Dear friends,
Church division dishonours our Lord and creates great pain amongst his people. Sadly, it is all too frequent in our experience. But what is the nature of church unity, and what level of priority should we give to it? Clarity of thought and expression is very important when painful disagreements are being addressed; this is particularly true when we discuss the nature of unity and the church.
In Corinth was the disunited church of God. This is the issue that Paul discusses in his first letter to the Corinthians. However, we must remember that he not only addresses the particular situation of the Corinthian church, but also “all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Yours,
Phillip
Phillip Jensen: Since the tragedy in Sydney, with the shooting of 15 mainly Jewish people at their Hanukkah festival, our nation has been struggling with unity and with discord. Our government has talked more about social cohesion, which is a difficult concept to make sense of; subsequently, they are struggling to make meaningful changes. Our national government in particular has demonstrated the problem with their legislation, which has led to further disagreements as it has displayed the deep divisions within our society, for nobody could agree about almost any element that was involved in this massacre. The public media, in its typical judgemental fashion, demonstrated the same kind of divisiveness, because instead of reporting on what the government had decided, they spent pages talking about the divisions within the government, particularly within the opposition parties. The political mindset of journalists prioritises fighting, for division is more interesting to report than the decisions of governments.
But we Christians have to be careful in our criticisms about divisions. Within our churches, we also often have divisions, which are painful and dishonouring to the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what we’re going to deal with when we look at 1 Corinthians, for we find that such divisions are the subject of chapter 1.
Peter Jensen: Could you clarify why you have chosen 1 Corinthians in particular?
Phillip: Because I believe in all the Bible, as you do. But I chose this particular part because as we read and talk about the Bible, we discuss the significance of passages in a particular context which have a general application, for general truths are being spoken. It’s typical of the New Testament to see that the Apostle Paul appeals to the great fundamental truths of the gospel in order to address the particular situations of Corinth. So out of these particular contexts come universal principles.
Peter: In our last episode, we talked about the introduction to 1 Corinthians. I would like to refer back to this wonderful introduction, which is a very positive description of the church. Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 1:2
To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.
This is a very positive, wonderful description of the church in Corinth. Subsequently, you could hardly believe what he says next.
Phillip: Paul is particularly addressing the church in Corinth, but the letter is not written exclusively to Corinth; it’s to the church of God. It’s to anyone who calls upon the Lord from any place. That begs the question: what is the church, and how do divisions fit into it?
Peter: Paul describes divisions in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17
I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgement. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarrelling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptised in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptised none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptised in my name. (I did baptise also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptised anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptise but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
Phillip: Here’s a great passage about divisions and Paul’s appeal, but what is the church? What’s the meaning of this concept of the church of God that he’s writing to, which can apparently be so divided?
Peter: We both know that we have what may be regarded, in terms of most Christians, as a slightly unusual doctrine of the church. I believe it’s a biblical one, but it’s unusual nonetheless. The chief expression of church in the New Testament, from our point of view, is a congregation: a gathering of people with the intention of meeting the Lord in his word and by the power of his Spirit. We think of that as being a congregation, a gathering around the Lord Jesus Christ, rather than the way the word ‘church’ is so often used to mean a denomination. In a sense, I would prefer the Anglican Church to be called the ‘Anglican Denomination’ to distinguish it from the local church. Interestingly, William Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English, wanted to use the word ‘congregation’ instead of the word ‘church’, but was talked out of it.
Phillip: It’s a sadness that he was talked out of it, because ‘congregation’ has a more specific meaning, whereas ‘church’ can mean so many things. We’re not alone in holding to the church being the congregation.
Peter: Indeed; for example, Jim Packer wrote about the church in these terms in his book Concise Theology
Essentially, the church is, was, and always will be a single worshiping community, permanently gathered in the true sanctuary which is the heavenly Jerusalem (Gal. 4:26; Heb. 12:22-24), the place of God’s presence. Here all who are alive in Christ, the physically living with the physically dead (i.e., the church militant with the church triumphant) worship continually. In the world, however, this one church appears in the form of local congregations, each one called to fulfill the role of being a microcosm (a small-scale representative sample) of the church as a whole. This explains how it is that for Paul the one church universal is the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12-26; Eph. 1:22-23; 3:6; 4:4), and so is the local congregation (1 Cor. 12:27).1
Phillip: So this word ‘church’ is fundamentally referring to the heavenly, eschatological, current end-of the-world gathering. But the local congregation is the expression of that.
Peter: Indeed, it is the microcosm, or the manifestation of it. So when we enter our local congregation, we are entering the church of God. I sometimes see these documents that say the Church throughout the world is the ‘body of Christ’, and we are parts of it. As if one church is a ‘toe’, and another is a ‘hand’, and so forth. But that’s not the case: the church is the local gathering of Christians with the intention of meeting the Lord Jesus in his word, by the power of his Spirit. It is the body of Christ, and it is the bride of Christ.
One of the key elements here is New Testament eschatology, or the doctrine of the end. Often in systematic theology, the idea of the end is the last subject you come to. But in the Bible itself, based as it is upon promise and fulfilment, eschatology suffuses the whole. The time in which we are living is between the first and second coming of Christ. The first coming of Christ is the end: the kingdom has arrived, the king has landed. Now we are living between the first and second coming, in what the Bible calls the last days. The last days have gone on for about 2000 years so far, but in this period of time, the resurrection has begun.
This helps us to understand church. There are not many churches, but one church: the heavenly church. Every place where the gospel is being preached and Christians gather together to meet the Lord, whether it’s a hillside in China or a vast cathedral somewhere, is the church.
That of course begs the question: what is the relationship between my local church and the other gatherings of Christ?
Phillip: 1 Corinthians speaks of churches. For example, 1 Corinthians 7:17 says, “This is my rule for all the churches.” He thereby acknowledges the reality that there are different churches around the world. However, the churches belong to each other as one eschatological, heavenly church. They are all members of the same family, which is why Paul uses the language of ‘brother’ and ‘sister’. In Christ, you belong to the family of God; therefore, there is only one church in which we share.
Peter: 1 Peter 5:9 mentions the “brotherhood throughout the world”.
Phillip: It is spread across the world, but it’s still the same brotherhood. There’s no harm in a set of churches forming a denomination and helping each other. I’ve always been slightly amused by the fact that both in England and in Australia, we have ‘the fellowship of independent churches’. The language is a paradox: if it’s a fellowship, they’re not independent; but if they’re independent, they’re not a fellowship. It’s a strange phrase, because although it’s in some ways correct, because there are many churches, there really is only one fellowship of the churches. But this organisation is not itself a church. That’s why we use the phrases, ‘the Anglican Church’ or ‘the Presbyterian Church’. It’s interesting to see the shift that’s happened in language regarding the Baptists, for people nowadays talk of ‘the Baptist Church’ when it was originally called ‘the union of Baptist churches’. That was because the ‘church’ referred to the local church or congregation, but these denominations are not themselves the church of God.
Peter: Does that mean you have no objection to denominations merging in the name of church unity? After all, Jesus prayed that we may all be one. Should we not work to fulfil that prayer? Shouldn’t John 17:21, “That they may all be one” be taken as a command that we’re all meant to be one?
Phillip: I don’t mind denominations and associations uniting, but I don’t see that there’s any reason why they need to. For that is not church unity; it’s association unity. But talking about it in terms of John 17, I think, is quite wrong. John 17:21 is a prayer, not a command. Furthermore, that prayer is asking God firstly that he will once again have glory with his Son; secondly, that the apostles will faithfully deliver the message; and thirdly, that all who receive it may be one with the apostles. It would be very strange to think that the first two prayers would be answered, but then to think God wasn’t concerned about the third point, that they are one. In fact, Paul tells us in Galatians that we are all one in Christ Jesus. We don’t create church unity because God has created church unity.
Peter: This passage in 1 Corinthians, however, tells a very different story to that of church unity. The Corinthian church was a mess. I’ve seen churches that have been in deep trouble before now, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across a church quite as bad as the Corinthians. It was a mess of fighting and quarrels, and that’s how this passage begins. How can this be the church of Christ?
Phillip: I agree with you. The church of Corinth is as messed up as any church you may come across. So when people hold up the church of Corinth as a great example of spirituality, that is a problem.
Churches are messy. There never has been a golden age of churches. There will be a golden age in the return of the Lord Jesus, but certainly not in the first century, the sixteenth century, or today. If anything, we’re told by Paul in Corinthians not to expect perfection, but divisions. He says in 1 Corinthians 11:18–19
For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognised.
It’s the expectation of the Apostle Paul that it won’t be all plain sailing in Corinth. But that’s not to say that divisions are acceptable. Back in chapter 1 verse 10, he commands them to speak with one voice. It’s not the vague unity and social cohesion that our parliamentarians in Canberra try to create. It’s the agreement in the gospel, that they might strive to have the same mind, the same judgement, the same understanding and knowledge. He wants them to restore that same speech and understanding. But Paul had heard that they weren’t like that.
Peter: He must have known his own eschatology. He taught us, as did the Lord, that this period between the first and second coming of Jesus would be marked by sin. So it’s hardly surprising to find churches which are divided in the way you’ve described.
Tell us about the parties mentioned in chapter 1: the followers of Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and Christ.
Phillip: Cephas is the Aramaic name of the Apostle Peter. Apollos was a great preacher at the time. Thus, there were followers loyal to Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and Christ. The parties seem to be real, but the names may not be. Paul may have applied false names to these parties to avoid getting entangled in the particulars in Corinth, so he could draw out the greater truths.
It’s not that there are, in reality, different apostolic theologies. It’s not as though there is a ‘Gospel of Peter’ or a ‘Gospel of Apollos’. Regarding the ‘Christ party’, it may be that there was a group of people who would say, “I only follow Christ”, to feel a sense of superiority over the others. It’s more likely, however, that Paul was making the point that Christ is what unites us, rather than the apostles. Christ is not divided, and Paul was not crucified for us. So he reminds us that we are followers of Christ, not Paul, for Paul was not crucified for our sins; nor are people baptised in Paul’s name. We are baptised in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He wasn’t sent to baptise, but to spread the gospel.
Peter: It’s initially a surprising thing for Paul to say – though it becomes less surprising when you think about it. For the Lord said in Matthew 28:19-20
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
So the apostle goes to the very heart of what Jesus has said, pointing out that while preaching and discipling are important, what is most essential is the preaching of the gospel. Furthermore, after addressing the situation in Corinth, Paul turns to the universal truth of the gospel, hence 1 Corinthians 1:17
For Christ did not send me to baptise but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
Phillip: Matthew 28:20 provides us an important understanding of the nature of baptism, that it is about repentance and for the forgiveness of sins. The pivotal aspect is not the water; it is the cleansing that happens. As 1 Peter chapter 3 describes, it’s the appeal to God for a clear conscience through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul in 1 Corinthians says that while he did baptise people, the baptisms he performed were not what he was sent to do. What matters is not who performed the baptism; rather, it is to be baptised into Christ, as a result of hearing the gospel of the cross of Christ. Therefore, Paul was not sent to baptise, nor to impress others with his own words of wisdom, but to spread the gospel: that is, the message of the cross of Christ.
Peter: It is interesting that Paul in this chapter moves immediately to the cross, and that 1 Corinthians also finishes with one of the most magnificent passages about the resurrection. Thus as we continue in our series on 1 Corinthians, we will be discussing the themes of the cross and the resurrection.
Links & Recommendations
For more on this topic, listen to this talk. It’s called United in Mind and Thought.
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Jim Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs, 2001 (Tyndale House Publishers).
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
