In recent times we have experienced a growing interest in the Holy Spirit and the work he is doing. Therefore, we can hardly ignore the unity that he brings about. Indeed, the Scriptures speak about this and it is by no means the least of what he is accomplishing. It is a miracle of his power when sinners live together in the unity of Christ’s church. And he makes us his co-workers by urging us through Paul to keep this unity (Ephesians 4:1-6). But the stark contrast between the apostle’s words and the ecclesiastical reality of our time makes us wonder whether we are still the co-workers of the Spirit. That gives us reason to confront ourselves with the apostolic teaching.

Pluralism and Sectarianism⤒🔗

The unity of the Spirit makes the church into a catholic church: one church for God’s children of all times, all places, and from all nations. There is an inseparable connection between the unity and the catholicity of the church. Thus Calvin, writing about the catholicity of the church, could remark, “Two or three cannot be invented without dividing Christ; and this is impossible” (Institutes IV.1.2).

The fact that there is unity is not in itself an indication that the church is also catholic. A while ago, Dr. J. van der Graaf wrote an evaluation of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN) (see Reformatorisch Dagblad, March 7, 2005). At a seminar about ecclesiastical pluralism, he characterized this church as “pseudo-catholic”—quite a revealing comment! According to Van Dale’s dictionary, this prefix “pseudo” indicates that “what is mentioned [in this case, the church, JWvdJ] only resembles or imitates the real thing (catholic, JWvdJ).” In other words, it may have the appearance of the real thing, but it is not the real thing. In a similar way the Lord Jesus warns us about pseudo-prophets and pseudo-christs (Matthew 24:11, 24). When we apply this to the church, we speak of the false church (see Belgic Confession, Article 29). Dr. van der Graaf pictures the PKN for us as a falsification of the catholicity of the church. This is because the unity of the PKN exists by the grace of pluralism in which the truth of God’s Word and the error that attacks it may be allowed to co-exist in this church.

Over against such pluralistic unity the possibility exists to seek the unity of the church within the circle of like-minded people. Many believers do not feel at home in the churches because they are not evangelical or charismatic enough. Or they regard their churches as too conservative and not sufficiently progressive (or vice-versa). They vanish into groups where they recognize their own experience of faith. To them, the churches are too Reformed. This can also happen because the churches are no longer Reformed enough. People leave the church because it is possible to associate the Sunday with the fourth commandment in a different way than they were used to doing. Or people discern heresies in certain hymns that others do not detect, do not care about, or do not want to defend against. In this way, people can break the unity of the church with an appearance of doctrinal issues, and withdraw into groups of like-minded people. The opposite of pluralism then is this sectarianism.

I could mention more examples, but it would not make for a rosier picture. In terms of the catholicity of the church in the Netherlands, it is a sad state of affairs.

Always a Struggle←⤒🔗

The apostle Paul encourages the brothers and sisters in Ephesus (and likewise he urges us) to keep the unity in the Spirit. It makes sense to ask why he implores this. God’s Word says beautiful things about the church. She is Christ’s bride, the city of God, God’s dwelling. The city of God is shown stunningly in Revelation 21! In Psalm 122 we sing about the “city of peace,” which we often apply to the church. Psalm 133 sings about brotherly union. An image of the church emerges that does not really correspond to our reality. It often disappoints. We see struggle; we experience difficulties. There is much reason to be concerned. We see sin and experience disappointments. Differences of opinion keep God’s children separated. There are all sorts of heresies, and so much more. The reality is indeed quite different from what those beautiful words say about the church.

Now we do have to be on guard against narrowing our perspective. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth about Christ’s resurrection. This was needed because different heresies had arisen about the resurrection. He addressed a case of shameful adultery in the church. He also wrote critically about certain manifestations of the Spirit. It is not for nothing that he writes about marriage, Christ’s return, etc. Scripture, in expressing beautiful things about the church, does not want us to dream of an unrealistic church. Right from the beginning it is a church full of struggle and concern. When we experience strife, difficulties, and disappointments, this is not something new or strange. Throughout the centuries, the church has faced struggle and challenges. This will remain until the last day. For the same reason Paul also wrote about the unity of the Spirit. It was not as if unity went over so well in the church of Ephesus. People experienced difficulties with it.

God’s Call←⤒🔗

The nature of this difficulty can be derived from this letter to the Ephesians. Jews have come to faith in Christ. Gentiles too have converted to faith in Christ. For centuries there had been an unbridgeable gap between these two. From an early age the law of Moses had instilled in the Jews the distinction between clean and unclean. The depth and extent of this shows clearly when the Lord commands Peter to kill and eat clean and unclean animals, without distinction (Acts 8). Peter had never done so! The Lord himself needed to teach him, in preparation for entering Cornelius’ home. No wonder it was not all that simple for Jews and Gentiles to live together in one congregation. And yet they needed to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. That suited the calling with which God had called them (Ephesians 4:1).

With this the apostle goes back to what he had written earlier in Ephesians 2. God has called the brothers and sisters in Ephesus. In like manner, he has called us. In connection with this I think of Mr. Groen van Prinsterer, who wrote the Handbook of Dutch History. In the preface he pictures the situation in the country at the time of the Batavians and the Teutons, that is., the Roman era. He does so with the words of Paul in Ephesians 2:12, writing that we were “without hope and without God in the world.” We can no longer imagine what exactly that means. We are used to the Christian hope being proclaimed in all sorts of moments of our life. What would it be like for us if this were not the case? When there is an accident; when you are ill; when people are murdered through crime or terrorism. No hope when natural disasters strike. Hopeless—that was the condition of the Ephesians. That was our situation. Anyone who lives without God, without Christ, is in a hopeless situation.

But God has drawn us to him. In his coming, Christ has proclaimed peace to those who were far off (Gentiles) and to those who were near (Jews) (Ephesians 2:17; Isaiah 57:19). He has broken down the dividing wall of hostility (Ephesians 2:14). In one Spirit we now have access to the Father (Ephesians 2:18). Together with the saints, we are being built into a dwelling place for God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:22). God has called us to unity. That is his grace in our lives: one and the same grace for every sinner in Ephesus and anywhere else. In the first century and in the twenty-first: one grace, one calling that gives hope.

Unity←⤒🔗

It is therefore not for nothing that unity is the order of the day in Ephesians 4: one body and one Spirit; the one hope of our calling; one Lord Jesus Christ; one faith, the faith taught to us by the apostles; one baptism by which we are incorporated into the church, either as an adult or as a young child; one God and Father who adopts us as his children and heirs. We have access to him in one Spirit. In this one Spirit we are being built together as a dwelling place for God. It is the Holy Spirit who initiates and governs this unity. He builds us up in this unity through the gospel of the one grace of God.

That explains why Scripture knows of just one church: the catholic church, for people from all nations and all ages. Outside of that church there is no salvation; just like there is no salvation outside of this one grace of God, or outside of the one Lord. That is how we confess it as the church of the Reformation. Outside of this catholic church mentioned in Article 27, there is no salvation, says Article 28.

This stress on the necessity of the one church is sometimes seen as a specialty of the Free Reformed churches, so to speak. But it is plainly the confession of the church of the Reformation. People may characterize it as being arrogant, as if you claim God’s salvation only for yourself and deny it to others. Of course, this confession can be used—or better put: abused—this way. For Article 28 does not say this to exclude others outside of the church, but to get everyone into the church. After all, it is worded in this way as an encouragement to maintain the unity of the Spirit.

Is this not a powerful incentive? When the Spirit calls us to unity, can we then go ahead and break up this unity? No. We can only endeavor to follow him, maintain his unity, and busy ourselves with this, as Paul says. And when this unity is broken, we need to endeavor to restore it.

The incentive of our confession is also powerful in another way. Article 28 says we need to maintain this unity “even though the rulers and edicts of princes were against it, and death or physical punishment might follow.” Physical punishment or death! The author of these words, Guido de Brès, experienced it as he was hung on the gallows on account of this confession. It makes us think of the detention cell from which Paul, the prisoner for the Lord, writes (Ephesians 4:1). Against this background we can ask ourselves, in all seriousness, to what level this unity of the Spirit is driving us. Was the threat at that time not much more radical than the differences for which we today maintain our disunity?

Followers of the Lord←⤒🔗

The matter that concerns Paul is the concrete communion of believers. He urges us to be humble, gentle, and patient, and to bear with one another in love. All of this has a very practical application. These things are not necessary when you do not meet each other, but it is especially necessary when you interact and have to deal with each other.

From this we conclude that the unity of the Spirit is not something “spiritual,” a sort of “ecumenism of the heart” that might exist without any concrete interaction with each other, or something like that. In evangelistic and charismatic circles people are strongly committed to the Spirit and to his work; however, in terms of his desired unity it is often striking that it is portrayed as some sort of invisible unity. Such unity would consist throughout all churches and exceed all churches: the phantom of the invisible church. It is undeniable that this is not what Paul means. What matters to him is the “one body and one Spirit.” There is one body of which all members are united in the bond of peace, brought about by Christ. Paul clearly shows this in his writing elsewhere about the church as a body with the members as different parts of it. His concern is for an active church life, interacting practically with each other in one congregation—both locally and of course also in the relation of churches, in the federation. The church is the communion of saints. This means “that saints are united in the fellowship of Christ on this condition, that all the blessings which God bestows upon them are mutually communicated to each other” (Institutes IV.1.3; see also Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 21, answer 55).

Because the Spirit unites us in this concrete unity, it is also so difficult! There can be all sorts of faults, and all sorts of things lacking in the church. Arguments to break with the church can arise: “This church does not mean much to me”; “I do not feel at home here”; “It just is not my everything.” You can be disappointed in brothers or sisters, or in the attitude of the consistory, or in the demeanour of the minister. It may be about an opinion, or about a certain spiritual slant. Perhaps it is about choices made by the churches. And there can be so much more. That is our reality.

In this reality Paul speaks about humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing with one another in love. It does not take much effort to see the figure of Christ, the Lord of the church, here. He bought us with his blood. We belong to our Lord, and follow him. Therefore, we need to pay attention to him to be able to interact with each other in the church. When we do this, what do we see? He washed the feet of his disciples. He also knelt before Judas, even though he knew that he would betray him. He came to Peter, who would deny him. All the others too would abandon him that same night. Would we go on our knees for such people?

The Lord was gentle. He issued no hard judgment about sinners. The Pharisees had caught a woman in adultery and brought her to Jesus. She expected that Jesus would condemn her just as harshly. He did not.

Wasn’t the Lord also patient? He endured such hostility from sinners (Hebrews 12:3). They beat him. He did not hit back. They mocked him. He did not mock in return. They nailed him to the cross. He prayed for them to be forgiven. He did not say, “I do not want such people in my church.” No, he sought them through his apostles with his gospel, in order to prepare a place for them in the church. We owe our salvation to him.

What would it be like if the Lord did not have so much patience? If he was not so friendly? If he had not carried our sins and faults? If he was too hard on us about our wrong opinions? All of us live by his grace! When the Lord then says, “Those annoying people, those miserable folks, those dishonest fellows, those people with their faulty insights, their misunderstandings and their errors—it is for them that I died and I want them in my church,” can we then counter this by saying, “I do not want these brothers and sisters; I am leaving”?

Earlier I mentioned Article 28 of the Belgic Confession. This article states that by maintaining the unity of the church, “we bend our necks under the yoke of Jesus Christ!” The confession borrows this expression from the Lord Jesus’ invitation to come to him in Matthew 11:28-30. Whoever lets himself be invited and comes to him, will also find his church. That belongs to the yoke that the Lord gives us to bear. Note well that it is the yoke of Christ. It is not the yoke of brothers and sisters. The Lord puts it on us, for he calls us to the unity of his church. We can experience that yoke as a heavy burden. It causes sorrow and distress. It may imply suffering and pain. But let us not forget the encouragement of our Lord: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” When he says so, would it then not apply to every other congregation as well? Would it not work by paying attention to his cross and the power of his Spirit?

That which the Lord shows us, and which he wants to teach us by his Spirit, is at odds with the individualism of our days. It teaches us to stand on our own feet, and to live independently from others. The deplorable situation in which unity and catholicity find itself may well have more worldliness in it than we are aware of. Therefore, it is of great importance to submit to our Lord’s authority over the way in which we keep the unity of the Spirit.

The Lord and the Doctrine←⤒🔗

Ultimately, this authority has everything to do with the doctrine of the church. It is the task of the catholic church to proclaim the gospel, and not heresy. Paul does not only say that we have one Lord. There is also one faith: the gospel, which the apostles have proclaimed to us. The church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Ephesians 2:20). Besides, the doctrine does not concern itself only with doctrinal concepts. Humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance also belong to the doctrine of the gospel; these are matters that often end up fading in the background during doctrinal disputes! We confess the vital importance of the doctrine of the gospel in Article 29. The catholic church of Article 27 can be found there where the gospel is preached in all its purity.

Between the pseudo-catholic pluralism and the un-catholic sectarianism, this confession points the right way. We will only find the catholic unity of the church by submitting to the authority of God’s Word. In an ecclesiastical sense that will be evident in the fact that this Word has a position of exclusive authority.

As far as this is concerned, another comment of Dr. van der Graaf other than his characterization of the PKN as pseudo-catholic is rather remarkable. At the same event he was wondering whether the Belgic Confession would not be anti-catholic, based on its confession about the marks of the church. Has this doctrine not been the cause of all kinds of fractures in the church? Doesn’t every doctrinal pronouncement cause a reduction, a narrowing of the church? I concur with van der Graaf that this doctrine can be used the wrong way. Yet it cannot be termed anti-catholic, as the confession defends the authority of God’s Word! This criticism of Article 29 says more about the choice of Dr. van der Graaf for the pseudo-catholicity of the PKN than about the confession itself.

Our confession states that wherever the gospel is proclaimed, there we find the catholic church. May we also turn this around? Does this article mean to say that when there is deviation, then we need to break up the unity? A well-known saying calls sects “the unpaid accounts of the church.” People separate themselves from the church because it fails; it falls short. It listens insufficiently to God’s Word. In this way all kinds of evangelical and charismatic sects have come into being. In this way Article 29 can also be used. According to this article, the church directs itself in everything to the Word of God. The Reformed Churches are not in compliance with this, according to some deviation in certain synodical decisions. According to Rev. P. van Gurp the church has become an “and-and church,” just like many other churches (Reformanda, 14th edition, number 41). There can be two different opinions in the church about the observance of the Sunday. Therefore, one needs to liberate oneself.

The claim about the “and-and church” does not say very much. There are plenty of topics in the church where, with an appeal to God’s Word, there can be different thoughts and opinions, without it causing a rift in the church. Here it concerns the latter. And then we can learn from Calvin that not every difference of opinion, or whatever error one thinks they see, justifies a break with the church. Writing about the marks of the church, at one point he says, “When we say that the pure ministry of the word and pure celebration of the sacraments is a fit pledge and earnest, so that we may safely recognise a church in every society in which both exist, our meaning is, that we are never to discard it so long as these remain, though it may otherwise teem with numerous faults. Nay, even in the administration of word and sacraments defects may creep in which ought not to alienate us from its communion” (Institutes IV.1.12). We can hardly accuse Calvin of promoting a pluralistic church view. But, based on his reference to Philippians 3:15, he had an eye for the imperfection of our insight and our “mist of ignorance” that envelops all of us. He realized that not all matters of doctrine carry equal weight. In this section of the Institutes, Calvin continues, “However, I have no wish to patronise even the minutest errors, as if I thought it right to foster them by flattery or connivance; what I say is, that we are not on account of every minute difference to abandon a church, provided it retain sound and unimpaired that doctrine in which the safety of piety consists, and keep the use of the sacraments instituted by the Lord.” The Reformer teaches us that the presence of deviations and malpractices in the church are not justifiable reasons to break up its unity.

This was not done in the past either. In Luther’s days the wrongdoings were much larger than what can be pointed to nowadays. The matters were much weightier than, for example, the question of how you think about Sunday observance based on the fourth commandment. But Luther did not break with the church because of his situation. Yes, he did address the various deviations. He called the church back to the gospel. He kept on doing this in the church, until he was banned from the church. This was catholic thinking.

In 1834, during the Separation, the brothers and sisters in Ulrum remained in the church until their minister, Rev. Hendrik de Cock, was silenced. They were not inclined to separate, for they too thought in a catholic manner. There was no Liberation in 1944 because of error. For a long time already, there were two lines of thought concerning baptism, existing side-by-side, with all the accompanying struggles about this issue. Was it an “and-and church” for that reason? It is foolish to even think so. It concerned a church struggling to understand the right teaching of God’s Word. Liberation came about because error (of presumptive regeneration) was forced upon the church. The consciences of God’s people were bound where God’s Word did not bind. When this became the situation, it was more important to obey the Lord of the church than the people or the synod. This is always a prerequisite, for he is our Lord (see Acts 4:19). Until then, you are called to serve the brothers and sisters in the church with the talents that God has given you, as members of one body, as confessed in Article 28. Humbly, gently, patiently, and by bearing with each other in love: that is the catholic attitude that befits the unity of the Spirit.

One God and Father←⤒🔗

The unity of the Spirit also makes us realize the reach of God’s love. The apostle speaks of “one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” The emphasis on “all” is remarkable. It is repeated four times in rapid succession. It points us to the catholic dimension of God’s love. This saves us from getting cozy in our self-love and our own small groups. God’s love and his fatherhood reach far beyond this. He is above all. Everyone lives under the care of his hand. He is the Father “in all”: he lives and works in all his children. He is Father “through all”: as a Father, he uses all of us to care for his family, the congregation. God uses all of us as a means of his fatherly care, as an extension of his fatherly hand. We are children of one Father to serve each other within the one family, with our gifts, our time, our strength, our wisdom, our knowledge of Scripture, our knowledge of church history, our helpfulness—you name it—with all of whatever, the Father provides us. It is all given to help each other, to encourage one another, to correct one another. It is to hold on to each other and to contend together for the one faith (Jude 1:3). Yes—to be God’s dwelling.

Wonders of His Grace←⤒🔗

Paul urges us to cooperate with the Spirit in the unity he provides. In listening to him we see the marvel of the catholic church. It is not a perfect church. No, it consists of sinners, flawed and defective, struggling and in need. Yet it is the dwelling where the Father desires to live, thanks to the sacrifice of Christ, which is built up and completed through the Holy Spirit, through the service of all. Isn’t this the wonder of God’s grace in the lives of all of us?