We have an invitation. Orthodox Pres­byterians and Reformed Presbyterians have been invited by the Presbyterian Church in America to enter their fel­lowship in one church, to come with them to the table of the Lord.

But it is not finally the elders of that church who call us. It is the Lord. The church is not theirs; it is Christ's. In Christ's name they call us, who confess the same Lord and the same faith, to join with them in the same fellowship.

We must praise God for that invita­tion. They call us in Christ's love, al­though we are not particularly lovable. As Orthodox Presbyterians, we have a reputation for a certain smugness about our progress in Reformed doctrine. We will admit, if pressed, that we did not in­vent the Reformed faith, but we some­times assume that we hold the U.S. copyright!

How will we respond to the invitation of our fellow Presbyterians? Does the Lord expect us to join them at his table?

Yes, he does, for this is the teaching of his word.

That teaching is not always per­ceived. We have grown to know and love our denomination and to enjoy a family feeling in it. We naturally ask, "Why should we join with another church? What advantage will make up for losing our own identity?"

Put that way, the question might seem hard to answer. But it is the wrong question. Our church is not our own. We are not free to set up our own standards for membership or fellow­ship. The church is not a religious club. It is under Jesus Christ, its only Lord and King. We do not have any identity to defend except the identity of his body.

Jesus wills the unity of his disciples. Before he went to the cross he prayed for it — a unity in the truth, a unity in fel­lowship with the Father and the Son, but a visible unity, a unity that the world can see, a unity that witnesses to the new life and love that we have in him (John 17:21).

We have all reacted against demands for unity from those who would make shipwreck of our faith. We rightly insist that organizational unity is a mockery if it does not express spiritual unity, a unity in the faith once delivered to the saints. But we should also insist that spiritual unity can be mocked. It is mocked if we refuse to bear respon­sibility for one another in the fellowship and discipline of love that Christ has appointed for his church.

The Call of the Father⤒🔗

The unity of the church does not begin with us, but with God. We are God's holy nation, God's own people (1 Peter 2:9). The Church is God's new Israel. How the apostles labored to keep the unity of the people of God when it was threatened by the Judaizers (Acts 15)! Apostolic doctrine demands apostolic fellowship (Acts 2:42). Paul commands us to seek diligently the unity of the church be­cause

There is one body and one Spirit ... one Lord ... one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.Ephesians 4:4, 5

Paul argues from our unity in our one God to our duty: to keep that unity in our fellowship.

The Body of Christ←⤒🔗

If our one Father calls us to unity, so does our one Savior. Paul's picture of the unity of the church is the body of Christ. For Paul that is more than a figure. The church is one body first of all in Christ's body on the cross (Ephesians 2:16). We who are Christ's were all united to him in his death, his resurrec­tion, his ascension. When he died, we died. At the communion table our union with Christ's body is symbolized and sealed as we eat the bread to­gether.

The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ? seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one body, for we all par­take of the one bread.1 Corinthians 10:16b, 17

That is why Paul reacts as he does when denominational division threat­ ended the church at Corinth. "Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized into the name of Paul?" (1 Corinthians 1:13).

As Paul sees it there could be a Pauline denomination only if Paul could be crucified for the sins of his fol­lowers. But there can be only one cruci­fied Lord of the church; our union with him demands that we not divide from one another.

The Gifts of the Spirit←⤒🔗

The same conclusion follows from the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. There is one body and one Spirit sent from heaven to build up that body in union with Christ (Ephesians 4:4, 12). The unity of the church is spiritual: Holy Spiritual. The Spirit gives many gifts, but the diversity of the Spirit's gifts does not divide the church. Rather, it is diversity that unites the body. We need most the gifts of others that differ most from ours. The eye needs the hand and the head the foot (1 Corinthians 12:21). Paul often lists the graces of the Spirit that are necessary for unity: lowliness, meek­ness, longsuffering, forbearance — and above all love (Ephesians 4:2; Galatians 5:22; 1 Corinthians 13).

The order and discipline of the church is carried out by the gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:27-31; Ephesians 4:11-­13). In these same passages, the word of God commands us to seek the unity of the Spirit. It is a unity in the fellow­ship of teaching and ruling gifts.

We may rejoice in the invitation of the PCA, a church committed to the same doctrinal standards and the same Presbyterian government as we. We should accept that invitation, not to be­come bigger, nor even better, but to bring about a fuller expression of the loving fellowship that Christ wills for his church. To reject the invitation would be unthinkable for a church committed to scriptural order.