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In John 17, Jesus prays for all believers, “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one” (vv. 21–23). What did Jesus mean by this? Some Christians see this as a prayer for organizational unity and a call for a greater effort to bring different churches and denominations together. But is this what Jesus would want us to do? Such efforts for organizational unity nearly always result in a disregard for theological clarity. “Theology divides; Christ unites” is an often-heard credo of proponents of such a unity. But Jesus also prayed for a unity that is deeply rooted in theological truth.
The unity that Jesus Christ shared with His heavenly Father is a unity in all truth, since neither God the Son nor God the Father had the problem that His theological understanding was marred by the fall. If we want to grow toward a unity that can somewhat resemble this perfect intra-Trinitarian unity, we cannot put aside theology. Quite the opposite—we need to strive for an ever-deeper understanding of the truth that unites God the Father and God the Son.
At the same time, we do well to recognize that the intra-Trinitarian unity is a spiritual unity. While Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), the one true God exists in three persons. Given that Jesus prays in John 17 that Christians have a unity that resembles this intra-Trinitarian unity, it should be obvious that the focus of His prayer is not an outward unity. Rather, it is a spiritual unity. This is what we should be striving for, and this is what Jesus is praying for.
Spiritual unity is deeper and much more real than any other form of unity. True spiritual unity can exist where organizational unity doesn’t exist. It is a matter of the heart. As Christians, we should love our brothers and sisters with the unique Christian love that this world doesn’t know. This spiritual unity can exist even if we have theological disagreements that prevent us from being in the same church or the same denomination. It exists not because we lay aside theology but because we greatly respect each other in our efforts to grow in our understanding of God’s truth. Such spiritual unity becomes visible when we speak kindly about other churches. It becomes visible as we pray for other local churches. And it might even lead us to support fellow Christians who might have particular needs even while we might still disagree with them on some matters that prevent us from being organizationally united with them. As we do this, we have the sure hope that one day we will “attain to the unity of the faith” (Eph. 4:13). One day all our disagreements will end, “for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12). Until then, we should pursue unity by loving each other even though we might not be able to be in the same visible institution. May God grant us such unity in response to Jesus’ prayer.