FRANK SHEED AND VISIBLE UNITY
The article, “The Church of Christ: One and Catholic” by Frank Sheed ministries, bases his the argument for the essential visible unity of the Catholic Church upon Jesus’ prayer of John 17:21.
There Jesus prayed, “that they all may be one: that they too may be one in us, as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee; that all the world may come to believe that it is thou who hast sent me.”
The article then calls for a church unity among men as intense as the unity within the Trinity; and claims that this unity has to be eternally visible.
The question has to be asked, Is the unity among the Persons of the Trinity eternally visible? Since it is not, does the unity among believers need to be visible?
Both unities - in the Godhead and in the Church - are invisible unities but more real than any visible manifestation of either. Intrinsic unity despite peripheral differences is the answer of Jesus’ prayer, and maintaining the unity of the Spirit even if we have not already come to the unity of the faith is the expected goal of every true child of God. False unity is proposed in the compromises of the ecumenical movement, and will be complete in the earthly manifestation of Satan’s super- Church, the end of his Mystery of Iniquity which is the direct opposite of God’s Mystery of Godliness centered in the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:7, 1 Timothy 3:16).
The present presence of this antichristian “Christianity”is found in the visible church, while true Christians seek for that which has more reality, and because of this reality, it is invisible (2 Corinthians 4:18).
The Bible says, The Lord knoweth them that are his, but only He knows absolutely. “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as also we are known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)