One theme is of paramount interest to-day. We have heard much about it, but we are always eager to hear more. It is the thing for which we have stood as a people for a hundred years--Christian unity.

      My text is the fourth chapter of Ephesians and the thirteenth verse, "Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."

      It is well to read these words quietly and allow their spirit to take possession of our minds and hearts. The conception which Paul here gives of Christian unity scatters many mists and obscurities which have hovered about this subject. We do not any more have to show the necessity for Christian unity. Eloquent tongues in other religious bodies are to-day pleading for it.

      Notice two things: first, Paul's conception of Christian unity; second, the means whereby it is to be brought about.

      First, then, as to the conception. Strip the verse of the qualifying clauses and the heart of it is this, "Till we all attain unto the fullgrown man;" and by the fullgrown man is meant the finished, the complete, the perfect man. The word means "unto the limit," and the idea is that each individual is to be developed in the line of manhood unto the utmost. Notice that one end of my text is plural while the other is singular. It is not "Till we all attain unto fullgrown men." but "Till we all attain unto the fullgrown man." It takes all to make one. The apostle's conception involves something more than one man, more than one religious body. It involves a community consisting of all Christians of whatever name. The idea, then, is this, that each individual Christian is to be developed unto the limit of development, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And then all these Christians are to be merged into a spiritual harmony, the "full-grown man" of Paul, of which fullgrown men are the elements, the miniatures.

      The individual can not be the perfect man; even when he is developed to the utmost he is still imperfect, he is still a branch and not a tree, he is an organ and not an organism. But this magnificent conception of Paul includes the whole company of believers so developed, and no one of these can reach his utmost point of development in spiritual things until we have the full rounded unity of man drawing his life from the central whole.

      This unity is not the unity of an army, drawn together and disciplined. It is not the unity of a building made

J. M. PHILPUTT.

up out of various materials. It is not even the unity of a watch, which is a mechanical unity. No part of the watch has any significance except in connection with the whole. But this unity is more like the unity of a tree. There is life in every branch, but there is a larger life in the tree. It is like the unity of the body. There is life in every limb, but there is a larger life in the whole body. Paul's conception of Christian unity is this full rounded organism made up of all believers. "Till we all attain unto the fullgrown man."

      Note the means whereby this unity is to be obtained. It is important that there be clear thinking here. Sometimes we have proceeded by wrong methods and made no progress toward the goal. Indeed, when we proceed by wrong methods we actually retard progress. The first element here is unity of the faith. What do we mean [513] by faith? We must distinguish between faith and belief. Belief is simply saying "Yes" to a statement. I say to you that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. I present the evidence. You say, "Yes, that is clear, I accept it." Now, that is belief. It is the acceptance of evidence by reason. It moves in the sphere of the intellect. But faith is something more than mere intellectual assent. It reaches down deeper and takes hold of the heart and the life. Faith moves in the sphere of the will. It is the active, executive principle of life, carrying the whole being out in the direction of its goal. Moreover faith always has a personal element in it. You may believe a doctrine, but faith is a matter between your soul and God. You may have many beliefs, and only a little faith; or your creed may be a short one, and yet your faith be strong. Faith is the rising of the soul into its strength. It is that element which lays hold upon Christ and brings him into the heart. The faith which makes Christ not a far-off fact, but a present force. Two things make up the religious life of a people--faith and practices. Notice how these two are related. Practices grow out of faith. They are related as cause and effect. But Paul says the unity is to be in the faith. We are to begin there, and work from within outwards, and not from without inward. When we can produce this unity of faith, it will make for itself such conformity of practice as is necessary and desirable.

      The second element is "the knowledge of the Son of God." This knowledge is not mere head knowledge. There are three Greek words in the New Testament for knowledge: "Oida" which means to know a thing as a fact. Columbus discovered America. Jesus lived in Galilee. Knowledge of a fact is "oida." "Gnosis," which is the knowledge that comes from study, from reasoning, from investigation. You may take two facts and put them together and from them draw a third which is more important than either. This is the knowledge of "gnosis." But there is a deeper word yet, "epignosis." This is the knowledge that comes from personal experience, the knowledge of fellowship, heart-to-heart intercourse. Knowledge which the mother has of her child, the husband of the wife, bosom friends of each other. You do not always have to be on guard, you understand each other without explanation, you only have to be together, you do not even have to say anything. It is sweet to know that the other is near. There is filling of the soul which comes from the blessed companion who is with you. This is the knowledge of "epignosis."

      Now, apply these words to Christ. You say, "We know the Christ after the flesh. He was born in Bethlehem, he was brought up at Nazareth, he appeared in Galilee, he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. We know the story." That is "oida." But you are not content to stop there. You take up his messages, you familiarize yourself with his teachings, you follow these great principles down through history and see them transforming the world. You come to admire these lofty principles, to have some sympathy with, perhaps participation in, the great work which he is doing. This brings you to the knowledge of "gnosis." But you have not yet reached the heart, you are still on the outside of the Christ. You are holding your life aloof, you have not yet surrendered to him so that he controls as King of kings and Lord of lords. But there comes a happy moment, a crisis in your spiritual experience, when you make this complete surrender. You enter into the joy of this blessed fellowship, recognizing the Christ as your personal Saviour. You say, "It is he that has wrought this great transformation. I know the joy of speaking with him, of walking together, my Lord and I." Your heart burns within you as you hold sweet converse with him, and he is the great goal of all your ambitions, purposes and desires. Thereby comes this knowledge of "epignosis." the knowledge of personal experience which can be had only by the surrender of the soul to Christ. Now, this is the word which Paul uses in the text, and this is the knowledge, which is an essential element of unity. There can never be unity in opinions, in conception of the Christ. We can not all think of him alike. It is not necessary that we should. It is not desirable. Paul did not think of him as John, nor [514] John as Peter. Each had his own conception of the Christ, while all rejoiced in the same Christ as Lord and Saviour. The same sun shines upon all the flowers, but all are not the same color. If we should attempt to enforce a conformity of opinions, we are working at an impossible, yea, an unworthy, task. We shall not all think alike of the Christ up yonder. Paul still has something to say to John and John something to Paul. Calvin has something to say to Campbell and Campbell something to Calvin. Professor McGarvey has something to say to Professor Willett and Professor Willett something to McGarvey. These variations in conception are necessary. But underneath is that unity which binds all together, that knowledge which each has of Christ as a personal Saviour.

      I have set two things before you: first, the conception of Christian unity; each individual Christian is to be developed to the utmost, and all are to be merged into one spiritual harmony in the Christ. And the second thing is the means--the faith which brings Christ into the heart and makes him not a historic figure, but a present force; and that knowledge of experience which recognizes him as the source of spiritual life and power, and surrenders in loving obedience.

      I have said nothing about the various denominations. They do not enter into this figure of Paul's. They are no part of his great conception. We are going to hear less and less of the various denominations of Christendom. They come from too little faith and too little knowledge, and as faith and knowledge increase, these divisions of Christendom are going to fade out of sight. I grant you that the line-up is now denominational. We think in terms of different religious bodies; but the time is rapidly coming when the line-up in Christendom will not be along the present denominational lines. It is going to be vaster and determined by greater issues, compelled by the growing problems of the world. Already we begin to see the evidences of this approaching line-up in the Students' Missionary Movement, in the Ecumenical Missionary Conference, in Church Federation, in the score and more of great world movements which rise above denominational lines and give us a foretaste of Paul's great conception when all believers have become one.

      The foundation for this unity is not any creed, not any compromise which churches may form. Not even the Bible itself. It rests upon Christ. "Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid." "We are complete in him." It is necessary that there be, not only clear thinking at this point, but correct speech. It is a common saying that the basis of our plea for unity is the Scriptures. We are familiar with Mr. Campbell's utterance, "Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent." Have you thought that when that utterance was made it meant something different to Mr. Campbell and to the religious world from what it means to-day? It meant to Mr. Campbell the putting of the Scriptures over against creeds, and in that sense, of course, we stand by the utterance. But now that creeds have lost their hold upon Christendom, when you say that the Scriptures are the foundation of unity, you are likely to be misunderstood. They understand you to mean that the Scriptures are a perfect and inerrant basis upon which Christian people can unite. But we never can all have the same conception of the Scriptures. There will be differences of interpretation to the end of time. And when we attempt to unite Christendom upon any particular interpretation, even of the New Testament, we are pouring water into a sieve. It is an attempt to compel uniformity of opinion, and we must get away from that to the Christ. Unity is based on him and not on the Bible. I feel, my brethren, very deeply here. There is danger that we may get sidetracked. There is--and it makes me shudder sometimes when I think about it--a kind of idolatry of the Scriptures like that which the Jews had when Jesus himself was on earth: "You search the Scriptures," he says, "for in them ye think ye have eternal life. But they are they which testify of me and you will not come to me that you may have life"--making an idol of the Scriptures so that their minds are darkened and they could not see the Christ of the Scriptures. We do not want to make that mistake. "The letter killeth, but [515] the spirit maketh alive." We must not bind Christ by the word of Christ. He must have freedom to do his work. Truth is not a thing that you can build a fence around, not something which crystalizes and always remains the same. Truth is a flowing stream. There is more truth yet to break out of this Word. The Holy Spirit is still leading us into deeper and wider truth, and we are coming to understand the Christ through the centuries as we never have understood him. God is still speaking to the world through history and through Christian experience. We must not bind Christ as Lazarus was bound, hand and foot, when he came from the grave. We must not thrust in our own conception and theory of Christian unity, but give Christ freedom and follow where he leads. Christ is the foundation of this unity. It is to be a unity of faith in him and of knowledge of him as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. The order of development, then, is this: First, the exaltation of the Christ as the basis; out of that should come the unity of all who believe in him; that should produce the evangelization of the world, and that, in turn, the perfection of God's people in spiritual things.

      Here, then, is the great purpose of our movement, the thing for which we have stood for a hundred years, for which we shall continue to stand so long as God gives us opportunity.

      There are two things for us to do, whereby Christian unity is to be advanced. The first is to hold up the Pauline conception, which is Christ's conception, before the world. That is what we have been doing. That is the thing which has made our plea dear to the hearts of thousands everywhere. Hold up that ideal. Make it clear to the people.

      And the next thing is to take every practical step that we can to bring about the oneness of God's people as an actuality of Christian experience--church federation, exchange of pulpits, the great missionary movements, everything which we can conscientiously do to emphasize and actualize this ideal of our faith. Paul puts it all in one phrase, "Speaking the truth in love." There is the recipe for Christian union. We are to speak the truth, no compromise. We can say nothing else than the truth as we understand it and see it. We may not have the perfect conception, but the truth which God shows us to-day, which we feel burning in our hearts--that is the truth which we must utter. Speak out the truth as God gives you to see the truth, but speak it in love. If there is a man across the street preaching something you do not believe, do not denounce him, do not advertise his errors. The best way to preach down error is to preach up the truth. Emphasize those things wherein we agree and not those things wherein we differ. Listen to these words from John Ruskin: "Whenever . . . we allow our minds to dwell upon the points in which we differ from other people, we are wrong and in the devil's power. That is the essence of the Pharisee's prayer of thanksgiving. 'Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men are.' At every minute of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ from other people, but in what we agree. And the moment we find that we can agree as to anything that should be done, kind or good, then do it. Push at it together. You can not quarrel in a side-by-side push. But the moment that even the best man stops pushing and begins talking, he mistakes his pugnacity for piety and it is all over." I would not, if I could, this moment close any place where Christ is being uplifted, from the Salvation Army barracks to the cathedral cross. His work is sacred wherever it is being carried on and by whatever name. "He that is not against me is for me." If these words mean anything, they mean that every man who is doing good in the world, every man who is uplifting the Christ, is to be let alone. "Speaking the truth in love"--that is Paul's program for the advancement of Christian unity.

      A few years ago I stood upon the Isle of Jersey, off the coast of France, where the tide rises twenty feet high. It was low tide and numberless islands were visible here and there. Soon the great tide came rolling in, and one after another these islands disappeared from sight, and when it had reached its height they had all disappeared and I [516] looked out upon an unbroken sea. With the advance of the tide of faith and this knowledge of the Son of God, spirituality will rise higher and higher. We shall be welded into one great unity and the divisions of to-day will disappear from sight, and be covered "as the waters cover the sea."

[CCR 513-517]