John 17:20-26

 John 17:20-26

In this final section of Jesus's prayer we see His appeal for the unity of all believers through the whole church age. This prayer for unity has been the impetus of more than one movement. Nevertheless there are few that would say that unity among believers exists. We might even ask what are the implications of Jesus earnestly making a request of the Father and that this prayer was not fully answered. What do we see in Jesus's unanswered prayer? 

In fact there is not even an agreement about what this unity would mean or would look like. Would we say that this unity is a mystical unity that exists at a spiritual and supernatural level? That can't be all there is to it because the unity of which Jesus speaks is visible to the unbelieving world and causes them to come to faith. If we say that unity is a functional and ecclesiastical unity we miss the spiritual description of it being like the Son being in the Father and the Father in the Son. This unity, whatever it is, is at least as easy to understand as the doctrine of the Trinity. In fact the marvel of the church's unity is based on the Trinity.

One attempt at unity has been the statement, “In matters of Faith Unity and matters of opinion Liberty that in all things love”. This is pretty good as far as it goes in III John we see that if a person is a heretic we can't receive them, clearly there are limits to unity. But conversely we are not in agreement with what are matters of faith and what are matters of opinion. We have a remarkable ability to fight over almost anything. I once heard of a church split that occurred over whether the new roof on its building should be shingle or metal. Nothing tells the world, “We have nothing you want” like a church fight.

The issue of church unity is about 2,000 years old and has been studied, prayed over, and argued about by some very smart and godly people and we still don't have it figured out. But there is one starting point and one thing we can do and that is love. As Jesus concluded this prayer, “…that the love where with Thou dids’t love me may be in them and I in them.”

“Lord, if nothing else help me to love those who love you. AMEN”