Ephesians 4:1-6: A Call of Christian Unity, Part 1
"The BioLogos Forum" is pleased to feature essays from various guest voices in the science-and-religion dialogue. Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.
Today's entry was written by Ross Hastings. Ross Hastings is an associate professor of Pastoral Theology at Regent College, Vancouver British Columbia. Hastings teaches in the areas of the theology and spirituality of mission, pastoral theology and ethics. He has served as a pastor in Kingston, ON, Burnaby, BC, and Montreal, QC, and for eleven years as the senior pastor of Peace Portal Alliance Church in White Rock, BC. He has earned two PhDs, one in organo-metallic chemistry at Queen’s University (ON), and the other in theology at St. Andrew’s University, in his native Scotland. His theological dissertation is a comparative study of the Trinitarian theology of Jonathan Edwards and Karl Barth and is in the publication process.
Photo courtesy of Jeremy Vandel.
This series is based on Hastings’s essay, which is the first part of a plenary address delivered at the Vibrant Dance of Science and Faith Symposium in Austin, TX., October 26, 2010. The second part will follow in a subsequent essay and blog posts.
The overall intent of these two essays is to provide a biblical and theological basis for healthy and fruitful dialogue on the theology and science of origins for pilgrims destined for the same heaven-on-earth celestial city.
In today’s blog entry, Hastings points out that unity among believers, especially in discussing potentially divisive issues like origins, is a foundational theological truth. Union among believers is to reflect the union between the Father and the Son into which Christians are invited to participate by virtue of their union with Christ (John 17:20-23).
On that basis, as a community we can vigorously and honestly pursue truth as a process of “faith seeking understanding” (Anselm, Augustine). We all know only partially and imperfectly. Union among Christians aids in the seeking of truth and honors Christ who wishes that his followers be one as he and the Father are one.
Evolution is a difficult topic, and divisions and strong feelings of distrust and even animosity are too common an occurrence among Christian sisters and brothers. Hastings’s thoughts on this matter are a timely reminder that truth is to be sought. We are all pilgrims in this life seeking to understand some very difficult and challenging issues. That pilgrimage, that journey, is more enjoyable for us and more pleasing to God when we do so with as comrades in Christ, not enemies on wrongs sides of culture wars.
Introduction by Peter Enns
Christians are One as Jesus and the Father are One
Let us begin with some profound words about truth seeking written by Thomas Merton:
We make ourselves real by telling the truth. … To destroy truth with truth under the pretext of being sincere is a very insincere way of telling a lie … A man of sincerity is less interested in defending the truth than in stating it clearly, for he thinks that if the truth can be clearly seen it can very well take care of itself. Fear is perhaps the greatest enemy of candor.1
My own interest in theology and science arises out of a curiosity to know the truth that takes care of itself in every realm of reality, and that sets us free. It is motivated by the presupposition that all truth is God’s and that all truth concerning the creation of the universe and its reconciliation is centered in the God-Man Jesus who said, “I am the truth” (John 14:6).
My interest in science and faith and their integration comes also out of two vocations in which disbelief that this is possible has often been expressed by people I have met, some who are people of faith, and many who are not. I have found, over the years of playing the occasional golf game with people I don’t know, that when, during the round, my vocation as a pastor comes out, they are often terribly embarrassed about the expletives they have been uttering in the round up to that point. When I tell them that I played a lot of rugby and am used to this kind of language, and it’s between them and God anyway, they are not always put at ease.
When I tell them that I have a PhD in chemistry, they are utterly bewildered, and usually say, “How do you put those two things together?” Their reactions epitomize the Enlightenment dichotomization of fact (the realm of science) and faith (the realm of religion), and have energized me towards this science-faith dialogue, and in recent years, back to the question of origins.
The dictum of Augustine and Anslem that the pursuit of truth is always a “faith seeking understanding” prospect has for me been the basis on which I have sought to debunk the scientism of the secularist on the one hand, and on the other hand, to encourage Christians to become aware of science and to embolden fledgling young scientists to pursue truth fearlessly in careers in science.
My interest in Christian unity in the dialogue on origins comes out of having served churches in which all shades of opinion were present and how I, with fellow leaders, have sought to manage this. I want therefore to bring my reflections on the foundations of unity and forward motion towards unity in the context of an exposition of Ephesians 4. I write as a pastor or pastoral theologian and so I shall seek to do so in the manner in which a pastor should, through exposition of the Word of God.
Before looking at this passage however, I want to charge it with the elements of the prayer of Jesus on unity, John 17:20-23. I suspect that Paul may have been conscious of this prayer as he wrote this section of his epistle.
20 My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
As we eavesdrop here on the inner communion of the Trinity, we get to hear what’s on the heart of the Son as he pours it out to his Father. And what we hear is his deepest desire for the church—its unity.
Jesus defines it as a unity grounded in two unions—that between the Father and the Son (Trinitarian union) and that between believers who are in the Father and the Son (participatory union). The former is brought about by the incarnation or hypostatic union of God with humanity, and the latter in the indwelling of the Spirit, which brings about the regeneration and incorporation of saints into Christ as His church.
There can be no more profound aspect of the gospel than this, one which does not negate the forensic aspect of the gospel, but which precedes it in God’s intention for humanity, and surpasses it. These words about our organic unity in the triune God need to pervade our deliberations.
With this in mind, my next post will look closely at Ephesians 4:1-6 and what that passage has to say to us about Christian unity.
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January 31st 2011
Amen brother Ross!
Reply to this commentJanuary 31st 2011
Ross and BioLogos,
While I appreciate your concern about unity within Christ and all knowledge, I fear that TEs have undermined this unity and are leading others to do so. I also wonder whether you a preaching a docetic Christ and Trinity, One divorced from the physical world of science and history?
Please see http://mannsword.blogspot.com/2011/01/darwin-and-biblical-compromise.html which, details some of my concerns.
Reply to this commentJanuary 31st 2011
Daniel,
Thank you for your comments and your blog. I agree that Darwinism is wrong, but that does not mean that evolution is wrong. You seem to equate the two. Please correct me if I am wrong.
The comment that nedbrek made on your blog concerning history is important. The Bible is history, the story of God’s Salvation history starting with the Creation to the Fall to God’s covenenant with God’s people beginning with Abraham all the way to the first Coming of Jesus Christ and the New Covenant and the final End of Time when Jesus will come again.
Now the fact that we have God’s history of Salvation does not preclude our having books and books of “secular” history which are also valid. God’s history of Salvation does not preclude having also a secular description of Creation found in many other books.
Now I agree Darwin’s description of creation does not agree in many ways with the Christian view of reality. However what we do need to do in this kind of disagreement is to do our research to show that the scientific reality is compatible with the Spiritual reality. Creationism has not done this.
Reply to this commentJanuary 31st 2011
Part 2
To insist on only one level of reality and meaning is false. Jesus came to save people from sin and spiritual death, not from Roman pagan rule. Yet He also healed the sick, fed the hungry, and raised the dead. The spiritual and physical are both important, but not the same. Jesus also came so that we might know the Truth about reality. We must be able to figure out these problems and issues knowing that life is not simple or easy.
We cannot save the Bible by applying it in a way it was never intended to be used. That is what people on both sides have done. Sin is real. Evil is real. When and how it came about, no one can say for sure, only by faith. Since the Biblical record in Gensis does an excellent job of describing how sin and evil came into existence, we can reasonably accept it without saying we really can’t explain it. Certainly we need to continually seek to understand it better. That is part of our calling to rightly understand the words of God.
Reply to this commentFebruary 4th 2011
Daniel Mann, it’s the histrionic Creationists like Ken Ham and his ilk who are an impediment to unity. They misrepresent or tell outright falsehoods about science, slandering the work of honest scientists and honest Christians looking for truth. They declare that their interpretation of Genesis is the only acceptable one for Christianity and disingenuously link areas of biology, genetics, geology and palaeontology they disagree with to moral decay, sin, and worse.
As far as I can tell, Biologos are doing none of these things. They are reaching out in kindness, offering the good news that science and faith are not incompatible, and that there are perfectly valid (indeed, preferable) interpretations of the Bible that do not require one to denounce science. Furthermore, they do not condemn those who believe otherwise, but rather encourage them to look at the facts honestly and find revelation in God’s creation.
It is tiring, as a regular reader, to see the same disingenuous anti-science arguments over and over. Is there any other reason to try to tie heresies like docetism to evolutionary science? Is that the best tactic you have left?
Reply to this commentFebruary 4th 2011
Nicely said Ross.
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