Word of Salvation – Vol.10 No.47 – November 1964

 

The Lord’s Prayer For Unity

 

Rev. G. De Ruiter on John 17:20-23

Scripture Reading: John 17

Psalter Hymnal: 248:1,2,3,8; 136:1,2,4 (after the Law); 375; 390; 394

 

Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is one of the most beautiful chapters of the Bible, John 17, but also one of the most difficult to explain.  Great theological subjects are raised by the Lord, the mysteries of the Trinity, of His pre-existence, of election, etc., and as soon as we are trying to explain and to give our exegesis on these points, we start stuttering and stammering, since these great divine truths are far beyond our understanding and comprehension.

On the other hand some very practical things come up for discussion in this beautiful prayer of our Lord, and there is, for example, that very timely subject of the unity of believers ‘that they may all be one’.

Now this is one of the most misused sayings of the Bible; it has been the slogan of the Roman Catholic church, and especially the last years you can hear these words in R.C. circles time and again, and they seem to believe it themselves that they are fair and even in the way of the Bible to look for unity around the Pope.

In the circles of the World Council of Churches (W.C.C.) you can hear the same sounds and songs, ‘let us unite, as the Lord has prayed for.’

I am not going to talk about Christ’s prayer for unity in this sphere of the R.C.  ecumenical synod and the W.C.C.

That is too far away.  Rome and Geneva and New-Delhi are too far from home.

We’ll stay home with this text since it is more than a handful with regard to our own congregation, to our own fellowship of believers.

We’ll listen as congregation, as members of this congregation to the Lord, praying for unity, and we hear:

I:  about the unity of believers,
II:  that unbelievers may be attracted and enter the congregation,
III:  that Gods name may be glorified.

Our text is from the third part of John 17.  This chapter contains the prayer which the Lord Jesus offered on the eve of his crucifixion in the presence of His disciples.

The leading thoughts of this prayer spring from His last teaching given in chapters 14, 15, 16.  And now the Lord prays with the consciousness that His hour has come, His hour of glorification through death.

‘Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee’.

He prays that, by completing His work of redemption which will secure man’s salvation, glory may come to both the Father and the Son.

He has perfected the work given Him to do.  This perfection of work is identified with the proclamation of God’s name to the disciples: ‘I have manifested Thy name.’

And then the Lord comes to the second part of His prayer, viz. His disciples’ mission in the world, their task as founders and first leaders of the New Testament people of God, the church.  They have to remain in the world to fulfil the Fathers mission.  The Lord now consecrates Himself to the sacrificial death that lays before Him.  His consecrating work makes His death effective, a death which likewise ensures the consecration of those for whose sakes He’ll die.

The Lord prays His Father that He may consecrate His disciples in that whole life of truth incarnate in Himself.

And then the whole world and the whole history opens widely in the third part of this prayer, and it is extended to include all those who shall become His followers through the activities of the disciples.

He prays for their unity, that it may be a counterpart of the unity of the Father and the Son, a spiritual organic unity which will convince the world of their mission, which will make possible the convincing work of the Holy Spirit and will open widely the field of the whole world for the regenerating power and church-building activities of the Spirit: THROUGH THE UNITY OF THE BELIEVERS.

And as such this unity is something else than a nice topic for pious daydreamers and religious idealists.  Unity of believers is not a far-away ideal – it is a reality, it is here and now: we are a unity, we are now, even if we like it or not.  You are one with all the others here in the church, one in faith, one in the Spirit, one in the Lord, just as brothers and sisters, children of the same family, belong to each other for the whole of their lives.

Sometimes there is a really black sheep in the family, and family members can sometimes be terribly ashamed, because of that black family sheep, but only death can help them and take away the black one out of their decent family circle.

Well, in the same way we belong to each other, if we like it or not, because of your and my and the other fellows tie with the Father in heaven.

A congregation is not a matter of likes and dislikes, not the same thing as a hobby-club, not a matter without engagement; it is one of the most deeply intervening, extensively intervening forms of community, completely different from any other form.

Maybe the only form of community to compare it with is marriage and family life.

In any other community there is your decision, your freedom; you can quit if you can’t stand the others.  You can resign your membership, you can terminate a contract, you can migrate and leave behind you a whole nation, but you’ll never be able to resign as believer, as member of Gods family.

You’ll always be one of the mob, just one in the midst of all the others with exactly the same rights and privileges, but also the same responsibilities as all the others, one of the family, one of the family of the Father in heaven.

That’s what you have to see in our congregation: a part of Gods family.

It was a custom in Holland before the war that a minister addressed his congregation, his people at home visits, as ‘brothers and sisters’.

It doesn’t seem to sound well nowadays, and if a minister should enter the home of one of his young families saying ‘hello, brother so and so’ and ‘how are you, dear sister’, they probably would think that there is something wrong with their minister.  No, it doesn’t seem to work anymore.

But the idea behind it was very good!.

We are brothers and sisters indeed!

We are a unity as part of Gods family.

And this must define and determine all our behaviour.

All right, you may sometimes disagree and even have a quarrel, just as children of a family, of the best family sometimes have, flying at each other with a will.  But when the storm is over, they go on again, living together, working together, laughing together.

You have to accept each other… since God has accepted all of us.  This must be a matter of love!  You have to accept the other just as he or she is, with all her foibles, with all his defects of character.

You have to accept him, not as you should like him to be, but just as he is, now, today.  You have to forebear the other, just as the other has to forebear you.

Maybe he cannot behave in another way.  May be she has her daily struggle because of her weaknesses.  Accepting each other therefore is a matter of love.  And listen to Paul, talking about this love in the congregation, e.g. in 1Cor.13: “Love is patient and kind – love is not jealous or boastful”.

Well, here are some important points already, since there is such a great deal of impatience with each other, since some are always jealous, and others with their boasting can be terribly irritable.

“Love bears all things” – but we often cannot even stand and bear trifles.

“Love believes all things” – but we sometimes only believe scandal and gossip, and are terribly suspicious, thinking that the other is trying to play a dirty trick on us.

“Love endures all things” – so if somebody has played a dirty trick on us (and such a thing could happen, as it sometimes happens in a good family) just endure it.

Somewhere else Paul says about such a situation: “Why all that noise about others’ illegal, unlawful behaviour; why not rather suffer wrong; why not rather be defrauded?”

Do you get it?  Love is the cement of a congregation, love makes a congregation a unity, the love given to us by the Holy Spirit, poured out into our hearts; and as soon as love disappears, a congregation changes into a kind of chicken-house, with a crowd of noisy cackling hens, pecking at each other with might and main.

Love is what we need.

Love, and then you can be slow to suspect – quick to trust;
slow to condemn – quick to justify,
slow to offend – quick to defend;
slow to expose – quick to shield;
slow to reprimand – quick to forbear;
slow to belittle – quick to appreciate;
slow to ask – quick to give;
slow to provoke – quick to conciliate;
slow to hinder – quick to help,
slow to accuse – quick to forgive.

Just as the Father loves the Son, and as the Son loves us, so we have to love each other – to love not because of the other’s nice and pleasant qualities of character, but just because of the other being a child of God, a brother, a sister of the Lord Jesus, The Lord Jesus thought the other worthwhile to save him, to die for her upon a cross.  But do you dare to judge now this brother, this sister of the Lord Jesus as being inferior?  Do you dare to say that that child of God, that temple of the Holy Spirit is too inferior to be a good Christian?

We – as far as we are believers – are consecrated temples, wherein the whole Trinity takes up residence.  We are children of the heavenly Father, brothers, sisters of the same heavenly Brothers, pupils of the same heavenly Spirit; Gods family we are, Christ’s body, united to the Father as the fountain of grace and mercy, to the Son as Lord and Saviour, to the Holy Spirit as Guide and Teacher.

“So if there’s any encouragement in Christ”, Paul writes, “any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, do be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind with all the others; do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves.”

And this probably is the hardest rule of all for most of us, counting others better than ourselves.

Maybe God has given the other only one talent, whilst God has given you five, or may be even eight or nine.  But maybe the other is using his one talent much better than you are using your five or six.

Not the number of talents counts, you know, but the way you are using them.

And here is always reason enough to count others better than ourselves.

I know, it is a hard thing, to count others better than yourself!

Humility, having a true opinion of yourself, which in practice is nearly always a much less flattering opinion than the one you actually have of yourself.

Humility, valuing other people at their true worth, and their true worth is nearly always higher than we like to admit.

Well, all this is what the Lord prayed for – for unity in faith and love in the congregation.

We can ask for no stronger proof of the value and great meaning of the unity of believers, and the sinfulness of discord, than the great place which our Master gives this subject in His great prayer.

How painfully true it is that in every age divisions have been the scandal of the Christian religion, the weakness of the church, of many a congregation.

How often Christians have wasted their strength and time, quarrelling amongst each other, fighting against each other.

How often we give occasion to the world to say: “When you have settled your own internal affairs, and can live in peace, maybe we’ll believe you; you are talking about love in a beautiful way, my word you do, but please do practice what you preach, maybe you’ll be able to convince us then.”

All this the Lord must have foreseen with prophetic eyes; and it must have been the foresight of all this which made Him pray so earnestly that believers might be ‘one’, in order that people from outside could be attracted indeed, that the very existence of a congregation would be attractive.

Disorder, disharmony, discord, disunion, they are features and characteristics of this world, in which the devil is playing his role; they are results of Satan’s disrupting influence.

Christ’s people are to show something else, unknown in this world, viz. harmony and unity.  This will help the world believe Christ’s divine mission, enlarging Gods glory in the world.

When the world sees us, Christ’s people, not quarrelling, not judging each other, not divided, but one in heart and life, as a harmonious and co-operating fellowship, then the world will begin to believe that the Saviour, of such a people, must be really a Saviour sent from God.

That is the Lord’s meaning in our text.

The final result of our unity will be, as our Heidelberg Catechism reads in Lord’s Day 47, “that we may so live and work together that Gods name may not be blasphemed but honoured and praised on our account.”

Christ has given us that wonderful glory of the image and likeness of God, by which, as Paul says in 2Cor.3:18, we are renewed, being changed from one degree of glory to another, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of glory.  But now our lives, our daily actions and attitudes, must speak louder than the most pious words and prayers and hymns.

Our daily common behaviour must point to Christ as the source of our faith and hope, our gladness and happiness, our gaiety and gratitude, our fellowship and unity.

The world must acknowledge that Christ’s love for us, His Fathers tremendous love for us, is our love for God and for each other.

What a responsibility for you and me!

If we want to fulfil our mission in the world, as Christians, as church, as a congregation, one of the most important things is: our unity, our unity in love, in forbearance, in humility and tolerance.

If this is unknown to us, if this cannot be noticed, from outside, we have not made much progress as a congregation of Jesus Christ, and we then are just another obstacle on His way through the world.

One day there was a workman aboard a London trolley-car, who noticed that every time the door was pushed open it squeaked and creaked terribly.  Rising from his seat he took a little can from his pocket, and dropped oil on that squeaking spot.  He sat down again quietly, remarking: “I always carry an oil can in my pocket, for there are so many squeaky things in the world, you know, that a drop of oil will correct.”

That’s the possibility for a Christian in society, that’s what we can do with our Christian love: correct all squeaky things.

The oil can is our heart, our regenerated heart, which the Holy Spirit has filled with pure oil, the oil of Christ’s love.  And now our task, our mission is to take out that can wherever we’ll have an opportunity, using, spending the oil of divine love, as Christ did for us, for all of us, that the world may become aware how great a love the Lord has given to us, and that the name of our heavenly Father may be glorified.

God’s name glorified, through you and me, in our daily behaviour,  in our harmonious living together as congregation of our Lord, and outsiders attracted because of our attractive living together.

Do you see your responsibility, your mission in the world?

We will be able to carry this out.  The Lord still always prays for us!

Amen.