Should Christians pursue unity or purity in these divisive days of disagreement?
Gospel Christians have always faced the two dangers of blurring and splintering.
We must confess the gospel and disciple our neighbors and the nations while pursuing both "correct division over corrupt unity" (Mark Dever) AND "gospel unity over tribalistic division" (me) in order to protect against both blurring and splintering, respectively.
For Christians this means we must work WITHIN and AMONG gospel churches and Christians to pursue what I'll call "ecclesial-commissional faithfulness for the gospel and its implications OVER ecclesial-commissional sloppiness assuming the gospel or its implications."
May God grant us Christians wisdom to effectively pursue unity, purity, and faithfulness in this moment of great Satanic confusion.
[Note: I'm using "gospel" as defined here, for example]
We believe . . . THE GOSPEL. That the gospel is the good news that the triune God has poured out his grace in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that through his work we might have peace with God (Rom. 5:1). Jesus lived in perfect obedience yet suffered everything sinners deserved so that sinners would not have to pursue a righteousness of their own, relying on their own works, but rather through trust in him as the fulfillment of God’s promises could be justified by faith alone (sola fide) in order to become fellow heirs with him. Christ died in the place of sinners, absorbing the wages of sin (Rom. 6:23), so that those who entrust themselves to him also die with him to the power, penalty, and (eventually) practice of sin. Christ was raised the firstborn of a renewed and restored creation, so that those whom the Spirit unites to him in faith are raised up and created a new humanity in him (Eph. 2:15). Renewed in God’s image, they are thereby enabled to live out his life in them. One with Christ and made alive in him who is the only ground of salvation, sinners are reconciled with God – justified, adopted, sanctified, and eventually glorified children of the promise.
What do you think about how Christians can faithfully engage one another in the midst of this day of confusion and tense disagreement?
Leave a comment below.