The Church's One Foundation, part 2: Unity of the Faith Through Union with Christ

In the first part of this series, we looked at the life of Samuel J. Stone. He lived and died an Englishman, committed to his country and to the Anglican church. He was a good shepherd, giving spiritual food to his people and protecting them from ignorance (and the occasional bully).

His effort to feed the people of Windsor led him to write 12 hymns to explain the teaching of the Apostles’ Creed. He hoped that hymns would instruct these uneducated people in ways that a book could not. I believe he was not mistaken in the power of a good hymn or song. We tend to retain things that we sing longer than things that we hear. This unusual power of music can be a great gift to promote the truth. But this power cuts both ways, for songs that are theologically weak or that contain error can do much damage and spread error more quickly than a sermon or a book.

The Apostles’ Creed was a regular part of Stone’s life in the Anglican church, but because many Christians are not familiar with it some brief comments are in order. A creed is simply a statement of faith. The Apostles’ Creed was written in the Latin of the Roman Empire and begins with the word credo (“I believe”). The earliest records of its present form appear in the early 400s; it was not actually written by the apostles but was developed out of an earlier statement that dates to the early 200s. In the space of one long paragraph the creed covers biblical teaching about the three persons of the Trinity, the church, the forgiveness of sins, the judgment, and the resurrection. Later creeds and confessions would be needed to clarify the basic outline of doctrine taught in the Apostles’ Creed, but its words are true and have been recited by Christians for well over one thousand years.

Some today might neglect the Apostles’ Creed because it is old or because it has come to be associated with a formal (“high church”) style of worship. But to completely ignore this document is to be cut off from a rich heritage; it is a simple and useful link to the past. Our authority comes only from Scripture, but if we rarely give thought to the documents of church history, we skip over the roughly 80 generations of Christians between the New Testament and today. Eighty generations of Christians are treated as though they never existed. When we overlook these intervening generations, we overlook the fact that in whatever local church or denomination we find ourselves, that institution is either the result of building on someone else's faithfulness or reacting to someone else’s error. In either case, we are the latecomers to the family.

Stone and his contemporaries saw value in using the Apostles’ Creed, but Stone realized that to his people it might become simply a vain repetition. So he put great effort into crafting the twelve hymns for the creed’s twelve sections. He summarized section nine as relating to “the nature of the universal church, and the fellowship of the saints.” In short, “The Church’s One Foundation” is a hymn about ecclesiology. (Ekklesia is the Greek New Testament word translated “church”).

verse 1.

He begins this hymn by discussing the origin of the church. He alludes to the fact that the church is a building, built on a foundation. In New Testament terms, the church is not a generic building but is the temple of the new covenant age, the special dwelling place of God on earth. Jesus Christ is that foundation—the Lord of the church.

This teaches us that any institution not built on Jesus Christ and his teaching is not truly a church. Walls and buildings, awe-inspiring architecture or stunning pipe organs, theater seats or space age sound systems—these do not turn a group of people into a church. The church consists of people who may gather in a building called a church, but the building itself is does not confer “church status” on those who gather inside.

How did the church become the church? Everything necessary to her formation was initiated and accomplished by Jesus. When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, he hid from God, but God came looking for Adam. That same scenario has been repeated throughout history. Sinners do not naturally come looking for God (Romans 3:11). They may want things that he has to offer, like freedom from guilt or hope for the future, but they do not want God himself.

The Son of God, who had existed with the Father and the Spirit for all eternity, humbled himself, left heaven, and took on the finite form of a human nature when he came to earth (Philippians 2:5-8). He did not simply come as a human, he came to die for humans. We read these things but too often do so with the dullness that accompanies familiarity. Heard as though for the first time, it is astounding. As a modern songwriter described it, “hands that flung stars into space to cruel nails surrendered.” Jesus does not come as one who throws a lifeline to a drowning woman. He does not save the church from a distance. He enters her world. He buys her with his own blood. And, once he has rescued her, he does not send her on her way but takes her as his bride. He has no plans to return to his Father's house alone. He will bring his bride with him to share the eternal glory and happy fellowship that the Father, Son, and Spirit have always known.

These wonderful provisions to the church come to her with strings attached, but they are strings like those that tie a child to his mother’s apron—strings of responsibility that are motivated by devotion and dependence. Notice what Stone loads into this verse. Jesus is the church’s foundation, her Lord, her creator, her rescuer, her husband, her purchaser, her substitute. The church is not free to promote herself or define herself. She does not belong to herself.

verse 2.

In verse 2, Stone goes on to talk about the unity of the church. He is not expressing wishful thinking or a lowest common denominator kind of unity. He is simply repeating the teaching of the New Testament. There does not seem to be much unity among churches today—this can be attributed to sinful pride, the imperfection of human understanding, or even false churches posing as true. But there is a fundamental unity among all true people of God.

The unity that the true church knows comes through its union with Christ. Stone makes this clear as he draws on great passages such as Ephesians 4:4-6 and 1 Corinthians 10:16-17. Each of the members of the true church have become members in exactly the same way—through confessing the name of Christ and submitting to him as Lord. Each of the members is sustained in exactly the same way—by feeding on Christ. And each of the members shares the same destiny—conformity to the likeness of Christ and an eternal share in his inheritance.

In an age of increasing polarization, where political party, skin color, or views of climate change become the categories into which people are placed, we need verse 2 to take possession of our minds. Like it or not, all true members of the church are brothers and sisters. This is a trans-denominational truth. Biological siblings often have a difficult time getting along. But the relationship exists in spite of the friction, and the responsibility to show affection and care cannot be disregarded. So it is with the church. Baptist, do you love your Presbyterian brother the way that Christ loves him? Bible churcher, do you love your Mennonite sister the way that Christ loves her?

The call to live out true Christian unity does not diminish the importance of doctrine. Stone’s use of Ephesians 4:5 makes this clear. There is “one faith.” That is, there is one right answer to every theological question. But even if we exert our minds and prayerfully consider the issues, we may not reach clarity on each answer on this side of eternity. As we labor to come to a clear understanding of the “one faith,” we must not forget that Jesus came “full of grace and truth.” Let us be like Jude, who grew up surrounded by the grace and truth of Jesus, his brother. As we “earnestly contend for the faith,” let us do so having “mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; have mercy on others but with fear” (Jude 3, 22-23, HCSB). A real understanding of the truth will strengthen our resolve to stand for it at the same time that it increases our love and affection for all of those with whom we share the family name.