The Surprising Prospect of Unity in the Body of Christ
Traditional churches are closing across the country at a staggering pace. When I say “churches” I’m referring to that noticeable building with a pastor and many programs and activities. People are abandoning these programmed churches in droves and it appears like Christianity is slowly dying out. Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise as God has waited for defeat to come to our market-driven churches so He could show us how He wants to do it by His Spirit.
Different reasons are given for this drastic decline in recent years but I offer in this message what I believe is the main reason — we have been trying to experience church our way without the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus declared, “I will build My church” (Matt 16:18). It is His church and He will build it His way and in His timing in the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit. We have allowed tradition and human cleverness to replace the Holy Spirit who was sent to fulfill this promise of Jesus (John 16:13) and then we wonder why it is failing.
I believe with all my heart that He wants to covertly restore His church to the simplicity and purity that marked its beginning. I say “covertly” because this will not be a spiritual reset that is outward and organized by human cleverness but one that can be detected only if people are looking for it. This will be the Holy Spirit leading people to be His church under His power and guidance. It will be a return to what it looked like in its days of beginning glory.
The time is soon coming when Christians will not be able to worship openly without serious repercussions. This is already happening and it will increase especially if this next election goes the wrong way. The church will be driven “underground” in the sense of meeting covertly in simple and pure ways. We will have to abandon traditional rituals and obvious religious things that draw attention to our presence and will have to return to the simple, pure, family life ways the church met in the first three centuries (Acts 2:42–47).
But some, to keep their cherished traditions, will compromise with the world by abandoning the real Gospel of the kingdom in favor of a watered-down, user-friendly version of Christianity that is acceptable to the world’s elite power brokers. The result of this will be a great falling away from the true Gospel to a compromised message that makes peace with the world. This is already developing but the timing of its full expression will depend on decisions being made by this nation and its citizens (let the reader understand).
So this simple and pure unity will be for a faithful remnant of those who allow the Holy Spirit to lead them forward amid the chaos that is coming. The glory of God will arise but it will only be experienced by those who are alert and will open to being God’s church in His way.
That glory will be marked by supernatural unity in the body of Christ. Most theologians and other believers of today view this as a practical impossibility because they see the church through the lens of human programming and marketing. Most churches today have their beginning and are built using the marketing system of our economy. We use advertising, and other marketing methods as if the church is a religious business. They hire a pastor as a CEO and have a board of directors so they can apply for tax exempt status like any business. This has grieved the Spirit whose guidance has been ignored (Eph 4:30).
Instead of seeing the church as an American business we need to see it through the eyes of the Holy Spirit who is the One commissioned to accomplish it or through the eyes of Christ who died to secure its salvation. The church is not a business but the earthly expression of His kingdom. It is an organic, spiritual body which lives and moves by the inner life of the Spirit (Eph 4:4; 1 Cor 12:13). Since it is a supernatural body, true unity can only be accomplished by the Holy Spirit.
The word is filled with admonitions to live in this spiritual unity that expresses itself in the natural realm through His body, the church.
Jesus prayed for this oneness in His upper room prayer. He prayed for us all that we “… may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me” (John 17: 21). This is not an invisible unity for heaven only or for the Millenium but a real, practical unity that shows the world the truth about Christ.
Paul wrote that it is possible in this age to minister to one another “. . . for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph 4:12, 13).
Paul begged the Corinthians who were divided like we are: “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.(1 Cor 1:10).
He goes on to say that schisms or divisions should not exist in the body of Christ: “But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body” (1 Cor 12:24, 25).
Even so I hear the dissent of those who insist that true spiritual, practical, real unity is impossible because of the years of church development that cannot be reversed. Many who see their whole existence as dependent on the man-made church that exists today, resist what the word says in favor of business as usual. Theologians will say that we have a form of unity in Christ though it is not expressed in our actions. The world is rejecting this brand of dead Christianity, but the final prayer of Jesus declares that this true unity will prove to them that the Father sent the Son (John 17: 23).
For this reason, we should expect some discipline from the Lord in the coming years that will lead to much repentance and restoration to the genuine body of Christ as it learns to live in harmony. Just as the Father allowed persecution to the early church so they would remember His command to go into all the world, He will allow tough times for us to bring us back to His perfect plan for the body of Christ. (Acts 1:8; 8:1, 4). Get ready church!
