A Unity Worth Dying For

THE UNITY of THE MARTYRS ( a unity worth dying for )

By John Paul Todd As Christ comes to the decisive hour of his mission in the world, he prays for his own in John’s gospel, chapter 17. It seems obvious that to him the battle against the spiritual wickedness he came to defeat has been won. For how else could he tell his Father he had finished his work on earth. Or was it ? Besides the priority that Christ has for the glory of God, his passion in this prayer centers in his concern for his disciples who though “not of the world” are being left in the world and in fact “sent unto it” just as he himself was sent unto the world by the Father. It would seem then that if we are to fully understand his petitionespecially the part about “that they may be one”, we must take a serious look at the stated purpose for this request: “that the world may believe that you sent me.” THE WORLD What exactly is this world which is so prominent in this prayer and in John’s gospel as a whole - the world from which Christ is so intent on obtaining this belief and knowledge ? It has been pointed out that the noun ‘world’ is found more frequently in John’s gospel (77 times) than in any other New Testament document and found in chapter 17 more frequently than in any other chapter of the Bible (18 times). Such facts seem to “warrant the judgment that this concept is at the center of the Apostle’s thinking in a way which is not true of any other New Testament writing”, according to Paul Minear. If one makes a diligent study of the majority of contexts where the term appears, a very significant doctrine begins to emerge which suggests a rich and complex reality that John wanted his readers to grasp in its fullness. Yet the contrasts one discovers are startling : “God so loved the world”, and sends His only begotten Son into it to die, but the Son now says specifically, “I do not pray for the world”. He prays “that the world may know that You sent me”, but has already told his disciples that “the world neither sees nor knows him”. As it turns out the world God so loves is also hostile, rebellious, and apparently unrepentant even to the point of murdering His beloved son and is itself under the rule of Satan, the Prince of darkness. Yet God did not send His son into the world to condemn it, but in order that the world through the son might be reconciled.

Evidently the essential connotations found in the Lord’s prayer are in fact dynamically linked to most of the narratives of our Lord in John’s gospel and are inseparable from his God given mission as the redeemer of the world. These same texts also have a direct bearing on what is to be the continuing role of his disciples once He returns to His Father. This link becomes dominant early in the introduction to the Passion narrative, even as that narrative seems to be triggered on the one hand by the crisis perceived by the Pharisees following the raising of Lazarus, “ …ye prevail nothing. Behold, the world is gone after him”, and on the other, the desire of certain Greeks at the feast who approached the disciples with “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Whereupon Jesus then answers with the theme of this entire last section: “ The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal…Father, glorify thy name…Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” This theme is dominant well into chapter 16, where the promise of the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, concludes with His mission, through the disciples, to the same world : “ He will reprove the world of sin…because they believe not on me…”; he will reprove the world “of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more”; he will reprove the world “of judgment because the prince of this world is judged”. Finally, in 16:33, the disciples are described as existing simultaneously in two locations (they are “in me” and “in the world”) which are qualitatively opposite in their effects on the disciples : in one they will have peace, in the other tribulation. It is of enormous importance that we note well these two realms and their distinguishing contrary effects upon disciples of the victorious Christ. The declaration in the above verse that Jesus has conquered the world also helps us recognize its essential nature since it constitutes his single wartime adversary; the occasion of his own tribulation and thereby the occasion of the definitive victory through which he has won peace for those who belong to him whom he chose out of the world. As Minear points out here, “ Any concept of ‘kosmos’ that excludes this wartime (hostile) imagery will distort John’s thought.” And then he adds what surely is crystal clear by now: “ Jesus’ struggle with the world is the very means through which he saves men and women whom God has given him out of that

world (17:6).” THE UNITY PRAYED FOR At this point it should be obvious what the intent of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Comforter is regarding the glory of God in this present evil world. The work the Son has begun in his incarnation by coming into the world and testifying to that world the very words the Father had given him thus incurs their hate and anger, while at the same time lovingly calling to himself those whom the Father had given him. Now he is about to finish his work on the cross at the hands of this wicked world, thereby accomplishing eternal redemption for all those who will believe on his name, having come to know and confess that he is in fact the sent one of God. Shortly he will return to his Father and physically leave the world . Yet there are other sheep that he must seek out and save in the lifetime of his disciples and beyond, to the very end of this world’s time. The gospel of their salvation must somehow get to each of these also for it alone is the power of God unto salvation unto all who hear it and believe. But these sheep are themselves lost and a part of that same hostile world which crucifies the Savior. How will they come to know their deliverer since the world does not know him? There is only one God ordained way-the way of the Master : his disciples must be united to him and with him committed without reservation to this same spirit in the face of the world’s hostility. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die if the “travail of His soul” is to be satisfied. The evidence both within John’s gospel and in other prominent New Testament documents that this is the oneness Christ prays for his own is very compelling. Compare for example, the strategic exhortation from the Hebrews letter to sorely tried believers being tempted to “draw back unto perdition”: “…let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.” (Heb.12:1-3) Recall the classic appeal of the Apostle Paul to the saints at Philippi : “ Fulfill ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind…Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus…and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the

death of the cross…that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life…” (Phil.2:2,5,8,15,16). To which he adds his own inner passion, “that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain. Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice together with you all.” Try reading the entire Philippian letter in light of this mindset. Paul Minear thought this so dominant in John’s gospel, that he believed that John thinks of Jesus as God's martyr whose own martyrdom forced his followers to accept that same fate for themselves. To him, the gospel itself can be described as “a martyrology in which what happened to Jesus as Messiah provides the interpretive key to what was happening to those to whom John was writing.” He thus argues that the Gospel of John is fundamentally an appeal to fearlessness in the face of violent death at the hands of the hostile world. He claims that the antithesis of belief for John is not unbelief but fear that leads to compromise and to “falling away”. Their only strength is in their unqualified identification with Christ and his way of peace by which they are enabled to face the hate of the world and love their enemies, even as their Master did, as they keep on confessing Him openly. UNITY FOR MARTYRS Given then the world with its anti-God character yet loved by God, who determines to send His light and testimony concerning His purpose to redeem those that believe in His Mediator, there is only one biblical strategy for His ambassadors to embrace. This ordained mindset for which Christ prayed upon his first disciples is the unity that belongs to the true church. While in this world, we may very well never see unity between the great divisions of Christianity (Orthodox, Roman, Protestant, Pentecostal) or on a host of doctrinal issues. But it would appear from this thesis, that if correct, we have every right to hope for unity among all the saints as to our God supplied demeanor as we boldly persist in confronting the world with the very words entrusted to us by His Son and our blessed Savior. If, while claiming to preach the authorized gospel, we are in any way refusing the martyrs’ unity, or as Paul put it, “seeking to avoid the offense of the cross”, then we have to ask if any other kind of unity can claim this text as its biblical basis. Can there be any other unity that is pleasing to Him who sends us to the world, is in harmony with "the way of the cross", and which has the promise of His Father’s answer to this prayer?

There is one final issue which must be addressed. In John’s account of the running dialog between Jesus and the Scribes and Pharisees, it becomes obvious that the most violent opposition from the “world” comes from within the religious establishment of the Jews. John says, almost from the beginning, “He came unto his own, and his own received him not”. It was this same unbelieving and hostileto-the-truth establishment that required Paul to say to the saints at Rome, “As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes; but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake”. To the Ephesian elders, he warns, that “of your own selves shall men arise to draw away disciples after them” as well as the “grievous wolves” entering among them from without, not sparing the flock. Abundant Apostolic warnings and hundreds of heart-breaking years of church history join in reminding us that sometimes the most violent section of the world and the most vicious enemy of the true church is the apostate church itself. It is as if in his prayer, our loving King whispers, “ here is where you will surely need my mind and my spirit, the oneness with myself and my Father if you are to be faithful witnesses unto death and so see my sheep called out of the world and my people healed and set free to worship me forever”. The unity he has in mind anticipates the hostility within christendom itself. The attitude of the messenger towards the hostile world is inseparable from his message of reconciliation which he must faithfully deliver, announcing the terms of the conqueror for peace on earth. Can there be any doubt that this is the true concept of Christian unity- our oneness with our Lord in his love for the world and in his commitment to despise the shame of rejection in order to obtain eternal redemption for all the children given him by his Father? What a difference it would make if we all could manifest this kind of visible oneness as we face our own wicked and perverse generation with the gospel of the cross. When we truly embrace this manner of confronting the world, then we are in the very best of company. Perhaps all but one of the twelve were martyred for their witness. The Apostle Paul and a host of the early church Fathers likewise loved not their lives to the death. History says Polycarp, himself a disciple of John, was burned alive at the age of 86 while Bishop of Smyrna. Brethren, this is the unity we must seek to promote-the unity of the martyrs-those “which came out of great

tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” __________________________________________________________________ _____ John Paul Todd (MPS, The Alliance Theological Seminary) is director of the E-4 UNITY Institute of Church GROWTH, Berea, Kentucky. He has quoted from Paul S.Minear, “Evangelism, Ecumenism, and John Seventeen”, Theology Today volume 35, number 1 (April 1978), pp. 7,9,12. He can be reached at: [email protected]