The Appearance Of Unity

Many passages teach God desires unity among the believers. One such passage, John 17:20-23, goes so far as to tie our success in converting people, at least to some extent, to this unity. Notice Jesus teaches this connection in verse 21b as it reads, “that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”

Unfortunately, unity among believers has not been widely achieved. In the face of this division, and knowing the connection that Jesus made in John 17:21 between unity and our success at converting others to Christ, many Christians think hiding our differences is the next best thing to unity, that though we are divided, if we can somehow hide this from our neighbors, then we can still have the success in converting our neighbors that Jesus conditioned upon actual unity in John 17:21. The only problem with this point of view is that God desires actual unity, not the appearance of unity. Jesus never promised the appearance of unity would help us convert the world; only actual unity will help.

There are at least three categories regarding division and our religious differences. The first one is perfect unity. This is of course what God desires (I Corinthians 1:10), and is therefore possible to obtain. It is rarely achieved however. This is similar to the fact that God desires each Christian to live perfectly, without sin (I John 2:1). It is therefore possible to live without sin; it is just that no man, except Jesus, has ever achieved it (I John 1:8,10).

Lacking perfect unity, most denominations have taken another course of action. They have become content with and accepted their division/differences as okay. This is a violation of passages such as Eph 4:3 that teach us to strive for unity.

That brings us to the third category. Knowing there are differences, many Christians are taking the correct action; they are striving for unity. But of these, many think it is God’s will that we hide our differences in the mean-while from non-Christians. They evidently think John 17:20-23 teaches that, lacking true unity, covering up our differences will help us in trying to convert the lost. They usually justify their actions with old adages such as, “we shouldn’t air our dirty laundry before unbelievers,” or “we need to put our best foot forward.” But hiding our differences, covering up our disunity, is dishonest (Rev 21:8), and hypocritical (Matt 23:3). Jesus did not teach in John 17 that the appearance of unity will help in our teaching the world; only true unity will help that.

Lacking true unity, God does not desire us to hide our divisions. Acts 15 records a debate between Christians, trying to settle their differences/division, and God put it right smack in the middle of the New Testament for the whole world to see, including non-Christians. If we are not united, then it is better for non-Christians to see us striving for unity, rather than for them to find out later we were not honest with them, that we were hiding something from them. Our non-Christian prospects need to know what they are getting into, if and when they choose to obey the gospel. It is better for non-Christians to see us discussing our differences, trying to obtain unity, than for them to think we are just content with and accept our divisions as okay.