Ezekiel 36:20-23 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 John 17:20-26
Definite Distinction
I recently watched a BBC series called “The Inside Man”. The main story is about an English Vicar who was arrested on a charge of kidnapping, aggravated assault, as well as attempted murder. Now, of course, the story did not begin there…rather, it began with the vicar foolishly, yet ‘innocently’, agreeing to temporarily hide a computer memory stick belonging to a vulnerable yet perverted young man he had been counselling, because the said young man was terrified of his mother discovering the pornography stored on the device.
Things began to spiral out of control when the vicar’s son accidently found the device lying in a drawer together with his father’s keys, and innocently gave it to his math tutor to use for the tutorial. When she opened the device, both father and son witnessed the horrified expression on her face. Now, at this point, only the math tutor knew that the device contained child pornography which is a criminal offence. Still not knowing what was actually on the device, the son attempted to protect his father by saying the device was his while the father attempted to protect his son by first claiming that it was his, but then that it had been given to him by a counselee whose name he was not at liberty to divulge.
Of course, the math tutor still believed that the device belonged to the son and made it clear that she was going to the police. One thing led to another, and the vicar ended up imprisoning her in the basement of the vicarage. When the troubled young man, the original owner of the device, committed suicide, all hopes of proving his son innocent vanished and so the vicar, together with his wife, plotted to asphyxiate the math tutor.
When he was finally caught and prevented from killing the tutor, he justified his actions by stating: “Don’t you dare judge me. I have acted out of love. I have acted out of duty. I have done my best, and nothing, none of this – none of it is my fault.”
Yes, this is a fictional story, but it does demonstrate how even the best intentions, in this case the protecting of family members, can spiral out of control once morally dubious lines are crossed and the consequent wrong actions reinforced with twisted logic. The character of the vicar exemplifies how far people might go to uphold their decisions once made even when the consequences compromise their own ethical standards.
Such decisions can have disastrous results. For example, when well-intentioned people in the Church try to navigate difficult moral territory, actions meant to protect or include could unintentionally lead to consequences that challenge foundational beliefs and create irreparable division. This shift, while sometimes motivated by compassion and a debateable idea of unconditional love, at some point always spirals out of control alienating and villainising those committed to upholding biblical standards.
But, I think, the saddest part of it all is when those who have abandoned the Church’s biblically defined moral compass justify their actions by claiming to hold the higher moral ground because they, they claim, are acting out of love and out of duty. This warped sense of reasoning, caused by an abandonment of Scripture as the standard for faith and practice in the Church, ultimately obscures the glory the world is meant to see in us…and then, instead of revealing a holy and a righteous Father, we present the world with a god fashioned in our own image thus blaspheming his name before unbelievers.
Jesus’ prayer for unity is not vague or ill-defined. It is very specific. When he prayed for the unity of those who would believe in the message preached by the disciples, he had already clearly described the character of the messengers as well as the content of their message. “Sanctify them” he prayed in verse 17, “in the truth; your Word is truth.” The disciples were united in the holy and righteous God revealed in his Word by the Son who was sent to reveal him to them.
If we remove any one of these elements, we obliterate and obscure the message we have for the world. We may be ever so sincere in our motive, but if we change the Word of God for whatever reason, we set off a chain of events that will eventually lead people away from belief in the one, true God. Instead, we will present to the world a version of a god who is both in the world and of the world, and once we have reached this point, we effectually cease to be united in the God described here by Jesus.
The whole point of what Jesus prayed here is that although the Church is in the world, it is not of it because it is united to the one not known by the world. We are meant to be different from the world because we have been taken out of the world. Trying to be more acceptable to the world by being more like the world is the exact opposite of what is revealed here. Such an action denies the very essence of what the Church is meant to be.
Declaring ‘right’ what the Scriptures declare ‘wrong’, makes a mockery of the life and death of Jesus. The “sentness” of Jesus reminds us that he is the lamb of God who came into the world to take away the sins of the world. The glorious truth revealed by Jesus to his disciples is intrinsic to our being united as one community in him and because this community is founded on God’s holiness and righteousness we can have no partnership with what the Bible calls sinfulness. Light cannot be in fellowship with darkness and consequently, a believer can have nothing in common with an unbeliever. (2 Corinthians 6:14-16)
As our unity is a gift we receive from God because he has given us to Jesus, it is something we have rather than something we create. But the purpose of this unity is so that through us the world may believe in a closely and carefully defined holy and righteous Father…a Father who expressed his love for the world by sending his Son into the world to deal with that which ultimately separates the world from him…namely sin. And so, any attempt to make sin normal or tolerable is to render this prayer absurd.
The ultimate desire of Jesus as expressed in this prayer is that the disciples and those who believe in him through their message live in his glorious presence for eternity. But God is completely holy…he is entirely set apart from all of creation…he alone is completely righteous and just…and he knows that the sinful cannot live in his presence, so he made a way for us to be sanctified through his Son. But that means we cannot redefine the love of God to accommodate and assimilate that for which Jesus died.
In this passage, Jesus prayed for all believers, past, present, and future, expressing His desire for unity among His followers – a unity modelled on the perfect and harmonious communion between himself and the Father. This prayer for unity is both spiritual and relational, as Jesus asked that believers be one as he and his Father are one. As such, he emphasized a unity founded on love and truth…a unity that would reflect God’s character and consequently, a unity that would make his love visible to the world, praying that we would be united with him and with one another so that the world might believe the truth as revealed in Scripture.
And so, dearest beloved brethren, as we come to partake of the bread and the wine in Holy Communion, let us remember that this meal is a sacrament that both signifies and actualizes the unity Jesus prayed for. In this holy meal, we are drawn into everything the life and death of Jesus signifies, because it represents our intimate connection to God the Father through the substitutionary death of Jesus and, in him, to one another.
But it also provides us with a vivid picture of what the oneness Jesus desired looks like. The sharing in the Cup of Jesus defines us as a cleansed covenant community that is distinct and detached from the world and all that the world represents. And in uniting us with every other true participant as members of the one Body of Jesus on earth, it makes us witnesses of his holiness and his righteousness.
To deny this distinction is to deny the world of a witness and to deny the world of a witness is to render the Church irrelevant, inconsequential, and apostate.
Shall we pray?
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2024
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