The Holy Spirit & Unity (vii)

He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfilment – to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

                       (Eph.1:9-10)

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.  For we were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body … and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  And so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

(I Cor.12:12-14)

Have you ever noticed how when we say ‘the Grace’ (II Cor.13:14) we pray to experience the ‘fellowship of the Holy Spirit’?  We are being taught to pray after Christ who Himself prayed (and still prays?) for our unity, and for a genuine depth of relationship that expresses and maintains that unity (Jn.17:21-23).  The Church is the one place in this fallen world where the will of God for the unity of ‘all things’ is beginning to find expression.  This is no small thing.  Remember how in Study 1 we were thinking about the fact that we live in a world characterised by hatred (Titus 3:3), with all its consequent division and disunity?  To redeem us from such a state of affairs and to build us into a united people, drawn from a myriad of different cultures, ethnicities, classes, and statuses, may well prove to be one of the most phenomenal demonstrations of God’s power the world has seen.  Like a show home standing amongst the rubble of a building site, there is this one – albeit still incomplete – example that gives us a sense of what the New Creation will one day look like.  And as ever, God executes ‘the mystery of His will’ through His Executor, the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit is deeply committed to our expressed unity (as opposed to unity as a theoretical concept).  It is therefore deeply ironic, that the life and ministry of the Spirit in the Church has been the cause of such division and acrimony.  The goal and aspiration of the Spirit is that ‘we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ’ (Eph.4:13).   With this in the background, we begin to appreciate the NT’s harshness with those who habitually threaten that unity.  We are to warn such people, then have nothing to do with them (Titus 3:10); such people do not have the Spirit (Jude 19).

Our unity with Christ, and therefore with each other finds liturgical voice in our celebration of Communion (the clue is in the name). ‘Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body…’ (I Cor.10:17).  Here we not only give expression to our unity, but discover that the Spirit is at work in our midst, building it into our experience, as we together participate in the cross.  Something often missed is the purpose of unity in the death of Christ (Eph.2:14).  One of the most dangerous things we can do is to undermine the unity of the Church whilst breaking bread.  In I Corinthians 11, Paul is staggered that ‘there are divisions among you’ (v.18).  To eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ (i.e. the unity of the Church) is ‘eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many among you are weak and ill, and a number of you have fallen asleep’ (vv.29-30).  If nothing else does, perhaps this gives us a sense of the importance of the topic before us.

Such unity is not a cold, process-driven and mechanical thing.  Still less is it motivated by fear.  It is born out of a Spirit-inspired love that draws us inexorably to others with whom we have a shared experience of Christ.  Our being reconciled to Him inevitably means our reconciliation to other Christians.  We cannot speak of loving God without demonstrating love for our brothers and sisters in Christ (I Jn.4:11-12).  The two are inextricably linked, and it is hard to convey the spiritual dissonance that exists when people say they love God, yet are distant from the Church.  We are saved into the people of God.  We cannot envisage spiritual life without reference to our relationship with other Christians.  We cannot love Christ, and not love those who also love Him.

All of this comes to a head for Paul in the letter to the Ephesians.  I vividly remember being struck by the fact that when Paul turns his attention to apply all he has outlined in Chap.1-3, the first thing that he gives his attention to (and that as a Spirit-inspired Apostle) is our responsibility to preserve the unity of the Church.   Actually Paul speaks of it as ‘the unity of the Spirit’ (4:3).  That gives us clarity, for not all unity – not even amongst Christians – is holy or good.  Unity is not an end in itself.  Spirit-inspired unity is a means to a great and more glorious end: that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom.15:6).

Questions

Under what circumstances do you think it would be legitimate to leave a Church?  How would you advise someone who was thinking of leaving MIE?  What sort of reasons to people give for leaving Churches?

Have you ever left a Church?  Would you be prepared to share the story?  How do you feel about it now?  

 

Do you think MIE should leave the Church of England?

 

How can we cultivate a deeper sense of fellowship at MIE?

Before you read Eph.4:1-6, if someone asked you what it meant to ‘live a life worthy of the Lord’, how would respond?

 

Read Eph.4:1-6

What does complete humility look like?  How can we develop this?

How can we be gentle, patient and bear with one another when they behave in ways that frustrate us, hurt us, and provoke us?  What does it mean to bear with someone?  What if they don’t change?  How long should we be prepared to behave this way?

 

Is Paul saying we can’t confront or challenge someone who is behaving in ways that annoy us?   When should we raise this issue with the leadership of the Church? 

 

Paul lists seven things there are ‘one’ of in vv.4-6.  How does each of these motivate and inspire us in our efforts to ‘keep the unity of the Spirit’?

 

Memory Passage:

How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!  It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe.  It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion.  For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life for evermore.

Ps.133:1-3

For further reflection:

The unity of the persons of the Church is of course inevitable given the God we worship.  As we must never tire of confessing, our God is not an isolated being, existing in some kind of existential solitary quarantine.  He is the living God, who from all eternity has enjoyed glorious and intimate relationship within His own life as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  He has unity and fellowship, harmony and coherence built into the very fabric of His being. 

In the language of the creeds: as the Son is eternally begotten, so the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son (so, Article 5, The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory, with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God).  The Church confesses the Spirit to be a fully Divine Person, as wholly embedded in the life of God as the Father and the Son (Eph.3:18; II Cor.13:14; Matt.28:19).  And these Three enjoy an eternal one-ness… a one-ness that is to be reflected in the life of the Church (Jn.17:22-23). 

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition of the Church, this communion is understood to be the Being, or Nature of God.  His relationships between Father, Son and Holy Spirit are so intense they are the One-ness of God.  In this light we might be able to understand Peter’s expectation that through the promises of God, we might ‘participate in the divine nature’ (II Pet.1:4).  Our being caught up into the life of God, and being drawn by the Spirit a one-ness of relationship that is comparable to the relationship between the Father and Son, would embed us in the nature of the God we worship.  This is a breath-taking possibility.  And of course cannot be interpreted in an individualistic sense.  We – the people of God – will together participate in His Nature.  Strong motivation to work hard at this here and now at MIE!