The Gospel of John

Unity in Christ

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 59- 70

Genre:

Track: 061

Dictation Name: RR197AG61

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. Serve the Lord with gladness, come before His presence with singing. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name for the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth to all generations.

Almighty God our heavenly Father we give thanks unto Thee that Thou hast called us to be Thy people, to do justly, to be merciful and to walk in terms of Thy word all the days of our life. Teach us therefore in all things to know that Thou art God, that we can never go to the ends of the earth and escape from Thy care or Thine watchful eyes. Give us grace therefore to walk mindful of Thy love, mindful of Thy judgment, mindful of our duty unto Thee. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is John 17:20-26. Our subject: Unity in Christ.

Excuse me I got the wrong page, John 17.

“17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;

21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.

26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

We have in these verses Christ’s prayer for the whole church of all time and in all places. The prayer begins in verses twenty and twenty one with the goal of oneness, unity.

“20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;”

All of us, therefore.

21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”

Now the opening words of verse twenty one, that they all may be one, are commonly used by modernist ecumenical groups. Rarely does the world council of churches or any group dealing with ecumenicity have a gathering without having a banner with these words on the banner. But their goal is an organic institutional union of bureaucracies, not the unity of faith. It is interesting that these ecumenicists while rejecting the historicity of the gospel and in a recent, the most recent analysis, so called, by a committee of these ecumenical scholars they found about four words in John from beginning to end that they would accept as authentic¸ and not much else in the other three gospels, by the way, but they did approve of the gospel of Thomas, so called gospel, which is a gnostic work and not Christian.

Now it is interesting these people who don’t believe the faith all the same take these words: ‘that they all may be one’. What they want is a one-world-ism and a one-church-ism and a one-religion-ism. They are working for relationships with all religions. There have been two meetings that [unknown] conducted by the present pope towards that end and various approaches by protestant leaders to various religion. They believe in the union of all churches whatever the church may believe, not in Christ. Our Lord here begins by looking beyond the disciples to the believers of all times. He is not speaking of nominal church members but of the redeemed of all ages. There can be no u nity with the unredeemed, He prays that believers in all ages may be as united by faith as are the Father and the Son. This goal can only be only fully attained in heaven but it must be an objective on earth and it must be one we seek to approximate all the days of our lives. The unity of believers will be a mighty witness both to and against the world to convict them and to bring them to Christ. Our unity must reflect that of the Father and the Son but it cannot be a unity for the sake of unity. It has to be a unity in the truth, in Christ. Verse twenty two we see our Lord stress the unity with the Father:

“22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:”

The word glory in scripture refers to many things associated with God and Himself. The reality of His being, His absolute power and majesty, His royal and sovereign person, His rule and much, much more. Christ here says that the glory He has received as the incarnate Son of God He now gives His redeemed people.

The true Christians are alone more than conquerors because in Christ they live in the reality of His being and in His power. They are more than themselves, this is what we have to realize about ourselves. If Christ is right, and we’re doubting all truth if we doubt Him, He says there is more to each one of us than ourselves. So the true Christian is alone more than a conqueror. The goal of our new lives is that we become one even as the Father and the Son are one. The Spirit is not mentioned here because He’ll soon come and lead them into all truth. In verse twenty three our Lord says:

“23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.”

We have again a procession of grace and power from God the Father through God the Son to the believer and to one another among Christians. This procession as we have seen is to come through the Spirit but above all the procession from the Trinity to the believer and through the Christian is one of love. The word for love in the text is the verbal form of agape, A-G-A-P-E, a Greek word, and here in verse twenty six it is used and it means uncaused love ,that is, with the ground of the love not in man nor in man’s merit, or any love we supposedly deserve, but in the grace of God. So agape means the uncaused, unmerited purely gracious love of God. The believer having received grace manifests grace. Then our Lord continues in verse twenty four:

“Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.”

Our Lord here prays for the vindication of the believer’s faith. The believer He knows will take abuse for his faith, people will at the very least smile as though he’s a nice person but an idiot. But even more they will often resent the faith and persecute him, so our Lord prays for the vindication of the believer’s faith. His redeemed people will undergo hostility, hatred and even death. If Christ’s elect people can see in heaven the fullness of Christ’s glory with the Father they will be fully vindicated in their faith. They will see the fullness of His glory. There will be then a joyful and triumphant exuberance in the reality of the unity of the Godhead and in their grace from the throne. All the redeemed were ordained to be Christ’s from all eternity, even as from all eternity God the Father loved Jesus Christ the incarnate one. Eternity like infinity is too vast for the mind of man to grasp and to comprehend the greatness, the magnificence of God’s grasp and love for us. He has a sure hold on us and it is beyond our power to understand. But it’s not beyond our ability to be grateful for! Then the prayer concludes in verses twenty five and twenty six with these words:

“O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.

26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

The name of God may be used by the world in some sense and the idea of God invoked but the world does not really know God. This is what our Lord says. But I have known thee and the redeemed know the Jesus Christ who is sent from God. Jesus has declared the name of God to the world and the word which John has as declared in the English is in the Greek ‘exegeted’. To exegete is to bring out the meaning so that if you exegete a passage of scripture you are bringing out, you are explaining the meaning.

Jesus has declared the name of God to the world, He has made known God. He has revealed God to all who will hear Him and He will continue to declare it through His followers. The goal of this declaration is that God’s love for Jesus Christ, His last Adam, may be known to this new human race and the purpose of this knowledge is that the love of God for Jesus Christ, His new Adam, may be in them, in us, and Christ Himself might indwell in them, in us. The goal is a unity in faith and knowledge, its ground is truth, the reality of God and the glory of His grace and purpose. This unity is not a matter of feeling but of nature. It exists because we belong as members of Jesus Christ’s new humanity to the kingdom of God. We are a new creation with an eternal destiny. Ours is a unity of nature, our new nature in Christ. As we grow in grace we grow in our unity with the Father and His redeemed people. This growth separates us at the same time from the fallen humanity around us because we are to them an alien people. This is why we can meet a fellow Christian whose faith is a true one and we feel an immediate kinship, we’re related through Christ and the Holy Spirit, we feel a oneness. But we can meet others who bear the name of Christ and we sense an alien character and an alien spirit. Now the world’s idea of unity is not unity but union. Union is bringing things together by compulsion; unity is being one because we have a common faith and a common life.

The idea of union is a one world, one church order, we have those who are now arguing for salvation by any religion and who hold that there are many, many roads to God. Our unity with God by His grace will make for our disunity with the world and with false churches. To be in agreement with everything and every person and faith is a form of death for the dead alone are passive towards all things. For the dead alone are passive towards all things. And this is why the modern temper which calls for being at peace with everything, of course other than us, is a call for death. The premise of Christian unity is Jesus Christ and our faithfulness to God’s every word. Unity itself is not necessarily good. If we are united to evil or with criminal groups of course that’s evil. Unless we begin with God and His word we will assume man and his word is our premise. It’s either God or man and today people prefer their word. You may recall the death of God school of thinking of the seventies; it didn’t go away it’s now a part of the ongoing church world. Their premise was not that God is dead, they said it doesn’t matter to us whether there is a God or there isn’t, He’s dead to us because He has nothing to say that we are interested in. Now that is your modern form of unbelief, they simply side step the whole question of God, they cannot cope with it so they had ignored it.

Our humanistic age rejects God as its starting point because its scientific views wants so-called hard fact, seeing is believing, we are told. I think Joseph Parker about a hundred and forty years ago or thereabouts said the best thing on that, he remarked:

“Who has seen life, where does life reside in the body? Put a finger on the residence of life, saying here you will find it and nowhere else.”

No man has seen life, said Parker, you see the evidence of it but you never see it. No man has seen God but Jesus Christ is the exegeses, the declaration of God, and everything that we see gives evidence of God. So our Lord summons us to be in union not with the world but in unity with Him and with the Father through the Spirit. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee for Thy word. Thy word is truth and Thy word is a strength and a power unto us. We thank Thee that as we face the world day by day we know that there is more in us than ourselves and Thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us, so that we may boldly say the Lord is my helper I shall not fear what man may do unto me. Our God we thank Thee, In Christ’s name, Amen.

Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] I didn’t get that last part of it.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well…

[Same person keeps speaking]

[Rushdoony] Yes. Today Christian faith, so called, in the churches is not theocentric, is not God-centered. It’s not concerned with the Godhead but only with the relationship of the Godhead to us. Now you use the word ontological. The ontological trinity is God in Himself, in His own being. Then theology speaks of the economical trinity, that is, the relationship of God to us.

Well, not only is the church today where it claims to be evangelical exclusively concerned with the relationship of the Son and of the Spirit to the believer but also in its pragmatic sense. What use is it to me, how is it going to help me day by day, there is nothing wrong with that, but if you disregard God you are saying then God is only useful to me or to be loved by me when He helps me. Otherwise I have no interest in God. It’s like saying to one’s parents or to one’s husband or wife that their only use to us is what they can give us, what they can provide us with, that in their own person they are of no account. Well, no individual would like such a relationship but that’s the kind of relationship that too often Christians give to God. It’s only what’s in it for me. I’ve actually heard people say that as they urge someone else to accept Jesus He’ll do so much for you, nothing about the fact that you are a sinner and you must reorder your whole life to please God and you must submit to Him. None of that. In fact an entire movement which is still a major one has been built on the premise God loves you, which is cheapening the faith. And that’s why so much in the gospel of John is missed nowadays because its only what’s in it for me that is the approach of too many persons. Does that help? Yes?

[Question] I have another question. Years ago at a conference you recommended reading a book called the Young Calvin and one of the things that the author pointed out in the book was the great extent that Calvin went in the area of unity and I was wondering if you might comment in light of that book per your own reading of Calvin…[becomes unintelligible].

[Rushdoony] Yes. It was very important for Calvin and he more than a few times took the second step and went the second mile to try and promote unity among Christians. He was intolerant of headstrong evil but he was very ready to be agreeable to people who didn’t fully understand or who had not grown sufficiently. Again he was intolerant of people who professed to be wise when they were fools and ignorant. This is why he disliked the Anabaptists because the Anabaptists were without much learning or much insight and didn’t really know the scriptures but they had ideas whereby they held that they alone had the truth and everybody else was in error. So Calvin’s approach was one of readiness to further the unity of the faith in every way he could but an unwillingness to tolerate foolishness that masqueraded as faith. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Too often that has been the case, with many, many groups. They are Universalists really, [unknown] was the leading figure in neo-orthodoxy and he really was a Universalist. So what you’re saying is what no matter what they may believe we’re equally good, we’re equally to be saved so there is a place in the afterlife for all of them. Well there is, but there are two kinds of places. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes his personal emblem or something like a coat of arms stressed ‘my heart I give to Thee, oh God’, the heart in the hand. Well if there are no further comments or questions let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father we thank Thee that Thy word is truth, that we are Thy people , that we are never alone but Thou art ever with us and in us so that we are more than conquerors in Christ. Teach us to see not only ourselves in all our predicaments and problems but Thy presence also. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.