The Church of Christ: Yesterday and Today . . .

THE ONENESS OF THE CHURCH

We believe in the one holy, catholic and apostolic church.

This pungent line from the Apostles’ Creed has been the basis of our study of the church’s holiness, catholicity and apostolicity. We conclude this series with a close look at oneness as part of the church’s necessary character.

The collage on the front cover, created by Talmadge Minter of Abilene, Texas, gets us off to a good start, for it symbolizes the unifying nature of Christ’s work in our lives. Disparate lines and diverse squares point to the inevitable differences within human experience. But out of this comes interlocking circles, typifying that fellowship can be enjoyed by all those who are in Christ, despite their differences. The source of it all, however, is in the unifying blood, which was shed to make men brothers. Talmadge’s original piece demonstrates this so beautifully, which cannot be captured in a reproduction, for he has a transparent plastic cover sheet, which, when lifted from the rest, leaves the central square and the interlocking circles without the blood.

It is a lesson that goes much deeper than artistic interpretation to lift the plastic cover and see the unifying blood disappear from the picture. It points to the difference Jesus makes. Societies of various kinds, whether the Masons or Oddfellows, interlock lives in a kind of fraternity, but it is only in Jesus that men become brothers by being children of God together. “You who were once far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility,” says Eph. 2:14. And the apostle adds, “He came and preached peace to you who were near, for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.”

That is what it is all about: peace, peace with God and with each other. It is a simple and beautiful truth that Jesus came to make men brothers, and in doing so he made them one. “In Christ the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:21). The beauty of organic oneness is also expressed by the apostle in these words: “God has so adjusted the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another” (1 Cor. 12:24-25).

The quotation on the front cover also speaks to the thesis of this essay, and its insight may be more far reaching than appears at first reading. “The Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one.” It was not necessary for Campbell to use the lower case “c” on church! What he sees as important is the necessary oneness of the Body of Christ. By God’s intention and by the very nature of His revelation the church is one. It cannot be other than one. This can only mean that no sect or faction can be His church. All party names and creeds, with their attending institutions, can only be cancerous blights upon the Body of Christ. We may be divided into our various parties, but the Church of Christ itself, by its very nature, can only be one. As Campbell went on to say, the church is composed “of all those in every place that profess their faith in Christ and obey him in all things according to the Scriptures, and that manifest the same by their tempers and conduct, and of none else; as none else can be truly and properly called Christians.”

This quotation is remarkably close to what the Apostles’ Creed says about the church. By its very nature it is one and cannot be otherwise; it is holy in that it is composed of those who bear likeness to Jesus in their tempers and conduct; it is catholic in that it is made up of “all those in every place” that turn to Jesus; and it is apostolic in that it is rooted in scripture.

So both the Apostles’ Creed and Thomas Campbell emphasize two disturbing truths about the character of the church. Its necessary oneness and its essential holiness or Christlikeness. We say disturbing, for this emphasis is an indictment upon the modern church, which is all too content to remain divided into sects and parties, and which bears more likeness to the carnal world in terms of its values and attitudes than to the lowly Jesus.

Campbell is so blunt as to say that a people content to be divided cannot be the church; neither can they truly be Christians unless they are like Jesus. And the old fathers that created that great line that we have made the theme of this study realized that unless the church is one, holy, catholic and apostolic it is the church in profession only.

Our separations are presumably due to doctrinal differences, and yet in all of scripture there is no justification for disciples dividing for such a reason. In view of all the factions, one would suppose that the Bible is replete with admonitions to leave the errant in order to remain faithful. But one looks in vain for such an idea. No believer is ever told to separate from other believers, nor is any group within a congregation urged to leave in order to start a loyal church.

To the contrary separations are deemed sensual (Jude 19) and divisions are placed alongside such sins as fornication, idolatry and sorcery (Gal. 5:20), and when one recalls that even in scripture these three sins were sometimes met with execution the immensity of its wrongness comes home to us. Jesus himself wrote to the seven congregations of Asia, and while there was a great deal wrong in those churches he never suggested that the faithful leave and start over, even though there are references to such ones. Rather he would say: “Remember then what you have received and heard; keep that, and repent” (Rev. 3:3). What they had heard was the gospel of Christ, and what they had received was the Holy Spirit. So here we have the modus operandi for the disenchanted in our churches. Remember the Christ of the gospel and hold fast to the blessings of the indwelling Spirit. Going out and starting “a faithful church” only compounds the problem and sets the stage for still another division when another unhappy group emerges.

The passages used to justify divisions simply do not apply. 2 Cor. 6:17 is one: “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.” But this does not mean to come out from among believers, but from pagan religion, from the temples of Venus and Jupiter and from satanic worship. The same context asks: “What agreement has the temple of God with idols?”

About the only scripture that can be brought up for separation on doctrinal grounds is 2 John 9-10. But this is clearly talking about the false teacher who denies Christ. There are deceivers who deny that Jesus is the incarnate son of God (verse 7), and these are the ones, who, when they bring such teaching, are to be turned away at our door (verse 10). This cannot be made to apply to sincere believers, who, though they may be wrong about some things, are committed to God’s will like the rest of us.

The exclusivistic spirit that has so long cursed us with compound fractures was evident even in the apostles before they received the Spirit of truth. In Mk. 9:38 they complained to Jesus: “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us.” This is the essence of partyism, for it says one must be of us to be right, regardless of the quality of his life and work. Jesus did not go along: “Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is for us.”

This is like saying to the Twelve: “Where did you get the idea that following you is the basis of fellowship?” And this is what Jesus says to any church that supposes it has all the truth or that acts as if all the rest of us must be “of them” to be acceptable to God.

Despite our differences the Holy Spirit seeks to draw every believer into fellowship with all other believers, and all believers into fellowship with the Father. 1 John 1:3 shows this to be the purpose of the gospel: “That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” The gospel brings us into a horizontal fellowship with each other, and in turn a vertical fellowship with God. It would follow, then, that the closer we are all drawn to the Father the closer we are drawn to each other.

John goes on to say: “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth; but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (l John 1:6-7).

“Walking in darkness” may well refer to what we are talking about the rejection of a brother and the perpetuation of divisions. There is no indication that it has reference to being in error on some point of doctrine. It rather goes to the very heart of what Jesus came to do: to make men brothers. John goes on to say: “He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness still. He who loves his brother abides in the light.”

So “walking in the light” is loving and accepting your brother. “Walking in darkness is the opposite of this. This is how Jesus walked in the light, loving us and accepting us and dying for us. This means that we can’t be within God’s fellowship as sectarians, for in rejecting those brothers that are not of our party we reject the fellowship of the Father.

But we must not belabor the point. It is generally admitted that the church is necessarily one and that sectarianism is a horrid evil. It may be more important to deal with practical suggestions whereby our sad state of affairs can be corrected. Much depends, of course, on the will of the divided churches to do something. Complacency is our worst enemy, coupled with the pessimistic view that our divisions are irremediable. For this reason we must continue to insist that the prayer of Jesus for the oneness of his church can be realized.

In thinking of practical solutions we must first get settled what we mean by unity. If unity is doctrinal agreement and conformity on virtually every point, then we have but one way we can go, and that is for all of us to conform to someone’s interpretation. This never has been (including earliest Christianity) and never will be, and if this is what we mean, then it all becomes a dead issue. Unity is not possible. We will continue competing with each other, continue rejecting each other, and continue in our divided state, with each of us supposing that everybody else should conform to our way of seeing and doing things.

But if unity is union and communion, made up of diverse elements that are joined together by “a core of faith” that is centered in a Person, then we can have hope for success. We can then be one and still be different, with each having his own uniqueness in Christ. It is like marriage, which could never be if the oneness that marriage implies allows for no differences. Unity in diversity is the only unity the church has ever had or ever can have. If this principle is accepted as valid, then we have a place from which to start. With this granted, let us go on to list some of the conditions we can move toward, in a practical way, in realizing the oneness of the church.

1 . There will be an acceptance of and a concern for all those everywhere that are in Christ. We will cultivate a love for those that are “there” as well as with us.

2. We will be more concerned with that “core of faith” that makes men brothers, belief in and obedience to the gospel, and less concerned about doctrinal differences. This is not to minimize doctrine, but only to recognize that honest men do differ in their interpretations, and that these are matters that can be “talked out” while we go on and accept each other as brothers.

3. There will be an interchangeable membership, so that a brother can move from one congregation to another upon no condition but that he is a disciple of Jesus. There will be no “tests of fellowship” made, for that will be left to God, and it will be an accepted fact that congregations can be different in organization, methodology, and worship and still be Churches of Christ. This is to say that a member can select a local church, but a local church cannot select its members.

4. There will be an interchangeable ministry that will allow the offices of the church to function freely, with no lines drawn. We need badly to hear men of different backgrounds and to be exposed to new ideas. True, due to understandable differences, a church may prefer preachers of their own background (black ministers for black churches, for example), but there can still be a wide-ranging visitation of evangelists, elders, and others among all congregations. It should be an easy thing for a preacher to move from a non-cooperative church to a cooperative one or from an instrumental music church to an acappella one.

5. Differences and preferences may well keep us apart without separating us as brothers. A brother may have such a view toward instrumental music (or premillennialism, the Sunday School, or big congregations) that he would be uncomfortable elsewhere, but still he will acknowledge others as his brothers and will look for opportunities for sharing the common life in Jesus with them. “Service unites” is an important principle, and we must find ways to work together in blessing mankind. There can be common projects, and shared meetings, even if not the major services of the congregation.

6. Since the Lord’s Supper is the highest expression of fellowship there is, we should seek for those opportunities where “inter-communion services” are possible. Believers should be able to do this even when their views differ about it. If Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot (a party that sought to murder tax collectors) could sit together with Jesus for the first communion service, then we should find ways to bring our disparate people together in such holiness. —the Editor.