# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1906_S20
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

20 Proceedings of the twenty-first convention

understand by it, namely either a unity of outward organization or a unity in ceremonies and the like, but it is a spiritual unity, a unity, as the Apology calls it, of the inward goods in the heart, of faith, of the fear and love of God. The Apostle exhorts us to preserve this unity, and therefore the question now arises for us: What should move us to preserve the unity in the Spirit?

Twice the LORD speaks with special emphasis of the unity of His Church. In John 10:16 He says: "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd." There the LORD speaks of the Church of the New Testament in contrast to the position of the Jews, who held themselves separate from the Gentiles, considered themselves better than the Gentiles and could not understand how others could also be saved who had not first become Jews. The Lord speaks evidently in the sense of the Old Testament prophets; for this is a thought that runs through all prophecy, from Obadiah to Malachi. The LORD uses here the image of the flock and its shepherd, just as Paul uses the image of the body for the same purpose. In the high-priestly prayer Jesus speaks once more of the unity of His Church and lets us recognize what importance He attaches to this unity, saying (John 17:20, 21): "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." From this it follows that the unity, the unity in the Spirit, is a self-evident attribute of the Christian Church. It rests on the one truth of the Gospel, by which it is begotten. It rests on unity in the Word. So now also the Apostle speaks in the Epistle to the Ephesians of the unity in the Spirit, in that he develops the three points of the thesis: The unity in the Spirit is to be preserved because it has been 1. ordained by God, 2. established by Christ, and 3. carried out among men by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel.

Where the Apostle in the first chapter expresses the thought that all things are gathered together in Christ, the thought of the one congregation already plays into it. The words read (vv. 9, 10): "Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, and hath brought it forth through Him, that it should be preached, when the time was fulfilled, that all things might be gathered together in Christ." With this he points directly to the fact that God so guides and directs all things in heaven and on earth, also in the realm of power, that His will with regard to the congregation of the New Testament is carried out. Then he speaks further of the two parts of which the later congregation is composed, the Jews and the Gentiles. Of the Jews he says in v. 11: "in