Is Christ Divided?
Epiphany 3, 2020 • Sermon • Submitted
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· 9 viewsGOAL: That the hearer experience anew the unity of the saints in the body of Christ.
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A question that we all must ask ourselves as it pertains to other Christians is this: “Is Christ Divided?”
One contemporary observer of the American religious scene remarked, “The greatest tragedy of our day is not abortion, pornography, the undermining of the family, corrupt government, drugs, AIDS, promiscuity, or homosexuality. Division within the Family of God is”
Problem: Divisions distract the church from its purpose.
(Keith A. Fournier, A House United: Evangelicals and Catholics Together [NavPress, 1994]).
Division within the Family of God is” (Keith A. Fournier, A House United: Evangelicals and Catholics Together [NavPress, 1994]).
Power: Attachment to Christ will keep us together and on target.
Introduction: One contemporary observer of the American religious scene remarked, “The greatest tragedy of our day is not abortion, pornography, the undermining of the family, corrupt government, drugs, AIDS, promiscuity, or homosexuality. Division within the Family of God is” (Keith A. Fournier, A House United: Evangelicals and Catholics Together [NavPress, 1994]).
Divisions Distract the Church From Its Purpose
Divisions Distract the Church From Its Purpose
Divisions are nothing new.
Even in the small house-congregations of the early church at Corinth, there were open schisms. That was the report of some members of a local body of believers that met at the residence of a wealthy woman named Chloe. When news of the conflict reached Paul, the rich rhetoric of his Corinthian correspondence quickly moved to the topic of divisions. After some customary greetings, Paul directly addresses the source of the strife. Soon an ugly picture of personality cults begins to emerge. These divisions seem not to be due to doctrinal differences but to “attachment to individual leaders who are played off the one against the other in authority” (TDNT 7:964). In this scheme Paul, too, is given an exalted status, but he refuses and redirects it in vv 13–17, saying such devotion and loyalty belong only to Christ.
Even in the small house-congregations of the early church at Corinth, there were open schisms. That was the report of some members of a local body of believers that met at the residence of a wealthy woman named Chloe. When news of the conflict reached Paul, the rich rhetoric of his Corinthian correspondence quickly moved to the topic of divisions. After some customary greetings, Paul directly addresses the source of the strife. Soon an ugly picture of personality cults begins to emerge. These divisions seem not to be due to doctrinal differences but to “attachment to individual leaders who are played off the one against the other in authority” (TDNT 7:964). In this scheme Paul, too, is given an exalted status, but he refuses and redirects it in vv 13–17, saying such devotion and loyalty belong only to Christ.
Even in the small house-congregations of the early church at Corinth, there were open schisms. That was the report of some members of a local body of believers that met at the residence of a wealthy woman named Chloe. When news of the conflict reached Paul, the rich rhetoric of his Corinthian correspondence quickly moved to the topic of divisions. After some customary greetings, Paul directly addresses the source of the strife. Soon an ugly picture of personality cults begins to emerge. On theologian wrote that these divisions seem to be due to “attachment to individual leaders who are played off the one against the other in authority” (TDNT 7:964). In this scheme Paul, too, is given an exalted status, but he refuses and redirects it in , saying such devotion and loyalty belong only to Christ.
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 lest anyone should say that I had baptized in my own name. 16 Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Besides, I do not know whether I baptized any other. 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.
Divisions destroy.
Succinctly put, God’s Word clearly tells us in that “there should be no division in the body.”
25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
Nothing good comes when Christians are divided along petty, partisan, and human lines. A church rife with division is a church whose witness is sullied.
Divisions desecrate the Lord’s Supper ();
17 But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse.
Divisions are evidence of worldliness creeping into the church ();
3 for you are still influenced by the flesh. For since there is still jealousy and dissension among you, are you not influenced by the flesh and behaving like unregenerate people?
Divisions, dissensions, factions, and jealousy are obvious fruit of sinful flesh ().
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Divisive people do not have the Holy Spirit (),
19 These people are divisive, worldly, devoid of the Spirit.
and thus do not belong to Christ (— “Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His”).
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.
Even the Confessions of the Church boldly attest to the biblical principle that the Gospel is the basis of our ecclesiastical unity. Hear what the Apology to the Augsburg Confession declares: “The church in the proper sense is the assembly of saints who truly believe the Gospel of Christ and who have the Holy Spirit” (Apology, VII and VIII, 28; Tappert, p. 173). Rifts among sisters and brothers speed atrophy in the Church of Jesus Christ.
Factionalism is, according to Paul, warped and wicked, self-condemning. It should result in the exclusion of the guilty from the body (; ; ). Paul is severe and serious because this offense is against Christ himself.
Factionalism is, according to Paul, warped and wicked, self-condemning. It should result in the exclusion of the guilty from the body (; ; ).
17 Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them.
9 But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the Law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. 10 Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, 11 knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.
8 Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Paul is severe and serious because the offense of division is against Christ himself.
Root of Division
Root of Division
False worship is at the root of division.
God is not the author of church fighting (). Satan is a Machiavellian, seeking to weaken, to divide, and to conquer the church by confusing our worship. The fact that we gather for worship is a given. Some, however, cannot see past the preacher or his style, thereby missing the power of the Gospel message and its content, which is Christ. He is the object of true worship.
33 So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
Apollos was an African renowned for his eloquence and biblical brilliance, as recorded in . He preached Christ.
Representing the Twelve, on whom the Holy Spirit fell, was Cephas/Peter ( and 3); he was their brave, brash, and brazen spokesman.
Adulation was falsely given to Paul as the pastor and founder of the Corinthian church.
There was also a sectarian Christ-party.
All of these and their names were co-opted for human advantage.
In a Christmas sermon, the great London preacher Joseph Parker illustrates: “There is a possibility of destroying Christ, under the guise of worshiping him . . . by giving false notions of him, by making him a class-Redeemer, by setting him apart for sectarian uses, by attaching to him badges and labels, scarves and memorials that make him belong to one comer only, by narrowing his words down into denominational shibboleths” (Great Sermons on the Birth, Death and Resurrection of Christ, ed. Wilbur Smith [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991] 1:67.)
24 24A Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man and well versed in the Scriptures. 25 25He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. He spoke with burning zeal and taught the facts about Jesus accurately, although he knew only the baptism of John. 26 26He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him home and explained to him the way of God more accurately. 27 27When he wanted to cross over to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he provided much help to those who had become believers by grace, 28 28because he vigorously refuted the Jews in public, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.
Pride divides.
Human egos seize to themselves the names of congregational denominations and church leaders—using verbal banners or name dropping—in order to promote their own agendas. Such false attachments are fueled by the “I” of positional expediency rather than the “we” of the communion of saints, as v 12 indicates with the emphatic egō eimi, “I follow . . . “
Pride fractures the fellowship. Pride grieves the heart of God because it inverts the God-human relationship.
Pride fractures the fellowship. Pride grieves the heart of God because it inverts the God-human relationship.
When sinful man exert and extend their pride, as an innate supremacy, the body of Christ, the Church, is grotesquely disfigured and divided. Paul seeks at Corinth a unity that transcends diversity without annihilating differences.
Attuned readers may hear in this text an opportunity to further shatter the church’s silence on the external category which most separates the body of Christ in America: the line of denominationalism. Denominationalism in the church of Jesus Christ, in its essence, is a blatant denial of the unity of the body of Christ, into which all who have been baptized into His name have been incorporated. This unity transcends differences among human beings. It does not call for the elimination of those differences.
Solution for Divisions
Solution for Divisions
Attachment to Christ will keep us together and on target.
“Is Christ divided?” is the rhetorical question posed in v 13. There is an essential unity in the person, the two natures, and the saving work of Christ. By his dying and rising this God-man paid the price and made the sacrifice that brings complete reconciliation between heaven and earth—upwardly to the Creator of all ethnē (“nations”) and laterally to brothers and sisters of every race.
He is the one mediator between God and humanity ().
His saving work creates an unio mystica between God and all believers ().
4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
This reconciliation to God and restoration of fallen humanity creates in us a hunger for all human reconciliation ().
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
Reconciled to God, we run to spread the message of Christ’s reconciling work to young and old, rich and poor, male and female, powerful and oppressed, healthy and sick, well-fed and hungry, friend and stranger, countryman and alien.
The people of God strive to remove every human or sinful barrier that would keep others from hearing and taking seriously the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are children of God, and we are peacemakers ().
Being “enriched in every way” () by Christ through the Spirit implies that we are raised to a daring and dynamic level of discipleship. We are saved from remaining, as Joseph Sittler says, “prisoners of accredited mediocrity.” Our eyes are opened beyond ourselves to our mutuality. “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it” ().
God is united with us; hence, he cares for us.
“The union of God with the believers is indeed a very intimate one and is highly to be prized. By virtue of the unio mystica God identifies Himself with His suffering saints” (F. Pieper, Christian Dogmatics [St. Louis : Concordia, 1951] 2:94–95).
We are united to each other; hence, we care for each other.
Our unity helps us to see the opportunity to be servants of the King in service to the kingdom. Dr. Martin Luther King caught this vision.
“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality” (Martin Luther King, “A Christmas Sermon on Peace” in A Testament of Hope [New York: HarperCollins, 1986] 254).
4. Christ unites.
The grace of God in Jesus Christ results in unity. If the pressure of our preaching aims at the goal of unity, then justification is the means to that end. That message we deliver across everything that divides us. It is a trans-cultural and denominational address.
Our common Baptism into Christ (; ) is the first unifying factor of our faith, even when outward evidence is at variance.
He is our one Savior and one Lord, under whose headship the church finds its fullest expression of unity ().
What language, customs, and culture cannot do, the sacrifice of Christ has accomplished for us. The High Priest has made us into priests who hold title to a common royal priesthood (). Interestingly enough, the Latin word for priest is pontifex, which means “bridge builder.” We reach across all the criteria the world uses to split up, and we celebrate our unity in faith.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
Christ Jesus is the cause and source of lasting, genuine peace. . . . Consequently, between fellow-redeemed, there are broken down the old hostile walls of hate, anger, envy, bitterness, and all the other ingredients which fill our world with so much pain, suffering, sin, and death.
5. Our unity is inward.
The church is held together in the hearts and minds of believers. What the Holy Spirit works is not a program, not a promotional effort, not a political campaign, nor a social platform, but a transformative spiritual work within the mind (v 10; nous carries the sense of an inner disposition). The confessors acclaim,
“The church is not merely an association of outward ties and rites like other civic governments, however, but it is mainly an association of faith and of the Holy Spirit in men’s hearts” (Apology VII and VIII 5; Tappert, p. 169).
Our oneness with other brothers/sisters in the faith is based on the common calling issued by the Father, received through faith in the Son, and wrought in human hearts by the Spirit. What emerges from the heart is a common confession of Christ as Lord and Savior. Outwardly, our appearance may be dissimilar; but as we drink from one Spirit (), distinctions recede to insignificance.
13 For 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 of one Spirit.
This is Christ and His Church, not divided but united. Unified by identity under the cross, the Church finds unity also in its purpose to proclaim the cross, because God called His Church to be of one heart and one mind.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
By Thy great love transfigured be,
And by these bonds be bonds that bind
Us each to each and Thee!
(“Our Lord Has Laid His Benison” by Martin H. Franzmann, stanza 7; in Thy Strong Word, Richard Brinkley [St. Louis: Concordia, 1993] 71).