[AI translation] The last time it was said that Jesus was praying specifically for his disciples. But in this present part of his prayer he says: "But I pray not only for them (the disciples), but also for those who will believe in me at their word." So Jesus is praying for all those who have become His followers on this earth in the nearly 2,000 years since then. Only God knows their names and their numbers! And Jesus is also praying here for those who will hear the gospel of Him in the future and join the army of believers in Him. When, for example, someone stands in the pulpit and begins to preach the gospel, Jesus has already gone ahead of him, because, behold, he has prayed for all those who will believe in him at the preaching of the gospel. So we can now apply this Word to ourselves here. I can now speak to you as Jesus has already prayed for. Receive the Word in the same way that Jesus thought of you when He prayed for those who would believe in Him.What did he ask for us, for them? That all those who will believe in Him "may all be one"! Just as the Father is one with the Son, and the Son with the Father, that they may be one in the Father and in the Son. So much did Jesus take to heart the spiritual unity of those who believe in Him that He returns to the same request five times in this so-called High Priestly prayer. This is Jesus' express will and desire, one might almost say His testament, that all of us who have come to know Him and want to follow Him should form a holy and mystical unity on this earth as the Father and the Son in heaven! But how can this become a reality when so many different opinions and beliefs divide the camp of Christians on this earth! One group is based on the historic churches, the other on the principle of free churches. One advocates infant baptism, the other adult baptism. The one jealously guards its own Roman Catholic tradition, the other believes in the direction of the Reformation. Moreover, even within the Reformed Church, one emphasises the purity of orthodox doctrine, the other the realisation of Christian piety. How can unity be achieved over such differences? For believers in Jesus are not one, but very diverse on this earth! Should each one give up his or her individual convictions and develop a normal Christian faith and unite in it? Or should we tear down denominational partitions and unite in one big, common church? But which is the normal faith, which is the common church?
This is not the unity Jesus had in mind! He did not ask for this in his prayer, but "as you are in me, Father, and I in you, that they also may be one in us." Here we are talking about a much deeper, or if you like, a higher unity. It is not in the creed, and not in the church organisation, that we are to be one. We will never achieve such unity. But we don't have to! For that would not be unity, but uniformity! Not unitarianism, but uniformity. It is not wrong that there are different dogmatic visions, different faith convictions and different church formations within Christendom. After all, the person and gospel of Jesus is so infinitely rich that it would be impossible to capture, express and live it in a single formation. It is a different kind of unity! In the way that a symphony is unified. There too, the great thing is that many different instruments play many different voices, but the whole is one. Or, as in the case of a colourful flower meadow, it is beautiful that there are many different flowers of many different colours, but that even in all their diversity, and even through their diversity, they delight the eye in harmonious unity. So, I repeat, it is not in creed or church organisation that we believers in Jesus must be one, but as Jesus said, in the Father and in the Son!
What does that mean? It means that no matter how different we may be in doctrinal matters and other outward appearances, we are still one in the Father and in the Son. Let's say it this way: faith in God the Father and faith in Jesus Christ! The important thing is that we feel and know ourselves to be children of the same Father. We are members of the same Father's house. I have a friend with whom I disagree on many things in terms of faith convictions. He only eats communion with wafers and I eat communion with bread and wine. He believes in justification by works, and I believe in justification by faith. There are just enough questions, then, to separate us, or to cause us to quarrel! But that has never happened. We love each other dearly. For even beyond our differences we are welded together in spiritual unity in the fire of divine love which burned there on Calvary! We are brothers and sisters - not by a common ecclesial affiliation, since we belong to different churches; not by a common faith conviction, since there is a great difference between us in this respect too, but by faith in one Father and one redeeming God!
Moreover, Jesus had an even more mystical unity in mind when he expressed himself: "that they also may be one in us!" In other words, we are one in the Father and in the Son, above all differences! This is a very special expression in the New Testament. It is as if the person of Jesus is a medium in which the believer is included, like the bird in the air, like the fish in the water, like the man in the garment (put on Christ), like the soldier within the walls of the fortified fortress (God is my stone). To be in Christ is something like being surrounded on all sides by Jesus. So that I am not surrounded by Him with my thoughts, but Jesus surrounds me with my thoughts and my feelings and my actions. There is a big difference between Jesus being in my thoughts and feelings and my thoughts and feelings being in Jesus. There is a big difference between Jesus being in my life somewhere, and my life being in Jesus. The latter also means that I have no desire, ambition, action or plan that is outside of Jesus. A true believer not only believes in Jesus, but also, as it were, breathes himself into Jesus! He lives in Jesus! In Jesus as the element of life. Like a fish in the water, a bird in the air. He does not feel good anywhere else. A bird can dive under water for a few minutes, but it doesn't feel good there, because it's not the element of life. A fish can jump out of the water into the air for a few moments, but it can't stay there for long because it's not its life form. The child of God can also come out of Jesus, but he can't stay there for long, he doesn't feel good because Jesus is his life's food. Someone once told me that he had been on holiday in a place where they had devotions every night in the house. He felt uncomfortable. It was too much for him, this daily devotion. Behold, it was not his life's food. Question. Or is it too much for you?
Sadly, even among believers, few people really try to be in Jesus, to live in Jesus. For there can be sublime experiences in life, a sense of God's nearness, devotional moments when one feels almost surrounded by heavenly love, almost bathed in it, great resolutions formed in one's soul - but truly new life is only in Christ. Do not be satisfied with a fleeting, pious mood. A mood Christianity is the most deceitful thing in the world. It's easy to get emotional in a romantic Christmas mood, to shed a tear or two in a devotional Good Friday mood, but that's not what we are called to - we are called to new life in Jesus! Are you truly living in Christ? In God! Is He really your life? Is it true that nowhere else do you really feel good but in Him?
Well! This is the prerequisite for the unity Jesus prayed for. So Jesus said, "As I am in you, Father, and you in me, that they also may be one in us." If you are in Christ, and I am in Christ, and the Malagasy brother is in Christ, and the Japanese Christian is in Christ, then we are one! Then there is something that unites us, unites us together, beyond all distance and differences. Jesus, the perfect harmony!
The one who unites us in this way is so great and so good and so beautiful that we forget what separates us. We forget denominational denominations, liturgical differences, dogmatic differences. Then Christians in different parts of the world will not speak as "us" and "them". But only "we"! We, believers in Christ, lovers of Him. We, all in Christ! Because then what is important is no longer what divides, but what unites! That is what we must live!
If only we would not wait with this unity for the antichristian times, which Jesus also foresaw, when we will be forced to live unity as when the storm forces the crown of the trees to bend in one direction. For then it will not be asked who belongs to which denomination, but the world will see it as one and will lump it all together. It makes no distinction between this kind of Christian and that kind of Christian. So let us not look to what divides, but to the One who unites. Maybe now, but one day it will be too late!
But why is it so important that all who believe in Jesus are one? Well! This unity is not an end in itself, but a means. There is and can be no politics in it, no side-objectives, for example, to stand united against unbelief in the world. This is a false point of view! Jesus states the goal: "That the world may believe that you sent me." Jesus always has the salvation of the world at heart. He never did anything against the world, but always for the world! And the way to save the world is through believers. If we are one in Christ, then the world will believe that Jesus is truly Savior! How can the world believe the love we Christians proclaim if we cannot love and understand one another? How would the gospel message of forgiving one another's sins be credible to the world if, for example, Rome could not forgive the Reformation? How can the world give credence to the salvation proclaimed by the Church if those who proclaim it do not behave at all like the redeemed among themselves? Indeed, the credibility of all Christendom is at stake in the unity of all who believe and confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour.
Finally, there is a strange statement here from Jesus, "Father, those whom you have given me, I want them to be with me where I am!" And where is Jesus? In the Father! There's that strange expression again: in God! So it is Jesus' will that we be in Him and with Him in the Father! So say with Jesus: I want it, I want it, Lord! If this is your will, let it be my will too! For my part, I will do my utmost to fulfil this holy, divine will! In this way, the unity for which Jesus prayed so much will be realised, truly realised.
Amen
Date: 18 May 1969.