In a sense, Christ's bride (the Church) is united. Not on the surface, but God knows who is saved and who is not.
And all of God's true Children and true decendents of Abraham will be saved and brought to our Lord Jesus Christ.
But John Macarthur is smarter than me. Here is what he has to say about this........kinda of.
(From John Macarthur in a Q&A)
"Ummmm.....First of all, let's make one thing clear. The body of Christ is intact; "spiritually". God knows those that are his, they are his flock, they are his body and it's intact. So from the spiritual side we are one. And therefore it behooves us to pursue a temporal expression of that unity;
So I wanna say that at the very begining that we must do everything we can to endevor , to maintain the unity of spirit and bond of peace, right? We want to do everything possible we can to maintain the unity of the Body of Christ. It is uhh, I believe that unity.........that is crucial to our testimony. Jesus said "by this will all men know that you are my diciples, because you have love, one for another". So let me say that no one is a greater advocate of the unity of the Body of Christ, the expressed unity of the Body of Christ, the Body is one. We've all been baptized into one Body right? 1st COR 12 We've all been made to drink of one spirit, so we are one in Christ. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit, everybody who is joined to the Lord is one with the Lord, so everybody that is joined to Lord is one with each other.
That is the spiritual reality, and I believe by the way that in John 17 when Jesus prayed that they may be one, that prayer is answered. It is answered in the spiritual unity of the Church. I don't think his prayer was for the ecumenisity; I think his prayer was for the spiritual unity of the Body of Christ, and I think..........and I know that his prayer was answered. Now to the issue at stake. The Church has always stuggled with unity, the apostle Paul struggled with it, right? That's why he wrote about unity, and that's why he wrote Christians not to argue......and quarrel and ah, abuse each other. But to love one another and pursue unity on every front.
But as you have pointed out, unity is not true unity at expense of theology........true doctrine. Ah, and to be honest with you, I don't see any great movement in the Church today to bring together a visable unity around doctrine.......around the truth. I see an awful lot of effort to try and bring together a unity that doesn't want to talk about the truth.......because the truth divides. I mean how are we ever gonna get a real unity when we don't even want theology to be a issue? Not only can't we agree on doctrine, we can't even agree if doctrine is important!
Now on the other hand, I'm not sure that you........you could ever create some kind of ecumenical unity in this temporal life.
But I can certainly be one with a Brother or a Sister in the Body of Christ that has a different view, I can express my love to them. Ah, I want to build on what we agree on. And if I happen to be with, say someone who's convinced about the Gifts of the Spirit differently than I am; I can choose to not make that an issue of fellowship or of love or of ministry. And I would definitly choose not to make that an issue.
However if somebody is wrong about.......the gosple, I will make that an issue. Or if they are wrong about the deity of Christ, I would make that an issue. If they are wrong about, ah, issues of the atonment, I would make that an issue. I can't orchestrait that where there is no agreement on truth; But I'll tell you what, if the Lord continues to bless our Church and we keep sending out men to minister, and other men to peach and teach the word of God. We are effecting , by the lifes that we train and send out, the men and women we send out to serve and minister and be pastors and leaders in Churchs and missions around the World. We can find that kind of unity.
There is nothing to create, and the bond is built upon a common love for the truth, and it trancends this Church, but there is a common love of doctrine and a common commitment to the word of God that ties us with people beyond the people we have normal influence with. And I'm not really concerned with trying to orchastrat some other kind of unity, than that which is organic unity
built around the truth, and I don't really see that as happening in the current picture in the Church, cause the Church has downplayed the role of doctrine. To such a degree that if you bring it up, your considered to be ummm.......kinda anti-unity.