Ephesians 4:12-13 “…to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.”
I was struck by the phrase, “… attain to the unity of the faith.” The most common critique I hear from believers about the church is the lack of unity. But this verse suggests that unity is a marker of maturity rather than a means to it. Unity is something that is attained as believers grow. Perhaps God doesn’t not expect immature believers to exhibit a true degree of unity.
In context of Chapter 2, unity between dissimilar groups IS the mysterious plan of His will. It is the THING. That is true. But, this verse made me think that a fully expressed unity isn’t something a believer perfects in “Following Jesus 101.” Unity comes out of a fuller understanding of the Love of Christ (to us and through us). That fuller understanding of His love is one of Paul’s prayers…. hence it is something that we must be grown into, and matured into.
I find myself a little grated when believers blankly critique the church for divisiveness. As if that would be an easily solvable problem. As if the whole of church history has gotten it wrong, and been a complete failure, and we now know how to fix it. To be unified – if only all the denominations would just drop their “petty” issues. I have a problem with that on a number of levels. I don’t think “denominations,” per say, are wrong or inherently problematic. I think they are to some degree inevitable, given humanity (although I’m not sure if God thinks that). But I do think the Lord left sufficient amounts of nebulousity — for the exercise of grace. That grace could be exercised in 2 ways. 1) Total cohesive, apparent unity; no different churches or denominations. No distinctive gatherings based on beliefs or ethnicity etc. We would just group geographically, I suppose, for worship services, or 2) Choosing to adhere to what we believe are important beliefs, even if it causes us to set up a separate camp (for effective ministry that is not fraught with disagreement over semi-central issues) and THEN exercising grace in working with, worshiping with, and rejoicing with those other camps. I suppose this is the realists perspective.
The church is God’s main project, His main tool in this world. I can’t imagine that when He weighs the successes and failures of His church, historically He deems it has been a failure. I think He sees differently than us. I think He appreciates (more than we do) the sinful bunch He has to work with. I think His analysis is more complex than ours. Sure the church is sinful – it was when He created it. A bunch of saved sinners. Sure the church makes mistakes – we are a growing bunch.
Unity is something that more mature believers exhibit. If that is true, it is not a surprise that the church in America is not generally exhibiting unity. Then I would say, unity is not the root problem. Maturity is. And the mature don’t go around criticizing the church—they live out the “unity of the faith” in grace.
By Shannon Gianotti
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