True and False Unity: Part I

Nearly 2,000 years ago, the apostle Paul recognized that the biggest enemy of the fledgling church was disunity.

Here's what he wrote: "Make every effort to keep the unity of the (Holy) Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to one hope when you were called--one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and the Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." (Ephesians 4:3-6)

Tragically, many Christians failed to heed Paul's words and quickly broke off into factions that changed, ignored or perverted the gospel. During Paul's early travels, he encountered factionalism in the early Corinthian and Galatian churches.

The Corinthians had allowed themselves to be duped by hotshot apostles who drew early believers away from Jesus Christ to themselves. The Galatians had allowed themselves to be deceived by Judaizers who convinced them that they were required to keep the Mosaic Law in addition to their faith in Christ if they wanted to be saved.

There were several aberrant movements in the early days of Christendom that divided the church. Two of the most notorious were Docetism and Arianism. Docetism taught that Christ never actually possessed a mortal human body while Arianism erroneously taught that Christ didn't exist before he was physically born.

Perhaps the biggest aberrant movement within Christendom was created when the First Council of Nicaea (325 A.D.) laid the foundation for the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Church not only rejected the Bible's clear proclamation that salvation was a free gift from God that could only be received by faith, (John 3:16, Romans 10:9-11, Ephesians 2:8-9) it incorporated various pagan customs and rituals into its liturgy.

When a Catholic Monk named Martin Luther launched what became known as the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century by rejecting historic Roman Catholic teaching, he opened the door for millions of Christians to return to the genuine biblical teaching on salvation.

And yet even Luther's Reformation eventually fractured into numerous denominations that offered different views on salvation, eternal life, baptisms, holiness and sanctification.

Today, the very fact that numerous churches and denominations exist throughout the world that offer competing doctrines underscores the disunity that plagues Christianity. And it was Christ Himself who stated that "every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand." (Matthew 12:25)

That explains the sad state of modern Christianity. If you visit three different churches, you'll get three different views on such topics as the deity of Christ, salvation, holiness and baptisms.

And that shouldn't be. The Bible is very clear about salvation, eternal life, the deity of Christ etc. There shouldn't be any confusion. But sadly, there is.

Certainly, a divided house cannot stand. But a house that's built on a flimsy foundation of ecumenism--or false unity--cannot stand either.

In Part II, the coming false unity of a global counterfeit religion.