What Unites Us

You are all one in Christ Jesus
– Galatians 3:28 –

What is the bond that keeps these united ones together? Among other things, there is the bond of having the same origin. Every person who is a partaker of the life of God has sprung from the same divine Father. The Spirit of God has enlivened all the faithful alike. We discover the same life in every Christian. They have been made alive by the same Spirit and made to live by the same energy. And though they do not know it, they are still one.

Additionally, all true believers are supported by the same strength. The life that motivates the prayer of a believer today is the same life that motivated the cry of a believer two thousand years ago. The same Spirit who made the tear trickle from the eye of a repentant person back then still makes us bow before God Most High today.

Moreover, all believers have the same aim and object. Every true saint is shot from the same bow and is speeding toward the same target. There may be, there will be, much that is not of God in him. There is still much human weakness, impurity, and corruption. But still the inward spirit that God has put there is forcing its way to the same perfection of holiness and is, meanwhile, seeking to glorify God.

Above all, the Holy Spirit who indwells every believer is the true source of oneness.… Though the outward display may vary, yet the same Spirit of God works the same graces, the same virtues, and the same values and thus helps all saints to prove themselves to be of one tribe. When I meet an Englishman anywhere the wide world over, I recognize in him some likeness to myself. There is some characteristic about him by which his nationality is revealed. And if I meet a Christian five hundred years back in the midst of Roman Catholicism and darkness, his speech betrays him. If my soul travels in time to one hundred years from now, although Christianity may have assumed another outward garb and fashion, I will still recognize Christians. I will still detect the Galilean accent. There will be something that will show me that if I am an heir of Heaven, then I am one with the past and one with the future—yes, one with all the saints of the living God.

From Spurgeon on Unity, pp. 119–120