Unity of the Spirit to the unity of the faith

Ephesians 4: 3: Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Ephesians 4: 11 – 13: And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

No matter where you go in the world and how many message churches you visit, there will always be differences in how believers understand the scriptures and the things the prophet taught. Every church is sovereign, and although the fundamental truths of scripture may be understood the same by all (the Godhead, Serpent seed, water baptism, no eternal Hell for example), yet there are many other subjects that are melting pots of varied interpretations (music, mixed marriage, marriage and divorce etcetera).

Paul clears the air for us by stating that there is to be a unity of the Spirit amongst the believers before there can be a unity of the faith where we understand the scriptures exactly the same. Let us elaborate on this thought for a moment by looking at the exemplary life of our prophet. In the message “Presuming,” preached on June 10, 1962, the prophet spoke of his bosom friend Joseph Mattsson-Boze, saying that Joseph understood the scriptures quite differently to himself, but when it came to having brotherly love, he and the prophet were exactly the same. So the prophet did not allow differences of understanding to get between him and his friend and upset the peaceful bond of brotherly love that existed between them.

The reality is that we will disagree with one another on how we interpret certain aspects of the Word, but that is not to be a reason for us to lose our love for one another, nor to disassociate or disfellowship ourselves from those who may see things just a little different. Paul tells us that we are to peacefully keep the Spirit of unity amongst ourselves even when people may strongly (and fiercely) disagree with how we see things, for that is the Christlike thing to do.

The unity of the faith is what will follow the unity of the Spirit. It is only when Jesus is reigning as King over the earth in His corporal body that there will actually be a unity of the faith amongst the believers. All the little differences between us will vanish away when Jesus makes plainly known to us the exact way in which His Word is to be administered and understood. And the reason why the unity of faith will happen at that time is because we will no longer be in these bodies of fallen flesh that view the scriptures and the message through a cultural mindset and by experiences that shaped our worldview in a somewhat distorted fashion.

From this we learn that whilst we are still in these bodies of fallen flesh, we are to have a unity of the Spirit amongst each other, and that can only come by the rebirth which is of the Spirit. Then when our bodies are glorified at the Rapture, we will have the unity of the faith, because our whole being will be a product of the Spoken Word, and no external influences will be able to interrupt nor distort the revelation of the Word anymore.