This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Where Is the Church? Part II

In my former post, I reflected on the nature of ecclesiological models, and argued that there are only two such possible models, and that one of them, the Branch Model, is fundamentally flawed, incapable of providing a model that is in line with the reality of what the Church really is. In short, the Branch Model is a heresy. The only legitimate model of ecclesiology is the Exclusive Model; that is to say, an incarnate, visible church or group lays claim to being the Church. The mere claim, of course, does not authenticate itself. Rather, the claim itself must be based on what the essential characteristics of the Church actually are.

This is not the first time I've reflected on the question of what constitutes the Church of Christ. Most of my reflections on this topic took place in December 2002, and found expression in the following: Five Theses in Advent, The Church Is One and Visible, and another essay with the same title as this post, Where Is the Church?. What I will be saying here will not be essentially different from my previous reflections, though I do intend here to clarify and expand upon them.

The Essential Nature of the Church: Unity

A good a place to begin, as to the essential conditions necessary for a church or group to be the Church, is the Nicene Creed and its declaration of the Church as one, holy, catholic and apostolic. But this may seem to beg the question, so let us start with Ephesians (and some related New Testament passages) where all these qualities are manifest.

One

The classic text in Ephesians on the unity of the Church comes from chapter four.

There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, Who is over all, and through all, and in you all. But to each of us was given grace according to the measure of the gift of the Christ. Wherefore, He saith, "Having ascended on high, He led captivity captive," and "gave gifts to men." Now that He ascended, what it is except that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? The One Who descended is the same also Who ascended above all of the heavens, in order that He might fill all things. And He gave some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of ministering, to the building up of the body of the Christ, until we all might come to the unity of the faith, and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ; in order that we may no longer be infants, tossed to and fro by waves, and carried about with every wind of teaching, by the sleight of men, in craftiness toward the systematizing of error; but speaking the truth in love, we might grow up into Him in all things who is the head-- the Christ; from Whom all the body, being joined and knit together by what every juncture supplieth, according to the energy of every single part in measure, maketh for itself the increase of the body, to the building up of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:4-16, The Orthodox New Testament, © 2004 Holy Apostles Convent)

I have quoted this passage at length precisely because the discussion of the gifts of various ministries in the Church is bookended by the assertion of unity. These gifts both come from the nature of the Church as one Body and serve that one Body by uniting it in their ministries. But of course, the classical text for the unity of the Church is found in Jesus' own prayer.

"And I do not make request for these only, but also for those who shall believe on Me through their word; in order that all may be one, even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us, that the world might believe that Thou didst send me forth. And the glory which Thou has given Me I have given them, in order that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected into one, and that the world may know that Thou didst send Me forth, and didst love them even as Thou dist love Me. Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, in order that they may behold the glory, that which is Mine, which Thou gavest Me; for Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world." (John 17:20-24)

Here we see that the unity predicated of the Church is the unity of the Godhead Himself. It is the Trinitarian unity in which can be no division, no schism. It is a perfect unity, complete, without flaw. And I must stress this: It is the unity which inheres in the Church, by the Church's very participation hypostatically in Christ. Insofar as the Church is in Christ, she is graced with the unity that obtains in the Holy Trinity.

So this unity is not one of mere organization, administration or institution. It is, indeed, a charismatic, a pneumatic, unity. Since it is a unity that obtains by way of participation in the Life of the Holy Trinity, it is fundamentally real. It is actual, not potential. It does not need to be realized. It is.

Indeed, this unity is a Eucharistic unity.

The cup of blessing which we bless, it it not communion of the blood of the Christ? The bread which we break, is it not communion of the body of the Christ. For we who are many, are one bread, one body; for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:16-17)

The Church's unity is founded in Christ in the Holy Trinity, but if flows from the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist. This is entirely appropriate, for just as the God-given creaturely gifts of bread and wine are made by God's grace to partake of the very nature of divinity, so, too, are those who partake of the bread and wine brought into real and vital participation with that divinity, and are thus made one body in this Eucharistic act and promise.

It is from this Eucharistic Mystery enacted in and for and by the Church, that the Church realizes her unity and is realized in unity. It is from this Eucharistic unity that any sort of institutional or organizational unity obtains. "Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is administered either by the bishop, or by one to whom he entrusted it" St. Ignatios of Antioch wrote (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, chapter 8), because the episcopacy is itself founded on the Eucharist. The Eucharistic Mystery is also the foundation of the Church's unity of mind. As St. Ignatios writes in his Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 20, that "ye obey the bishop and the presbytery with an undivided mind, breaking one and the same bread, which is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote to prevent us from dying, but which causes that we should live for ever in Jesus Christ." But this exhortation to unity of mind is not just a second century innovation, it is the very part of the apostolic deposit itself.

Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all be speaking the same thing, and that schisms may not be among you, but that ye be perfected together in the same mind and in the same sentiment. (1 Corinthians 1:10)

The Church's unity is not only incarnated as a visible body united around the bishop, but that unity is also incarnated in oneness of mind, teaching the same doctrine, having the same belief.

There are perhaps a myriad of ways the Church lives the unity that is fully and completely hers. The love the members of the Body show for one another is, by all accounts, paramount. Indeed, I might rather have titled this section "The Essential Nature of the Church: Love" as Love is another name for Unity. In fact, Jesus' prayer for the unity of the Church, cited above, intertwines the divine love and divine unity which inheres in the Church and between the Church and the Godhead. But the stress on the unitive aspect of this divine love is what is in focus here, precisely because this manifestation of love as unity is a particular and essential aspect of the nature of the Church.

One could, of course, argue well and rightly that all of these four cardinal points (oneness, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity) are simply particular incarnations of the divine love that creates and sustains the Church. And one could also well and rightly argue that each of these cardinal points give rise to the rest: unity to holiness, apostolicity to catholicity, and so forth; all of these being bound essentially in love.

But in terms of the question this series of posts sets out to answer, the matter of unity is not only primary, and therefore from this standpoint, generative, but fundamentally essential. For in answering the question, "Where is the Church?" it is precisely the unity of the Church that substantiates the answer. All other answers that predicate holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity can be defended as giving rise to unity. This would not be wrong, but it would leave such answers more easily manipulable to claims that have no foundation in reality. For example, Protestants claim their particular churches or groups are apostolic because they are one with the apostles in doctrine. Leaving the authenticity of this claim aside, unity becomes the product of dogma, rather than its origin. And without this original and generative unity, one has no way to determine between competing claims of apostolicity.

Thus, at least in the terms of this question, unity is essential and fundamental.

The implications of this unity, however, will have to wait for a moment. We will return to what it means for this unity to be originated in the Holy Trinity, realized in the Eucharist, and expressed in the same mind, and what that means in terms of answering our question. But before we do that, we must turn to the remaining three characteristics of the Church as delineated from the Scriptures. And it is to holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity to which we now turn our attention.

Posted by Clifton at March 6, 2005 08:00 AM | TrackBack