UNITY

If we want the meaning and the worth and the beauty and the power of the cross of Christ to be seen and loved in our churches, and if the design of the death of His Son is not only to reconcile us to God but to reconcile alienated ethnic groups to each other in Christ, then will we not display and magnify the cross of Christ better by more and deeper and sweeter ethnic diversity and unity in our worship and life?

John Piper

Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, Bethlehem Baptist Church, 2002, p. 207.

In John 13 the point was that, if an individual Christian does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he is not a Christian. [In John 17:21] Jesus is stating something else which is much more cutting, much more profound: We cannot expect the world to believe the Father sent the Son, that Jesus' claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians.

Francis Schaeffer

Believers all belong to the same Lord, and are thus one with each other. Therefore anything that denies our oneness with each other denies our oneness with Him.

John MacArthur

1 Corinthians, Moody, 1984, p. 93.

In essential unity; in nonessentials liberty; in all this charity.

Rupertus Meldenius

Unanimity in things necessary; liberty in things not necessary; in all things prudence and charity.

Herman Witsius

Quoted in: Who Will Be Saved? Edited by: House, Paul and Thornbury, Gregory. Crossway, 2000, p. 220.

Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers [meeting] together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become “unity” conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified.

A.W. Tozer

Sin is almost the only thing we have in common with everyone else, and so at the feet of Jesus where sin is cleansed is the only place where we can be one. Real oneness conjures up for us the picture of two or more sinners together at Calvary.

Roy Hession
The Calvary Road, Christian Literature Crusade, 1950, p. 76. P.O. Box 1449, Fort Washington, PA 19034-8449. Used by Permission.

The differences among Christians are nothing in comparison of the differences among heathens.

Richard Baxter

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 63.

What! At peace with the Father, and at war with His children? It cannot be.

John Flavel

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 80.

Articles or rules for doctrine or practice in matters of religion to be imposed upon men, should be as few as may be; there is very great danger in the unnecessary multiplying them. This in all ages has caused division and exceeding disturbances in the churches of Christ.

Jeremiah Burroughs

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 303.

I do verily believe that when God shall accomplish [unity], it will be the effect of love, and not the cause of love. It will proceed from love, before it brings forth love.

John Owen

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 302.

Ah, were their souls fully assured that God had loved them freely, and received them graciously, and justified them perfectly, and pardoned them absolutely, and would glorify them everlastingly, they could not but love where God loves, and own where God owns, and embrace where God embraces, and be one with every one that is one with Jesus.

Thomas Brooks

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 303.

There is but one God, and they that serve Him should be one. There is nothing that would render the true religion more lovely, or make more proselytes to it, than to see the professors of it tied together with the heart-strings of love.

Thomas Watson

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 304.

Unity; not uniformity.

Author Unknown

When you destroy unity in the church you rip the heart out of the body of Christ.

Author Unknown

Imagine a symphony where every instrument kept hitting exactly the same note in exactly the same way. You could describe it in one word - BORING! No, a beautiful symphony is not music in unison, but music in unity – notes that blend together to make something they couldn't make separately. This is what God wants the body of Christ to be like, and it all begins with relationship.

Eddie Rasnake

The Book of Ephesians, AMG Publishers, 2003, p. 92.

It is not our job to “produce” unity. Unity is “of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3). Unity is automatic when the Spirit is in control of everyone's lives. Our job is to “preserve” the unity of the Spirit – to do nothing to disrupt the unity He is producing… We must take care of our relationships and be quick to clean up our offenses. We must make right our wrongs so that the unity of the Spirit is not disrupted.

Eddie Rasnake

The Book of Ephesians, AMG Publishers, 2003, p. 93-94.

As important as unity is, it is not our most important value. Jesus Christ taught that truth transcends unity as a priority. It is critical to recall that in Christ’s high priestly prayer, before He prayed that we would be one, He prayed that we would be set apart in the truth (Jn. 17:17). From God’s point of view, truth is not only more important than unity but it is in fact the basis for unity. The Bible does not know a unity that is just for unity’s sake. Authentic Christian unity is a unity forged in a common cause, a common conviction, a common interest. Biblical unity is forged in our mutual bondedness to the truth in Christ, “the way and the truth and the life” (Jn. 14:6). When we embrace the truth, we are free to embrace one another in the truth.

Joseph Stowell

This We Believe, John Armstrong and John Woodbridge, ed. Zondervan, 2000, p. 209.

Few things are sapping the strength of the church of Jesus Christ more than the unreconciled state of so many believers. So many have matters deeply imbedded in their craws, like iron wedges forced between themselves and other Christians. They can’t walk together because they do not agree. When they should be marching side by side through this world taking men captive for Jesus Christ, they are acting instead like an army that has been routed and scattered and whose troops in their confusion have begun fighting among themselves. Nothing is sapping the church of Christ of her strength so much as these unresolved problems, these loose ends among believing Christians that have never been tied up. There is no excuse for this sad condition, for the Bible does not allow for loose ends. God wants no loose ends.

Jay E. Adams

Christian Living in the Home, P&R Publishing, 1972, p. 35-36, Used by Permission.

Divisions in the church always breed atheism in the world.

Thomas Manton

The idea that the unity of the church found expression in some kind of external organization or ecclesiastical structure finds no support in the New Testament. Furthermore, the idea of denominations would be abhorrent to (the Apostle) Paul. The nearest thing to denominations was the sects in Corinth that Paul heartily condemned (1 Cor. 1:12ff).

George Eldon Ladd

A Theology of the New Testament, Eerdmans, 1993, p. 577.

I am never ashamed to avow myself a Calvinist; I do not hesitate to take the name of Baptist; but if I am asked what is my creed, I reply, "It is Jesus Christ."

C.H. Spurgeon

Christian History, n. 29.

Satan always hates Christian fellowship; it is his policy to keep Christians apart. Anything which can divide saints from one another he delights in. He attaches far more importance to godly intercourse than we do. Since union is strength, he does his best to promote separation.

C.H. Spurgeon

The union of believers is grounded in the mystical union of Christ and His Church. The Bible speaks of a two-way transaction that occurs when a person is regenerated. Every converted person becomes “in Christ” at the same time Christ enters into the believer. If I am in Christ and you are in Christ, and if He is in us, then we experience a profound unity in Christ.

R.C. Sproul

Tabletalk, p. 7, June 2004, Ligonier Ministries, Used by Permission.

Be united with other Christians. A wall with loose bricks is not good. The bricks must be cemented together.

Corrie Ten Boom

Quoted by Curtis C. Thomas, Practical Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 131. Used by Permission.

Believers are never told to become one; we already are one and are expected to act like it.

Joni Eareckson Tada

Spontaneous Compassion, Tabletalk, November, 2008, p. 68. Used by Permission.

Unity without the gospel is a worthless unity; it is the very unity of hell

J.C. Ryle

When the Gospel enables us to live in love, even though we may have nothing else in common save Christ, it is a testimony to its power to transform a group of sinful, self-centered people into a loving community united by a common relationship with Jesus Christ.

Mark Dever and Paul Alexander

We ought never to regard unity so much that we would or should forsake God’s Word for her sake.

Hugh Latimer

The more fractured we are, the greater we become spectacles to the world. The more we are united in love, the more the world sees Christ.

Curtis C. Thomas

Practical Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 175. Used by Permission.

Paul’s vision of the body of Christ is of a unity which consists in diversity, that is, a unity which is not denied by diversity, but which would be denied by uniformity, a unity which depends on its diversity functioning as such – in a word, the unity of a body, the body of Christ.

James Dunn