SPIRITUAL UNITY, PART I.

Spiritual Unity
By: Walter J. Veith

We are living in a time where there is an unprecedented drive toward unity and
conformity of religious thought. It is argued that all people serve the same God and
thus tolerance for different viewpoints is an essential ingredient for peace amongst
all peoples and nations of different persuasions.

We are living in a time where there is an unprecedented drive toward unity and
conformity of religious thought. It is argued that all people serve the same God and
thus tolerance for different viewpoints is an essential ingredient for peace amongst
all peoples and nations of different persuasions. After all, Christ did pray for unity
and it seems as if unity will have to come about before there can be any talk of real
peace on this strife-torn planet of ours. When Jesus prayed in His High Priestly
prayer:

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even
as we are one. John 17:22

What type of unity did He have in mind? Was it a unity of the world so that world
peace could finally come about? Did He not say:

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a
sword. Matthew 10:34

Jesus never advocated physical violence, so the sword He had in mind was the
sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God:

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of
God. Ephesians 6:17

The spiritual battle to be fought was to be the battle over the Word. With this in
mind, we can take a fresh look at Christ’s prayer for unity. Firstly, Jesus is clearly not
praying for world unity but for Word- based unity:

I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest Me out of the world;
thine they were, and thou gavest them Me; and they have kept Thy word. I pray for
them. I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given Me, for they are
thine. I have given them thy Word, and the world hath hated them because they are
not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy
Word is truth. John 17:6,9, 14,17

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is beautifully simple, but it does require the surrender
of the heart to His sanctifying power. There can only be one Jesus and that is the
Word made flesh. The true can only be separated from the spurious on the basis of
the Word.

For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one
husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest by any
means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be
corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth
another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye
have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well
bear with him. 2 Corinthians 11:2-4

Besides the Word being the key ingredient to true unity, there must also be fruits
in accordance with the Word.

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us
that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and
godly, in this present world, looking for the blessed hope, and the glorious
appearance of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us that
He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people,
zealous of good works. Titus 2:11-14

God’s people need earnest confession of sins. They need to come up to the
standard of the Word and not compromise to meet the standards of the world. They
need to stand together in humility of spirit and meekness. Where there are wrongs
they need to be corrected. They need to restore the erring gently knowing that he
that thinks he stands should take heed lest he also falls. They need to support and
sustain each other. God can and will use an obedient church.

True Christianity and Christian unity is thus Word based - "Thy Word is truth", and
such unity, according to Christ’s words, will bring about hatred rather than peace. In
the light of this, how are we to interpret the drive towards Christian unity in the
ecumenical movement, on the one hand, and the wider goal of a unity of religions
culminating in a one-world religion? This unity can only be achieved at the expense
of truth and has to be achieved through compromise. To the ecumenically minded
theologian, unity at all cost is the driving force of his religious endeavors. If the Word
cannot be the unifying force, then unity must be based on other criteria that can take
its place, and for the Christian world these criteria fall into two main categories:

1. Dogmatic unity is the basis on which many theologians strive for unity. The
dogmas bind them, what the church fathers said, the sacraments, the liturgies and
the social interactions.

2. Experiential unity where that which one experiences and feels - the moving of the
Spirit, the signs and wonders, become the unifying factor. The experience is
normative. This type of unity can cross Biblical, doctrinal as well as cultural barriers
and bring diverse persuasions together in a common bond of praise. The question is,
however, how do we know which ‘Spirit’ is leading, particularly in the light of the
warning regarding the deceptions of the last days.

Take heed that no man deceive you...For there shall arise false Christs, and false
prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were
possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Matthew 24:4,24

Christian Unity and the Ecumenical Movement

How can the ecumenical spirit be squared with the stand of the Reformation on
the Papacy and the doctrines of the Catholic Church?

The reformation had based its separation from Rome on the Word of God, and had
placed the gospel of Jesus Christ at the disposal of the common man. The striving of
the reformers was to make the Word of God available to everyone seeking
knowledge of the plan of salvation. The free availability of the Scriptures severely
challenged the doctrines and supremacy of Rome, and restored truths that had been
lost through centuries of suppression of religious liberty. It is not here the intention
to repeat what has been said in the previous chapters on the question of papal
dogmas, but a brief summary is necessary to set the stage for events pertaining to
the restoration of lost “Christian unity.”

The reformation had restored many Biblical truths that had been lost or
suppressed. The reformers had clearly identified the papal system with the antichrist
system. In the twelfth century, the Waldenses gave clear witness of the Antichrist,
who they claimed was reigning in the church. Joachim, however, was one of the first
to interpret prophecy pertaining to the Antichrist. Wycliffe, Jerome, Luther, Knox,
Calvin, Baxter and the other leaders of the reformation were united on the identity of
the Antichrist. H. Grattan Guinness says:



Lost Truths Restored

1370 A.D.
John Wycliffe
Bible Restored

16th Cent.
Martin Luther
Faith
Lutheran

John Calvin
Free Grace
Presbyterian

God's Law, Bible Baptism
Anabaptists

17th Cent.
John Smyth
Bible Baptism
Baptists

John James
Sabbath
7th Day Baptists

18th Cent.
John Wesley
Law & Grace, Conversion, Sanctification
Methodist

19th Cent.
Bible Prophecy
Advent Movement

Mission Movement


And the views of the reformers were shared by thousands, by hundreds of
thousands. They were adopted by princes and peoples. Under their influence,
nations abjured their allegiance to the false priest of Rome. In the reaction that
followed, all the powers of hell seemed to be let loose ...Yet the reformation stood
undefeated and unconquerable. God’s word upheld it&ldots;[i]

Even the foreword of the old King James Bible refers to the Papacy as the man of
sin, and warns against malignment from what it calls Popish persons.

Concerning the Antichrist (the Greek meaning of ‘anti’ being “in the place of”), the
Bible says:

Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come except there
come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who
opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped; so
that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. II
Thessalonians 2:3,4

Such claims have been made by the Papacy when Pope Boniface VIII, in his Bull
Unam Sanctam, stated:

The Roman Pontiff judges all men, but is judged by no one. We declare, assert,
define and pronounce: To be subject to the Roman Pontiff is to every creature
altogether necessary for salvation...that which was spoken of Christ ‘thou has
subdued all things under his feet’, may well seem verified of me...I have the
authority of the King of kings. I am all and above all, so that God Himself and I, the
Vicar of God, have but one consistency, and I am able to do all that God can do. What
therefore, can you make of me but God?

Pope Leo XIII also claimed he was God in his encyclical letters and it is
interesting that Time Magazine, on the incidence of Pope John Paul II’s
assassination attempt, wrote: “It’s like shooting God.”[ii]

Rome was not willing to compromise on issues of doctrine with the reformers,
and Pope Paul III called the Council of Trent, which met in three sessions between
1545 and 1563. Protestants were present during the second meeting. The Council
reaffirmed most of the doctrines disputed by the reformists, including:

1. Transubstantiation

2. Justification by faith and works

3. The medieval mass

4. The seven sacraments

5. Celibacy

6. The doctrine of Purgatory

7. Indulgences

8. Papal power increased by giving the Pope the authority to enforce the decrees of
the Council, and requiring church officials to promise him obedience. [iii]

The Council of Trent (1545), which had been called by Pope Paul III to counter the
reformation and to clarify the Roman Catholic doctrinal position had, instead of
reforming the church, entrenched the Catholic doctrinal position and teaching so
abhorrent to the reformers. The Council reaffirmed the Church’s position on the
doctrines of transubstantiation, faith and works, the mass, the seven sacraments,
celibacy, purgatory and indulgences, and increased the Papal power.[iv]

The Counter Reformation

In spite of the separation of the reformed churches from Roman Catholicism,
Scripture predicts that at the end of time the whole world would follow the beast.
This includes the churches of today. The Reformation would grind to a halt, and the
principles, which lead to separation from Rome, would not be considered obstacles
at the end of time. As discussed in the chapter The Wine of Babylon, Rome
considers herself the mother of all the churches, and her strivings have been to
bring about the return of her separated children to her.

Preterism and Futurism

To meet the challenge and exposure of the Papacy as the Antichrist and the Pope
as the “son of perdition”, the Jesuits were summoned to counter the reformers’
teachings, and here two Jesuit scholars stand out in particular. They are Alcasar and
Ribera, and they developed the preterist and futurist systems of prophetic
interpretation. The preterist interpretation puts all prophecy pertaining to the
Antichrist into the past (persecutors outside the Jewish or Christian religion), and the
futurist interpretation puts them into the future after the Christian dispensation and
the Secret Rapture. Ribera published his futurist views in 1585.

According to the futurist view, the antichrist was to come from the tribe of Dan,
and would make his appearance after the secret rapture. He was to rebuild the
temple, abolish the Christian faith, pretend to be God and then conquer the world in
the space of threeandahalf years. Furthermore, futurism teaches that, instead of
coming with the clouds with great power and great glory, our Saviour will come
secretly and silently to take away his Church a teaching foreign to that of the
apostles.

For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we
which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. I Thessalonians 4:
16,17.

The apostles referred to the spirit of antichrist already working in their time, to be
fully revealed at the end of time. There is no question of referring to the antichrist
power in the past. Jesus in Matthew 24 speaks of this great apostasy as a future
event, not a past occurrence.

In the nineteenth century, the Protestant world, starting with the Anglican priest
Samuel R. Maitland, accepted the futurist teachings and saw in it an opportunity to
cease hostilities with Rome.

The prophetic interpretation of futurism was further refined, when, according to S.
P. Tregelles, dispensationalism originated in an “utterance” by means of tongues in
Edward Irving’s church in England. The futurist dispensationalistic mode of prophetic
interpretation has been accepted by most Protestant churches today, and is the form
of interpretation employed in the Scofield Reference Bible.[v] Dispensationalism is a
product of futurism and it teaches that history is divided into seven dispensations:

Human History

Innocence Kingdom
Conscience
Government
Promise
Law
Grace
Millenium

Before Eternity sin (Eden)
Antediluvial Civilization
Postdiluvial Period
Abraham to Exodus
Levitical Era
Church Period
Era of Peace


During the dispensation of the Millennial Kingdom, the Jews will preach the
gospel after the rapture of the Christians. The Jews will be suppressed by antichrist
and the visible appearing of Christ will save them at the end of seven years.
According to futurists, the Church is concerned with grace, and the Jews are
concerned with the Kingdom. The Lord’s prayer, “Thy kingdom come” can therefore
have no meaning to the Christian. Furthermore, Scofield allows for no continuity
between the Old Testament believer and the New Testament church. Not even Christ
spoke to us (because he taught under the old dispensation); only the epistles speak
to us.

Most men who subscribe to dispensationalism are of Calvinistic creed, with a
deeprooted belief in predestination. According to this doctrine, man has so far fallen
in sin that he is unable to choose for himself. Salvation is therefore not conditional
but unconditional, and one is either predestined to eternal salvation or to eternal
damnation. All promises of scripture are also unconditional, and the Jews were God’
s chosen people whether they wanted to be or not.

This is not a Biblical teaching: it destroys man’s freedom of choice, relegates him
to the position of a pawn, and renders the teaching of the Gospel obsolete. This
teaching is in clear violation of the Biblical teaching of conditionalism (Exod. 19:5,6;
Deut. 28:1,15; Jeremiah 18:710 and many other texts in both the Old and the New
Testament). It is the doctrine of predestination, which opened the way to the
acceptance of dispensationalism by the Calvinistic churches. Without the uttering in
tongues in Irving’s church, this system of interpretation would never have arisen,
because no one taking the Bible alone (sola scriptura) would have accepted it.
Scripture warns against deceptive teachings of spirits. Paul writes:

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from
the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. 1 Timothy 4:1

Paul admonishes all to make the word of God our standard and to come into
harmony with the teachings of Christ so that we would be protected from false
doctrines.

And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some
pastors and teachers. For the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for
the edifying of the body of Christ. Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the
knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of
the fullness of Christ. That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and
carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning
craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Ephesians 4:1114

Higher Criticism and Rationalism

A further attack on Protestant teachings was introduced through the Roman
Catholic scholars, Richard Simon and Dr. Alexander Geddes in 1678, whereby most
of the Biblical stories pertaining to the flood, the virgin birth and the resurrection
were slated as myths. Higher criticism and German rationalism have destroyed
fundamental beliefs in Biblical truths and, unfortunately, scholars of the reformed
churches have adopted these teachings, ie. there is hardly a Protestant church that
has not officially endorsed the teachings of Darwinism on origins.

A further rift between Protestantism and Catholicism should have occurred when
Pope Pius IX, in 1854, proclaimed the immaculate conception of Mary, thus laying the
foundation for Mary veneration. He also enthroned tradition as being of greater value
than the Scriptures. (He once rebuked a dissenting bishop with the words:
“Tradition, I am tradition.”) In 1869, he called the Vatican I council.

Vatican I

The peak of papal power under Pius IX was reached with the opening of Vatican I
where the Ultramontanists, under Jesuit leadership, gained a resounding victory,
and the result of this victory was the publication on 13 July 1870 of the dogma of
Papal Infallibility.

Pope Pius IX also issued an encyclical “The Syllabus of Errors” which condemned
liberal theology, and condemned the Bible Society and Scripture distributors as
heralds of infidelity and heresy. Furthermore, the Pope issued a strong attack on the
separation of church and state.[vi]

Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, John Wesley and other reformers were
ordained by God to do a great work but, unfortunately, the church which arose after
them, having restored lost Bible truths, was not willing to search for other lost truths
or to include those found by others into their creeds. John Robinson summed it up in
these words, as he charged the Pilgrim Fathers:

If God should reveal anything to you by any other instrument of His, be as ready to
receive it as ever you were to receive any truth of my ministry; for I am very
confident the Lord hath more truth and light yet, to break forth out of His holy Word.
For my part, I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the reformed churches, who
are come to a period in religion, and will go at present no further than the instrument
of their reformation. The Lutherans cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther says;
. . . and the Calvinists, you see, stick fast where they were left by that great man of
God, who yet saw not all things. This is a misery much to be lamented; for though
they were burning and shining lights in their time, yet they penetrated not into the
whole counsel of God, but were they now living, would be as willing to embrace
further light as that which they first received.... take heed, I beseech you, what you
receive for truth, and compare it and weigh it with other scriptures of truth before
you accept it; for it is not possible the Christian would come so lately out of such
thick antichristian darkness, and that full perfection of knowledge should break forth
at once.[vii]

The consistent rejection of truth can grieve away the Holy Spirit whose task it is to
lead us into ‘all truth’.

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth .... John
16:13

Sad to say, that apart from the Papacy following false doctrine, the Protestant
Churches, by not accepting all the lost truths, began to sip the wine of Roman
Babylon.

The Sunday error is adhered to by almost all Protestantism. Infant baptism is
practised, and there are Protestants who preach purgatory. The prophecies of Daniel
and Revelation are rejected. Says Dr. R. L. Elson (Presbyterian):

What is needed today is to finish the Reformation, which reached its apex in the
sixteenth century through the ministry of Luther, Calvin and Knox.


Unification with Rome

Prior to 1960, the Catholic Church was still regarded by many with suspicion, and
the ideas of the reformers had not yet been obliterated from the minds of many
Protestants. Furthermore, the Roman attitude was still believed to be that salvation
was only to be found within the Catholic Church. The reformed churches, however,
had moved towards ecumenism, and in 1948 the World Council of Churches was
formed, embracing most of the Protestant Churches, but excluding the Orthodox and
Catholic churches.

The Impact of Vatican II

Pope Pius XII, in 1950, defined and enforced the doctrine of the Bodily
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which should further have increased the
distance between Catholics and Protestants on questions of doctrine. His successor,
Pope John XXII, called the Vatican II Council, which did not revoke a single doctrinal
position of the Catholic Church, but in 1962, however, declared that salvation was not
only restricted to Roman Catholics, but could henceforth be found by all who live
according their conscience.

The theologian most associated with the proVatican spirit is the Jesuit, Karl
Rahner. Rahner endorses traditional Catholic doctrine and its claim to universal truth,
and asserts that salvation comes through Christ and the church on the one hand, but
on the other hand, he believes that the people of God extend outside the Catholic
Church and the other churches, to include the whole of humanity.[viii]

The principles of the ecumenical movement were spelled out at Vatican II and it
was asserted that the main aim of the entire ecumenical effort was to bring about the
recognition of the supremacy of the bishop of Rome. In order for churches to unite,
all churches must recognize the primacy of the papal See. Pope John Paul II, in
September 1995, issued a similar statement in which he claimed that recognition of
the primacy of the pope is essential for church unity. The headline of the article in
the Catholic newspaper, Southern Cross, September 17, 1995, read:

For unity all churches must accept papal authority.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church also states:

Christ bestowed unity on his Church from the beginning. This unity, we believe,
subsists in the Catholic Church as something she can never lose, and we hope that it
will continue to increase until the end of time. Article 820

The final object of ecumenism, as Catholics conceive it, is unity in Faith, worship,
and the acknowledgement of supreme spiritual authority of the Bishop of Rome.
Priest J.Cornell

For the Catholic Church, this unity that must be achieved, does not only apply to the
separated Reformation Churches, but includes all the people of the world:

All Men are called to this catholic unity of the People of God ... And to it, in different
ways, belong or are ordered: the Catholic faithful, others who believe in Christ, and
finally all mankind, called by God’s grace of salvation. Article 836, Catechism of the
Catholic Church

It is surprising to see how rapidly the world community of churches has accepted
the idea of the universal primacy of the papacy. Prior to Vatican II, there was still a
noticeable rift between Catholics and Protestants but moves towards dialogue
between reformed churches were well under way. By 1958, the World Council of
Churches (WCC) and the International Missionary Council (IMC) had joined forces,
and in 1961 the Orthodox churches and some Pentecostals were also represented at
the meeting of the Council. In 1963 the AllAfrica Church Conference resolved that:

Church unity was a Unity, which we seek among ourselves, between ourselves and
the independent churches, and between ourselves and the Roman Catholic Church.

Time Magazine, November 25, 1966 stated that the brand new Lutheran council in
the United States sent cordial greetings to the Washington meeting of Roman
Catholics. This was stated “as evidence that the spirit of unity is reciprocal.” A
Lutheran theologian has urged Protestants to focus their attention on a return to their
ecclesiastical homeland - the Roman Catholic Church. In 1969, the pope visited the
headquarters of the World Council of Churches, and Time Magazine, June 20, 1969
reported this to be: “The real event of the trip.” In the 1968 Uppsala meeting of the
WCC, the Roman Catholic Church sent observers and again in 1975 to the Nairobi
meeting.

In 1975, the growing partnership between Protestantism and Catholicism was
demonstrated by the release of a joint common catechism. This 720page book offers
comprehensive statements of the Christian faith and, according to the editors, was
written:

to help ensure that Christians cooperate within their own communities in the
common growth of the churches towards that unity in variety, which is the goal of all
ecumenical effort.

This document encourages many compromises, and brushes aside basic Biblical
precepts with impunity. The following are a few extracts to illustrate this point:

1. The moral directives we might find in the Decalogue, as well as in the Sermon on
the Mount are, “to a large extent conditioned by their age and their cultural
environment.”

2. Many New Testament passages are described as interpretations rather than
historic events, and some statements of Jesus were, “put in the mouth of Jesus” by
his apostles; sayings which "the historical Jesus never uttered.”

3. Subjects such as the physical resurrection of Jesus are regarded as a “permanent
problem” for modern man, “full of difficulties.”

Its message needs to be reinterpreted in a more meaningful manner since the
raising of Jesus from the dead is a concept formulated ‘in the language of the Jewish
apocalyptic’ which has hardly any relevancy in our modern sociocultural context.

Has the Roman Church perhaps changed its attitude and moved closer to the
Protestant faith? The Vatican II council did not change one doctrine of faith, and
since then the Vatican has become even more austere in its policy regarding the
preservation of traditional Catholic doctrine.

Read Part II.