The Importance of

the Unity of the Brethren

In our first four sessions on doctrine, we have studied the authority of God’s Word and the Trinity. Today, we drop all of the way down to humanity. Today, we are going to look at the what, the why, and the how of the new commandment that Jesus gives us in this New Testament era to love one another.

In what has been called Christ’s high priestly prayer, He prays that His followers will be “one,” even as He and the Father are one. Now that prayer takes our thoughts into a place of great difficulty. It takes us into the Trinity. When we studied about God, we noted His incomprehensibility. God is simply too large to pour into the human brain. Knowledge of Him spills all over the outside, and if we are not careful, we take what we do comprehend and treat it as though it is more than it is, and we end up with a skewed perspective of God. God is bigger than the human brain, yet smaller than a single cell within it.

In Christ’s prayer in the seventeenth chapter of John, He prays for our oneness. Many have erroneously interpreted this in an ecumenical manner. Oneness and sameness are not the same. We must be a unit that is solidified around the Person and the Work of Jesus Christ. The dividing line must be salvation through faith alone in Jesus Christ. This is what separates the Christian faith from all others. We are saved by faith, not works; but that does not mean we are saved without works. Our faith in Christ, when it is genuine faith, alters the way we live and who we are.

The body of Christ is very diversified, but the connecting tissue is salvation. Extreme differences cannot separate us further than the cross can pull us together. With a proper view of the Person and the work of Christ, we have a glue that holds us together when all else would easily separate us.

A proper view of salvation not only includes Who Christ is, and what He has done, but also makes evangelism and our love for our brethren central to our lives. While I was in graduate school learning how to conduct small groups, we were required to share in the Lord’s table at the end of our small group experience. Our small group was extremely diversified. What the communion experience did was remind us that even though we were extremely different in many areas of theology, when it came to salvation, we were one. Christ Jesus is the only glue that can keep diversified theologies from separating. He makes us one. Eventually others will notice.

The Importance of

the Unity of the Brethren

…because our love for each other reveals Christ

John 13:35 “by this all men will know that you are my disciples”

I. Keep the sacred circle doctrine small

A.

B.

C.

II. Remember that the world is watching and weighing

A.

B.

C.

III. Never confuse sameness with unity

A.

B.

C.

IV. Pray for the Brethren

A.

B.

C.