J Philip Bible Readings

^"20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹ that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, ²³ I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. ²⁴ Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵ O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶ I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”"

John 17:20-26

It is useful to compare our Lord's words here on unity with Paul's in Ephesians 4:1- 6. It is significant that the point at which Paul speaks of unity is following the marvellous prayer in 3:14ff in which he prays that God's people would be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith... that they might be filled with all the fullness of God. Given this, unity becomes a possibility. But so often today, unity enthusiasts have got it the wrong way round. They say that given unity, the other will become a possibility, and the Church will be revived. But this is simply the antithesis of the Biblical order, an order which is implicit in our Lord's words in these verses. What Jesus is praying for is unity as the fruit of a spiritual reality. This is why those who labour honourably and earnestly for the recovery of the true values of the faith are promoting the cause of true unity as much as - indeed, far more than - those who strive for unity at the expense of truth. And they should indignantly repudiate the charge of being either divisive or uncooperative where truth is at stake. When the Spirit of God is poured out on the Church once again, when reformation and awakening take place, we shall then find a unity such as is envisaged in our Lord's words here. It is no use starting the other way round.