Disunity Can Be a Sign that God Is at Work

Unity is important in the church, family, nation, or any group, but disunity often, maybe always, accompanies any important new truth coming from God. When Jesus presented himself to Israel as their long awaited Messiah, he attracted the malevolent criticism of those who held power and benefited from maintaining the status quo. He polarized the community by forcing people to make a decision to be either for him or against him.

So a division occurred in the crowd because of Him. John 7:43 (NASB95)

Those who tried to hold to a “middle ground” to avoid being caught up in the controversy were either uninformed, uncaring, or cowardly.

Whenever God is doing something important, it brings about a crisis of faith in those who witness it.

Those whose hearts are open receive God’s truth with joy. Those whose hearts are closed cannot receive truth and resist it. Surprising to me, Jesus rejoiced at this state of affairs. (Matthew 11:25-26) If Jesus is okay with this, so am I.

The devil hates God and truth with a passion, and anyone who is still under his influence will offer vehement resistance. The “lukewarm” will not care because they refuse to be players on the grand stage of life. Every great movement is carried out by a relatively small percentage of people who passionately believe. They will be resisted by those who ardently disbelieve, while the uninvolved watch the drama unfold.

The psalmist taught that unity carries a blessing.

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brothers to dwell together in unity! Psalm 133:1 (NASB95)

Jesus taught on its importance, too.

The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; 23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. John 17:22–23 (NASB95)

Our unity as believers is based on what God has done for his church in Christ. He has made us one with him and each other, even if we fail to realize it or act like it.

He has taken Jew and Gentile, men and women, slave and free, and rich and poor from all races and nations and fashioned us into “one new man, the church.” (Ephesians 2:15) Our unity in the Spirit is already accomplished. Our challenge is to believe and act in accordance with this great truth.

However, unity in the Spirit does not mean we must refrain from proclaiming truths that some find divisive.

The early church was divided from the start regarding the matter of grace versus the Law. The Judaizers insisted that Gentile believers keep the Law of Moses, including circumcision, but Paul stood his ground insisting the opposite in the face of great opposition. Though the matter was officially settled at the Jerusalem conference, this controversy still exists. Well meaning Christians are still trying to observe Jewish traditions.

Truth will always be resisted by those who do not understand or receive it.

When God restored the truth regarding believer’s baptism during the Reformation, both Catholics and Protestants violently opposed the Anabaptists who held to this “new” and “divisive” doctrine. Some of those brave men and women died rather than deny this revelation from God. Today almost everyone in the churches with whom I fellowship believe and practice believer baptism.

The baptism in the Spirit was restored in the early 20th century, but not without controversy that still exists. When I was first baptized in the Spirit in 1971, the dominant campus ministry where I attended university opposed our little charismatic group’s meeting by ourselves. They wanted us to join them to preserve unity, but at what cost to what God was doing in our midst? We were trying to grow in our experience and use of the gifts of the Spirit, but, if we only met with the larger group, the Spirit would be quenched by those who disbelieved.

We dare not abandon revelational truth just to satisfy a call to unity.

Many times such a demand for unity is a veiled attempt to silence and control the opposition. Unity between opposing factions cannot happen unless liberty of belief and practice is granted.

When my Dad launched his home meeting in the early 1970s, many Catholics attended. After a while, the local Catholic Church tried to “rein in” what he was doing by insisting that the meeting had to be accompanied by a Mass. My father refused to comply with this attempt to quench the freedom of the Spirit. Eventually our entire family departed from the Catholic Church in pursuit of freedom to practice the truth of God’s Word.

Where there is no unity regarding truth, there can be little true unity in practice or assemblage.

Interestingly, Paul wrote that disunity is sometimes God’s way of revealing those who are approved by God.

For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you. 1 Corinthians 11:19 (NASB95)

Martin Luther did not set out to splinter from the Catholic Church. His intention was to reform it, but that was not possible because the Catholic leaders wanted none of it. They wanted to quash the “revolt” and kill its leader. This is exactly what our Lord’s enemies tried to do with him, but they ultimately failed, as did Luther’s opponents.

Satan and unredeemed humanity will always rebel against and try to subvert what God is doing.

Sometimes even God’s true people push back because of our natural human propensity to resist change. The old established way of seeing and doing things always seems better to us.

Sadly, any new move of God is usually resisted by those who experienced the previous one.

Jesus said it like this.

“But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39 “And no one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is good enough.’ ” Luke 5:38–39 (NASB95)

St. Augustine is credited with saying, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

Our Lord does not want us to allow our stand for truth to snuff out our love for those who oppose us. Neither does he want us to abandon truth to appease naysayers.

Jesus said to love our enemies, including those who oppose God and truth. However, we are never to back down from our stand for truth because of push back from those who do not understand or receive it. If the truth in question is “non-essential” to salvation, we can agree to disagree, but we cannot abandon our convictions for the sake of a false kind of unity.