Christian Unity

Dr. Robert Godfrey's "Reformed Dream:"
http://www.modernreformation.org/default.php?page=articledisplay&var1=EmailComp&var2=123&var3=authorbio&var4=AutRes&var5=70

Every day provides another opportunity to contrast the Truth of Christianity as God has revealed it in His Word with The Lie, which is the human endeavor to worship the created order instead of its Creator. This opportunity should be constantly seized, as God constantly reveals how His Truth in best understood in contrast to The Lie. All human effort, whether intellectual, emotional, or spiritual, is part of a worldwide rebellion against the King that has persisted since the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Only when the whole person is transformed by the saving knowledge of the Gospel of Christ is one free to ascertain the Truth and abide in its glory.

With each passing day comes another opportunity to contrast True Christianity with Relevant Christianity. True Christianity at minimum embraces God as a Creator who is wholly distinct from His Creation, a fallen mankind that is guilty of Adam's sin and is unable to escape the mire of sinfulness, and Jesus Christ--the God-man who is eternal, yet came into the world, taking upon Himself full humanity--who lived the life that we could not live and died the death that we could not bear so that His elect might be saved. Relevant Christianity compromises on any or all of the aforementioned facts, trading its purity for popularity. Thus, it is always appropriate to criticize a figure like Joel Osteen, who defines human need in terms of unfulfilled potential instead of sin and prescribes Christ as the Savior from failure rather than the Savior from sin.

Purity and fidelity to God demands that Christians take the two stands mentioned above, but there is certainly a place for Christian unity. Such a place is found in mutual adherence to Reformed Confessions. While True Christianity extends beyond Confessional Reformed congregations, significant doctrinal differences renders unity impossible between all true Christian bodies. One of the wonderful attributes of Westminster Seminary California is found in its ability to gather Reformed Christians of all stripes together for the sake of the Gospel. The Church and its seminaries need not compromise on God's Truth in order to be ecumenical. Rather, it should merely issue forth the cry of the Gospel with the utmost clarity, that all who share in the fellowship of the historic Confessions of Reformed Christianity might find new strength in renewed unity.

Strength is not found in numbers, for God's people have often found themselves to be the persecuted minority in the course of redemptive-history. In one of the darkest moments for God's people, the prophet Elijah thought himself to be the only true believer left. God encouraged him with the knowledge that there were still 7,000 who did not bend the knee to the idols of the world. In our day--one in which compromise and capitulation has been more common amongst Christians than courage--we could use the encouragement that amongst the broader Reformed community, we have our 7,000 by God's grace.