Biirnnbas i\\\v\\s on the idea of believers being the spiritual temi)leof (Jod through the imlwelling presence of His Spirit in them {.Ep. of Barn. xvi.).
In the 'reaching of the Twelve Apostles the union
632
UNITY
U-NITY
of the world with God through His creative activity and sovereign controlling power is recognized ('The workings that befall thee receive as gooil, knowing that apart from Cod nothing conieth to pass' [ch. iii.]; 'Thou Master Almighty didst create all things for thy name's sake' (.ch. x.]). The words ' Let grace come and let this world i)ass away' (ch. x.) .seem to point, like Ro 8-"-- -^ and Kev 21', to the coming of 'a new heaven and a new earth' as the result of the final triumph of Divine glace. Christ is recognized as the Metliator of spiritual union between man and God, through whom life and knowledge have been made known to men, and the Chnrch of the redeemed is to he ' gathered from the ends of the earth ' and ' sancti- fied for the kingdom prepared for it ' (chs. ix., x.).
Papuis says of believers that ' they ascend through the Spirit to the Son and through the Son to the Father,' and that in due time ' the Son will yield up his work to the Father ' (frag. v. ; cf. 1 Co 15-=-'-»).
Hernias says of God, ' who created and finished all things and made all things out of nothing,' ' He alone is able to contain the whole, but himself cannot be contained' (Mand. 1). Again, 'They only who fear the Lord and keep his command- ments have life with God ; but as to those who keep not his commandments, there is no life in them' (Mand. 7), and 'The Lord dwells in men that love peace, because he loved peace ; but from the contentious and the wicked he is far distant ' (Sim. IX. xxxii. 2).
LiTERATDRE. — J. Rendel Harris. Union with God, London, 1895; articles on 'Union,' 'Oneness,' 'Unity,' in DCtr ; The Apustotic Fathers, tr. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (.4 Jifc- A" ifcnc Christian Library, l), Edinburgii, 1867 ; J. R. lUingworth, Divine Immanence, London, 1898. J), S. ADAM.
UNITY. — The idea of unity is one of those that are most pervasive in the apostolic writings ; and naturally so. Christianity is the religion of recon- ciliation ; and, fully recognizing the radical char- acter of the antagonisms that reveal themselves in experience, it everywhere discloses a profounder unity in which these opposites are harmonized. While it does not assume the function of a philo- sophy, it does claim to give, from the moral and teleological standpoint, a synthetic view, and, indeed, the only synthetic view, of reality ; in Christ it finds the way, the truth, and the life by which the unity of God and man and the whole universe of being must be finally achieved.
On the cardinal issue, existence is seen both as a unity and as a duality. The duality is wholly and tragically real. Physical evil is no illusion, but is the correlate of moral evil ; and moral evil is not an inevitable stage in the evolution of moral good, but is SJH, that which absolutel5' ought not to be. Yet this duality exists within tlie circumference, so to say, of an eternal unity before and after ; an original self-existent principle of evil is excluded by NT thought. On the other hand, it attempts no solution of the problem how duality has arisen out of pre-e.\istent unity ; it is content to trace sin back to the beginning of human historj', or, if fiutlier, to the agency of a Tempter who had him- self fallen from his first estate. Its interest in the problem is not at all speculative, but solely practi- cal— to emphasize, on the one hand, the fact of man's innate sinfulness, and, on the other, the fact that sin is precisely that which has no point of origination in the Divine causality, but is in essential antagonism to the nature and will of God.
1. The Being of God aa the primal source of all unity. — (a) As against all polytheistic or diialistic .systems, apostolic thought posits this as its first truth (1 Co 8*'«, Eph 4", Ja 2"). And this ensures
a unity in nature and history. Although the marks of imperfection and disorganization are everywhere seen upon the face of Creation, al- though it is in bondage to the law of decay and corruption, and is the scene of apparently fruitless tragedy (Ro 8'-""-), yet it is pervaded by a unity of rational purpose and control (v.-*, Ac 27-"'-^) ; and this is true not only of natural processes and events, but of those that are brought about by the volition of men or other free agents (Ac 2=^ 21'"•'^ 2 Co 1'2'). (6) The Divine nature is ethically a unity— light in which there is no darkness at all. God is 'faithful' (1 Jn P, 2 Ti 2"), unchangeably self- consistent (.Ja 1"). His different modes of action upon different objects only prove the immutability of His moral nature (Ro 'is-'", 2 Th 1«- ', 2 P 2*-% And the centre of this unity, from which all His ethical attributes derive, is Love ; the ultimate explanation of all that God does, and purposes, and permits is — God is Love (1 Jn 4"). Hence, also, the Righteousness of God, His Will as imperative for all beings capable of ethical life, is a unity. His Law is an ethical organism, expressing in every part the same principle (Ro 13*""), to violate which in one point is virtually to violate the whole (Ja 2'°). Hence, again, sin is a unity. Within all individual sins (anaprrifiaTa) there lives that (?) aixapria) which makes them to be sinful. St. Paul almost personifies this principle of sin (Ro l"-"). St. John defines it as avoiila., lawlessness, the asser- tion of an evil egoistic will against the perfectly good will of God (1 Jn 3''). Sin is not seen in its true character until it is seen in its unity.