17. Now you have the reason why the apostles Paul and Peter
everywhere so faithfully enforce this virtue, the unity of the
Spirit. It is the most necessary and beautiful grace that Christians
possess. It holds together the Christian community, preventing
factions and schisms, as before explained. So Paul here admonishes
men to be careful for harmony, making every endeavor to preserve it.
The term "unity of the Spirit" is used to make plain the apostle's
meaning. He would thus emphasize oneness of doctrine--the one true
faith. Since the Holy Spirit is present only where there is knowledge
of and faith in the Gospel of Christ, "unity of the Spirit" implies a
unity of faith. Above all things, then, the effort must be to
preserve, in the Church, the doctrine of the Scriptures, pure and in
its unity.
18. One of the wickedest offenses possible to commit against the
Church is the stirring up of doctrinal discord and division, a thing
the devil encourages to the utmost. This sin usually has its rise
with certain haughty, conceited, self-seeking leaders who desire
peculiar distinction for themselves and strive for personal honor and
glory. They harmonize with none and would think themselves disgraced
were they not honored as superior and more learned individuals than
their fellows, a distinction they do not merit. They will give honor
to no one, even when they have to recognize the superiority of his
gifts over their own. In their envy, anger, hatred and vengefulness,
they seek occasion to create factions and to draw people to
themselves. Therefore Paul exhorts first to the necessary virtue of
love, having which men will be enabled to exercise humility, patience
and forbearance toward one another.
19. The character of the evils resulting to the Church from divisions
and discords in doctrine is evident from the facts. Many are
deceived; the masses immediately respond to new doctrine brilliantly
presented in specious words by presumptuous individuals thirsting for
fame. More than that, many weak but well-meaning ones fall to
doubting, uncertain where to stand or with whom to hold. Consequently
men reject and blaspheme the Christian doctrine and seek occasion to
dispute it. Many become reckless pleasure-lovers, disregarding all
religion and ignoring the Word of God. Further, even they who are
called Christians come to have hard feelings against one another,
and, figuratively, bite and devour in their hate and envy.
Consequently their love grows cold and faith is extinguished.
20. Of so much disturbance in the Church, and of the resulting
injuries to souls, are guilty those conceited, factious leaders who
do not adhere to the true doctrine, preserving the unity of the
Spirit, but seek to institute something new for the sake of advancing
their own ideas and their own honor, or gratifying their revenge.
They thus bring upon themselves damnation infinitely more intolerable
than others suffer. Christians, then, should be careful to give no
occasion for division or discord, but to be diligent, as Paul here
admonishes, to preserve unity. And this is not an easy thing to do,
for among Christians occasions frequently arise provoking self-will,
anger and hatred. The devil is always at hand to stir and blow the
flame of discord. Let Christians take heed they do not give place to
the promptings of the devil and of the flesh. They must strive
against them, submitting to all suffering, and performing all
demands, whether honor, property, physical welfare or life itself be
involved, in the effort to prevent, so far as in them lies, any
disturbance of the unity of doctrine, of faith and of Spirit.
"There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in
one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God
and Father of all."
21. Christians should feel bound to maintain the unity of the Spirit,
since they are all members of one body and partakers of the same
spiritual blessings. They have the same priceless treasures--one God
and Father in heaven, one Lord and Savior, one Word, baptism and
faith; in short, one and the same salvation, a blessing common to all
whereof one has as much as another, and cannot obtain more. What
occasion, then, for divisions or for further seeking?
22. Here Paul teaches what the true Christian Church is and how it
may be identified. There is not more than one Church, or people of
God, one earth. This one Church has one faith, one baptism, one
confession of God the Father and of Jesus Christ. Its members
faithfully hold, and abide by, these common truths. Every one
desiring to be saved and to come to God must be incorporated into
this Church, outside of which no one will be saved.
23. Unity of the Church does not consist in similarity of outward
form of government, likeness of Law, tradition and ecclesiastical
customs, as the Pope and his followers claim. They would exclude from
the Church all not obedient to them in these outward things, though
members of the one faith, one baptism, and so on. The Church is
termed "one holy, catholic or Christian Church," because it
represents one plain, pure Gospel doctrine, and an outward confession
thereof, always and everywhere, regardless of dissimilarity of
physical life, or of outward ordinances, customs and ceremonies.
24. But they are not members of the true Church of Christ who,
instead of preserving unity of doctrine and oneness of Christian
faith, cause divisions and offenses--as Paul says (Rom 16, 17)--by
the human doctrines and self-appointed works for which they contend,
imposing them upon all Christians as necessary. They are perverters
and destroyers of the Church, as we have elsewhere frequently shown.
The consolation of the true doctrine is ours, and we hold it in
opposition to Popedom, which accuses us of having withdrawn from
them, and so condemns us as apostates from the Church. They are,
however, themselves the real apostates, persecuting the truth and
destroying the unity of the Spirit under the name and title of the
Church and of Christ. Therefore, according to the command of God, all
men are under obligation to shun them and withdraw from them.
_Eighteenth Sunday After Trinity_
Text: 1 Corinthians 1, 4-9.
4 I thank my God always concerning you, for the grace of God which
was given you in Christ Jesus; 5 that in everything ye were enriched
in him, in all utterance and all knowledge; 6 even as the testimony
of Christ was confirmed in you: 7 so that ye come behind in no gift;
waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ; 8 who shall also
confirm you unto the end, that ye be unreprovable in the day of our
Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, through whom ye were called
into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.