WE SAW YESTERDAY that the church is made up of many and yet is one body in Christ. The many provides for diversity, and one body provides for unity—unity amid diversity.
That is the New Testament pattern: many, yet one—unity in diversity. That is not our pattern; we have the many but are not one. Each of the many looks on itself as the one—join me and then we will be one. That isn’t often spoken, but it is usually the underlying thought. Yet it is sometimes expressed, as in a woman’s will. She belonged to a very narrow group and her husband to another group, but they loved each other. In her will she asked that she not be buried alongside her husband, but in a different portion of the cemetery, for she said, “When Jesus comes I will be raised, but he won’t, and I would hate to get up and leave him there, so bury me in another portion of the cemetery.” When the husband saw the will he was brokenhearted. Denominationalism, as we now have it, divides people in life—and in death!
I say, as we now have it—but we needn’t have it this way. In spite of all our divisions, Christians are the most united body on earth. They are united at the place of Christ. They are united in the deepest thing in life—in life itself. They share a common life in Christ. They do not have to seek unity—they have it. I repeat, everyone who belongs to Christ belongs to everyone who belongs to Christ. We can get together around Christ, for that is the place where we are together. We are together there, not marginally, but centrally and inherently.
There are two other places where the attempt is made to make us one—around bishops and baptism. Accept our type of bishops, or accept our type of baptism, and we will be one. I respect any man’s desire for a certain type of bishop and for a certain type of baptism, but to try to unite the Christian world around either one will result in division, not unity.
O Jesus, my Lord and Savior, Thou art our unity, for Thou alone art worthy to be the center of our unity. To be united around bishops or baptism, even if possible, would be an unworthy unity—around a man or a mode. Around Thee, the Divine, alone are we one. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: In Christ, I am inwardly unified and I am unified with my brother—a double unity.
