Galatians 3:28

THE UNITY OF LIFE

‘Ye all are one man in Christ Jesus.’

Galatians 3:28 (R. V.)

It is a sublime watchword. Doubtless we are often forgetful of it, even deliberately false to it. But the words are there to be a constant check upon us, to recall us from strife and jealousy and selfishness and self-assertion to the idealism of the Gospel. ‘One man!’ We can hardly miss the force of the expression. It is absent to a great extent from the rendering in our Authorised Version, but in the Revised Version it is fully brought out. The life of all Christians is pourtrayed as one human life to which each individual existence is but contributory. The solidarity is a living solidarity. It finds its likeness not in the unity of that which is unconscious, but in the self-realisation of a rational and spiritual being. ‘Ye all are one man in Christ Jesus.’

I. Co-operation is a familiar idea to us all.—We are accustomed to see great masses of men animated by one dominant motive, pressing on as some disciplined army to a common end, inspired by the same thoughts, moved it may be by the same antagonisms and hatreds, upheld by the same hopes and ideals. We are used to see men sink their individual differences for one supreme purpose, and forget what separates them in the acknowledgment of what they have in common.

II. The unity of Christians has its source in the personal life of Christ.—The Incarnate, Crucified, Risen Saviour is the pledge of our human solidarity. It is not merely that we all look back to Him; it is not merely that we all believe in Him; it is not merely that we all hope for the fullness of His everlasting kingdom; it is that His Life embraces ours, and that in that wondrous embracement we all are one.

III. The words ought to haunt those of us who are engaged in public life.—They bid us see things in a true perspective. They press upon us the realisation that even international divergencies ought to be merged in the conception of a higher unity.

IV. There ought to be, there can be, no peace for us so long as so many of those who are partakers of that one Christian life, which we owe to the Saviour of the world, are wretched, suffering, disease-stricken, sin-stricken, depraved. We cannot stand by and say that these things matter nothing to us. The call to us is to give ourselves. We are bidden serve those who are bound up with us in a common life. ‘And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his brother also’—and in Him we are all brethren.

—Rev. the Hon. W. E. Bowen.

Illustration

‘There is a beautiful Indian legend—told by Bishop Westcott in one of his sermons—of a Buddhist saint who had attained to the stage next Nirvana. The final reward was at last within his reach, but he turned away from it. “Not,” he said, “till the last soul on every earth and in every hell has found peace can I enter on my rest.” ’