Clarification on "unity"

Larry Hurtado has published an article on the general topic of Christian unity as an eschatological work of God. The upshot is that we are expected to continue to "speak the truth in love" -- not to give way on the truth out of some sort of false hope that fudging on the truth will somehow bring about the unity that's called for. The "unity", again, is God's eschatological work.

Hurtado continues:

But, perhaps especially in the West, and particularly since the Reformation, Christians have tended to treat diversity as a problem, a threat, and an obstacle to unity. Indeed, the common notion has been that Christian unity depends on agreement, especially in doctrine and church polity. So the question for us is whether this anxiety about diversity is justified, and whether it may bring the danger of a narrowness that makes us unfaithful to the NT and the ‘proto-orthodox’ circles from which we would like to trace our religious derivation. We might, then, ask whether there are biblical resources for handling diversity positively. In the following discussion, I focus on a key NT passage, proposing that it provides us with instruction in the matter of unity and diversity. Indeed, I propose that this text challenges the traditional fixation with doctrinal agreement as the key basis for Christian unity, and lays out an approach that is very much worth considering.

EPHESIANS 4:1–16 AND CHRISTIAN UNITY
The Epistle to the Ephesians is traditionally considered one of the most impressive presentations of Christian faith in the NT. One of the themes of the epistle seems to be unification. In 1:9–10, the author says that God’s revealed purpose is ‘to unite all things’ in Christ. In 2:11–22, the author celebrates the work of Christ in uniting Gentiles and Jews, having ‘broken down the dividing wall of hostility’, reconciling both ‘to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing hostility to an end’ (vv. 14–16). In the passage I focus on here, 4:1–24, we have more direct teaching about Christian unity in diversity. It is teaching that seems, however, not to have had its due impact in Christian history.

Let us begin by noting the exhortations that commence the passage. These are introduced with wording intended to secure the most respectful regard for them. The voice of the apostle Paul speaks here, portrayed as ‘a prisoner for the Lord’, who begs [parakalō] readers to ‘walk worthily of the calling to which you were called’ (v. 1). More specifically, this is to involve acting ‘with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ (vv. 2–3).

My first observation is that such exhortations are hardly necessary if the pre-condition for fellowship is complete agreement. It is scarcely necessary for me to exercise ‘forbearance’ with anyone intelligent enough to agree with my views. Forbearance is called for only with those who are (from my viewpoint) perverse enough to take another view of the matter! So immediately these exhortations seem clearly intended for situations of Christian diversity. Indeed, they are only applicable in these situations.

I observe further that the point of the behaviour exhorted here is to ‘maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ (v. 3). I emphasize that it is ‘the bond of peace’, not a bond of doctrinal agreement. Moreover, the unity (henotēta) called for is ‘unity of the Spirit’. The Spirit is divine gift, God’s own empowerment, not a force of human devising or effort. As the following verses indicate, the bases of Christian unity lie in the unity of God and God’s actions. Believers are one (whether they act accordingly or not) because ‘there is one body, one Spirit... one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of us all’ (vv. 4–6). In short, the expression of Christian unity means to live out, to actualize, the unity that is based in God. Believers are one in God and Christ; the question is whether we can find the readiness to reflect that in our engagement with one another.

Next, the author celebrates the richness and diversity of the grace that has been given to believers: ‘Grace given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift’ (v. 7). Appropriating a statement from Psalm 68:19, the author portrays the ascended Christ as bestowing gifts, including apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers, these intended to equip the larger body of believers (‘the saints’) ‘for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ’ (vv. 11–12). Neither here nor in other NT passages do we have a complete list of Christ’s gifts, and those mentioned here should be taken as illustrative and selected to fit the focus here on the formation and equipment of the body of believers for ministry.

In v. 13, we come to the statement of the eschatological goal in light of which Christian life and the work of all those varied gifted individuals are to be conducted. It is pretty clear that v. 13 looks ahead to the future consummation of God’s plan, which is characterized here grandly as attaining ‘the unity of the faith and knowledge [henotēta tēs pisteōs kai tēs epignōseōs] of the Son of God, to maturity, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’. I want to underscore the observation that ‘unity of the faith’ is part of the eschatological consummation, something to hope for and expect, as a corollary of the fullness of God’s eschatological revelation, when we ‘shall understand fully even as we have been fully understood’ (adapting slightly the wording of 1 Cor. 13:12). That is, ‘unity of the faith’ is not presented here as something that can be devised by councils and doctrinal committees, but is instead a component of the eschatological resolution of all ambiguities in the bright light of God’s full revelation and final victory. If unity of the faith were something that we could achieve, it is difficult to see why the text here portrays it as an eschatological condition.

Also, note the comparison of this ‘unity of the faith’ with ‘the unity of the Spirit’ mentioned in v. 3. ‘Unity of the Spirit’ (i.e., a unity that flows from the Spirit’s enablement and that reflects the essential oneness of God) is to be maintained ‘in the bond of peace’, and is a present responsibility to which readers are exhorted. We are urged to maintain ‘unity of the Spirit’, but we can only await ‘unity of the faith’. The latter is posed as a condition that may be attained at some indefinite future point (as connoted by the subjunctive verb, mechri katantēsōmen, v. 13).

I highlight the sequence of these two kinds of unity. ‘Unity of the Spirit’ is for the present; it is not conditional upon and does not presuppose ‘unity of the faith’. ‘Unity of the Spirit’ is to be expressed now, in the absence of ‘unity of the faith’! In the history of Christianity, however, unity of doctrine has typically been seen as the requisite condition for ecclesial unity, for worshipping together, for truly recognizing one another fully as fellow Christians. That is, Christian unity has tended to be seen as ‘unity of the faith’, agreement in Christian teaching. And differences of doctrine have tended to be treated a justification for refusing in various ways to treat those with whom we differ as full siblings in God.

We have, quite simply, tended to reverse the clear sequence of this passage. We have made agreement in doctrine a requirement for Christian unity, and we have used differences as a justification for disunity, an excuse to ignore the clear exhortation to ‘maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’. But ‘unity of the Spirit’ is to be maintained ‘in the bond of peace’, which means choosing not to go to war over differences, not to attack and inflict the harm of denying Christian fellowship upon those with whom we differ.

We have invested enormous efforts and resources in polemics, defending our views and attacking those of other Christians. In kinder moments, we have established commissions and task forces to promote serious discussion of our differences, all with the aim of seeing whether we can come to agreement in matters of difference, and in the assumption that such agreement is a necessary pre-condition for full Christian fellowship. I propose that in polemics and such kinder deliberations we have ignored the thrust of passages such as the one I have focused on here. We have ignored the clear eschatological framework of salvation and revelation, in which the fullness of both are awaited from God and are not ours to construct. We have ignored the clear exhortations to engage our differences ‘in the bond of peace’ and with an eagerness to ‘maintain the unity of the Spirit’, groundlessly using our differences as justification for our disobedience to Scripture.