True Unity of the Body of Christ

By Arthur J Licursi

 

Consider a gathering of Bible-believing Christians joined together perhaps in an evangelistic endeavor like a stadium crusade. As real believers, all are trusting in the shed blood of Christ for their salvation, though some cal themselves Baptists, some Presbyterians, some Episcopalians, some Methodist, some Congregationalist, and some represent other denominations.

Are all these believers one? Yes, in Christ, for “there is one body” (Eph. 4:4).

What united them? It is the “one baptism” (Eph. 4:5), which is NOT a water baptism, but a baptism by the One Holy Spirit that unites all believers to Christ and to each other in “His body.”

“For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles…” (I Cor. 12:13).

The baptizer here is not Jesus but rather the “Spirit,” and the medium into which believers are all baptized is not water, but rather “the body of Christ.” At the very moment of their salvation, every believer is a partaker of His eternal salvation and…His indwelling resurrection life (1John 5:11-12).

Yet sadly, these same believers, all trusting in the finished work of Christ for salvation, remain divided by their doctrine. They let their petty secondary doctrines divide them. They may have fellowship in their evangelistic endeavor, but at its conclusion they go back to their mutually exclusive church organizations of man. I say exclusive because you may be excluded from their church organization if you do not agree and adhere to their doctrines, rituals and rites.

What is the root cause for this division?

Basically, it is because they have confused the elements of “the gospel of the kingdom” that Jesus proclaimed on earth with His twelve apostles for Israel only (Matt 15:24, 10:5-6), with that of Paul’s…“the gospel of the grace of God” for “the body of Christ” today.

“The gospel of the grace of God” was proclaimed not by Jesus of Nazareth or the twelve. Rather “the gospel of the grace of God” came by the ascended, glorified Lord Jesus Christ who spoke through His specially selected and saved Apostle, Paul. Paul was sent by the Lord to the mainly Gentile “body of Christ” (cf. Rom 11:13, Acts 20:24; Eph. 3:1-3).

Paul was sent to the mainly Gentile members of “the church, which is His body” (Eph 1:22b-23a), with the “the gospel of the grace of God,” whereby all believers are “not under the Law, but under grace” (Rom 6:14). Paul says we today as believers, are free of all ceremonial rites such as “holy days, sabbath days, new moons, special dietary laws” (Col 2:16), and we might add water baptism to the list. All these are externalities that have been replaced with the reality of the indwelling “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” thus freeing believers from “the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2).

Most of the sects of the church at large today still strive over water baptismal modes and meanings, most of them still require their particular forms of baptism for entrance into their churches. At the same they explain that this ceremonial rite has no saving value and that it is not required by God for entrance into the true Church. Yet they persist in divisions over water baptism while ignoring the truth of the one vital invisible baptism… “by one Spirit into the one body of Christ” (1Cor 12:13).

Why should the Church of Christ remain divided and weak, when God says:

“WE BEING MANY ARE ONE BODY IN CHRIST, AND EVERY ONE MEMBERS ONE OF ANOTHER” ( Rom. 12:5).