The unity of the church

John Folmar's plenary session focuses on the Creed's confession of one holy, catholic, and apostolic church. It considers what it means for the church to be one.

John Folmar, “The unity of the church,” plenary session, Nicea Conference 2025, Istanbul.

Dubai

The city of Dubai is situated on the Persian Gulf stretching up and down the coastline and there’s one main thoroughfare through the city called Sheikh Zayed road that runs through the city north to south and at a certain stretch of Sheikh Zayed road there’s a long row of these massive billboards much bigger than the screen behind me. It’s advertising things like Samsung phones and Saudi tourism and Sephora and SeaWorld and it’s grabby effective advertisement if only because the billboards are so enormous.

You’re supposed to be looking at the car in front of you, but you can’t help but think about the product being offered on the billboard. Now, what’s on the reverse side of those billboards? On the reverse, there’s this elaborate system of scaffolding that supports the billboard, holds it up, makes it visible. I looked back there one time. It’s ordinary planks and poles, metal and wood pieced together holding up the superructure. And I was thinking if the billboard ad is like the gospel message, the support structure behind it is like the church. Churches according to the apostle Paul are the pillar and buttress of truth. They are the display holding up the message. So what happens if the billboard begins sinking? What happens if the structure behind it collapses and falls? Well, the message comes down. It won’t be visible. No one will see it anymore. In the same way, unless there are faithful churches to uphold the message, the gospel will be dimmed.

It will be diminished. Which is why Jesus said, “The gates of hell will not prevail against the church.” Since we know the gospel is invincible, we also know the church will ultimately prevail. And this is the logic of the Nicene Creed. We’ve already confessed together those thunderous statements about God the Father, ruler of all Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, who for us and for our salvation came down, took on human flesh. And then last night, the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life.

We believe in the church

Now we come to the outcome, the confirming echo of all that Nicene truth is the church. The creed of Nicea 325 was silent on the church. But some half century later get to 381 and these words were added we believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. This was the Lord’s chief design in the universe. The display of his multifaceted wisdom to the angelic realms through the church. A cosmic drama unfolding so that when you and I attend an ordinary local church and look around at the real people sitting there, we’re looking at God’s masterpiece, admittedly under construction, flawed and feeble, not many wise, not many powerful, not many wealthy among us in our churches.

And yet God is advancing his eternal cosmic purposes through the church. Even angels long to look into these things. Although comprised of ordinary, imperfect people with double chins and squeaky boots, don’t always live up to their calling. People who still need the Lord’s forgiveness. Yet the church is like the mirror that reflects the radiance of God’s character. Which is why in the Nicene Creed we don’t just confess that the church is one holy catholic and apostolic. That’s not what it says. No, we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.

In other words, the church is an article of faith. Why is that? It’s because the church is the Lord’s doing. The church is no human institution. There’s nothing like it on earth. The preeminent assembly on the planet is the church. So, four points this morning from the Nicene Creed, one holy, catholic, and apostolic.

One church

First, we believe in one church. Take this right from Ephesians 4:4. There is one body and one spirit. Just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Look at that verse later and notice in Ephesians 4:4 that seven times in that verse, the word one is used.

That’s no accident because God is one, the church is one. Of course, there’s diversity amid our unity. But still, though the body has many members, there’s a fundamental oneness, one body. And Paul refers in Ephesians 4:4 to the universal church, the true people of God throughout all places and times.

Despite long-standing hatred among her members, Jews and Gentiles, natural enemies, yet Christ has created one new man in the place of the two. So get this. In his sacrificial death on the cross, Christ killed the hostility not only vertically that existed between God and a rebellious humanity, but even horizontally between people who had previously been alienated such that union with God in the gospel inevitably produced unity among God’s people. And this is not a hope. This is not merely an aspiration. Paul says there is one body. It is a fact at the level of spiritual reality. And not only that, as we’ve considered in the last couple days, Jesus prayed for this unity. So, please turn with me to John 17. And let me show you something there in John 17 verse 20.

This is the night the Lord was betrayed and he was praying remember not only for the 11 disciples. John 17:20,

“I do not ask for these only, but for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them and you in me that they may become perfectly one [John 17:20–23]

, not divided, not fractured. Jesus knew that the world and the flesh and the devil would conspire to break the church. And so he prayed for unity the night he was betrayed.

Here’s my question. Was his prayer answered? I mean, is that what we experience in real life in the churches that we’re familiar with? Maybe you’ve heard of the Welshman who was shipwrecked on a desert island. Somebody said by the time he was rescued, he had built out of driftwood not only a house for himself, but a small town with a pub, a rugby club, and two small chapels. And when the rescuer showed up, they asked naturally, “Why are there two chapels?” “You see that one?” he replied. “That’s the one I don’t go to.”

I read somewhere that there are more than 750 denominations of Presbyterians. And that’s just in Korea. 750 varieties of Korean Presbyterianism. Why can’t they just play on the same team? Did the Father answer Jesus’ prayer? Sadly, over the centuries, people who have called themselves Christians have given the world reason to mock Christianity by splitting and subdividing into infinitesimally smaller subgroups. Some following Apollos, others following Cephas, still others following Paul. But be that as it may, for genuine followers of Christ, as I think we’ve begun to experience here in this conference, we have an ocean of unity that was purchased for us at the cross of Calvary. A unity that is first internal and spiritual that transcends denominational and socioeconomic and ethnic boundaries.

Now, in medieval Europe, when the Protestant reformers broke away from Rome, the Pope warned, “If you leave me, if you leave the mother church, you’re just going to fracture and fray and be scattered to the four winds.” Has he been proven right?

Not at all. Our brother Mark Dever, who we so wish was here with us. And we’re praying for Connie’s full recovery. Mark wrote the foreword to Mike Reeves outstanding book on the reformation called The Unquenchable Flame. And Mark explained, “An assembly of God missionary in the Philippines, an Anglican minister in Sydney or Tanzania, a Baptist pastor in Brazil, a Lutheran minister in St. Louis, a Presbyterian minister in Scotland, a Korean missionary in Stockholm, and an interdenominational pastor in Dubai may never have met. They may never be a part of the same earthly organization. But unlike what Rome warned would happen, they are now and will remain united in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So when Jesus prayed that they might all be one, he didn’t mean a neat organizational flowchart or some kind of structural unity. He was talking about something much deeper. Unity in the gospel itself. Unity that you will experience when you fly home. If after a couple hours the person next to you in conversation discloses to you that he’s a follower of Christ, there will be an immediate bond of affection. Closer even than you have with a non-Christian family member. Unity was achieved definitively by Christ.

How many nationalities do we have here? 45. In our church in Dubai, there are 60 nationalities, people from every inhabited continent, some whose governments are at war with each other. And yet there they are. Pakistani and Indian, Zulu and Afrikaners, Ukrainian and Russian. There they are together bowing the knee to Jesus of Nazareth.

This unity that Paul talks about in Ephesians 4:4 is lived out in local assemblies. And our local churches partake of the oneness of the universal church in so far as they’re faithful to the gospel, but never at the expense of truth.

For example, we have no unity with Mormons, even though they call themselves a church. We don’t agree with those who say, “Well, we really worship the same God as the Muslims.” RC Sproul said, “Truth divides. It divides the sheep from the goats. It divides the gospel from heresy. It divides Christ from the Antichrist.” Friends, compromise is not the solution to disunity. Neither is pragmatism.

You know what I mean by that? The lowest common denominator approach to church. Pressure to compromise, pressure toward pragmatism is particularly acute. I’ve noticed in parts of the world where there’s little or no church heritage in those settings, many modern missionaries say we should downplay ecclesiological distinctives so that we can all get along. It’s often stated like this, doctrine divides, but missions unites.

But that approach inevitably thins out the doctrine and blunts the gospel. My friends, even if you live in the heart of the Hindu world or the Muslim world, ignoring ecclesiological differences as though they’re really beside the point actually won’t produce unity or long-term health. Lowest common denominator churches will produce lowest common denominator Christians. Now, in some cases, there are actually good and legitimate reasons to divide. The first and most obvious one is language differences. And even along denominational lines in a fallen world where not everyone agrees on secondary matters that are integral to the shape of the church, we can spin our wheels in endless debates or sometimes we can just agree to disagree. I mean churches have to divide on certain issues. They have to decide. For example, are we going to baptize infants? Are we going to open up a prophecy mic? How are we going to govern ourselves? These questions are not unimportant.

Carl Trueman said, “Denominations mean that somebody somewhere still believes something.” I know that a high view of ecclesiology is sometimes called nitpicking. And that may be true. And sometimes that has been true, but it need not be true. And if you must separate, as J.C. Ryle put it, keep the walls as low as possible and shake hands over them often. Friends, all of this matters for missions and evangelism. Why did Jesus pray for church unity?

What did he say in John 17? So that the church may believe that you have sent me. In Dubai one of our Korean church members was bringing a meal to some African church members who were living in a high-rise apartment, and she told the Muslim security guard there at the gate, the room number, and he said, “ that can’t be right. You must be mistaken. Why are you going there? He had never encountered Korean people in genuine fellowship with Africans. You see, in Dubai, people stick to their own tribe except in the church. And that gets people’s attention because there’s not a Jewish church and a Gentile church.

There’s not a Muslim background church and a Christian background church. There’s not subdividing into homogeneous ethnic subgroups. Jesus said, “One flock, one shepherd.” That’s what he promised. Friends, genuine unity adorns the gospel that we proclaim just as Jesus prayed that it would. He didn’t die on the cross just to save a few isolated individuals. 1 Peter 2:10, once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. We believe in one church.

One holy church

Secondly, we believe in one holy church. God is holy. And since the church reflects the character of God, well, the church is holy. After all, he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy.

Under the old covenant, God’s people were forbidden from wearing wool and linen mixed together. They were forbidden from plowing with an ox, a clean animal, alongside a donkey, an unclean animal. Just regular everyday reminders to be set a set apart undefiled by their neighbors. Well, so it is today. We believe in a holy church.

Turn with me, please, to Hebrews 12, verse 14. Hebrews 12:14.

Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. [Hebrews 12:14]

Have you thought carefully about that verse? This means that holiness is necessary to enter heaven. Without holiness, you’ll be shut out. You won’t see the Lord.

So, what is holiness? We’re not talking about rulekeeping or being spiritual. Holiness means to simplify things. It means Christlikkeness. It’s the renewal of God’s image in us by the Spirit, set apart from the world, godly. And here’s the thing, it’s not optional. All of us who have trusted in Christ are counted holy. But Hebrews 12:14 is saying something different. Verse 14 speaks not of a holiness we receive in the gospel. It’s a holiness that we strive for through the empowerment of the Spirit. So yes and amen, there is a definite holiness.

Let’s be clear on that. But there’s also a progressive holiness. Definite holiness is a gift. Turn back to chapters to chapter 10 verse 10. 10 verse 10. And by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.

Sanctified as it’s used here in Hebrews 10 means holified or you could say declared holy in God’s sight through the death of his son. And this is the gospel. His perfect righteousness given to undeserving sinners kind of through an imputation that’s like an electronic transfer at the bank. It’s credited over to us. We receive his holiness. But in chapter 12, he’s speaking of a lifelong pursuit, a striving for holiness. And the arena in which this striving takes place is where? It’s the local church.

Not a monastery. It’s an assembly of God’s people complete with all the fellowship and discipling and worship and ordinances. Holiness is a community project where fellow believers are not obstacles but lifelines for our progress in the faith. You know a generation after Nicaea a Syrian monk named Simeon the stylite learned this. He had decided to live separate from the world by living on top of a pillar by himself in splendid isolation for 36 years. At first low off the ground, then later he decided to increase it to 60 ft. Maybe he was an introvert, wanted to be farther and farther away from the hoi polloi. Even the Simeon the Stylite needed the help of fellow church members to service the basket tied to the rope that was brought up to him on a regular basis. My friend, are you seeking holiness apart from God’s church? I admit our churches are full of sinners. Phil Ryken said with the exception of the prison system, the church is the only institution for bad people.

But that’s not the whole story. One who has been born again, one who truly believes the gospel invariably begins to live in a new way substantially and observably. So does this characterize you? J.C. Ryle said, “I do not ask whether you attend your church regularly, whether you have been baptized and received the Lord’s Supper, whether you have the name of Christian.

I ask something more than all of this. Are you holy or are you not?” Don’t misunderstand. We all stumble in many ways. All of us fall far short. But now we’re at war with our sin. Now we’re no longer comfortable in it. So we live daytoday at the foot of the cross.

I mean for all the problems at Philippi and Colossae, you know the relational strains that were evident there, the doctrinal confusion, the disharmony, what did Paul call those people? Saints in Christ Jesus. He wasn’t referring to a lifetime achievement award. Now saintthood is a status, a declaration from heaven, but it invariably produces change.

Now Rome sees this holiness less in its members and more in its institutions and ceremonies. And on rare occasions, saints are declared, requiring heroic virtue and Vatican approval and beatification and two posthumous miracles. But here’s the difference. As Jenin said, “The Pope’s calendar only makes saints of the dead, but Scripture requires sanctity in the living.”

Friends, if you are not striving for holiness, you are not a Christian. What’s disturbing is when someone says he’s a Christian and yet his life looks no different from the world. Isn’t this why the Lord has given us church discipline?

I mean everything from a sermon positively to a friendly correction or a pastoral rebuke to as a last resort exclusion from the Lord’s table in the case of serious unrepentant sin. Unregenerate church members, those who only profess to be believers confuse the world and they obscure the church’s holiness. They’re anti-missions.

I mean, how many times have I heard Muslims prefer to partner with Christians in business? Why is that? Christians are known to tell the truth. In other cultures, lying and deception are called the spice of life, but not with the people of the truth. Holiness makes a difference. We believe in one holy Catholic church.

One catholic church

I don’t mean Roman Catholic Church, but the church universal little Catholic. You know what universality? It means not confined to any one place, not merely a tribal subgroup. Unlike in the old covenant when God’s people were the Jewish nation, this now extends to a worldwide community. Now Rome applies Catholicity to her visible organization.

Protestants on the other hand have understood that term spiritually. So think of Catholicity in this way. Geographically it extends all over the world. Doctrinally it’s the faith once for all entrusted to all the saints. Temporally it’s the people of God throughout all the ages. And socially from every tongue and tribe and people and nation whomever the Lord calls they are the true church. Ed Clowney said, “We cannot exclude those whom he welcomes or welcome those whom he excludes.”

Where do we see catholicity in the New Testament? Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.” No room for racism, no room for sexism. The culture, class, gender barrier, they’ve all come down in Christ. It doesn’t mean that there are no distinctions in the church or that we’re interchangeable drones. Men and women, for example, are the same in essence and yet different in role.

But what’s fundamental now is not how different we all are. It’s what we share in common. You know, when I came to Dubai 20 years ago, the most noticeable feature of our meeting hall in the evangelical church building was the 60 flags lining the wall, kind of representing the nationalities of all the people who attended. People love the diversity. I mean, they love sitting under their flag and they get upset if the flag goes missing or new people came for whom we had no flag. Eventually, we just took the flags down. We wanted to celebrate what united us more than what divided us. True Catholicity trumps all ethnicity. I’m told today in India, even in churches, higher caste converts still look down on the lower-caste believers and lower-caste believers continue to despise higher caste converts for treating them as inferior. A pastor in Hyderabad wrote, “When it comes to marriage, sadly a Christian from a higher caste family is reluctant to give his son or daughter to a believer from a lower caste family.

Although they believe in the same Lord, worship the same God, claim to be going to the same heaven, and yet there’s this chasm that separates them.” Well, William Carey, the father of modern missions, insist in insisted that people lose their caste for the gospel. In Indian society, to be sure, they wouldn’t even eat from the same plates or drink from the same cups. But in the church, Carey insisted the Brahman should receive the cup of the Lord’s supper after it has passed the lips of the sudra Krishna Pal, one of the lowest castes. Friends, the gospel condemns casteism.

Some think, well, the national cricket team is all Brahman, the highest priestly caste of the Indians. So why not the church? The thinking goes, since people naturally prefer to join churches whose members look and act and talk like themselves, we should play into that for the sake of rapid multiplication. One missiologist wrote, “You can’t change Indian culture. You have to fit into it. Another urged, established churches comprised of Filipino taxi drivers. The congregation has a natural built-in social cohesion. Everybody feels at home.

And you know what? He’s right. Everyone will feel at home, but that doesn’t require the Holy Spirit. Assembling a crowd with shared interests looks no different from the world. The church is universal, not homogeneous. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, a Roman Catholic, was interviewing an influential Calvinist recently. This Calvinist pastor wants to see the gospel prevail to the ends of the earth. But he’s operating from definitely a minority standpoint, a very small denomination. And Douthat said to him, “I’m a member of a church that has 1.3 billion Catholic Christians spread around the world, and it seems to me that maybe if you want the conversion of the world, why don’t you swallow your pride and come on over the Tiber River to us?” You see, Roman Catholics see Catholicity as primarily institutional. Protestants on the other hand see it as spiritual a readiness to love and embrace all who belong to Christ. And you know what’s a prime example of healthy Catholicity?

This very conference. Think of it. Do you remember the first night? Who do we have here? There are Presbyterians, Anglicans, Baptists, Nazarene, even Lutheran brethren. I had no idea. Lutheran brethren, friends, our disagreements that require separation into different denominations are not unimportant.

They necessitate that we separate in different churches. And yet here we are together for the gospel. What binds us together outshines, eclipse anything that would separate us. So we preach in one another’s pulpits. We sing the same hymns. We cooperate in the pro-life cause. We cooperate in missions and evangelism and on what basis? One Lord, one faith, one baptism. But as to the proper mode of baptism and who are its appropriate subjects, that’ll have to wait for heaven.

Have you ever wondered why the Lord allows such distinctions even among us? This is an assembly dedicated to the authority of Scripture and Nicene theology and a high view of the sovereignty of God and the local church and the doctrines of grace. Why does the Lord allow these distinctions to remain?

The great awakening evangelist George Whitefield said, “The blessed Jesus wisely permits such things to cure us of spiritual pride, to remind us of the necessity of looking to him by convincing us that the best of men are men at best.” George Whitefield, read his journals, prime example of true Catholicity. He vehemently dis disagreed with John Wesley’s Arminianism. And eventually the two could no longer partner evangelistically because the separation became so heated. And yet despite serious tensions, they maintained a mutual respect for one another and even a personal affection for one another. So much so that Whitefield asked that Wesley preach Whitefield’s funeral.

And he did, despite all their differences. Wesley preached a glowing tribute commending Whitefield’s zeal and eloquence and indomitable force of persuasion, generosity, tender friendship. But Wesley said he was immovable in the things of God or wherever his conscience was concerned.

years earlier Whitefield was proclaiming the gospel to thousands from a balcony in Philadelphia when amid this proclamation, he stopped and he looked up heavenward and he said, “Father Abraham, whom have you in heaven? Any Episcopalians there?” “No.” “Any Presbyterians?”

“No.” “Have you any independents or seceders or Methodists there?” No. Whom have you there then? We don’t know those names here. All of us here are Christians, believers in Christ, men who have overcome by the blood of the lamb. This is the church we believe in. Right?

From the cross to consummation, from Jerusalem to Jakarta, we believe in one holy Catholic apostolic church. Number four, apostolic. God has always wanted his people to be centered on the word. So when they were on the cusp of the promised land, what did God instruct them to do? Set up large stone pillars and plaster them with plaster and then write on the plaster all the words of the law. Isn’t that amazing? The first order of business was not to sharpen their swords as a silent monument to the covenant.

One apostolic church

Israel was to be a community centered on God’s word. And so too in the new covenant. The early believers in Jerusalem were devoted to the apostles teaching. And it’s curious to me that as far as we know, Jesus never picked up a pen. He never wrote down any of his own teachings. Why? He anticipated the coming role of the Spirit in instructing his disciples what to say. He will guide you into all the truth. Jesus told his disciples. Have you noticed that the 12 are conspicuously listed in Matthew and Mark and Luke and then Luke even repeats the list of the 11 at the beginning of Acts? Why so prominently and publicly identified? It’s because these were the official eyewitnesses. They were the custodians of the gospel traditions.

None of them volunteered. None of them campaigned for the office. As Jesus would say, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” But isn’t the whole idea behind expositional preaching that it demonstrably shows that the authority resides not in the charisma or creativity of the preacher but in the text itself.

We’re anchored to the text. Exposition is criticized in many circles as a western style. But didn’t exposition begin in the east 500 years before Christ as Ezra and the scribes gave the sense so that the people could understand.

And then didn’t this carry over into the Jewish synagogue and straight into the early church? The apostles received their gospel directly from Jesus Christ. We receive our gospel directly from the apostles. Men carried along by the Holy Spirit in such a way that what they wrote is what God said. The Spirit inspired the Scriptures then he illuminates them today as we considered last night. No new truths that are different from what the apostles wrote. And that’s why as the apostle Paul reached the end of his life, he never told Timothy, “Appoint new apostles after I’m gone. What did he say? Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me. That’s why the 12 foundations of the new Jerusalem in Revelation 21 bear the names of the 12 apostles of the lamb. It is their testimony on which the church is built. The apostles function was unique, unre repeatable. One preacher quipped, “This is why the apostles sermons go into the Bible and mine have better come out of it.”

So when the risen Christ commissioned Peter and restored him by the Sea of Galilee and he said to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” Roman Catholics say Jesus was designating Peter the pastor of the whole universal church. And that this leadership was passed on to a succession of bishops down to this very day. But the New Testament gives us not an apostolic succession of bishops, but an apostolic succession of truth.

Guard the good deposit, Timothy. Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture. In an apostolic church, the Bible is central to our gatherings. It is the supreme authority. God’s word is how we know how to organize ourselves. How we know what to do on Sundays when we gather because God has spoken. The apostle Paul said, “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. We are not to be creative. We are not to be innovative but simply faithful like custodians of a priceless artifact just passing it down the generations. The true gen multigenerational church preserving the apostolic deposit.

I heard the Louvre Museum in Paris got their treasures robbed recently. Let’s guard ours. Our message will be everywhere opposed, everywhere maligned, but never conquered. I remember being in a museum in South Africa. It was dedicated to the Huguenots, those fugitives from Roman Catholic persecution in the 1500s. And at this museum, there was in an encased in glass in the very center of the museum, there was a carefully preserved loaf of bread.

It was a hollowedout bread loaf in which had been hidden a Bible. For smuggling. It showed the lengths to which faithful 16th century Christians would go to have and read and study God’s word, even hiding it in a loaf of bread. They were an apostolic church.

Conclusion

And so as we leave from here today, brothers and sisters, it falls to us. Our calling today in our unity, in our purity, in our universality, in our doctrine. Do you understand? We hold up for everyone to see the true gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that some people denigrate the church, saying, “Well, it’s the church is a decoration on the front of a building. You could take it or leave it. Maybe it’s pretty, maybe it’s not. But finally, it’s unimportant because it bears no weight.

But Nicea and the New Testament would argue otherwise. The church is actually a loadbearing doctrine in the same way that that scaffolding holds up the massive billboards in Dubai or pillars hold up a roof. The gospel is actually held up amazingly by the church. Proclaiming the gospel brings life. The church displays that life to the watching world.

As Charles Bridges said of the church, it is the grand scene in which the perfections of the Lord are displayed to the universe. We are one and yet there are strains. We are holy and yet we all fall short.

We are universal and yet there remain divisions. We are apostolic and yet worldly wisdom allures us. But one day, my friends, one day the temporary scaffolding is coming down to reveal a glorious edifice. And the Lord will point to the edifice and say, “This is my masterpiece.” And the glory of the Lord will rise upon his people. A word of resurrection. Arise, O sleeper, and Christ will shine on you. What we will be has not yet been made known. So we receive it by faith.

We believe in one holy Catholic apostolic church. Amen.