What IS Unity? (2)

Paul tells is in Ephesians 4:3— Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace—that the first reality of our Christian walk is to walk in unity. Having first considered what unity is not, let us secondly examine what Unity IS.

The Greek for unity (henotēs) basically means “unanimity and agreement.” One Greek authority, however, provides a marvelous contrast between how the Greeks, the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), and the New Testament used this word: “In Greek and Roman philosophy the unity of God and the world is demanded by educated reason. In the Old Testament [the Septuagint], the unity of God is a confession derived from experience of God’s unique reality. The decisive advance in the New Testament, caused by God Himself, is the basing of the unity and uniqueness of God on the unique revelation through and in the one man Jesus Christ.”

To simplify, we base unity either on reason, experience, or the person and work of Jesus Christ. Most of today’s so-called unity is based either on experience (“We've all experienced the same thing, so we’re in this thing together”) or reason (“To accomplish more, we’ll get rid of our doctrinal differences”). While these sound noble, they are totally unscriptural. True, Biblical unity is this: the unanimous agreement concerning the unique revelation of God through Jesus Christ. Unless we can agree on the person and work of Jesus Christ, there can be no unity. It is as simple as that. That and that alone must be our foundation for unity.

As Paul told the Galatians, “As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:9). The words “as we have said before” indicate that Paul had said this many times in his ministry. Doctrine, therefore, must be the ground of unity, as Paul makes clears in verses 4-6.

Who, then, produces this unity? Certainly not man. This is not something we can produce like we would create “school spirit.” Rather, as our text says, it is the Holy Spirit who produces this unity. Rather what we are to do is to keep the Spirit has produced through Christ.

Notice the subtlety of the word keep, which translates the Greek tēreō, “to keep by guarding, to guard by exercising watchful care, to guard as with a fortress.” The picture here is a fortress around which we post armed guards, set Claymore mines, erect concertina wire, and do all else that we can to guard this unity.

But this is not enough for Paul, for he adds the word endeavoring. The Greek here (spoudazō) means “to make haste, to be zealous or eager, to give diligence.” It speaks of determined effort and exertion. Paul uses it when writing to Timothy about a pastor’s responsibility, “Study (spoudazō; the Old English word “study” means “absorbed contemplation”) to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (II Tim. 2:15).

It is, therefore, the responsibility of every believer to diligently, zealously, absorbingly guard the unity that Christ has provided. We do not produce unity because we can’t produce it. When we try, we end up with uniformity or other false unity. Rather we are to guard the unity that the Spirit produces in Christ. In essence, Paul is saying, “Don’t muck it up. Don’t try to make something you can’t. Just guard what God has already done.”

So we say again, true Biblical unity is this: the unanimous agreement concerning the unique revelation of God through Jesus Christ. Where that cannot be agreed upon, there can be no unity. Tragically, even some evangelicals are abandoning this by redefining the Gospel and preaching Relativism.

Having emphasized that, may we not fail to recognize how truly sweet unity is when based on the right doctrine concerning Christ. It is unity that transcends denominations. We can agree to disagree on non-essentials, but we can unify on the one reality of Christ.