Alistair Begg Devotional The Key to Unity

The Key to Unity

The Key to Unity

In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

When someone comes to Christ by faith, the transformation of their identity is comprehensive. In the language Paul employs in Ephesians 2, the dead sinner is now alive in Christ; the child of wrath becomes a child of God. But the new identity is not merely individual. We are not each of us alone in Christ; we are in Him with all of God’s people. This is why Paul, in Ephesians 2, moves from our individual experience of grace to the corporate work that God’s grace accomplishes. Paul tells us, “You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (v 19). The “one new man” (v 15) that Christ is making is gloriously crowded with fellow heirs of grace. This is not to say that our individual human identity becomes irrelevant. Our background and our makeup—our sex, ethnicity, and personal history—are not obliterated in Christ. We are who we are, made in God’s image, fashioned according to His purposes. But what unifies us in Christ—our union with Christ—transcends everything else.

We must beware the temptation to forget the reason for our unity. No one is immune from turning elements of their identity into barriers—barriers of status, of color, of class, of personality type, or personal preferences. As Christians, we must be prepared to acknowledge how easy it is to get this wrong. We must be prepared, if we find ourselves guilty of such wrong, to repent from and grieve over that which displeases God.

The key to Christian unity is the gospel. Paul recognized that only God can soften hard hearts, only God can open blind eyes, and only God can bring disparate people together and form something truly, gloriously united. God is making “one new man,” and He is making that new man in His church. In Christ, God is building a “holy temple” (Ephesians 2:21) that is “being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” Partiality based on race, class, or status has no place in the place where God dwells by His Spirit. One day you will experience the fullness of your union with Christ and His people for eternity; but that can, and should, begin now. You have the privilege of fostering that unity today in the way you use your time and in the way you think of, pray for, and speak to your brothers and sisters in your church.

We are building day by day,
As the moments glide away,
Our temple, which the world may not see;
Every victory won by grace
Will be sure to find its place
In our building for eternity.[1]
Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

The Way of Love

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have aprophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, bso as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3cIf I give away all I have, and dif I deliver up my body to be burned,1 but have not love, I gain nothing.

4eLove is patient and fkind; love gdoes not envy or boast; it his not arrogant 5or rude. It idoes not insist on its own way; it jis not irritable or resentful;2 6it kdoes not rejoice at wrongdoing, but lrejoices with the truth. 7mLove bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, eendures all things.

8Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9For nwe know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but owhen the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12For pnow we see in a mirror dimly, but qthen face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as rI have been fully known.

13So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Open in Bible
Footnotes
1 13:3 Some manuscripts deliver up my body [to death] that I may boast
2 13:5 Greek irritable and does not count up wrongdoing
Footnotes
1 Fanny J. Crosby, “We Are Building” (1891).

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg, published by The Good Book Company, thegoodbook.com. Used by Truth For Life with permission. Copyright © 2021, 2022, The Good Book Company.

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