, Tom, Dick and Harry. They are one family; there is no doubt about that. Marriage and parenthood have united them. But in the course of time the Smith family disintegrates. Father and mother quarrel, keep up an uneasy truce for several years, become increasingly estranged and finally get a divorce. The three boys also quarrel, first with their parents and then with each other, and separate. Tom goes to live in Canada, Dick in South Africa and Harry in Australia. They never meet, write or telephone. They lose contact with each other altogether. More than that. So determined are they to repudiate each other that they actually change their names by deed poll. It would be hard to imagine a family which has experienced a more disastrous disintegration than this. All mutual relationships have been severed.
Now supposing we were cousins of the Smith family, how would we react? Would we shrug our shoulders, smile complacently and mutter 'Oh, well, never mind, they are still one family, you know'? We would be quite correct. In God's sight I reckon they are still one family, indestructibly. Mr and Mrs Smith are still husband and wife and still parents of their three sons, who are still brothers. For simply nothing can alter the unity of the family which the circumstances of marriage and birth have imposed upon it. But would we acquiesce in this situation? Would we try to excuse or minimize the tragedy of their disunity by appealing to the indestructibility of their family ties? No, this would not satisfy either our mind or our heart or our conscience. What, then, would we do? Surely we would seek to be peacemakers. We would urge them to 'maintain the unity of the family by means of the bond of peace', that is, to demonstrate their family unity by repenting and getting reconciled to one another.
Just so, the fact of the church's indestructible unity is no excuse for acquiescing in the tragedy of its actual disunity. On the contrary, the apostle tells us to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit. The Greek verb for 'eager' (spoudazontes) is emphatic. It means that we are to 'spare no effort' (NEB), and, being a present participle, it is a call for continuous, diligent activity. Markus Barth expresses the sense vividly: 'It is hardly possible to render exactly the urgency contained in the underlying Greek verb. Not only haste and passion, but a full effort of the whole man is meant, involving his will, sentiment, reason, physical strength, and total attitude. The imperative mood of the participle found in the Greek text excludes passivity, quietism, a wait-and-see attitude, or a diligence tempered by all deliberate speed. Yours is the initiative! Do it now! Mean it! You are to do it! I mean it!—Such are the overtones in verse 3.'5
Where, I ask myself, is this eagerness for unity to be found among evangelical Christians today? Is this an apostolic command we are guilty of largely ignoring?
Take the local church first, for presumably it is to this that Paul is primarily referring. Some Christian fellowships are marred by rivalries between individuals or groups which have been allowed to fester for years. How can we possibly condone such things? We need to be 'eager' for love, unity and peace, and more active in seeking it.
But Ephesians, as we have seen, may have been a circular letter addressed to several churches. Perhaps even in the city of Ephesus itself there were now so many Christians that they met in several distinct house churches. We know, for example, that Aquila and Priscilla had a church in their home when they lived in Rome (Rom. 16:3–5), and probably also when they moved to Ephesus (Acts 18:26). So Paul may have in mind the need for unity between as well as within the churches. If so, his concern would apply to inter-church relationships today. This is not the place to go into the technical terms which are used for various kinds of relations between churches, such as 'open communion', 'intercommunion', 'full communion' and 'organic union'. There is room for differences of conviction among us as to the precise form or forms in which God wants Christian unity to be expressed. But we should all be eager for some visible expression of Christian unity, provided always that we do not sacrifice fundamental Christian truth in order to achieve it. Christian unity arises from our having one Father, one Saviour, and one indwelling Spirit. So we cannot possibly foster a unity which pleases God either if we deny the doctrine of the Trinity or if we have not come personally to know God the Father through the reconciling work of his Son Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Authentic Christian 'unity' in truth, life and love is far more important than 'union' schemes of a structural kind, although ideally the latter should be a visible expression of the former.
Stott, J. R. W. (1979). God's new society: The message of Ephesians. The Bible Speaks Today (144–155). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
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Regards,
Ryan Chia
It is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world,
as that God has a church for his mission in the world.
Mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission—God's mission.
From The Mission of God by Chris Wright
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