Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-07-03

church, to the end of time is peculiarly His
own, the inspiration of His grand mission
and it could be uttered only by Christ and
even by Christ only once in the worlds his
tory, as the atonement could occur but once,
but its effect Yibrates through all ages. He
prays as the mighty Intercessor and Media
tor standing between earth and heaven, look
ing backward and forward, and comprehend
ing all His present and future disciples in one
holy and perfect fellowship with Himself and
the eternal Father. The words are clear
and calm as mirror, but the sentiments are
as deep and glowing as Gods fathaTnless love
to man, and all efforts to exhaust them are
in vain" CDR Philip Schaff.)
1t is said that the sanity Spencer would
never preach on the chapter (John xviii
which this divine prayer fills, giving as his
reason for not doing so that "a true under
standing of it mounted above the ordinary
degree of faith which the Lord is wont to
communicate to His people on their pilgrim
age" On the evening before his death, how
ever, he caused it to be read to him three
times in succession. So did brave John
Knox in his last sickness, when he asked that
it be read to him every day.
These holy men fed on this marvellous
prayer by faith, and by it their souls were
nourlshed even in death. They possessed
some adequate conception of it's heavenly
height and profound depth, and they never
perverted its sacred significance.
But not so have some shallow men in our
day dealt with it. Msled by sound they have
missed its sense.
This has been especially true of the advo-
Gates of all sorts of ecclesiastical mergers
who walking and working by sight rather
than by faith. magnify mechanical move
ments and minify spiritual forces
They have utterly mistaken the meaning
of our Lord when He said in reference to His
followers who were then about Him, "Neither
pray I for these alone, but for them also
h oh l1olJ hall oir
word; that they all may be one; as thou
Father art in me, and | in thee that they
also may be one in US; that the world may
believe that thou hast sent me-" John xvii,
20-21.)
With unaccountable laundering and some
times from the ambition of sectarians eager
to have their church swallow up all others,
they have insisted that Jesus in making this
sublime petition was praying that all Chris
tian disciples should belong to one organiza-
tiOn-a conception which neither He nor His
apostles give us any slightest reason to be-
lieve was ever for one moment in all their
thoughts.
The oneness among His followers for
which our Lord prayed so fervently is such
Spiritual unity of life as subsists between the
divine persons in the God-head He prayed
that they might be one as He and the Father
were one in each other-"as Thou, Father,
art in me, and in Thee, that they may be
one in u.s.
Is it not monstrous conception of the car
nal mind to conceive the community Of life
in the God-head to be a matter of mechan-
ical organization? Such a thought is almost
if not quite, blasphemOus.
Moreover, uniformity OF organization is
not fact that would cause the world to be-
lieve that the Father had sent the Son.
In Mohammedanism there is such same
ness and severity Of organization, but it does
not move men to believe that God sent Mo-
manned.
The vital unity Of Spiritual life in Christ is
effective to carry such conclusion concern
ing the sending of the Son. It's unearthy
type proclaims and attests its divine source.
That great British expositor, Dean Afford,
commenting upon the unity for which the
Savior prayed in these verses, says most
clearly and truly, This unity has its true