From cause to effect


Paul the apostle remains, despite his detractors,  a beloved teacher to much of Christendom, who bequeaths us some astonishing and useful insights.

Here is an excerpt from Galatians chapter five:


16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Discord, ambition, dissentions and factions are a big part of what I must look into when I take on the topic of church unity. Lately sexual immorality comes into it too. The Spirit is in conflict against these things, but they are widespread in the disunited Christendom of the present day.

Let us look at this in terms of cause and effect. We see in our churches, and between churches, dissension and factions and discord. In light of the scripture quoted above, what are we to think is the cause? So then, we must conclude that those who give such things a holy motive, calling them obedience to God or the practice of true holiness, must be pulling the wool over our eyes.

I recently used a quote from J.I. Packer, and it has been simmering in the soup pot of my thinking since. He said, "Full unity with merely partial believers is not possible." (I once again encourage you to read his remarks in their full context.) If he is right about that, and I think that he is, we need to account for it in our quest for unity. There is no use in trying to reach full accord among those who differ in the things that motivate them. What the Spirit and the flesh desire are contrary; where is the meeting ground?

If our factions and dissensions and so on are spiritual disobedience, then the cure for them is not to be found in theological arguments that no one can win. No one has won them in centuries of trying because they proceed from a wrong premise. We cannot reason our way out of a problem that we sinned ourselves into in the first place.

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