This post is a Musing. Musings are the first tiny bits of understanding made visible and public.
Key Idea: God made the church with essential unity by making her family in the Father, saving her to mutual indwelling in the Son, and bringing her into mutual abiding by the Spirit, thereby making her a church that allows nothing that disrupts unity and chooses unity as her prized possession.
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Unity is inherent to the church because God designed her for unity. Unity is part of who she is; it exists as an essential constituent. When something is inherent, it is not optional but a necessary aspect. God’s design of the church, his plan for her from before she became a reality, included unity as part of his particular purpose. Unity was essential to his design, a design chosen beforehand and required to make the church who she is.
One Family. The church is one because she is the one family of God, made so by the Father’s willing adoption of each and all who trust Christ. His adoption brings trusters in and makes them a family; he takes them up and makes them his own. The church has unity because she is the one family of the Father.
One Body. The church is one through mutual indwelling in the Son, and through this indwelling, trusters are in Christ as Christ is in them. This union brings Jesus and his church together into a harmonious whole. The church is one body because the one Christ is her indwelling Center, Savior, Lord, and Head.
One People. The church is one through her mutual abiding in the Spirit, by which God is at home in us and we are at home in him. The Spirit is not simply alongside the church, though he is, but also present within her and all her members. The church is one people because the indwelling and surrounding Holy Spirit makes and keeps her one.
Believers’ shared trust in Christ creates a unity that allows nothing–not culture, language, preference, or anything else–to disrupt unity or diversity. Any barrier that disrupts unity, anything that obstructs or impedes the diversity that must accompany unity, is an interloper that must be confessed and removed. The church must choose unity in Christ as her prized possession, her treasure, and protect it accordingly.
Launching Pad: Springer, L. K. (2008). An articulation and evaluation of an emerging church ecclesiology. (Th.M.). Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, La Mirada, CA
