The Theological Unity of the Church and Its Separation from Darkness

 

Introduction

Just what is the Church?  We find several answers in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  In the first chapter, Paul provides us with twelve important theological and ethical understandings of the Church.  The following list of these characteristics separates each for consideration, but the chapter itself is not a list.  The characteristics of the Church relate to one another.  Also, the characteristics of the Church relate the Church as God’s people to the three Persons of the Trinity.  Indeed, the highly relational understanding of the Church in this chapter continues throughout Ephesians, always with a focus on how relationships are theological and not merely communal. 

After listing the twelve characteristics of the Church in Ephesians chapter one, the theological focus of Ephesians will be considered in regard to the nature of unity.  This is important in our day as denominations divide.  Many have claimed that the importance of the Church’s unity is so great that such divisions are wrong.  A proper understanding of unity, that is, an understanding of unity theologically, will help us consider this matter Biblically, and Ephesians is one of the most in-depth discussions of ecclesiastical unity in the New Testament.

The Twelve Characteristics of the Church in Ephesians 1

The following list of twelve characteristics of the Church in Ephesians 1 follows the wording of the chapter very closely.  As the characteristics are noted, observe how they are not about a human type of unity—mere communal relationships—but are theological.  They are theological in that the relational unity is defined in regard to the people of God in relationship with the Triune God.

First, the Church is equal to the faithful holy ones (saints) in Christ Jesus (1.1).

Second, the Church is a people blessed by God in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (1.3).  It is a people blessed by God’s glorious grace in the Beloved (1.6).  The spiritual blessings in the heavenly places are those blessings bestowed on the people by God, blessings that could only come from God.  These blessings are redemption through the blood of Christ, forgiveness of trespasses, the riches of His grace lavished upon us, and wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will—His purpose set forth in Christ—to unite all things in heaven and earth in Christ (1.7-10).  The Spirit gives the Church wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus, enlightenment into the hope to which it has been called, the riches of God’s inheritance in the saints, the immeasurable greatness of God’s power toward believers worked in Christ by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule, authority, power, and dominion, above every name that is named, in this age and the age to come (1.17-21).

Third, the Church is the people of God chosen before the foundation of the world (1.4a).  This statement is too often read in the West in individualic terms (this passage is not about personal predestination), but Paul’s point is that the Church was God’s plan from before the beginning of creation.  That is, God has planned to have a special people unto Himself (a point already developed in regard to Israel in the Old Testament; cf. Exodus 19.5-6).

Fourth, the Church is the people of God chosen to be holy and blameless before Him (1.4b).  The ‘choosing’ in this verse has an objective, as we find in various Old Testament passages regarding Israel as the people of God.  God does not simply choose a people but chooses them to be holy and blameless before Him.

Fifth, the Church is the people of God who are adopted as sons in love through Jesus Christ (1.4-5).

Sixth, as adopted sons, the Church has obtained an inheritance (1.11).  The inheritance has already been sealed with the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Church.  The Holy Spirit is not some future promise to the Church but is the present gift to the Church, thus serving as the guarantee of the future inheritance (1.13-14).

Seventh, the Church exists for the praise of God’s glory (1.12).  The theological purpose of all that God has done is the praise of God’s glory, repeated three times: ‘to the praise of His glorious grace’ (v. 6), ‘to the praise of His glory’ (v. 12), and ‘to the praise of His glory’ (v. 14).

Eighth, the Church is the people who heard the Word of truth, the Gospel of their salvation, and put their hope in and believed in Christ Jesus (1.12-13, 14).

Ninth, the Church is a people of faith in the Lord Jesus and of love toward all the saints (1.15).

Tenth, the Church is the people for whom Christ rules (1.22).  The rule of Christ over all things is not something that simply includes the Church but is for the Church.

Eleventh, the Church is Christ Jesus’ body on earth, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (1.23).  Where the Church rightly represents Christ, and when the Church embodies Christ’s fullness, it is Christ in the world.  Christ’s exaltation to heaven is not His absence from the earth as His presence in the Church is His abiding presence in the world.  This presence is not institutional but is an organic and dynamic presence in the Church as the people of Christ.

Twelfth, the Church is the people of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  This point is made throughout the chapter as the people of God are described in relation to the three persons of the Trinity.

Implication: The Church’s Unity is Non-Institutional but Theological

The theme of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has to do with unity and peace.  In Ephesians 1, we read that God’s plan for the fullness of time is to unite all things in heaven and on earth in Christ (v. 10).  Unity is discussed in subsequent chapters, especially in the great Trinitarian statement of Ephesians 4.4-6:

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—

⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

⁶ one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

As in Ephesians 1, this statement is theological and Trinitarian.  Once again, we see that the communal and relational unity of Ephesians is not institutional.  Nor is it firstly or primarily about unity in human community.  It is that, but only secondarily as unity is first found in the Church’s relationship to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

I would suggest that Ephesians functions as a kind of ‘politics’ in the sense that politics has to do with the right ordering of a people, an ordering that has the goal of unity and peace.  Over against the pax Romana, Ephesians offers a pax ecclesia.  This peace is accomplished and expressed in the Church in its unity with the Triune God and where it is so united with Christ as to be His body on earth.

One significant different between a governmental peace like the peace of Rome and Paul’s ecclesiastical peace is that the former is institutional and the latter is relational, even organic.  This organic relationship is expressed in Ephesians 4 as the maturity of the ‘body’ as it grows up into Christ, the head of the Church (vv. 11-16).

One implication of this theology for the Church is that its unity is not to be found in an ecclesiastical institution.  Yet it is also not to be found in a purely human community, as important as those relationships are.  (Ephesians 2-4 develops the relationships of the Church in various ways, but always in relation to Christ.)  Rather, the unity of the Church is theological in the sense that, as Ephesians 1 shows, every aspect of its unity is derived from its participation in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, those breaking their relationship with God by not being the Church as it is meant to be and as has been described in Ephesians are not the Church.  They may hold the keys of power in an institution, but they are not the Church.  Distinguishing ourselves from them by refusing to follow them in their wandering from God is a way of expressing theological unity—unity in God.  As Paul says in Ephesians 5,

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. ⁷ Therefore do not become partners with them; ⁸ for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light ⁹ (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), ¹⁰ and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. ¹¹ Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

Christ has shone on us, and therefore we are not to become partners with those who still live in darkness, who try to deceive us with their empty words.  To be united to the light of Christ rather means to expose the darkness.  Such a darkness has infiltrated the institutional Church today, and the unity and peace God works among us calls us to separate from these deceivers and to live out our theological unity in the Triune God.