The Unity of the Christian Church

“I have given them the glory which you have given me, in order that they may be one just as we are one.”—John 17:22.

1. Why can Jehovah be called the great Unifier?

JEHOVAH is the great Unifier. He is the One who in a marvelous way is able to combine intelligent creatures into a unity for whatever purpose he desires. For millions of years before man ever saw the light of day, Jehovah had worked in perfect union with his first-born Son, through whom he created everything. As Jehovah’s work of creation proceeded and the number of intelligent creatures increased in the universe, it did not lead to confusion. Jehovah united them all into a harmonious, smoothly operating unity by binding them to him and to one another with bonds of love. To illustrate this happy union, he speaks of his universal organization of faithful heavenly creatures as his wife with whom he is united in happy wedlock.—Col. 1:16; 1 John 4:8, 11-13; Isa. 54:5, 6.

2. What is the strongest tie for making a unity of people, and how did Israel become the only true congregation or church of God in its days?

² When Jehovah God began building the human society, he started out with the smallest unit of it, the marriage union, which normally is one of the strongest of the unions man is part of. This is so because the binding factor in marriage is love, and that is the strongest cement any unity of creatures can have. In fact, it is the only basis on which any unity can last. Drawing larger circles, parents and children are bound together by strong ties of love into the family union, and it was the families or tribes of the twelve sons of Jacob, the patriarch, that Jehovah God bound together into a national unity. An agreement or a covenant was made between him and the Israelites to the effect that he should be not only their King but also their God; and that made Israel not only a nation but also a congregation or church of God, the only true church of that time.—Gen. 2:24; Ex. 19:5, 6, 8; 20:1, 2; Acts 7:38; Ps. 147:20.

3. Was Jehovah nationalistic in selecting Israel as his congregation?

³ Why did Jehovah select the nation of Israel to make a church or congregation out of it? Was he a nationalistic God? No, he was not. It was because of a promise given to his friend Abraham, the forefather of the Israelites, that they were permitted to make up the body of that new church. But Jehovah did not in a nationalistic spirit prevent non-Israelites from becoming members of the only true church by circumcision. All God-fearing people who wanted to join with Israel in worshiping the true God were accepted regardless of nationality and race, previous religion or political affiliations. Provisions were made for making all such circumcised foreigners a part of the unity God had with Israel by constitutionally providing a place for them within the congregational organization under which Israel was. Israel was told to love the stranger just as Jehovah loved him. Neither did God show consideration for nationality or race by forming separate unities or churches with his circumcised worshipers of non-Israelite origin. There was but one temple where God could be met, one high priest, one Law, one unity or church for all worshipers to be united in. The Bible record shows that some peoples and tribes, such as the mixed crowd that came out of Egypt, the circumcised Gibeonites and circumcised Rechabites as well as many individuals like the women Rahab and Ruth, became a unity with Israel. Thus Jehovah proved to be the first successful Uniter of nations.—Deut. 10:17-19; 1 Ki. 8:41-43; Ex. 12:38; 2 Sam. 21:1, 2; Jer. 35:18, 19.

4. How did the Christian congregation get to be God’s true church?

⁴ The Jewish church or congregation, however, did not show love for Jehovah in the long run; and consequently it was severed from its union with him, and the Christian congregation became the true church of God as of Pentecost A.D. 33.

UNITY

5, 6. How do we know that the congregation of God must be one, and who is included in the oneness?

⁵ Outstanding about the early Christian church was its unity. First of all, it was united with Jehovah God and Christ Jesus, and that is the most important of all unions. Jesus emphasized this unity in his illustration of the vine: “I am the vine, you are the branches. He that remains in union with me, and I in union with him, this one bears much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing at all. If anyone does not remain in union with me, he is cast out.”—John 15:4-6.

⁶ A union with Christ must also lead to unity among those united with him. So in his prayer immediately before he was betrayed, Jesus asks for such unity among his followers, saying: “I make request, not concerning these only, but also concerning those putting faith in me through their word, in order that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in union with me and I am in union with you, that they also may be in union with us, in order that the world may believe that you sent me forth. Also I have given them the glory which you have given me, in order that they may be one just as we are one. I in union with them and you in union with me, in order that they may be perfected into one, that the world may have the knowledge that you sent me forth and that you loved them just as you loved me.” Notice the directions this oneness takes. All his followers should be one; not only those living then, but also those putting faith in him through their, that is, his disciples’, word; whereby the oneness reaches into the future and includes all true Christians living today. At the same time it reaches into heaven to include Jesus Christ and Jehovah God, in order that his followers may be, as Jesus said, “in union with us.”—John 17:20-23.

EXTENT OF UNITY

7. What makes a union loose and weak, and what makes it close and strong?

⁷ What kind of unity was Jesus asking for in his famous prayer? How many and how strong should be the ties holding it together? Not all unions are equally strong. Some unions affect only one particular field in the lives of their members. For instance, people can belong to the same union for the protection of animals and still be as separated as East and West in matters of religion, politics and other interests. Such unions are loose ones. In contrast to them, the marriage or the family unions are close and strong unions, because they affect a whole number of interests in the lives of their members. In a normal family such things as blood ties, mutual love, the common home, its spirit or atmosphere, the family name, tradition, religion, cultural standard, trust to the extent of sharing one another’s confidence, respect and understanding are all things the members have in common; and the more things people share, the closer and stronger they are knit together.

8. What made the unity of the early Christian church so strong?

⁸ Now, back to our question. What kind of unity was Jesus talking about in John 17? Was it just a loose union, affecting merely one or two interests in the lives of his followers? No, he was asking for the strongest union there could be. “I have given them the glory which you have given me, in order that they may be one just as we are one.” We can think of no closer and stronger unity than the one existing between Jehovah God and his Son, Christ Jesus. The strength of that unity was proved by Jesus’ obedient course even till the death on the torture stake. It was into the closest family union of God, a privileged sonship, that Jesus asked his disciples to be taken, and for that purpose he had ‘given them the glory which Jehovah had given him,’ “a glory such as belongs to an only-begotten son from a father.” (John 1:14) Some of the many things they were to have in common are mentioned by Paul in Ephesians 4:3-5, where he speaks about “endeavoring to observe the oneness of the spirit in the uniting bond of peace,” and then goes on and enumerates: “One body there is, and one spirit, even as you were called in the one hope to which you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all persons, who is over all and through all and in all.” What a closely united and compact body his followers must have become considering the numerous things held in common!

9. What does Paul illustrate by referring to the human body in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and Ephesians chapter 4?

⁹ To illustrate further that closeness and compact unity, Paul compares it to the human body: “For just as the body is one thing but has many members, and all the members of that body, although being many, are one body, so also is the Christ. For truly by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink one spirit. . . . God compounded the body, giving honor more abundant to the part which had a lack, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its members should have the same care for one another.” “Speaking the truth, let us by love grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ. From him all the body, by being harmoniously joined together and being made to cooperate through every joint which gives what is needed, according to the functioning of each respective member in due measure, makes for the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” Could there be any more perfect unity than that between members of the human body? Could the body possibly be divided? Could there be more than one head to a body? What an excellent illustration to show the highest degree of unity and oneness of the many members making up the Christian congregation!—1 Cor. 12:12-25; Eph. 4:15, 16.

10. Why was the Christian church a true wonder of God’s spirit from its beginning?

¹⁰ From the very first day the Christian congregation proved capable of assimilating into its oneness not only persons from Palestine, but also from many different countries with their different languages, people from all sects of Judaism, Jews and circumcised proselytes, making the various religious and local opinions give way to Christian thinking. People of completely different social backgrounds, humble fishermen, farmers, shepherds, tax collectors, were brought into oneness with learned Pharisees and physicians, rich and poor, young and old, men, women and children, and were joined into the unity of the congregation. They were one even to the extent of temporarily sharing their material means to meet a critical situation that developed at Jerusalem during the first onrush of members and which required immediate relief action. “The multitude of those who had believed had one heart and soul, and not even one would say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.” It was a true wonder of the spirit of God. The first three and a half years of its existence, however, the members of the church remained Jews and Jewish proselytes having come out of Judaism.—Acts 2:5-11, 41; 4:32-35.

11. In what respect did a change take place in the Christian congregation A.D. 36?

¹¹ Then A.D. 36 the Christian congregation entered into a new phase of its history. In that year something happened that surprised everybody: An uncircumcised man and his family, Gentiles who had been in no covenant relation to Jehovah God before, suddenly became part of the Christian congregation with full and equal rights and obligations, as shown by the fact that these Gentiles were baptized and received the holy spirit the same as the believers from the Jewish organization. Now the famous commandment of Jesus was to be carried out: “Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations.” From being a Jewish believers’ unity or organization, the Christian congregation should open wide its gates to the rest of mankind and expand to become an international organization, facing all the problems international organizations always have had to face. By all this, true unity should be preserved in the bonds of peace and love.—Acts 10:44-48; Matt. 28:19.

OTHER INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

12. Why was the Roman Empire interested in making a unity of its subjected peoples, how did it go about it, and did it meet with success?

¹² The pagan Roman Empire of that day was building and maintaining an international organization the best it knew how. After having conquered most of the civilized world, its job was to keep the many peoples, nations and races in subjection to the Roman rule. Like any other world power, national and religious feelings were the greatest obstacles it had to contend with in uniting the great variety of people under its control. Attempts were made to level class distinctions and to replace local customs by uniform laws and administration, and to supersede national religions by a common religion so as to weld the whole empire into a solid block; but the efforts were never crowned with success. Says Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. IV, p. 293: “Rome was never able to make a solid nation of her Empire. . . . The Empire had higher aims from the first, and the sense of duty to the conquered world increased on it as time went on; but it could neither restore nor create the patriotism of a nation. The old Roman nation was lost in the world; and if the world was lost in Rome, it did not constitute a new Roman nation. Greeks or Gauls might call themselves Romans, and seem to forget their old people in the pride of the Roman civitas [‘state’]; but Greeks and Gauls they remained. . . . There were peoples in great variety; but the old nations were dead, and the one new nation was never born.”

13. Why have our day’s world rulers no reason to look down on Rome?

¹³ Our day’s world rulers have no reason to boast, because they have not achieved any better results than the Romans, in spite of the enlightenment of the twentieth century and its United Nations organization. H. G. Wells compares the accomplishments in A History of the World as follows: “The Roman people found themselves engaged almost unawares in a vast administrative experiment. . . . It was always changing, it never attained to any fixity. In a sense the [administrative] experiment failed. In a sense the experiment remains unfinished, and Europe and America today are still working out the riddles of the worldwide statecraft first confronted by the Roman people.”—Chapter 33, “The Growth of the Roman Empire,” pages 149-151. Published 1922.

14. As single blocs, has the West or the East solved the problem of making a true unity of nations?

¹⁴ As single blocs of nations, neither the Democratic West nor the Communistic East has solved the riddle of international unity. In the Western world an international military alliance such as NATO often finds co-operation frustrated because of national pride on the part of some of its members. In the East, when Yugoslavia separated from the rest of the Communistic bloc and preferred its own brand of communism, an international movement as highly idealistic as the Communist and working for years under the motto “Workers in all the world unite” had to face the fact that not all Communists were prepared to sacrifice their national pride on the altar of Communist international unity. Whereas the Communist movement has achieved amazing results in uniting people of many nations around a political program, it has failed to make an international unity out of Communists. Nationalism, races, religion, languages and many other dividing factors have been like rocks in the sea on which the ships of human international rulers have met their disaster sooner or later.

15. (a) What made the international Christian church a greater wonder than the originally Jewish Christian church? (b) How did it accomplish its results?

¹⁵ For this sea, so full of undersea rocks and shipwrecks, the Christian congregation, young and inexperienced in international affairs, was now to set sail. In branching out and opening its doors to people of all nations, in meeting with all shades of pagan religion and philosophy, national pride, language barriers, racial, political and social controversies, could it maintain its achieved absolute unity? Could it do so without having to compromise as to its teachings and standards for membership? Could it still maintain its theocratic organizational setup unchanged, with a visible governing body at Jerusalem? Would it not have to break up into national groups with some form of self-government for each group and then join them somehow? Could it remain itself? If already the national Jewish church had been a wonder, it was a small one compared to the wonder of the international church, especially as seen on the historical background. What has been an unsolvable problem to human world builders till this day proved to be no problem to Christ Jesus, the Head of the Christian church. The Christians went to work at the very root of that which divides as well as unites, namely, the human mind. They started making over the minds of humble, Godfearing persons everywhere. Quite soon such believing persons in all nations experienced a change in personality as they started imitating their Head, Christ Jesus, and the result was amazing: All separating barriers vanished as people of the nations were incorporated in the body of Christ. To the local congregation at Colossae in Asia Minor Paul wrote: “Strip off the old personality with its practices, and clothe yourselves with the new personality which through accurate knowledge is being renewed according to the image of the one who created it, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, foreigner, Scythian, slave, freeman, but Christ is all things and in all.” And to those of the church in Galatia: “You are all, in fact, sons of God through your faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor freeman, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in union with Christ Jesus.”—Col. 3:9-11; Gal. 3:26-28.

16. What is a prerequisite for one church, and did the first Christians have it?

¹⁶ The basis for one church is unity in teaching and belief, and as long as the apostles and other mature brothers filled with the spirit were present, this unity was preserved. When once there were tendencies to building of sects in the congregation at Corinth, Paul reminded them: “Does the Christ exist divided?” and they were exhorted that they should “all speak in agreement, and that there should not be divisions among you, but that you may be fitly united in the same mind and in the same line of thought.” Common faith makes a common church, no matter who and where the believers are.—1 Cor. 1:10, 13.

17. What other factor contributed to international unity?

¹⁷ Another factor supporting the Christian unity was the particular view of government held by the first Christians. They were no part of this world and its political system, which fact alone can contribute a lot to unity. Still they did not consider themselves a people without a government or ruler, but they had confidence in the Hebrew Scriptures and Jesus’ own words as to himself as the real King in a real kingdom exercising real government and with an army strong enough to destroy all other kingdoms in due time. They confessed the supernational King Jesus Christ as their Lord and dedicated their lives to God’s kingdom through him in unswerving loyalty. They were still obedient citizens of the nations they lived in, but in case of a clash between the commandments of their Lord and Master and those of man they took the stand that they must obey God rather than men; and they meant it, as Rome’s Caesars found out when they tried to interfere with the union in which Christians were bound to their God and to their King. They did not imagine that God’s kingdom is something just in the hearts of men, as many professing Christians do today. Keeping separate from the world, with the eyes firmly fixed on that heavenly kingdom and guided by the love-producing holy spirit, they were “one body” though international.—John 17:16; 18:36, 37; Dan. 2:44; Acts 5:29.

18. (a) Did the spirit guide the local congregations direct in the early church? (b) Why might one think complications could arise over decisions made by the visible governing body at Jerusalem, and did they arise?

¹⁸ Since there was just one organization, there could be only one central administrative agency for the whole organization. The apostles and the mature brothers at Jerusalem made up such a visible governing agency or body under the guidance of the spirit. It was recognized and readily co-operated with, world-wide. Problems of international significance to the church were taken to Jerusalem to be decided on. When the matter of circumcision arose, Paul did not summon to a synod the congregation overseers of Antioch and the rest of the province of Syria for the purpose of discussing and deciding on the matter, neither did he expect the spirit of God to give direct guidance to the congregations, but he went to the visible governing body at Jerusalem; and after the matter was settled there under the guidance of the spirit on that body, he was sent back to the congregations to make known the decision to them. This procedure led to no complications on the part of the non-Jews, as might have been expected under other circumstances. From a normal worldly viewpoint one would not have been surprised to hear the Greeks make objections, calling attention to their proud traditions of the past. After all, were not the world’s leading historians, poets, mathematicians and architects Greeks? Was not everything by the name of culture even in all the Roman Empire actually Greek? Or the Romans, the self-assured citizens of the world’s capital, why should they listen to despised Judeans, who, at times, were not even permitted to live at Rome? The world domination of the Semitic race, had it not passed from the Semitic to the Aryan race with the fall of Babylon? Why, then, should Aryan Romans and Greeks take orders from Semitic, Aramaic-speaking Jews in Jerusalem? Could they not think for themselves? There is nothing in the records to indicate any such worldly nationalistic or racial thinking gnawing away like termites on the roots of the Christian unity. Evidently everybody looked at it the same way as Paul did: “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for there is the same Lord over all.” Far from its causing dissension, the record says: “Now as they traveled on through the cities they would deliver to those there for observance the decrees that had been decided upon by the apostles and older men who were in Jerusalem. Therefore, indeed, the congregations continued to be made firm in the faith and to increase in number from day to day.”—Acts 15:2, 41; 16:4, 5; Rom. 10:12.

19. In which respect was the early Christian church something never seen before?

¹⁹ Indeed the church was a wonder and an outstanding exception in the history of mankind; an international organization, yet characterized by “one heart and soul,” “same mind,” and “same line of thought,” ‘one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father.’ (Acts 4:32; 1 Cor. 1:10; Eph. 4:4-6) Something never seen before. A true product of God’s spirit. Certainly, Jehovah had fulfilled Jesus’ prayer for unity of the Christian church.—John 17:20-23.

The Mark of the Spirit

“I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves.”—John 13:34, 35.

1. (a) Why is it only logical to expect Christian unity to be seen in the world today? (b) Of what use would it be to us to find that unity?

TO Jesus the unity and love among his true followers was something unique, something that would set them apart from everybody else, something that should be a special sign to the whole world to prove that he had been sent by the Father and that they had been sent by him. Because Jesus prayed for his future followers to be part of the Christian unity and promised that “Hades will not overpower” his congregation and that he is with it “all the days until the consummation of the system of things,” it is only logical to expect that particular sign should be visible to the world today, and that it can serve as one of the means of identifying his congregation or church. This so much the more as the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches and an ecumenical Protestant world conference all agree that the church of the Greek Scriptures is one visible church. Thus we will look around among church systems calling themselves Christians to see what unity we can find.—John 13:35; 17:23; Matt. 16:18; 28:20.

THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES

2. Why do none of the Protestant churches claim to be the true church?

² As is common knowledge, there is nothing in the Protestant world that can be compared with the unity of the early Christian church. Neither the Protestant churches as a whole nor any single one of them can claim to be international or universal and still a unity in faith and organization. It is so obvious, that for this and other reasons none of the Protestant churches claim to be the true ecclesia or church of the Greek Scriptures.

3. Considering the evident separation, how do Protestants explain their belief in one church?

³ With the acceptance of the Nicene Creed, the Protestant churches all confess belief in “one, holy, catholic, apostolic” church, but as in all other matters of belief, there is a vast number of theological speculations and theories about the unity of the church. Some say unity is not required at all and is even a disadvantage. From the days of the Reformation many have believed in a so-called “invisible” and “visible” church, the invisible consisting of all sincere Christians in all denominations who are dedicated to God and have been accepted by him. The body of these cannot be discerned by human eyes, wherefore it is called invisible in contrast to the ordinary number of members of the churches, the visible part, which it was found hard to identify as true followers of Christ. In America the so-called “branch theory” is common. The various churches are compared to branches of the vine in Jesus’ illustration in John, chapter fifteen, and are supposed to make a unity by being joined in Christ, the vine. Others think that the unity must not be in organization, but in spirit only; and others again believe in a kind of mystic, supernatural, already existing unity in Christ in spite of all evidences of disunity. Thus, paradoxically, in the reports from the ecumenical conferences of the World Council of Churches, repeated mention is made of the member churches’ “unity in Christ,” although no serious attempt is ever made to explain wherein this unity actually consists.

4. What did the world conference of Faith and Order in Lund declare about the church?

⁴ Inter-confessional discussions between the various parties seldom lead to a common view of matters. However, on the subject of the body of Christ, the world conference in Lund, Sweden, in 1952, of the ecumenical movement called Faith and Order has declared in its official report as the majority opinion: “The Pauline image of the Church as the Body of Christ is no mere metaphor, but expresses a living reality.” And furthermore: “We are agreed that there are not two Churches, one visible and the other invisible, but one Church, which must find visible expression on earth.”

5. What does Bishop Giertz conclude from the division of Christendom?

⁵ Realizing the need for the Christian congregation to be one, few things grieve the Protestant churches as much as the fact that they are not one. Says Swedish Bishop Bo Giertz about the division of Christendom: “It is simply a sin, and it is a sin of the most fatal kind, a sin against the very body of Christ. . . . The terrifying conclusion which we are forced to draw is that a divided church is no longer a true church. . . . As long as we are divided, the body of Christ is bleeding, and we do not know which day it will bleed to death.”

6. (a) What is the World Council of Churches? (b) What makes it impossible to recognize the early Christian church in the Protestant world?

⁶ In their plight, many Protestants have set their hope on the ecumenical or interconfessional discussions that began especially with our century and resulted in the founding of the World Council of Churches in 1948, an international organization including most Protestant churches and the Eastern Orthodox, but not the Roman Catholic Church. However, the World Council of Churches is not a church, and it does not claim to be so. It declares itself to be neither a “Super-Church” nor an “Una Sancta” or the “one, holy” church, but considers its purpose to be “to bring the churches into living contact with each other.” As for its capability to fulfill this purpose, opinions differ among theologians. Danish professor Dr. Regin Prenter says: “At any rate, one thing is certain: This world council of Christian churches represents by no means a real reunion of the separated churches. The World Council of Churches is still only a federation of mutually independent church communities. . . . It might just as well mean that the new contact which the churches within the World Council of Churches have obtained with one another will lead to a more severe mutual condemnation between certain of the church communities than before, since they simply did not know each other well enough to be able to condemn each other.” Some of the things that hinder dedicated Christians from recognizing the church of Jesus Christ and the apostles among the Protestant churches is lack of unity in teachings and organization, nationally and internationally.

THE EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCHES

7. What makes it evident that unity is lacking in the Eastern Orthodox Church?

⁷ The Eastern Orthodox churches are not one church but a number of national churches mainly in East Europe and the Balkan Peninsula, which fought for and gained their independence from the patriarchate at Istanbul. Nominally, some of them recognize the patriarch of Istanbul as head of their church, others the patriarch of Moscow, but none of the patriarchs have any say in the internal affairs of the other churches. A constant struggle is going on between the two patriarchates about jurisdiction over the churches in Finland, Poland and the Russian colony of emigrants in Paris. Since the church of God and Christ was one international church, and not a number of national churches, we can see no traces in the Eastern Orthodox Church of the unity of the first Christian church.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

8-11. What proves that the Roman church is not one body? Which crucial test of true unity can the Roman church and others not pass successfully?

⁸ Is not the Roman Catholic Church a big international church with unity in teachings and organization? Whereas it may have a uniform set of dogmas for the whole international church, the religious beliefs of Roman Catholics are not the same everywhere. The imagination of God and Christ Jesus and what they do for mankind is hardly the same to an Italian Roman Catholic as it is to a Haitian native Roman Catholic still practicing his pagan Voodoo religion on the side.

⁹ Neither is the organization unity so firm as many think. If the Roman Catholic Church is actually one body with the pope as a visible head, why do not all Catholics then obey the head? Says Roman Catholic priest and author Peter Schindler in defending the Catholic church against the charge of intolerance toward Protestants in Spain and Colombia: “Why does the pope not intervene? Who says that he does not ‘intervene’? After all, we who are sitting in Rome have a bit more of an idea of his impotence. The pope is not dictator in Spain or president in Colombia, and if the local Catholics (headed by their church leaders) ignore their own church law as they in many places ignore papal instructions (for example, the social encyclicals) then the very pope is powerless.” If the members do not obey the head, can there be one live body?

¹⁰ If the Roman church is just one body, why are the different orders, like the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Jesuits, and so forth, acting like separate bodies? Why do such orders fight each other like political parties to get the deciding influence on the pope and church policy?

¹¹ Is the church really a unity when its members, like the Catholics in Italy, are found in all political parties from the extreme right all the way across the political color spectrum to the extreme Communist left? Could they ever make up one true church body; one, as Jehovah and Christ Jesus are one? Could they internationally be one when some of them are headed by cardinals who, for nationalistic reasons, are not even on speaking terms? And in the case of war, does the Roman church, and other denominations for that matter, preserve the unity they claim to possess? Everybody knows they do not. They all give in under that crucial test of their unity as a church and prove that the ties uniting them to worldly unities are stronger than those binding them to their church unity and to their god. All this makes it impossible to see the unity of the Christian church in the Roman Catholic international church organization.

A SIGN TO THE WORLD

12. (a) What do Jehovah’s witnesses have to back up their claim of true unity? (b) With what right do they join Paul in using Romans 8:35-39?

¹² In contrast to all this discouraging division, it is heart-cheering to find one international body of Christians on earth today that is a true unity, a true international brotherhood, united in faith and organization by the bonds of love. It is a fact of which everybody is invited to convince himself, and we are not immodest in pointing to it, that Jehovah’s witnesses, though international, are “one heart and soul,” of the “same mind” and the “same line of thought,” and have ‘one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father.’ They are Christians who are bound into a unity with Jehovah God and Christ Jesus and their brothers with bonds of love so strong that nothing, including wars, can disrupt it. Their international church organization comprising witnesses in many countries is made up of the remnant of the bride class of Christ Jesus; and united with it into “one flock” under “one shepherd” is a great crowd of “other sheep.” (John 3:28-30; 10:16) The modern history of these witnesses shows that they have experience enough to join the apostle Paul in saying: “Who will separate us from the love of the Christ? Will tribulation or distress or persecution or hunger or nakedness or danger or sword? Just as it is written: ‘For your sake we are being put to death all day long, we have been counted as sheep for slaughter.’ To the contrary, in all these things we are coming off completely victorious through him that loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor governments nor things here nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other creation will be able to separate us from God’s love that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”—Rom. 8:35-39.

13. For what reflections does the unity of Jehovah’s witnesses give cause, of what is it a sign, and for whom?

¹³ The world-wide unity of Jehovah’s witnesses gives cause for various reflections. If the international brotherhood of the early church of the first century was a true wonder and admittedly a product of the holy spirit alone, and if God in his church did what others have tried to do for centuries to no avail, certainly an identical international brotherhood in the chaotic twentieth century is no less a wonder and proves no less the unique manifestation of God’s spirit or invisible active force. According to Jesus, such a unity is no incident, but a sign to the world that Jehovah loves the united ones just as he loves Jesus, and that they are his disciples: “I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves.”—John 13:34, 35; 17:23.

14. Why was it not improper for the first Christians to point to their church as the only true one?

¹⁴ The first Christians were convinced they belonged to the only true church, the “congregation of God.” It would have been sinning against the holy spirit to doubt it. A sign of the mark of the spirit was on them, and a sign is of no value if it is not seen. Was it then improper for the first Christians to point to their church as the only one having that sign? In relation to the Jewish church of Judaism, was it out of harmony with true humility for Christians to call attention to this mark of the spirit even though thereby revealing the glaring absence of God’s spirit on the divided house of Israel? On the contrary, they were under obligation not to put their light under a basket, but to let it “shine before mankind, that they may see your right works and give glory to your Father who is in the heavens.”—Matt. 5:14-16.

15. Is it a lack of Christian virtue for Jehovah’s witnesses to point to the New World society, of which the anointed Christian congregation is a part, as the only one that truly is of God?

¹⁵ So obviously bearing the mark of the spirit, the world-wide loving unity of Jehovah’s witnesses is one of the reasons why those witnesses who are anointed members of the body of Christ are convinced they belong to the only true church, and since those of the “other sheep” are associated with these anointed ones in the united New World society, they are convinced that this indeed is God’s organization, where true worship is carried on. Would it not be sinning against the spirit to doubt it? Is it immodest for them to call the world’s attention to the fact that this organization is singular in showing the mark of the spirit? On the contrary, to the benefit of all honest-hearted people longing for the visible congregation of God’s united people, and to the glory of God and Christ Jesus, they must not put their light under a basket even at the cost of being considered self-righteous.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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