Brotherly Love (1)

The Source of Oneness

At the close of the Last Supper, knowing that his time was short and that these were among the last words His disciples would hear from Him, Jesus gave this most remarkable command:

A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. (John 13:34-35)

The Lord commanded His disciples to love one another in the same selfless sacrificial way that He had loved them. Indeed, He was about to demonstrate this love with the ultimate sacrifice, willingly dying on the cross for those who misunderstood, despised, and ultimately crucified Him.

This brotherly love was to be visible to all men. It was to be so different from the world’s love that it would mark them out as the Lord’s disciples. History tells us that this was indeed the case during the age of persecution that was soon to follow. Thousands came to Christ after seeing how the Christians loved and cared for one another at the risk of life and property.

Brotherly love is the practical answer to the Lord’s prayer just before being taken captive in the garden, “that they may all be one… that the world may believe that thou didst send me” (John 17:21). By the brotherly love He commanded, “all men will know.” By the oneness He prayed for, “the world will believe.” These are two sides of the same thing. The source of oneness is brotherly love. Oneness through brotherly love is the testimony the Lord wants the entire world to see.

Throughout history, Christians have sought the source of oneness that would enable them to experience the answer to the Lord’s prayer in the garden, and have employed all kinds of structures to produce it. This emphasis on producing oneness inevitably resulted in the most narrow, exclusive, and divisive of sects. Let us take three examples.

• The Plymouth Brethren saw the lack of oneness among the Christians in their day. They felt the situation was hopeless, and so sought oneness among themselves by practicing “separation from evil.” Of course, they defined what people and practices were evil, and often could not agree among themselves. Eventually the narrowest among them set legal rules, and strictly judged those who did not conform. The result was mass excommunication of whole churches and division upon division. Church members were eventually not even allowed to eat with family members if they were considered outsiders. This so-called testimony of oneness grew smaller and smaller, as they became one with fewer and fewer people. Instead of believing, the world laughed at this most peculiar sect.

• The Catholic Church tries to enforce a global oneness. To do this, it set up a worldwide hierarchy to which all Catholics are to give their allegiance without question. The church defines correct doctrine, and so there is no need for the faithful to go to any other source. Only sanctioned theology books are to be read, and woe to any who would dare publish something that differed. The historical result has been a multitude of excommunications, persecutions, and divisions

• The local churches of the Living Stream Ministry (LSM) looked to the New Testament to find how oneness was practiced in the first century. There they found the pattern of having only one church in every city. In fact, each church at that time was known by the name of its city, such as the church in Jerusalem, the church in Antioch, and the church in Rome. Although this pattern is biblical, LSM practiced this in such a way that brotherly love evaporated. They became narrow and exclusive in their attitude toward other Christians. They became proud in their doctrine, claiming that no one else had ever seen what they have seen. They set up a worldwide hierarchy that insisted on conformity in teaching and practice. Any who were suspected of  “teaching differently” were ostracized. No one could publish anything that had not been approved by this leadership without fear of being excommunicated. Eventually they even began to sue those local churches that did not fall into line in order to punish them and to obtain their property. Outwardly they forced a kind of conforming oneness within their ranks, but the lack of brotherly love was obvious to any objective observer. The testimony of Christ they so longed for was nowhere to be found except in their own imagination.

This is not a new problem. Even in the first century the relationship between the believers was sometimes strained. The apostle Paul deals with this in 1 Corinthians 12 where he points out that although there are differences of gifts, services, and operations, they are all of the same Spirit. In the body, some are hands and some are feet; some are eyes and some are ears; some are comely and some are uncomely. No member is to despise another, but all should be tempered, or blended together, giving honor to one another. He ends this chapter by saying, “And moreover a most excellent way show I unto you” (1 Corinthians 12:31). He defines this most excellent way in the following chapter.

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

Everything in the Christian life and in the church life requires brotherly love. The best gifts God gives are worthless without it. Even talk of oneness without brotherly love is just sounding brass and a clanging cymbal. John echoed this thought and brought us back to the Lord’s command when he wrote, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen. And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:20-21).

Brotherly love is the biblical source of oneness. Without it, oneness is just a mirage, altogether theoretical. It is always on the horizon, but never within reach. If our goal is oneness, it will never be realized. If our goal is to fulfill the Lord’s command to love one another, oneness will automatically be ours. As the apostle Peter said, “above all things being fervent in your love among yourselves; for love covereth a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). Love melts away all the problems between us.

Once a lawyer asked the Lord what was the greatest commandment in the law. The Lord answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets” (Matthew 22:36-40). Love for God and love for our neighbors fulfills everything. There is no other requirement. If we love our neighbors, we will certainly be one with them.

Brotherly love defines the church life. It is the source of oneness that will cause the world to see and believe. If we cannot love our Christian brothers and sisters, especially those who see differently than we do and who meet in places and ways other than ours, then our oneness is false. Christ loved and died for every child of God. How can we not do the same? As John said, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).

If our oneness is only with those within the circle of our little group, that oneness is too small. If our oneness depends on conformity to a set of practices, that oneness is too narrow. If our oneness is only with those who do not offend us, that oneness is a dream. Paul said,

Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

Only this kind of brotherly love produces real oneness.