Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? - 1 Corinthians 1:13
It seems like a harmless statement given to us by the Apostle Paul, not just a statement a question: "Is Christ divided?" Of course the answer would be "no" he is not divided or who would want to cause the harm to rent or rip the purity of the wholeness of who Christ is. Anyway we can take this statement from God we realize it is wrong to do so, to divide Christ in anyway. Division speaks of ripping, renting, tearing, ruining, splitting, disunited. Our Lord was indeed rent and torn as they whipped him on the post and his holy blood was split for us on the cross. Our Lord wept and suffered much being in agony for us on the tree. Yet the Apostle is speaking here of a truth of the body of Christ being the Church. And in the midst of the Corinthian Church there was much dis-unity, which gives the heart of Paul. Sadly, in the context of modern evangelicalism we have missed the importance of these things. To us to be involved in a church is a very loose thing, we do not take it seriously by in-large, yet in the early Church, the gathering of believers was considered a very holy thing, yet the Corinthian Church had those with no fear of the Lord in their midst and leaders doing what they wanted to do, encouraging division after names of men and doctrines.
Our Lord not only is hurt and grieved by these things also but wounded as his body (the Church) is rent, divided, torn at times. Jesus is weeping over the dis-unity of the body of Christ in our day and desires to see believers humbly unified. Francis Franigipane says, "The Living God is a God of order; He will not dwell in ruins! Because He is a God of love, He will work with us to rebuild, but He will not sanction our fallen condition with power. He will not lend His credibility to our disorder." God is raising up wineskins in every generation that are able to contain the work of God and are blessed by the Lord's Spirit. Any movement or work of His Spirit must be a unified work that will not tear at the body of Christ but in their context preserve the unity through the bond of peace, and seek greater unity with other expressions and wineskins God has worked through in the past. The Church is a holy thing that God has allowed to be identified with his very own body. We are not to seek something new but something old, God's work never changes for the last 2000 years, He desires a holy temple of the Lord to dwell in. As we look down the corridor of time we will see God has worked in a way that has always sought for the unity of the Church. May we not see ourselves as those tearing at His body in our day of disorder.
