“Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.“

This passage, 1 Corinthians 1:10, lays out the will of our God concerning unity for His church. That will is exceedingly simple and abundantly clear. We are to all agree and have no divisions among us, but we all must be made complete in the same mind and the same judgement. Such unity of life and thought comes from the mind of Christ and not our own minds. This would seem to be the logical outworking of a people with whom Christ is sharing the abiding life – we are all connected to Christ and therefore each other, so the doctrine would instruct us.

“The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.  The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2:16.

Our unity is not to be built upon our human thinking, but on our sharing of the mind of Christ. We share His mind because true disciples of Christ share His life by His indwelling Holy Spirit. This level of unity also makes sense when we read the prayer of Jesus in John 17, particularly verses 20-23.

“I am not asking on behalf of these alone, but also for those who believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one; just as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I also have given to them, so that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and You loved them, just as You loved Me.”

The basis for our unity, for our sharing of the life of Christ (abiding) and the mind of Christ, is that true believers are joined not simply to each other by common goals, beliefs, and traditions. The basis for our practical daily unity is the fact that we are joined into Christ, and by that into the entire Godhead. The triune God demonstrates the divine excellence of unity, and we are joined into that divine excellence if we are joined into Christ.

The institutional church in all its stripes is disobedient to this teaching. This teaching by Christ and the apostles is so prominent and central to the new Testament that it is close to ludicrous that we call ourselves followers of Christ. Perhaps it is beyond ludicrous. Read again 1 Corinthians 2:16 above (see previous post on this passage here). We are clearly disconnected from Christ and the divine excellence of unity that is in the triune God. I cannot see how we can read these passages and yet so blatantly disobedient to His clear standard for us.

And we know we are failing at this point of obedience. We have no excuse, and we have no credible explanation. I doubt we have an incredible explanation, either. We offer explanations that don’t work. Mostly, we offer silence on this critical aspect of our faith and obedience. Crickets.

I believe that we are silent because we do not have anything to offer that will address the root issue here. We are a people who are walking, worshiping, preaching, teaching, living, and trying to be obedient by the flesh. We are not walking by the Spirit, by the life of Christ in us every moment of every day. If we were fully surrendered to the life and mind of Christ in us, the unity problem would have been addressed by the Holy Spirit early on in our individual journeys.

There are calls of unity, organizations built for unity, pleas for unity, and sermons about unity. But there is no unity. These efforts at unity are of the flesh, and in our flesh dwells absolutely no good thing. Any fleshly attempt to be “Christian” will never address the root issue of living by the flesh. Trying to be better Christians by the efforts of the flesh, according to Paul in Romans 8, leads not to life but to death. One of the first casualties is the death of unity.

Galatians 5:16-21 “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the desire of the flesh is against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, in order to keep you from doing whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: sexual immorality, impurity, indecent behavior, idolatry, witchcraft, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

The institutional church in the world (not surprisingly, this does not include the persecuted church around the world) can be characterized by “hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy.” The world around us sees clearly the sad irony and ridiculous nature of our situation. Only Christians believe the very creative yet unconvincing excuses and explanations for our divisive attempts to maintain “doctrinal purity” or “core beliefs” or even “Biblical integrity.” While we protest our righteousness, we ignore the clear teachings of the Bible. We look completely unlike Christ Jesus, our supposed head. Sadly, we look a lot more like those who murdered Him.

There is an answer for this dreadful problem, one I will address in the next post.