PART TWO: SOME ROADS BACK TO
UNITY
Chapter Six
God's Plan For
In
Part One, I tried to show how denominationalism emerged out of the one,
true church of the New Testament and how that development is contrary
to God's will. Now I shall try to sketch some ways by which
the situation might be remedied, some steps which may in time work
to restore the unity of God's church.
My
title for Part One, "The Road to
Denominationalism," is more confident than my title for Part
Two, "Some Roads Back to Unity."
The first part is historical, and I believe it is fairly clear from
history how we have gotten into our present predicament. However, the way
back to unity is not nearly as clear to me. I think it is clear that God
wants his church to be united and that he will bring about its unity in
his own time. But what of human responsibility? What can we do? Here I can only suggest some
possibilities, some thoughts that may
be of help. But I cannot say I know whether, when or how God may choose to
restore unity in his church.
Like
Part One, Part Two represents a very individual point of view, one
doubtless in need of correction from others in the body. I haven't had
many precedents to guide me along this road. Hence the perhaps excessive
(for a theological work) use of the first person singular pronoun.[1]
One
important step is for us to recognize what sorts of things continue to
keep us apart and to develop a proper biblical understanding of those
barriers to union. That biblical understanding may give us the insight and
motivation to judge others more fairly. We may then be more willing to
recognize weaknesses in our own traditions and to set aside, at
least tentatively, the assumptions about other traditions derived
from our historical polemics. Or, alternatively, while continuing
to affirm the superiority of our own traditions, we will
discover more effective ways of persuading others of our convictions.
In either of those ways, unity will be enhanced.
In
the next chapters, I shall discuss some of the major causes of continuing
divisions and some ways in which we may be able to draw closer to one
another.
This
chapter, however, will focus on the one fact that is certain, that God
himself intends to unify his church and that therefore the reunion of the
church is his work. M'Crie says,
A happy
reunion of the divided Church is promised in the Word of God. It
is implied in those promises which secure to the Church the enjoyment
of a high degree of prosperity in the latter days-- in which God engages
to arise and have mercy on Zion, to be favorable to his people, pardon
their iniquity and hear their prayers, cause their reproach to cease, and
make them a praise, a glory, and a rejoicing in all the earth; in a word,
in which he promises to pour out his Holy Spirit and revive his work.
God cannot be duly glorified, religion cannot triumph in the
world, the Church cannot be prosperous and happy, until her
internal dissensions are abated, and her children come to act in
greater unison and concert. But when her God vouchsafes to make the
light of his countenance to shine upon her, and sheds down
the enlightening, reviving, restorative and sanctifying influences
of his Spirit, the long delayed, long wished-for, day will not be far
distant. It will have already dawned.[2]
It
will be noted that M'Crie is a postmilennialist. For those who reject this
point of view, his argument can be reconstructed to point to a time after Christ's return when the
unity of the church is restored. However (1) even amils and premils must leave
open the possibility that God
might perform this work before the end of this age; surely they
cannot prove that God will not do this. (2) Even if God's
sovereign reuniting of the church will not be completed until the return
of Christ, partial unions of various kinds are still possible.
(3) The normal scriptural pattern is what scholars call the
"already and not-yet:" that is, the blessings promised in the
New Heavens and New Earth are already present in seed form. Salvation,
for instance, is both future and present (and past) in the
New Testament. Therefore even if complete unity is delayed until
the return of Christ, we ought to be able to see the beginnings
of that unity in the church today. (4) Scripture presents the
New Heavens and New Earth as a guide for our decisions here and
now. If we truly look forward to the righteousness of the last
days, we should be seeking it now, Matt. 6:33, II Pet. 3:13f, I
John 3:2, 3. So if we really look forward to the reunification
of God's people, we should be seeking it here and now.
This
complication, however, should not obscure the force of M'Crie's overall
point: that God intends to remove the effects of sin from his church, and
therefore also to remove disunity which, as we have already seen, is
always the result of sin.
M'Crie
also mentions a number of specific texts in which God promises the reunion
of his people. Many of these are in the Old Testament: Isa. 52:8, 11:12ff,
Jer. 31:1, 6, 10, 33:6f, Zeph. 3:9, Ezek. 37:19-22, Isa. 56:8, Psm. 60:1f,
85:3ff, 10f. One may refer these to God's gathering
That
God intends to reunite the New Testament
church is also evident in those texts which speak of reunion under
the Messianic Son of David: Ezek. 37:22, 24, Zech. 9:10, Mic.
4:3. Jesus is the "Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6, cf. Psm. 72:7),
who makes peace by the blood of his cross (Col. 1:20). It is he
who prays for the unity of his church (John 17:21).[3]
The church's contentions and divisions await the word of the Son so that
"the Spirit be poured on us from on high" (Isa. 32:13ff). And
indeed we learn from the New Testament that it is the Spirit who creates
in us those qualities of character most conducive to unity, Eph. 4:3, John
16:13, Rom. 1:4, Gal. 5:22-26.
"God
prepares the way for union," M'Crie continues,[4]
"by reformation, and the revival of real religion." This is
the difference between true and false peace (Jer. 6:14, 8:11,
II Kings 9:19-22). God's reunion will come about, not by
compromise of the truth or indifference to God, but by a revival of
devotion to Christ and his truth. Note the connections between
reformation and unity in Zeph. 3:9, Jer. 3:14-17, Ezek. 11:18f,
36:23-27, 20:37-40, Isa. 19:18, 21, 24. Note the same connections in
the story of Hezekiah (II Kings 18:4, II Chron. 30:11-26), and in
the return from exile (Ezra, Nehemiah).
The
reader will profit from following M'Crie further: "God sometimes
facilitates and prepares the way for union by removing the occasions of
offense and division,"[5]
he argues, and then later, "God prepares the way for union in his
Church by causing the divided parties to participate in the same
afflictions and deliverances."[6] His
biblical observations in these areas are edifying.
At
least one thing is evident from our brief survey of biblical materials:
the unity of the church is a major theme of Scripture and God himself
intends to accomplish this union. Refer also to my discussion in Chapter
One, which seeks to show that organizational disunity is contrary to God's
will. Surely, as God intends to remove all other forms of sin from his
people, he intends also to remove this form.
We
can be thankful then, that God's sovereign power stands behind the
movement toward church unity, weak as it may appear from a human
viewpoint. God will surely bring it to pass, in his time.
What
of our time? God's eternal intentions are secret to us. I do not know how
much unity God intends to give to the church in this age, any more than I
know what degree of moral maturity God intends to bestow upon the church
in the next ten years. Yet in both cases, I believe God blesses efforts
to achieve, when those efforts are rooted in his grace. He
honors those who seek his goals, even when, for his mysterious
reasons, he withholds from them success in their own time (cf.
Deut. 29:29). Protestants honor Wycliffe and Huss, though
their movements were unsuccessful by human standards. Thus, I believe that
God honors those who work for church unity, even when their efforts bear
no apparent fruit.
As
I argued earlier, God's sovereignty is not opposed to human
responsibility. Rather, the former undergirds the latter. We are
encouraged to seek God's kingdom, because we know that God himself is
bringing his kingdom to the earth. We also know that God's sovereign plan
regularly makes use of human agents to accomplish the divine goals. So it
is evident that God wishes us to do what we can to rid the church of its
divisions. In the coming chapters I shall be making suggestions as to what
human beings can do. But let us never forget that the work is "not
by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit" (Zech. 4:6).