Pauls's Epistle to the
Ephesians
Chapter V.
THE
UNITY OF THE SPIRIT : THE BOND OF PEACE*
"Endeavouring to keep
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" - Eph. 4:3
Two questions may here be raised
I. What is to be
kept? - "The unity of the Spirit."
II. How is it to be kept? "With endeavour
in the bond of peace."
I. What is to be
kept is the unity of the Spirit.
This phrase may admit of different
interpretations, but I am inclined to understand it in its most strictly
literal sense, as indicating the unity of which the Holy Spirit is the author;
that oneness of believing men in Christ which is the Spirit's new creation. Of
course, in that view, it must be a unity corresponding in its nature and
character to the nature and character of him who is its author and creator. It
cannot therefore be merely outward and formal. It may be that; but it must be
something more than that. It must be inward and spiritual. And the outward and
the inward, the formal and the spiritual, must meet in this unity, and
harmonise and be at one.
(* This sermon,
originally prepared and delivered as the first of a series on the practical
part of the epistle, was preached in Free St. George's on the first Sabbath
after the rising of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, 1873,
with a conclusion referring to the discontinuance by that Assembly of the
negotiations for union between the Free Church of Scotland, the United
Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and the Presbyterian
Church in England; and it was published immediately thereafter by Messrs.
Maclaren and Macniven, along with an Appendix, containing the Acts of that
Assembly on the subject; the dissent of Mr. Nixon, Dr. Begg, Dr. Forbes, and
others; and the explanatory statement of Dr. Duff, Lord Dalhonsie, Dr.
Candlish, and others. It is now reprinted just as then published.)
For
the Holy Spirit is one. And what the Holy Spirit makes or forms is one; like
the pure and perfect manhood of the incarnate Son, the Lord Jesus, which he
fashioned in the virgin's womb. The Church is Christ's body; fashioned also by
the Holy Ghost, in the womb, as it were, of the pure and glorious gospel, out
of which, by the power of the Spirit, it comes. And it comes as being one;
indivisibly one, as was the manhood of that holy child Jesus, born of the
Spirit in Bethlehem's stable. In that unity, however, there may be said to be
two elements, or what we may call factors; the outward form and the inward
spirit or life, corresponding to the true flesh and the rational soul in the
one man Christ Jesus. So the Church, which the Spirit makes one in Christ,
which is Christ's one body, may have its external, visible, tangible,
embodiment or substance, as well as its internal principle of vitality. It may
have the Spirit's own dove-like shape or form, as well as the Spirit's unseen
power.
Thus the unity may be regarded as twofold. It may be viewed in
two lights - as outwardly manifested, and as inwardly wrought. But in either
view it is -mthe unity of the Spirit. It is unity of which the Spirit is the
immediate author. It is unity of the Spirit's making.
1. Look at its outward manifestation. Where, you
ask? Where are we to look for, that we may look at, this outwardly manifested
unity of the Spirit? There is unity - visible unity - of various kinds and
degrees, within the realms of Christendom. There are different outwardly
manifested unities. There is the unity of which Rome makes her boast: the unity
of which the Papal throne is the symbol: and priestcraft the cement. There is
the unity which the sanction and control of civil authority, the strong arm of
civil law, may give to a corporation, embracing diverse sects and vexed with
endless strife, resounding with the din of confused and conflicting voices.
There is the unity which the holding of a common creed suggests, and which the
signing of a common formula is meant to seal. There is the unity which,
disclaiming and disdaining all such ties or helps, affects to rest on the
higher, broader basis of an agreement to think more freely than the common
mass. There is the unity that springs out of the claim of superior sanctity,
hugging itself in its own select circle, and saying to yonder publican, Stand
by, for I am holier than thou. There are thus Church Unities, of the
ecclesiastical, the national, the voluntary sort. There are unities of the
conclave, the council, the cabinet, the coterie; the party, or the
sect.
Which one of them all is the unity of the Spirit? Is any one of
them such a unity as may be worthily ascribed to the Holy Ghost as its author?
- such a unity as he may be supposed to make? Alas, that we have to answer, No!
Is there then no such thing as an understanding, realisable, unity of the
Spirit? Has the unity which he originates and creates, no outward manifestation
or embodiment at all? Nay. I do believe in the visible church, and in its
visible unity. I believe in the holy catholic church as one; and visible as
one. It is visibly one, as being holy and catholic. It is holy, as consecrated
to God. It is catholic, as embracing all in its universal love. That is its
real and essential unity. It is the unity of holiness and of love.
And,
as such, it is a unity that may be seen, and known, and read of all men. For,
holiness and love, godliness and charity, if they exist at all, must make
themselves visible. A holy and loving man, or woman, or child, is not an inward
ideal, but an outward, palpable reality. The Spirit makes holy and loving men,
and women, and children. And that is his unity in its outward manifestation, as
well as its inward birth. Thus he manifests his unity, inwardly and outwardly.
That is the visible unity which he produces; which alone is worthily and truly
his.
Let no man disparage, or doubt, or undervalue it; even as thus put
in its germ or seed. Let no man complain of it as being too vague, shadowy, and
undefined. No doubt the unity of a common badge, or of a common dress, a shaven
crown, a red cross, a peculiar gown or hat, scarlet stockings, and the like,
may be more discernible, and discernible with less trouble. It may be
deceptive, nevertheless; specious, yet hollow; a seeming oneness, covering all
but infinite diversities. But true holiness and true love are everywhere and
always the same. And there is nothing under them. They cover nothing. Where
holiness and love prevail, there can be no diversities. All holy and loving
persons speak and act alike, because they think and feel alike. Is not that the
true ideal of the holy catholic church? - holy and loving persons associated
together?
Do you still question if such unity as this is more than a
name, a dream, as regards the church of Christ, subsisting upon earth? Where,
you ask, are the people who are so manifestly and unequivocally one, in
holiness and love, as you would have me to believe? Show me them. Bring them
together before me; and let me compare them and count them.
Nay, my
friend! This incredulous demand of yours is scarcely reasonable. And yet, alas!
I can find some apology for it, when I myself see how little many Christians
whom I know, and whose Christianity I dare not doubt, do really lead such
thoroughly holy lives as Christ led, and do really walk in love as Christ has
loved them. But I entreat you, brother, to consider. May not the fault be
partly in yourself ?
May it not lie in your having so little of an eye
to apprehend - so little of a heart to appreciate and to sympathise with - the
holiness and love - the holy living and the loving working - which do, however
imperfectly and inadequately, yet most truly characterise some few at least of
your accquaintances, or have characterised some few historical names, - some
few of the remembered dead? They may be very few; few faithful among many false
or weak professors. But if there are only two or three, of whom you cannot but
own that - dwelling far apart, of different natural temperaments, belonging to
different sects, frequenting different circles, and mingling in different
societies - they yet all agree in giving the unmistakable impression of their
living habitually under the influence of loyalty to God and charity to man -
all of them acknowledging Christ as their all in all, and being themselves in
large measure consistently Christ-like as well as Christ-loving - that is to
you the church visible - visible as one; made one by the Holy Ghost. That is
"the unity of the Spirit," sufficiently manifested to you! Sufficiently, I say,
to draw you over to this unity yourselves, or to leave you without apology if
you continue in your unbelief! Sufficiently, I add, to make your case a very
sad one, if - refusing to see in such a gracious work any higher hand than
man's - "or, it may be, ascribing it to agencies and influences even meaner
still - you incur the guilt of those who said that Christ cast out devils by
Beelzebub their prince.
2. I
have dwelt thus long on the visible aspect of "the unity of the Spirit'' which
you are to endeavour to keep, because it is in that line that your endeavour
must mainly be put forth. But I must remind you that the real seat of unity is
within, in the heart. There, of course, it is invisible, save only to God the
Father, who is indeed himself its living centre. For the unity which the Spirit
effects among all the redeemed is primarily and essentially unity in God the
Father; unity, in a high sense, with God the Father. It is the unity of which
Christ speaks when he prays: "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in
me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe
that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them;
that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they
may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me,
and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me" (John xvii. 21-23).
That
oneness which Christ thus seeks is the unity of the Spirit. The Spirit is
himself one with the Father and the Son, in the divine unity or oneness with
which, in some sense, the human is here so wonderfully identified. It is as
being himself one with the Father and the Son, in their mutual indwelling in
one another in love, that he makes us one; through the Son's dwelling in us as
the Father dwelleth in him; and the indwelling in us consequently of the very
love with which the Father loves the Son. That is "the unity of the Spirit" the
only unity that can be worthily ascribed to him. It is, as the Lord intimates,
a unity which, in its fruit or issue, may be and must be visible; for by it the
world is to "know that the Father hath sent him." But in its deep source and
seat it is invisible. It is the secret of the Lord which is with them that fear
him. It is a communication made by the Spirit of God to and within the deepest
spirit in man. It is his causing you to know and believe the love with which
God has loved you. It is not your loving God but his loving you - loving you as
he loves his own Son - that constitutes your unity or oneness, first with God
the Father, and then, in him, with one another as brethren. It is no narrow,
earthly, selfish unity, but a unity wide and high and heavenly.
II This unity of the Spirit is to be kept.
l.
There must be an endeavour to keep it . And
2. There is a bond provided for
keeping it.
1. In the first place there must be an endeavour to keep it. And
the endeavour must be most earnest and most strenuous. The word used is very
emphatical. It implies a strong and sustained effort of will. And well it may.
If it is indeed the unity of the Spirit, it may well require, as it well
deserves, sedulous and anxious keeping. For it is a beauteous, heavenly vase,
in the custody of rude, earthly hands. It craves tender handling. It is easily
marred, cracked, and broken. It needs to be scrupulously watched and most
assiduously guarded and fenced.
On the one hand, the inmost shrine in
which it is fashioned and nursed, the shrine of this poor heart of mine! What a
receptacle, what a home for this seed, transplanted into it from heaven's own
soil! To keep that there - what an endeavour! Let me try to realise the
thought.
This "unity of the Spirit"! - it is, I repeat, the love
wherewith the Father loveth the Son dwelling in me through the Son himself
dwelling in me by the Spirit. Surely this is, almost without a figure, heaven
on earth! It is the Father's love to the Son, which is heaven's glory, finding
a lodgment on earth! And where? In me, consciously in me; in my heart. And what
a heart! How weak, irresolute, infirm! How cold and carnal and worldly, even
when renewed! To keep such a treasure in such a place; a gem so pure in a
casket so open to all defilement - assuredly needs endeavour; the keeping of
the heart with all diligence, since out of it are the issues of
life.
Then, on the other hand, the need is certainly not less among
those issues of life which come out of the heart. If in the recesses of your
own inward experience, the unity of the Spirit is so liable to suffer damage
that there must be constant endeavour to keep it, it cannot well be less so
when it comes in contact with the outer world. So to keep the unity of the
Spirit, as to cherish always a vivid sense of your being one with the Son in
his enjoyment of the Father's love, and one with all that are his in the
enjoyment of it - amid all jars and disagreements - ah, there must be careful,
diligent endeavour! It will not keep itself. It is not according to nature; if
it were, it might spontaneously keep itself. It is against nature. Count it not
strange therefore if the keeping of it cost you effort.
2. Jn the second place, for your encouragement,
there is a bond provided for keeping this unity; it is the bond of peace. The
endeavour, strenuous and sustained as it must be, is not to be the endeavour of
violence or excitement. It is no desperate groping and struggling in the dark
that is required. The unity of the Spirit is to be sedulously kept. But the
keeping of it is to be quiet, calm, peaceful. The bond, the girdle, which is to
be the means of keeping it, is peace.
What peace? "The peace of God
which passeth all understanding, keeping your hearts and minds through Jesus
Christ" "peace in believing;" the peace, his own peace, which Jesus bequeaths
and gives - "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you : not as the
world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it
be afraid."
It is not a peace which you have naturally, or can acquire
by any exertion, or through any righteousness, of your own. It is of grace.
Naturally you know not what it is. You are at enmity with God, your fellows,
and yourselves; distracted in your own minds; uneasy in all your relations. In
such a state there is no unity of any sort to be kept, unless it be the unity
of a precarious truce, or a hollow compromise, or mere conventional courtesy
and compliment, which is no real unity at all, and which any kind of peace may
decently enough keep. The Spirit makes real unity by making real peace. And
therefore it is in the bond of real divine peace that "the unity of the Spirit"
is to be kept.
First and chiefly, it is the peace of reconciliation to
God that is here meant; "the peace with God" which, "being justified by faith,
you have through Jesus Christ your Lord." It is idle to talk of your keeping
the unity of the Spirit, or having any unity of the Spirit to keep, if you are
strangers to that peace, if there is not some sense in your hearts of a
well-grounded and assured peace between you and your God and Father in heaven.
If the question of your standing in his sight - how it is between him as the
righteous judge and you as guilty sinners - the question of questions for your
perishing soul - is not settled; so settled as to breathe into your troubled
spirit serene, secure, pure, and placid peace - if doubt, anxiety, misgiving,
continue to haunt your bosom, as to whether you are still outcast, condemned,
afar off, or justified, forgiven, accepted in the Beloved, brought nigh by the
blood of Christ - what bond, what tie, what girdle, have you for keeping God,
and you, and your fellow-men together as one - unless it be the cold cord of
ceremony, or the brittle thread of routine? Be very sure that peace, peace of
conscience on the footing of the great propitiation, peace sealed and ratified
by the gift of the Spirit of adoption, peace implying no surrender on God's
part and admitting of no reserve on your part, - complete, confiding peace, -
Christ's own peace in the bosom of the Father, now that he has drained the cup
of wrath; such peace alone can really bind in one, as the Holy Ghost would have
to be bound in one, the Father, and the Son, and you, and the holy brethren. In
vain, without the bond of that peace, you try to keep any unity deserving of
the name. But having that bond in which to keep the Spirit's unity, the only
unity worth the keeping, you may go forth among earth's manifold discords,
confident that heaven's harmony will overbear them all.
For, let it be
remarked, secondly, This peace of God ruling in your minds and hearts, and
keeping them through Jesus Christ your Lord, overflows in copious streams all
around, and becomes a sort of universal peace; benign, calm, quiet,
all-pervading, all-embracing. The love of God - the love wherewith the Father
loveth the Son, and loveth you even as he loveth him - that love, shed abroad
in your hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto you; that holy, fatherly love of
God, known, believed, felt - and that is peace - goes forth in holy, brotherly
love, everywhere and always. This love, this peace, is the only uniting bond.
An uneasy conscience; the consciousness or apprehension of an unsettled
controversy on any point still outstanding between you and your God, or between
you and your fellowmen ; such an uncomfortable state of the inner man, causing
restlessness, fitfulness, irritability, cannot but hinder the cultivation of
that "meek and quiet spirit," which is not only "in the sight of God an
ornament of great price" but is also in the sight of men the most convincing
and attractive manifestation by far of the holy loving unity which the Holy
Ghost creates in and among all the saints of the Most High. "Peace I leave with
you; my peace I give unto you." In the bond of that peace, "keep the unity of
the Spirit."
My subject has been suggested by the recent proceedings in
the General Assembly of our beloved Church. In applying it accordingly, I
intend to confine myself to one aspect of the case; the "endeavour" which was
required on the part of those who took a leading part in these proceedings, in
order to "keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." I might speak of
the Church in the third person; but it is easier and simpler to use the first
person. We who, being the majority, had mainly the conduct of the affair all
along, have had a hard task to perform, a difficult part to play. Let me advert
to some of the difficulties.
In the first place we had to consider our
own position with reference to the whole union movement from the beginning
hitherto, and the deep responsibility involved in its discontinuance. This was
with us a far more serious matter than many thought, raising in our minds very
anxious and perplexing deliberations. It seemed however to be taken for
granted, in certain quarters, that if we hesitated about bringing to an end the
union negotiations, it could only be from a regard to our own personal credit
and consistency, and an unwillingness to submit to a personal disappointment.
Pride, self-will, dogged obstinacy, sheer persistency and perversity of
adherence to our own course, party-spirit, partisanship, must have been our
ruling motives; else we might have yielded long ago to our friends in the
minority, and given up the struggle. But we could not all at once see that to
be the path of duty. We believed the cause which we advocated to be the cause
of God, and our work in connection with it to be a work of God. We thought we
might recognise his hand and Spirit in the progress of it. We hoped that as it
advanced, farther difficulties might be removed, and the way made more plain.
We did not feel at liberty lightly to despair of a happy issue. And we could by
no means be sure that it might not be the will of God to accomplish, the
desired end through painful processes, and that it might not consequently be
binding upon us to persevere, as we had the right and power to persevere, in
carrying forward and carrying out the plan of a general fusion of the
negotiating bodies into one, even at the risk of greater evils attending it
than had been experienced, and far more serious partial heats and divisions.
For my part, it was a great relief to me to find my friends so willing to join
in subscribing a document, which so far saves and protects our consciences, as
it is a formal explanation of our reason for consenting to an interruption and
pause in this labour of love, and a solemn protest that we have been acting in
good faith.
Then, secondly, we had to consider our relation to the
churches with which we have been negotiating, and the brethren in these
churches with whom we have been conferring. With the very clear and decided
conviction which we entertain of their entire agreement with us in all
essential points of doctrine, worship, and discipline, and the experience we
have had of their truly Christian spirit, we could not consent to any close of
the negotiations that, either as to the matter or as to the manner of it, might
seem to involve discourtesy, or rude abruptness, or careless indifference. In
particular, we could not bear the thought of the most pleasant and profitable
intercourse of ten long years coming to an end in its present form, without
some sort of landmark or milestone being erected as an index of some advance
having been made along the blessed road to union. To part ecclesiastically as
if we had never met, to let the whole goodly array and fabric of materials that
we have been trying to gather together and adjust for future use, fall to the
ground, or vanish into thin air and leave no trace behind, would surely have
been a lame and impotent conclusion of the whole matter, a pitiful ending of an
bid song. We were constrained to insist on a more seemly and creditable
catastrophe, or consummation, of the drama; and could be reconciled to the
curtain falling, only when it had graven upon it in imperishable letters, on
the one hand, the fact of the concurrent opinion of all the churches, that
there is no bar in principle to an incorporating union, - and, on the other
hand, the law which meanwhile provides for the reciprocal recognition of the
fellowship of the ministry among them all.
Lastly, we had to consider
the position in which our brethren differing from us as well as ourselves, in
fact, the entire Church collective, might ere long be placed, if the rule of a
majority, with full liberty of dissent on the part of the minority, were to be
denounced as spiritual tyranny, and an invasion of the rights of conscience;
if, in other words, the majority, doing their very best to interpret and apply,
under the guidance of the Spirit, the Word of Christ in any matter upon which
they must make up their minds and decide and act, are after all to yield their
own deliberate judgment thus reached, to the scruples of a minority who, after
all, can sufficiently protect themselves, without extreme measures being
threatened or carried into effect. We had to assert and maintain the
possibility of lawful government in a free church of the living God.
I
have indicated some of the difficulties on our side of the question in our
recent contendings, not certainly with anything like mortification or
bitterness in my soul, but simply to show how much cause we have to thank the
Lord who has brought our poor, weak, and sinful Church through so many
embarrassments, and opened, as I trust, a bright future before us. Let there be
much confession of guilt, and earnest cries for pardon on all sides. Let there
be a healing of every breach. "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and clamour, and
evil speaking, be put away from us, with all malice. Let us be kind one to
another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake
forgiveth us. Let us be followers of God, as dear children. And let us walk in
love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering
and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour."
Go To Chapter Six
Home | Biography | Literature | Letters | Links | Photo-Wallet