John 17:20–23 (ESV)
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
John 17:20–23 (NA27)
20 Οὐ περὶ τούτων δὲ ἐρωτῶ μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ περὶ τῶν πιστευόντων διὰ τοῦ λόγου αὐτῶν εἰς ἐμέ,
21 ἵνα πάντες ἓν ὦσιν,
καθὼς σύ, πάτερ, ἐν ἐμοὶ κἀγὼ ἐν σοί,
ἵνα καὶ αὐτοὶ ἐν ἡμῖν ὦσιν,
ἵνα ὁ κόσμος πιστεύῃ ὅτι σύ με ἀπέστειλας.
22 κἀγὼ τὴν δόξαν ἣν δέδωκάς μοι δέδωκα αὐτοῖς, ἵνα ὦσιν ἓν καθὼς ἡμεῖς ἕν· 23 ἐγὼ ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ σὺ ἐν ἐμοί,
ἵνα ὦσιν τετελειωμένοι εἰς ἕν,
ἵνα γινώσκῃ ὁ κόσμος ὅτι σύ με ἀπέστειλας καὶ ἠγάπησας αὐτοὺς καθὼς ἐμὲ ἠγάπησας.
Introduction
Why are there so many denominations of Christianity? Besides the major divisions, of protestant, catholic, and orthodox, there are within these groups many denominations. Some denominations are merely differences in culture and language.
Christian unity became a major concern among Bible-believing Christians. The Christian Churches and churches of Christ arose from a desire to end the feuding between people who claim to love Jesus and who follow the Bible.
Why are we who we are? There are distinctive features of a nondenominational (or undenominational, or post-denominational) church. There are reasons that we are not Baptists, catholics, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Lutherans, etc., although we share some things in common.
Our church “movement” began with the idea that Christians, while disagreeing on many issues, should be able to agree on one thing : the Bible. This movement was called the Restoration Movement, because it sought to restore the church to the Christianity found in the pages of the New Testament. So, rather than resorting to human traditions, the churches of this fellowship sought to find all guidance, all rule for faith and practise from the pages of the New Testament.
Mottos of this movement became,
“Where the Bible speaks, we speak, where the Bible is silent, we are silent.” This means that our authority comes only from Scripture. If the Bible teaches a doctrine, it is ours to obey. If a matter arises that the Bible does not address, we must not create a rule of faith.
A second motto is, “In matters of essentials, unity, in matters of opinion, liberty, in all things love.” This means that we must find unity on the essentials, and the Bible tells us what those essentials are.
A third saying is, “We are Christians only, but not the only Christians.” As we seek Christian unity, we wear no other badge or name than that found in the Bible: Christian, Disciple, Brethren. The names we use are Bible names. We don’t hyphenate the name of Christ. No other name is a barrier to fellowship. We do not ask anyone seeking to be a Christian to be anything else.
But Scripture is more important than mottos. Beginning today with unity, we will look at the New Testament church, and how we try to be that church.
In the next few weeks, we will look at:
The name of the church
How the Bible is our final authority.
How we become Christians
Why we celebrate communion each Lord’s Day
Why we baptise, and why it is by immersion
Why we are a free church
Scriptural Church leadership
How we can cooperate with other Christians
The appeal of the simplicity of New Testament Christianity
We get asked, “What kind of church is this?” over the next few weeks, we will be looking at key scriptures that set our position clearly.
Our first text is John 17:20-23, part of Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus is at the end of His earthly ministry. He dies tomorrow. John 17 is a prayer divided into three basic parts: for Himself, Romans 10:17 (ESV)
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. John 17:20–23 (ESV)
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
I. First off, note the value Jesus places on the unity of believers. Vss 21 & 23 both stress that Jesus’ prayer, His last recorded prayer in John, is for Christians to be one. Today, let’s call this “the forgotten prayer of Jesus.” It is forgotten, because believers everywhere behave as though Jesus never uttered the words. This is what Jesus wants for His church—do we think that He has somehow changed His mind on the matter? Do we think that all of Scripture is somehow not pointing us in this direction? Unity is what Jesus wanted for His disciples. Of all the things He might have prayed for, He prayed for the unity of His followers.
a. Verse 20: “those who will believe in me through their word.” This should settle once and for all the source of faith—Romans 10:17 (ESV)
i. 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
b. At the base of this prayer, is the fact that the followers of Jesus will come to follow Him through their words—the Scriptures.
II. Second, note that Jesus prays for “that they may all be one”. Think, for a moment, how important unity is to the Lord if this is His final request for us before He is arrested.
a. There is a very deep quality of this unity: the same kind of unity that the Father and the Son shares, that is, a perfect, faultless, unity. This unity is not only with one another, but it is also with the Father and Son, that is, in a true sense, we are united with God.
b. Consider the process, or progress of unity:
that they may all be one,
just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you,
that they also may be in us,
i. Our oneness, or unity, is a condition of unity with God. Now we know that as Christians we have fellowship with God. But what this means is that the quality of our fellowship with God is dependent upon our fellowship with one another. This idea is echoed in 1 John 4:20: If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
ii. This means, that we cannot be Christians alone. We must be Christians in fellowship; he prays for our unity, “that they also may be in us.”
iii. We are only Christians in the church, in fellowship with other Christians.
c. The purpose of our unity, and our fellowship with God, is “so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” If our Christian experience follows the prayer of Christ, we are one, and if that oneness is of the same kind as of the Father and the Son, we may be “in God.” This being true, makes it possible for the world to believe. But it is not a belief “in general,” but a specific belief—belief that the Father sent the Son. This is an important idea in John’s Gospel—that the Father sent the son: John 5:37–40 (ESV)
37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, 38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
That Jesus is sent by God is denied by the world. When Christians are one, and are therefore “in” the Father and Son, this leads the world to believe that Jesus is the one sent by God. Is it not possible, that while so many claim to believe in God, or a god of some sort, that they do not believe that the One sent by God the Father is Jesus, because the oneness of the believers is absent? The failure of Christians to live in unity belies the unity that is present between the Father and the Son, and certainly denies that Christians are “in” God. To be a Christian is not to believe in God. It is to believe that the Father sent the Son. Jesus’ contemporaries did not believe He was sent of God; during the crucifixion, they “knew” that God had cursed Him!
d. Verses 22 & 23 tell us (John 17:22–23) 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
i. God glorified Jesus. Jesus has given that glory to us. We have it! What is that glory? What is its purpose? Again, it is that we might be one. We are equipped to be one. The glory given us is explained in verse 23: “I in them and you in me” that is, Christ is in us, as the Father is in Christ.
ii. So, we are in Christ, and Christ is in us.
iii. Again, the purpose, that they may be perfectly one.
1. Note the quality of unity: “perfectly one.”
iv. And he repeats the purpose of our unity: John 17:23 so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
III. To recap: John 17:20–23 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
a. We believe through the Word of God.
b. Jesus prays twice for our unity
i. Our unity is to be as the Father and Son.
ii. Our unity means that we cannot live as separate Christians.
c. The purpose of our unity:
i. “that the world may believe
ii. “that the world may know
IV. Finally, note that the beneficiary of our unity, besides ourselves, is the world. But the world is that which represents everything that is against Jesus’ mission. John 1:9–11 states, 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
a. You will remember that in John, the world stands for everything set against the mission of Jesus. Our unity is a slap in the face of Satan’s world, and opens the door for the salvation of the world. Satan is the king of chaos and disorder; this God-given unity is God’s action in Christ.
V. To conclude—how do we express unity? How does this show in this church, and in the church abroad? Keep in mind, that it was the desire of our churches to unite upon the things we can know for certain—the Bible. This doesn’t mean that everything is easy to understand, or simplistic, but the decision to unite upon Scripture can be made.
a. Many churches choose to unite organisationally, but forget Scripture. We believe through the Word of God. We must unite upon it.
b. We must express unity by living the Christian life. Have you ever noticed that oneness is not one of the fruits of the Spirit? Look at these: Galatians 5:22–23 (ESV) 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control . . . “oneness” or “unity” is not one of these, because it is foundational to these!
c. We must seek Jesus’ work in our lives, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to effect this unity, this oneness. We must let the fruit of the Spirit grow in our lives. We must learn humility, and in humility to count others better than ourselves.
d. We must see unity as a question of what is essential, not opinions. This is how we began as a church movement (and all denominations are church movements), and why we exist today.
