Pulse
7 August 2023
In John 17, we find what has been described by scholars as the high priestly prayer of Jesus for his disciples. Among the many things that Jesus petitioned his Father in this prayer, one of the most important is that his disciples (and the Church) may be united.
Thus, in John 17:20-21, we read: ‘My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you’.
A little further in the prayer, our Lord repeats this petition: ‘I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity’.
Because of this prayer, the Church has come to understand that unity is one of its non-negotiable marks (together with holiness, catholicity and apostolicity). In other words, unity is an aspect of the essence of the Church’s being, an ontological category. Thus, in the ecumenical creeds we confess that ‘We believe in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’.
The unity of the Church is at once a gift and a command. The Church that is already one because of its union with God in Christ is also commanded to strive to achieve that unity.
We should not miss the fact that just as Jesus prayed for his disciples and the Church to be one as he and the Father are one, he also prayed for them to be consecrated in the truth. Thus, in John 17:17-19, we read:
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
It has often been observed that unity is highly prized in the modern world. We often hear about the importance of ‘speaking with one voice’ or of being ‘united in opposing injustice’ or of ‘our unified desire to create a better world’.
I recall a fanciful slogan, sometimes heard in the publicity for the 100 Women Campaign on BBC: ‘Shout alone and you may be hysterical. Shout together and we may be historical!’
What is sorely deficient with this modern understanding of unity, however, is that it is totally separated from the truth, as if the latter is of no consequence whatsoever to the former. Thus, we may say that in our contemporary culture, unity is desired in and of itself.
‘Shout together and we may be historical!’ – it really does not matter what it is we are shouting about. The truth or otherwise of our assertions is not all that important. The power comes not from truth but from the united chorus of voices.
Unfortunately, we see this disjunction between unity and truth in the Church as well.
A recent example would be the move by the Church of England to bless same-sex unions while retaining its traditional teaching regarding marriage. As I have argued elsewhere, this manoeuvre is orchestrated to prevent the Anglican communion – which has become increasingly fragile – from splitting due to the impassioned debates about LGBT and same-sex marriage.
But this is an unavailing compromise that is in the final analysis at odds with the teachings of the Anglican Church, not to mention the Bible and Christian tradition.
Put differently, here is an attempt to preserve the unity of the Church at all cost, even if it means pushing the truth into the margins. Such an attempt is doomed to fail because true Christian unity can never be achieved without faithfulness to the truth that God has revealed in Jesus Christ and in his written word, the Scriptures.
ONE IN GOD
In his letter to the Christians at Ephesus, the apostle Paul sets out the fundamental basis upon which the unity of the Church is established.
There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4:4-6).
The trinitarian pattern of the basis of unity stands out clearly in this passage: one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father. This is extremely important because it underscores the fact that the unity of Church is established on her relationship with the one triune God whom she worships.
There can be no other basis for Christian unity than God.
The one Church, which is the body of Christ, is united because it is assembled and kept together by the one Spirit of God. The Spirit does not only bring believers into communion with each other but also unites members of the body to its head, Jesus Christ. The Spirit is both the divine breath that animates and vitalises the Church and the basis for her unity.
And the Spirit, it must be remembered, is the Spirit of truth whose task is to lead the Church into all truth (John 16:13).
The Church is also united because of the one hope she shares. This is the hope which looks expectantly to the consummation of the kingdom of God which Christ has already inaugurated and of which the pilgrim Church is a part.
The unity of the Church is also grounded in her one Lord, Jesus Christ – the one who is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6) – whom she professes, worships and serves. As one commentator puts it, Christians are united because ‘they are all in the possession and in the service of the one Master and King’.
The Church is also united through the sacraments that were instituted by Christ, especially the sacrament of baptism.
Here, Paul is referring to water baptism for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38), the ‘washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit’ (Titus 3:5). Believers are baptised in the name of the one God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and therefore into the truth of who God is and into the life of the Trinity which is energised by unconditional love.
ONE FAITH
Attentive readers of this article would notice that I have skipped one of the bases for the unity of the Church in this Ephesian passage, namely, the ‘one faith’.
The reason why I have not discussed this earlier is because I wish to devote an entire section on this important criterion for Christian unity. There has been some discussion among scholars about what exactly did Paul had in mind when he speaks of the ‘one faith’ in this context.
Some scholars such as William Barclay are of the view that by this expression Paul was not referring to a creed. ‘Paul did not mean that there is one creed’, writes Barclay, ‘Very seldom does the word faith mean a creed in the New Testament’.
‘By faith’, he asserts, ‘the New Testament nearly always means the complete commitment of the Christian to Jesus Christ’. And this is what the apostle was referring to here in this passage, according to Barclay, the faith that believes –fides qua.
Many scholars, however, are of the view that by this expression (‘one faith’), Paul is referring to the substance of revealed truth, the body of Christian doctrine or fides quae. As Erwin Kowalke asserted more than seventy years ago, ‘That is the faith that God revealed to us in Christ by the Holy Spirit. It is the unchangeable truth of the Gospel’. Thus, ‘faith’ here refers to the ‘word of truth’, the ‘gospel of your salvation’ (Ephesians 1:13) and the ‘knowledge of the Son of God’ (Ephesians 4:13).
From its inception the Church has understood the importance of correct belief, not just for discerning false teachings, but also for its vital unity. Thus, the early Fathers of the Church developed the Rule of Faith (regula fidei), which is a summary of the essential teachings of the Scriptures, and which delineates the ‘one faith’ of the Church.
This basic regula fidei was later developed further into the ecumenical creeds such as the Nicene Creed which Christians today still profess whenever they assemble for worship. These creeds articulate the one faith of the Church which is gathered in the name of the one triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
There is therefore no such thing as a creedless Christianity.
In the Ephesian passage, Paul emphasises that just as the Church is united in the one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father, and just as her unity is established by the one baptism and the one hope she shares, so it is grounded in her one faith.
There can be no unity without adherence to this one faith, the ‘word of truth’.
The old slogan, sadly sometimes carelessly parroted even by leaders of the Church, that doctrine divides the Church is simply not true. This statement should be recognised for what it really is: the lie of the evil one!
A careful reading of the New Testament would show that it is false doctrines which promote schisms and conflicts (Romans 16:17). The orthodox teaching of the Church does not divide. It unites.
It is also fashionable in liberal circles – but increasingly among evangelicals as well – to privilege love over truth when discussing the unity of the Church. It is love (not so much truth or doctrine) that will unite Christians, so the argument goes. The language of love also often dominates the rhetoric on Christian inclusivity.
The Church must resist the temptation to pit love against truth in this way. She must take heed of the wise words of the late Pope Benedict XVI, who in his great encyclical Caritas in Veritate (2009) writes:
Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word ‘love’ is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing-space. In the truth, charity reflects the personal yet public dimension of faith in the God of the Bible, who is both Agape and Logos: Charity and Truth, Love and Word.
Just as there can be no genuine love without truth, so there can be no authentic Christian unity without truth. For without truth, the unity of the Church is built upon sand. Christian unity is reduced to a game of superficial irenics, frivolous sentimentalism, and polite toleration.
Dr Roland Chia is Chew Hock Hin Professor at Trinity Theological College (Singapore) and Theological and Research Advisor of the Ethos Institute for Public Christianity.