Together for the Gospel
Holding fast to the unity we didn’t make, but Christ already won.
After spending the first three chapters eloquently expressing the glories of the gospel and the “unsearchable riches of Christ” to the Ephesians (Eph. 1:7–8; 3:8), the opening verse of Chapter marks a significant pivot point in Paul’s letter. So far, the apostle has done his best to communicate just how extravagant God’s gospel is, in all its lavishness, which is teeming with grace and mercy (Eph. 2:7). But even Paul is limited when it comes to fully articulating “the breadth and length and height and depth” of the love “that surpasses knowledge” (Eph. 3:18–19). Even he is at a loss for words.
Nonetheless, the love of God for you and for me, which is beyond all knowing, forms the central message of the church and the prevailing impetus of its gatherings. We assemble on a weekly basis to get a glimpse of that which is incomprehensible. And it is precisely the incomprehensibility or unknowability of God’s love for us that has been embodied by the Christ of God, Jesus of Nazareth, in his life, death, and resurrection. This, of course, is the very gospel of which Paul was made a minister (Eph. 3:7), which brings us to Chapter 4, where he shifts from declaring the particulars of that gospel to demonstrating what it all means in the life of the church.
1. Walking Together
Paul’s most earnest desire was for the Ephesian believers to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which [they’ve] been called” (Eph. 4:1). The enormity and immensity of God’s love for them, poured out on them in Christ’s dying and rising again, is what fitted them to proceed in the calling that God in Christ had given to them. The bulk of what Paul discusses from here to the end of the letter concerns what it means and what it looks like to “walk worthy.” However, another theme rises to the surface amid this discussion, which can be discerned just by answering the question: What are we walking towards? If, as Paul puts it, the life of the church is framed in terms of walking, where are we walking? What’s the destination?
As beneficial as it might be for everyone’s steadily declining mental health, walking “in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” isn’t an aimless walk in the woods. Rather, it is suggestive of hiking towards something, towards some goal or objective. Paul tells us what that goal is when he writes, “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). In other words, the prevailing goal of the church is the convergence of faith and knowledge, when faith becomes sight; when we’re all thoroughly complete in Christ; when we attain the full measure of conformity to God’s Son.
This, to be sure, isn’t a reality that will ever be fully realized this side of glory. But, even still, it remains “the prize of the upward call of God in Christ,” as Paul says elsewhere (Phil. 3:14). What we are walking towards is the “not yet” of the already revealed gospel, which says that “we are God’s children now,” by faith — a fact that can’t be invalidated or undone. Even though “what we will be has not yet appeared,” still, “we know that when he appears we shall be like him.” Why? “Because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Because faith and knowledge will then converge into sight.
2. The Church Is a Body, Not a Brand
Paul’s vision for what it means to be the church is very unlike what most of modern evangelicalism suggests the church should be known for. According to Pauline ecclesiology, the ἐκκλησία is not a social club, a brand, a building, or an ever-expanding business. The church isn’t an association of mostly like-minded individuals who happen to be assembled all in one place at a specific time. Instead, the church is an intentional gathering of believers who’ve been gifted “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” are eager to maintain that unity, are equipped for the work of the ministry, and are occupied with growing into maturity. It’s a community of sinners and strangers, of lost, hopeless, and hostile wanderers, who’ve been brought near by the blood of Christ and made one in and through him (Eph. 2:11–22).
Rather than each individual serving themselves and chasing after their own needs and desires, rightly ordered, the church is an assembly of believers who are marked by an eager striving after oneness. This, of course, isn’t meant to convey some sort of dystopian uniformity, where we all think the same, dress the same, and act the same at all times. Neither Paul nor Christ was at all interested in that. “The unity of the church,” John R. W. Stott comments, “far from being boringly monotonous, is exciting in its diversity.”1 It’s a unity that is rooted and established by God and in God, who, as Paul expounds, is the epitome of oneness. “There is one body and one Spirit — just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call — one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph. 4:4–6).
This is reminiscent of what the Lord Jesus prayed for in the garden, mere hours before he was crucified, “I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one” (John 17:22), which itself is an echo of one of the most foundational confessions of the people of God: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4). Summarily speaking, therefore, the church is a unified body of believers who’ve been made one by the one triune Spirit, Lord, and Father of all.
3. Stewarding What Christ Has Won
An important distinction must be made, though. This oneness isn’t created by the church; it’s gifted to the church when those who comprise it receive and believe in the gospel of Christ crucified and risen again. Accordingly, since the “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” is a gift bestowed upon us through Christ, we aren’t the ultimate authorities or arbiters of what it means to be unified. The Lord Jesus is. He’s the standard. He’s the measure after which we are called to strive (Eph. 4:15–16). The church — both local and universal — remains united only insofar as it remains united in and on Christ alone, its one foundation (Eph. 2:20).
Part of what makes the church “the church” is its eagerness or willingness to maintain (τηρέω) this gift of unity. You see, while we don’t and can’t fabricate this oneness, we are responsible for protecting and preserving it, a mantle which, by and large, the church has often fumbled. Even a cursory examination of ecclesiastical history reveals a troubling saga of saints acting more like sinners, which isn’t necessarily all that surprising. Local assemblies or even entire denominations disagree and divide to the point that “church splits” have become a worn-out joke. The very real tragedy of churches splitting or their members leaving is a byproduct of the gift of unity being mishandled.
Instead of a church’s unity being guarded, threats to it are allowed to infiltrate and infect it, chief among them being the primacy given to personal preferences as the overriding barometer of a church’s oneness. When that happens, suddenly everyone has different goals after which they’re walking. If you’re striving for this thing and I’m striving for that thing, and we’re all striving for different things, division and discord are soon to follow. Make no mistake: God hates division. It even makes an appearance as the seventh of seven things he deems an abomination (Prov. 6:16–19). He is grieved when those within the Body of Christ become ensnared by scandal, dissension, and strife; when mole hills get turned into mountains; and when resolvable disputes turn gangrene.
4. Unity in the Already and the Not Yet
There’s a reason why the theme of unity shows up more often than almost any other topic in Paul’s New Testament letters2 — mainly because it doesn’t come naturally to us. Our natural inclination is to do what best suits us. Whatever will most benefit us is what we’re most eager to do. Our comfort and convenience are almost always vaulted to the top of our list of priorities. But where this natural inclination is nurtured and allowed to grow, disunity isn’t that far behind. As impossible as it is to conceive of unity in an assembly of such stinking sinners as you and me, the point is to behold this blessed union as the gift that it is.
The pursuit of unity isn’t like staring up at an endless staircase that we are beckoned to climb. Rather, it’s like standing on a finished foundation that Jesus Christ has laid for us. “The unity of the church,” John R. W. Stott says, “is as indestructible as the unity of God himself.”3 The gospel is that which announces the death and resurrection of God’s Son so that God’s church might be united in him and on him. What makes us one, therefore, is when the one hope of one Lord resounds through the proclamation of one faith (Eph. 4:2). “We ‘guard or keep’ this oneness,” asserts R. C. H. Lenski, “by making our faith and our life conform to the Word.”4 After all, the Word of God, which is none other than the revelation of the Son of God, is that which instills in us the humility, gentleness, and patience to stay as one. And it is through this union that the rest of the world is made to believe (John 17:20–23).
We “walk in a manner [that’s] worthy” because Christ has already walked worthy for us. He’s the one who has gone before us, having been born in humility, living sinlessly, and carrying all our failures and fiascos to the cross, where he puts them to death as he himself dies. As Jesus hung on the cross, with his body torn to shreds, he was tearing down every wall of hostility and discord that divides us. The vast chasm that separates us and God is spanned by Christ alone, as is every dividing line society tries to draw between us. Every cultural, racial, political, and socio-economic boundary is transcended when the Christ of God bows his head in death for the sins of the world. This is the incomprehensibly good news that tells us we are all “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 3:6).
What was unthinkable and unknowable has become reality in and through the gospel, which says that we “are all one in Christ” (Gal. 3:27–28; Col. 3:11). Our dear Lord Jesus didn’t just preach peace, he made it; he didn’t just pray for unity, he bled for it. The unity we are called to maintain, therefore, isn’t some IKEA project we are summoned to fabricate. It’s not our project. Rather, it is something Christ has already accomplished; his triumph and gift to us. “‘The unity (oneness) of the Spirit,’” Lenski concludes, “is established by the Holy Spirit when by regeneration, faith, and a new life he joins us all spiritually.”5 The church stands in unity, in the incandescence of the “already, but not yet,” as those who’ve had their robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 7:14). We walk as one because, in him and through him, we already are.
John R. W. Stott, The Message of Ephesians: God’s New Society, The Bible Speaks Today Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 155.
See, for example, Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 1:10; 10:17; 12:12–13; Phil. 1:27; 2:1–5.
Stott, 151.
R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1961), 509.
Lenski, 509.
This is great! I have been wanting to write up a post on why denominations exist, why they need to continue existing, and why we need to not care as much that they exist (unity).
I may need to reference you once ot twice, as this was a very good read.
This is so good! It reminds me of the line from Hauerwas about how the church doesn’t have Christ’s message to share with the world, the church IS the message.