Presbyterion
n any debate, it is impossible for more than one position to be correct. Paul made this plain to the Ephesians when he wrote:
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all . . . (Ephesians 4:45).
Interestingly, Paul touches on the very issues over which Christians are most sharply divided. Premillennialists and postmillennialists disagree over hope, Reformed Christians and Arminians disagree over faith, and paedobaptists and antipaedobaptists disagree over baptism. Behind all this debate Paul assures us that there is only one hope, one faith, and one baptism.
God demands unity of mind in His Church (Rom. 12:16; 1 Cor. 1:10; 2 Cor. 13:11). Many have applied these scriptural injunctions as though unity is achieved through tolerance of every idea which calls itself Christian. The Church of England adopted this approach in the seventeenth century, and many churches are following in her footsteps today. In England, the policy of not insisting on strict adherence to orthodoxy was called latitudinarianism. In 1697, Anglican Bishop Jeremy Collier wrote, "When you have made the most of it, I foresee this Latitudinarian Love will be expensive." Collier was correct; the high price that the Church of England paid was forfeiture of truth.
Latitudinarian unity is not true unity. Tolerating divergent opinions in the church actually perpetuates the problem it tries to solve. Instead of bringing unity, it allows division to fester. Peter's warning against destructive heresies calls for astute discernment of truth and falsehood in order that the integrity of the church might be maintained (2 Pet. 2:1ff). The divine call for unity of mind requires that false doctrine be exposed and purged from the church. This is accomplished through diligent study and application of the Word of God and nothing more (cf. 1 Cor. 4:6).
The difficulty we presently face is the obvious fact that countless differences flourish in the Christian church. Why so many opinions? How do we deal with them?
In Deuteronomy 13:3, we learn that false prophets were introduced into Israel by God as a test. Such testing is important to the spiritual health of God's people because it produces purity. Stagnant water is not apt to stay pure, and testing introduces a good stir. Heresy has been of great benefit to the church in that it has caused the truth to be thoroughly explored and painstakingly presented. Henry Melvill observes:
It is astonishing how apt men are to rest in general and illdefined notions, so that, when interrogated and probed on an article of faith, they show themselves unable to give account of their belief. When a new error is propounded, you will find that candid men will confess that, on examining their own views on the disputed point, they have found them in many respects vague and incoherent. Until driven to the work of expounding and defining, they have never suspected their ignorance upon matters with which they professed themselves altogether familiar.
Moses' claim that God tests His people so that they will not sin (Ex. 20:20) has been confirmed time and again throughout church history. The Bible's teaching on the Trinity was thoroughly searched out in reaction to Gnostic and Arian heresies. The precious doctrine of justification by faith alone was most clearly vindicated in answer to Pelagian worksrighteousness and Roman sacramentalism. So in the sense in which heresy is discussed above, it is used by God as a blessing for the church. It serves as a winnowing fork that separates wheat from chaff. Paul reminds us of this:
For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you (1 Cor. 11:19).
But heresy clearly has its evils. It divides the church and it leads people astray; it is sin from beginning to end. Heresy is the fruit of unfaithfulness, God's judgment on a backsliding church. Consider the sobering words spoken to the prophet Amos:
"Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord God, "that I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but shall not find it" (vv. 8:1112).
Disunity of mind is evidence of sin in the church. As with the sin of Achan, this sin cripples the entire camp. We must remember that God assigns duties, not only to individuals, but also to corporate bodies of people, whether they be families, nations, or churches. Consequently, real disagreements in the church must be confessed as corporate sin, whether or not one is on the right side of the disagreement. We should pattern our prayers after Daniel and Ezra who identified themselves before God as part of a people in rebellion against Him. The sin of disunity plagues the church in the twentieth century; this sin must be confessed, and as the people of God, we must turn from it. We must acknowledge before God that truth comes to us only from Him, and ask that He would grant that His Word be made plain and clear to us all. This we can pray with assurance and thanksgiving, knowing that the sovereign God uses heresy and disunity for His good purpose in the Church.
We can be assured that, by the Spirit of truth, He will faithfully lead His church into all truth.
