A Certain Unity of the Church

Paul T. Nimmo

Paul T. Nimmo, King’s Chair of Systematic Theology, University of Aberdeen

Introduction

Early in his doctrine of the church in Church Dogmatics, Karl Barth writes,

In all the riches of His divine being the God who reconciled the world with Himself in Jesus Christ is One. Jesus Christ, elected the Head of all men and as such their Representative who includes them all in Himself in His risen and crucified body is One. The Holy Spirit in the fulness and diversity of His gifts is One. In the same way His community as the gathering of the [people] who know and confess Him can only be one.[1]

These are bold words, inspiring words! But of course, when we look at our churches today, we are confronted by schism and discord among them at almost every turn. It is not simply the case that there is a lack of communion and recognition between the denominations of different theological traditions; it is also regularly the case that there is a lack of communion and recognition within different denominations. The underlying issues of disagreement may differ—from baptism to eucharist, from sexual ethics to medical ethics—but the outcome is the same every time: a divided church and a divided witness to Jesus Christ.

Of course, disunity and disagreement in the church are no recent innovation. Scripture itself attests that there has been strife within the church of Christ from the very beginning: one need only recall the disagreement over circumcision at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:1–21), the dispute about table-fellowship between Peter and Paul (Gal. 2:11–14), and the divisions in the church at Corinth (1 Cor. 1:10–17) to realise that the early church was not short on controversy. Indeed, even while Jesus was among them, the disciples managed to argue as to who was the greatest (Mark 9.33–34; compare with Luke 9.46–48). One might even imagine Mary and Joseph arguing in the stable in Bethlehem: Mary imploring, “I think the angel is right—we should flee to Egypt”; and Joseph responding, “I still think we would be safer back in Nazareth with my mother” (Compare with Matt. 2:13–15). It is little wonder that Jesus felt compelled to pray to his Father, “Holy Father, protect [my people] in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one” (John 17:11b).

However, the optative oneness of the people of God expressed in this prayer of Jesus Christ cannot simply be a matter of a hypothetical oneness. Rather, time and again in the New Testament the oneness of the community of the people of God is clearly and explicitly asserted as being real: there may be many members, but there is only—can be only—one body (Rom. 12:4–5, 1 Cor. 10:17, 12:12–13, 12:20, Col. 3:15). The witness of Scripture highlights both the reality (the indicative) and the desirability (the imperative) of the unity of the church in unequivocal terms.[2] The confession of the unity of the church has correspondingly belonged to the Christian witness since its earliest days. The church fathers without exception operated under the assumption that the true church of Christ was one.[3] The ecumenical Niceno-Constantinpolitan Creed of 381 enshrined the belief that the church is one in its ecclesiological marks.

This early instinct concerning the oneness of the church, and its wider scope, is summarized magnificently by the writer of the epistle to the Ephesians:

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. (Eph. 4:4–6, emphasis added)

The oneness of the church is here related to each of the modes of being of the Trinity, to Father, Son, and Spirit, as well as to the theological virtues of hope and faith, and to the Christian imperative of baptism. The historical ground on which the foundation of this unity is laid earlier in this epistle is that of the reconciling activity of Jesus Christ: on the cross, (the one) Jesus Christ has overcome the divisions and hostility between the Gentiles and the Jews, and offered all people access to the (one) Father through the one Spirit (Eph. 2:14–18). Now, in the revolutionary words of Paul, there is no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female: “for all of you are one in Jesus Christ” (Gal. 3:28–29).

So how might this tension—between the oneness of the church as a consistent concern of Scripture and the great divisions in the church that are empirically evident today—be understood? And what might faithful members of the different churches do about it in their own walks of discipleship? This essay proceeds to explore these questions in the course of four sections. The first section offers some initial reflections on the unity of the church, reflections arising directly out of the confession of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. In the second section, one aspect of those reflections—the eternal dimension of the unity of the church—is investigated further, to explore the foundationof the unity of the church in the eternal triune life. The third section considers how one might construe a belief in the reality of the unity of the church today, despite the evident empirical divisions which mar the church. And the final section assesses the implications of the foregoing explorations for our understanding of the future task of the church in respect of the advancement of ecclesiastical unity.

Initial Reflections

When the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed asserts the unity of the church, it does so as a matter of faith: pisteuō (eis) mian hagian katholikēn kai apostolikēn ekklēsian.[4] There is a profound sense, then, that in the investigation of the unity of the church, one is always and already on the terrain of the divine mystery, in the realm of the gift of faith. Indeed, the assertion of the church’s unity is part of the church’s overall confession of faith, along with belief “in one God, the Father, the Almighty”; “in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God”; and “in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life.” In this Trinitarian creedal context, the church is understood as part of the gracious eventful history of God with creation, a history running from the making “of heaven and earth” at the beginning of time to “the age to come” at the end of time—from eternity to eternity. And at the very centre of this history of relation between God and humanity is the incarnation, the event of grace in which “for us, and for our salvation, [Jesus Christ] came down from heaven.”

This, it seems to me, is an important initial catena of observations for three reasons. First, a human inability to prove the oneness of the church does not in itself offer conclusive evidence that the church is not one, any more than being unable to prove any other individual item in the creed would defeat the corresponding belief. Neither the existence of the church itself as the gathering of those called out by God—in distinction from its existence as a visible institution—nor its possession of oneness (or any other ecclesial virtue from the creed) can be thought to be simply a function of logical or empirical demonstration. Of course, this is not to suggest any kind of complete divorce between the discourse of faith on one hand and the discourse of reason on the other. It is simply to observe that one should be wary of looking for the oneness of the church (or indeed for the church itself) in the wrong place: both the church and its oneness are at base primarily a matter of faith.

Second, the fact that the church is one within the gracious history of encounter between God and humanity recounted by the creed indicates that the church and its oneness are both a function of the grace of the triune God. The appearance of the church and its virtues in history occurs sola gratia, by grace alone, and the faith which believes in the church and its virtues arises sola gratia, by grace alone; neither, then, is a human achievement. Moreover, as the virtue of the oneness of the church is a gift of God, so in light of our creatureliness and sinfulness this virtue needs to be received again and again as a gift of the Spirit of God and cannot ever be thought to become a human possession or predicate. The oneness of the church can no more be domesticated than the one Spirit. This is not to suggest that humanity in general and Christians in particular have nothing to do with and nothing to contribute to the unity of the church. It is simply to observe that one should not assume that the oneness of the church refers to a quality that is given over to humanity in such a way that it is a function of human virtue or control.

And third, the connection of the oneness of the church to the oneness of God and the oneness of Jesus Christ suggests that this ecclesial oneness is not simply an arbitrary quality of, or even gift to, the church. It does not seem to be a matter of divine caprice, nor does it seem to be something which could possibly have been otherwise. Rather, the unity of the church seems to be posited necessarily—as our earlier quotation from Ephesians demonstrates—as a direct corollary of the oneness of the being of God. Even amidst all manner of worldly vicissitudes, then, the oneness of the church must be conceived with reference to God, and not only to the economic activity of God in time, but also to the eternal life and will of God.

The Eternal Foundation of the Unity of the Church

In the introduction, it was noted that the epistle to the Ephesians relates the foundation of the unity of the church to the historic event of the cross of Jesus Christ and to the temporal activity of the Spirit. Yet while this is undeniably true and important, it is now clear that this is not the whole story: the same epistle to the Ephesians declares that Jesus Christ “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love” (Eph. 1:4). Similar intimations throughout the New Testament indicate that God’s actions in time—including the calling and sustaining of the church—are determined by God’s decisions in eternity (See, for example, Acts 2:23, Rom. 8:28–30, Rom. 11:2, 1 Peter 1:2; 20). The result is that the missions of the Son and the Spirit in time are seen, by the witness of Scripture, to be eternally determined in the election of God.

This idea that God eternally determines to become incarnate in Jesus Christ and to descend upon the church in the Spirit is uncontested. However, recent conversations in Reformed theology—particularly around the work of Karl Barth—have explored further the relationship between these temporal missions in the economy of God and the eternal processions of God in the inner-divine life.[5] These discussions have been particularly focussed on Christology, and on the question of whether there is in any sense an identity of the second person of the Trinity that is not determined for incarnation, or whether the second person of the Trinity is determined by the identity of Jesus Christ without remainder.[6]

A classical answer to this question is to go with the first of these alternatives, and to suggest that there is a distinct ontological reality to the immanent Trinity such that the second person of the Trinity per se is not incarnandus—in other words, is not exclusively determined for incarnation. In this view, then, the eternal decision for (and of) the second person of the Trinity to become incarnate in time and space is not exclusively determinative of the identity of the second person of the Trinity. The Son, in unity with the Father and the Spirit, elects to become incarnate in Jesus Christ in a free decision of grace. To suggest otherwise, it is posited, would be to compromise the freedom of God and to suggest that both the event of incarnation and the act of creation which it presupposes are necessary to the being of God.[7] There is, in effect, an ontic interval affirmed between the immanent being and essence of God in Godself as Father, Son, and Spirit, and the economic activity and work of God in reconciliation, as Father, Jesus Christ, and Spirit.

However, there is a growing body of theological opinion which would respond to the above question with a “No”: the pre-incarnate Son is always incarnandus—that is, the one who is going to become incarnate—even in pretemporal eternity, for the very identity of the Son is never not determined by the decision to become flesh in history. In classical terms, this would mean the Son is begotten by the Father precisely with a view to incarnation. The eternal act of election would therefore evidence that God is Lord even over the very being of God. God is self-positing as Father in God’s first mode of being and is self-posited as the Son incarnandus in God’s second mode of being, both existing within the love and affirmation secured in God’s third mode of being as the Spirit. In this eternal event of election, the one divine Subject acts in complete freedom, and thus both the election itself and its consequences are events of grace and not of necessity.

The theological preference underlying this paper is for the second option, even as those on both sides of such disagreements must recognise that here one treads very close to the heart of the divine mystery and must exercise caution at all points. However, it is not the intention here to defend this view in detail: this has been done more expansively elsewhere.[8] Instead, the following sections will consider the possible pneumatological implications of this preference, and to relate these directly to the issue under study here, the unity of the church.[9]

If this preference is right, then there emerges a formal parallel between the election of the Son to become incarnate in Jesus Christ and the election of the Spirit to be the one who gathers, upbuilds, and sends the church.[10] This formal parallel consists materially in the result that if Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, has no identity other than the one who is to become and became incarnate, then, correspondingly, the Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, has no identity other than the one who is to become and became enchurched. Thus, just as the history of Jesus Christ in time becomes determinative of the identity of the Son in eternity, so too the history of the Spirit in time and space is determinative of the identity of the Spirit in eternity. This determination—not only temporal but also eternal—would also follow from the eternal and gracious divine act of election.

To put the matter in other words: this means that there is no third person of the Trinity in the abstract, no Spirit to be considered either in time or in eternity without reference to the dynamic activity of the Spirit in time in the sphere of the history of the covenant, and specifically, the church of Jesus Christ. Just as to refer to the Son without reference to the incarnation can only ever be to work with a conceptual placeholder, so too, to refer to the Spirit without reference to the work of the Spirit in the church can only over be to employ a heuristic conceptual device. Hence the idea of the pneuma anecclesion—the Spirit without the church—plays the same role in this view as the idea of the logos asarkos—the Word without the flesh. On the one hand, in the time prior to the incarnation and to Pentecost, the logos is self-evidently asarkos and the pneuma is self-evidently anecclesion, for Jesus Christ is not incarnate prior to Bethlehem and the Spirit only descends upon the church in the post-resurrection event of Pentecost.[11] On the other hand, however, if the being in action of the Spirit as active in the church is always determined by the eternal decree of election as outlined above, then even the pneuma anecclesion in eternity and prior to the gathering of the community in time—such as among the people of Israel—is always the pneuma inecclesiandus, the Spirit destined to be enchurched. And so, just as Barth declares that “the concept of the true humanity of Jesus Christ is therefore primarily and finally basic … in exactly the same and not a lesser sense than that of His true deity,”[12] so too it can be posited that the concept of the enchurchment of the Spirit is primarily and finally as basic to the ontology of the Spirit as the deity of the Spirit.

It is worth perhaps clarifying before proceeding that to speak of the Spirit being or becoming enchurched does not mean that the Spirit becomes immanent in the church in some static or substantialist way or that the Spirit becomes in any way directly identifiable with the orders, practices, or institutions of any visible church. Instead, the term here is used as theological shorthand to describe the way in which the Spirit is the One who gathers, upbuilds, and sends the church from within, as a dynamic and effective agent without whom the church is nothing. The power and agency of this Spirit never fall under human control or domestication, and instead the presence of the Spirit can only ever be requested in prayer: “Come, Holy Spirit, come” (Acts 1:8).

This understanding of the relationship between the role of the Spirit in the temporal church on the one hand and the being of God in eternity on the other hand provides a deepened understanding of the fundamental unity of the church. It is not simply that the activity of the Spirit in time calls and holds together the church, or even that God determines in eternity that the activity of the Spirit in time should call and hold together the church. Instead, it is that the very unity of God in time and eternity stands behind the church and that, conversely, the work of the one Spirit in the one church is intrinsic to that divine being. It is thus an ontological impossibility that the church of the people of God elected in Jesus Christ and called in the Spirit is not one: there is one body, and one Spirit, a Spirit at the innermost centre of whose identity is to be active in the church.

From the heights of such eternal optimism, however, there is a relentless pull back to the messy pluriformity and plurivocity of the church today. The question arises as to whether the eternally and divinely grounded oneness of the church in the Spirit can truly be claimed today or whether it is just a Platonic and eternal ideal.

The Temporal Reality of the Unity of the Church

It was noted in the first section of this paper that the oneness of the church is an article of faith. And Scripture is clear that faith and the wisdom of God are sometimes far indeed from reason and the wisdom of the world (compare 1 Cor. 1:18–29). That noted, without subjecting the theological enterprise to the tenets of logical positivism or reductive empiricism, it seems that theology should at least be able to give some account of the temporal reality of the unity of the church which is acceptable to faith. The way to be followed here relies on further investigation of the notion of the union of the church with Christ in the power of the Spirit, which represents the temporal outworking of the eternal decision discussed in the previous section.

There has been considerable discussion of the concept of “union with Christ” in theology of late, much of it inspired by the use made of the concept by John Calvin.[13] The union of the believer with Jesus Christ brings with it, for Calvin, the twin graces of justification and sanctification, and the union itself is effected by the secret working of the Spirit.[14] The matters under discussion in this literature seem to be of relevance to the present theme of the oneness of the church because the theological claim that a believer is justified seems to stand in sharp contrast with the phenomenological reality of the believer as someone who continues in sin—the existence of the Christian, in other words, as simul iustus et peccator, simultaneously justified and a sinner. There might, then, be an interesting parallel with ecclesial unity, for the claim that the church is one seems to stand in similar contrast with the phenomenological reality of its disunity. Moreover, the justification of the believer in union with Christ by the agency of the Spirit seems to offer an interesting parallel to the oneness of the church with Christ as its head in the unity of the Spirit. Perhaps, then, a Reformed construal of how a believer receives the grace of Christ may be able to offer some insight in considering the oneness of the church, and, more specifically, may offer a way of conceiving this unity as a gift imputedto it in union with Christ by the power of the Spirit.

To explore this possibility in practice, it is helpful to turn in the first instance to the work of Mark Garcia, who considers what it means for a believer to be considered justified in union with Christ.[15] For Garcia, one way of understanding the righteousness of the believer in justification in a way which avoids both the pretence of a legal fiction and the idea that the righteousness in view is an essential property of the believer is to employ the concept of attribution from Reformed Christology. Garcia observes that Reformed Christology shuns the idea of a direct communication of properties—a communicatio idiomatum—between the two natures of Jesus Christ. However, at the same time, Reformed Christology affirms the view that the properties of the divine nature and the properties of the human nature are appropriately and truly attributed to Jesus Christ as the (one) person of the union. It should be stressed that such attribution or predication is not simply verbal but real—not simply linguistic but ontic.

In an analogous way to this Christological schema, according to Garcia, operates the imputation of righteousness to the believer in union with Christ in the Spirit. Garcia writes that “in the indissoluble union of the believer with Christ, the righteousness which is proper only to Christ is attributed to the whole (Christ-and-the-believer-in-union) in such a way that the imputed righteousness truly belongs to the believer but, as far as justification is concerned, ‘improperly,’ that is, by attribution.”[16] The concept of attribution is, of course, as Garcia notes, being used here analogously: there is clearly dissimilarity between the two instances—the analogans and the analogatum—even and precisely within the similarity towards which he is pointing. Nevertheless, this move seems both creative and insightful.

Similarly, then, it might be posited that, in the indissoluble union of the church with Christ in the Spirit, the oneness which is evident only in Christ is attributed to the whole (Christ-and-the-church-in-union). This would mean in turn that the imputed oneness belongs trulyto the church but, as far as the oneness is concerned, (once again) improperly, that is, by attribution. Again, the concept of attribution is being used here analogously, with all the limitations which that suggests. However, this conceptuality might allow one to speak of the church as truly and really one by virtue of the union of the church with Christ, even in its fractured present, and to locate its true oneness originally and properly in Christ in the power of the Spirit and only derivatively and improperly of the church in itself.

There might be three notable theological gains from such a procedure. First, considering the present oneness of the church as an ecclesial virtue that is imputed to it renders it clear above all that the unity of the church is not its own but a matter of grace. The oneness of the church must be petitioned and received from the hand of God with gratitude and humility. There was noted above the important consideration that the unity of the church should be conceived neither as a human achievement nor as a human possession. Correspondingly, this understanding of the oneness of the church as truly attributed to the church but also as truly attributed to the church renders clear that the role of the church in this connection is active only to the extent that it receives grace.

Second, considering the present oneness as an ecclesial virtue that is utterly dependent on union with Christ by the power of the Spirit indicates that to speak of the unity of the church is to invoke a quality that is profoundly relational. Christ is the Head of his body, the church, not only in the past, but also in the present, while the Spirit not only gathered, upbuilt, and sent the church of the past but also gathers, upbuilds, and sends the church today. Indeed, ongoing provision of this oneness of the church is part of the heavenly priesthood of Christ, establishing and re-establishing the oneness of the church through both his continuing heavenly intercession and, by the agency of the Spirit, his continuing earthly ministry.

Third, considering the essential oneness of the church as an ecclesial virtue that is properly located in the union of the church with Christ and not in any realm of ecclesiastical control or visibility indicates more broadly that the life of the church is ec-centric, in other words, that it lives from a centre which is beyond its own boundaries. And so just as it is the case that the life of believers is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3), so too it is the case that the life of the church in general, as well as its oneness in particular, is similarly hidden with Christ in God. And insofar as this is true, it means that the church is no longer living its own life, from a centre within itself, but that its true life is a life lived in Christ, lived from and in and to a perfect centre beyond the power or reach of the church in its broken humanity.

The character of the life of the church here outlined—as ec-centric, as relational, and as grace-dependent—is no occasional or accidental or external state of affairs for the church. Rather, this orientation to its Head and its living from and in this source by the gracious power of the Spirit is at the heart of the being of the church. The church exists as one in the present only within this dynamic history. In a passage that has a particular resonance in this connection, Karl Barth notes that Christians only live spiritually as they live ec-centrically: “They can only look beyond themselves, clinging to God himself, and to God only in Jesus Christ, and this only as they are freed to do so, and continually freed to do so, by the Holy Spirit.”[17] In the same way, the church can only live—and can only be one—as it lives ec-centrically, looking beyond itself, clinging to God, and to God only in Jesus Christ, and this only as it is freed to do so, and continually freed to do so, by the Spirit.

The Future Prospect of the Unity of the Church

Thus far, this paper has explored the eternal foundations of the unity of the church, and how one might understand the temporal reality of the unity of the church. This section turns to consider the task of the church in respect of its unity. Yet as it transitions in this way, there is no intention of offering any kind of ecclesiastical forecast in respect of the outcome of ongoing ecumenical dialogues, nor is there any intention to backtrack into the dusky hinterlands of Pelagianism to offer up any sort of theological recipe by means of which the church itself can achieve unity.

The seriousness with which the church should take its present disunity—and the church’s responsibility for it—is helpfully indicated by Herman Bavinck. He writes, “As Christians, we cannot humble ourselves deeply enough over the schisms and discord that have existed all through the centuries in the church of Christ. It is a sin against God, in conflict with Christ’s [high-priestly] prayer [for unity], and caused by the darkness of our minds and the lovelessness of our hearts.”[18] Sin—that great impossible possibility—underlies the fractured existence of the church today. Continuing the thought of the previous section, then, just as the Christian today is simul iustus et peccator, so too the church today is simul una et divisa—simultaneously one and divided.

However, just as the Christian cannot rest in disobedience but must always endeavour to repent and to strive for obedience, so too the church cannot rest in division but must always endeavour to repent and to strive for unity. For all its grace, the Gospel of Christ is not one of antinomianism (compare with Rom. 6:1–2; 7:7–12), and in the high-priestly prayer of Christ that his followers might be one, there is clear evidence that the church has a mandate to seek to foster and not to hinder unity, and to give visible and verbal expression to it in the course of its witness to Christ. There can be no easy retreat to a complacent trust in the invisible unity of the church.

In this connection, it may be helpful to consider that the phrase simul iustus et peccator may, at its best, be seen not to capture the truth of the justified sinner as a static reality. Instead, the phrase may be thought to gesture towards the life of the justified sinner as a dynamic history of motion from sin to righteousness.[19] In the same way, the phrase simul una et divisa captures the truth of the state of the church only when it is seen not to represent a state at all, where it does not portray a static paradox but rather represents a dynamic history in which the church is always called to be in motion. On the one hand, the church is called away from its impropriety—from its schism and division, from its violence and coercion and from its syncretism and accommodation. On the other hand, the church is called forward to meet its proper life—towards its real oneness that is guaranteed by its eternal determination in the Word and in the Spirit, that is present in its current pneumatological union with its Lord, and that yearns for contemporary realisation.

The church therefore exists in a perpetual turning, a perpetual repenting, moving from divisa to una—from division to unity. In this sense, to paraphrase Barth,[20] the church lives in the constant differentiation of its future from its past, its right from its wrong, its unity from its division; and it has therefore constantly to live towards its unity, holding on to the forward-pointing momentum of the divine promise of unity in face of that fragmentation out of which it comes and by which it is yet threatened. The only way to respond to the calling to church unity this side of the return of Christ is for the church and the churches to engage in this constant process of repentance of sin and reorientation to Christ in the Spirit.

The real unity of the church is thus not a function of church polity.[21] The real unity of the church is thus not a function of eucharistic doctrine.[22] The real unity of the church is thus not a function of interdenominational cooperation.[23] The real unity of the church is not even a function of ecumenical agreement.[24] By contrast, the real unity of the church is only in its foundation in the life of the triune God, a foundation and unity to which the church witnesses only as it turns again and again and again to its living Lord and to freedom and service in the Spirit. As Calvin writes, “Paul mentions unity, but in God and in faith in Christ.”[25] This movement in and of faith is an eschatological process that is never completed this side of the eschaton. And it is a critical process that—and here all denominations should take note—is always predominantly directed inwards rather than outwards (compare Matt. 7:1–5). As Barth notes, the correct way forward actually means taking the church as a whole and each church in its individuality not lessseriously, but moreseriously.[26] And taking things more seriously means not only praying for the light of the Word to interrogate church traditions and all doctrines and practices but also praying for the guidance of the Spirit to discern to what extent each of these really does attest the life and power and grace of the triune God. This process will possibly involve renouncing or revising particular doctrines or practices, even those considered long-held or identity-defining. It will probably involve listening to the wisdom of other denominations, even if—and perhaps even particularly if—they do not listen reciprocally. And it will certainly involve stripping away the vested interests, officious conservatism, and baneful pride that plague all denominations as flawed human institutions. And yet, having noted all this, this is not a process that will sacrifice the truth in the purported interests of peace and love: at all points, the process is subject to the Lordship of the Word of God and not to the desires of the world, and a true unity can only be a righteous unity.

Following this way to unity requires certain Christian dispositions, and three will be mentioned here: penitence, openness, and humility. First, and foremost, the church and the churches require the disposition of penitence. Wherever the blame for Christian disunity is to be apportioned on the broad path of Christian history, all Christians and all churches stand under the condemnation of the Word of God (compare Rom. 3:23). Second, the church and the churches require the disposition of openness. There must be a real and genuine readiness to listen to others, within our confessions, within the church in general, and even—given that the Spirit of the Word of truth can also speak beyond the walls of the church—to the world at large and to unexpected places. Third, the church and the churches require the disposition of humility. It is a dangerous thing indeed to claim the Word of God as justification for a particular position, theological or ethical, and the provisionality of all human judgement in matters divine should be foregrounded and not merely footnoted.

For churches to be involved in this process with these dispositions on an ongoing basis would offer a real and visible and durable witness to an engagement with the problem of the unity of the church in light of the Word of God. Indeed, in such humble, open, and penitent obedience of Christ, the real unity of the church may perhaps be rendered far more visibly, impressively, and persuasively than by any number of signatures on any number of ecumenical documents.

Conclusion

Karl Barth wrote fifty years ago that in the western world, “The Church is mercilessly confronted—in all its disunity—with the tremendous alienation of the baptised masses from the Gospel.”[27] Today, the only thing that has changed in the West is that the masses are no longer even baptised. The visible disunity of the church remains a sin against God, attributable only to the darkness of our minds and the lovelessness of our hearts. This paper has exposited the eternal and unshakeable ground of the unity of the church, considered how the oneness of the church today might make theological sense in the face of empirical counterevidence, and indicated in outline the sort of critical self-examination that may be necessary for churches on an ongoing basis if they are to witness to their unity in Word and Spirit. However, it is clear that this proposal in itself is not the end of the story: the outline remains perhaps too vague, the outcome appears perhaps too elusive, and perhaps, ultimately, a slight air of despondency is destined to settle over any discussion of the current disunity of the church.

The final word, however, must be one of hope. The Gospel is one not of crucifixion alone, but of crucifixion and resurrection. To the darkest of Saturdays, there is a bright Easter morning and the hope of greater days to come; in the greatest of schisms, there is a common Lordship of Christ and the hope of true and full unity to come. And so, to close, Bavinck provides a fitting and hopeful concluding word,

[Jesus Christ] reigns also over the divisions and schisms of his church on earth. And his prayer for unity was not born of unfamiliarity with its history nor from his inability to govern it. In and through the discord and dissension, that prayer is daily heard and is led to its complete fulfilment. … His prayer is the guarantee that it already exists in him and that in due time, accomplished by him, it will also be manifest in all believers.[28]

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[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics vol. 4.1, The Doctrine of Reconciliation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 668.

[2] In addition to the Eph. text, see the dominical prayer for church unity in Jn. 17:20–23 and Paul’s Christological appeals for church unity in 1 Cor. 1:10–13 and Phil. 2:1–5.

[3] Among many examples, see Justin Martyr, Dialogue 63.5; Ignatius of Antioch, Ephesians 5:1; Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 1.10.2; Clement of Alexandria, Paed, 1.4.10; and the whole epistle of Cyprian of Carthage entitled On the Unity of the Church.

[4] There is no room at this juncture to explore any possible theological nuances of the difference at this point between the Greek “pisteuō eis … ekklēsian” and the shorter Latin “credo ecclesiam”.

[5] The profound influence of aspects of the thought of Karl Barth in and for what follows should be evident.

[6] For two divergent accounts of the position of Barth himself regarding this question, see: George Hunsinger, “Election and the Trinity: Twenty-five Theses on the Theology of Karl Barth,” Modern Theology 24, no. 2 (2008): 179–98; and Bruce McCormack, “Election and the Trinity: Theses in response to George Hunsinger,” Scottish Journal of Theology 63, no. 2 (2010): 203–224.

[7] This would be the position of the majority of patristic, medieval, and Reformation writers, including Calvin. For an intelligent and sensitive treatment of Calvin, Barth, and McCormack on this issue, see David Gibson, “A Mirror for God and for Us: Christology and Exegesis in Calvin’s Doctrine of Election,” International Journal of Systematic Theology,11, no. 4 (2009): 448–65.

[8] In addition to the work of Bruce McCormack noted above, and the recent first volume of his proposed trilogy, The Humility of the Eternal Son: Reformed Kenoticism and the Repair of Chalcedon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), see such earlier works as Kevin Hector, “God’s Triunity and Self-Determination,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 7, no. 3 (2005), 246–61; Paul T. Nimmo, “Barth and the Christian as Ethical Agent: An Ontological Study of the Shape of Christian Ethics,” in Commanding Grace: Studies in Karl Barth’s Ethics, ed. by Daniel L. Migliore (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 216–38.

[9] For more detail on what follows, see Paul T. Nimmo, “Barth and the Election-Trinity Debate – A Pneumatological View,” in Trinity and Election in Contemporary Theology, ed. Michael T. Dempsey (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 162–81.

[10] While the phrase “the election of the Spirit” is rather unusual, if the activity of God in time is indeed willed and foreseen in eternity, then the phrase itself seems unproblematic. Moreover, in line with Barth’s view that the Son (Jesus Christ) is both the Subject and Object of election, so too the Spirit is here considered to be both the Subject and Object of election in the one activity of God. Compare with Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 2.2, The Doctrine of God (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957), 102.

[11] This is, of course, not to say that the Word and the Spirit were inactivein the creation before these events, far from it. Indeed, further theological work would be necessary precisely at this point in respect of the work of the Word and the Spirit within the narrow scope of God’s covenant with Israel and the broader scope of God’s work in creation prior to the events of the New Testament, and the relation of this work to the work of the Word and Spirit in the events within and following the New Testament. Instead, it may simply be noted that the modality of the working of Word and Spirit is decisively changed by the events of the incarnation and of Pentecost.

[12] Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol 4.2, The Doctrine of Reconciliation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1958), 35.

[13] See, for example, J. Todd Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: The Activity of Believers in Union with Christ (Oxford: OUP, 2008); Mark A. Garcia, Life in Christ: Union with Christ and Twofold Grace in Calvin’s Theology (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008); and Michael S. Horton, Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ (Louisville: WJKP, 2007).

[14] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, translated by Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 3.1.1.

[15] Mark A. Garcia, “Imputation as Attribution: Union with Christ, Reification and Justification as Declarative Word,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 11, no. 4 (2009): 415–27. The decisive influence of aspects of this article in and for what follows should be evident.

[16] Garcia, “Imputation as Attribution,” 419.

[17] Karl Barth,  Church Dogmatics, vol. 4.4, Lecture Fragments (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1981), 94. For further detail on Barth’s vision of the ec-centricity of the Christian life, see Paul T. Nimmo, Being in Action: The Theological Shape of Barth’s Ethical Vision (London: Continuum, 2007), 97–99.

[18] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4, Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 316.

[19] For more details, see Paul T. Nimmo, “Reforming simul iustus et peccator: Karl Barth and the ‘Actualisation’ of the Doctrine of Justification,” in Zeitschrift für dialektische Theologie, Supplement Series 6 (2014): 91–104.

[20] Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.1:602–3. Barth is writing of the simul iustus et peccator; following this logic, his words are applied here to the matter of the unity of the church.

[21] This claim runs against what members of non-episcopal denominations are constantly being told and retold in ecumenical circles. As Calvin notes, “Cyprian, also following Paul, derives the source of concord of the entire church from Christ’s episcopate alone,” Institutes, 4.2.6.

[22] The lack of inter-communion between churches stopped being a “scandal” long ago, and now seems unjustifiable. The very notion that a communion table would be considered to be in some way under the jurisdiction of a church as opposed to that of Christ as its Lord is theologically difficult.

[23] This may be vitally important and a crucial part of any genuine witness to the unity of the church; but to render the unity of the church dependent on this co-operation would seem to reprise in a different key the error of rendering justification dependent on works.

[24] The agreement of earthly denominations is simply no guarantee of secure witness to the eternal truth.

[25] Calvin, Institutes, 4.6.9.

[26] Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.1:679.

[27] Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.1:676.

[28] Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:317.