Gospel Unity and Gospel Purity

David Mathis, from the introduction to Thinking. Loving. Doing.:

Part and parcel of the central Christian message is an impulse toward purity and an impulse toward unity. The purity instinct resists the compromise of the message, while the unity instinct is eager to link arms with others also celebrating the biblical gospel.

The reason purity and unity are, in this way, 'built into' the gospel is that the God of the gospel is himself both a purifier and a unifier. No one cares more for the purity of the gospel—that his central message to humanity not be altered or tainted—than God himself. And, mark this, no one cares more for the unity of his church around her Savior, his own Son, than God himself. God is the great purifier and unifier.

So likewise, his gospel—which not only saves and sanctifies but is the richest, deepest, and fullest revelation of who God is—has both a purity impulse and a unity impulse 'pre-packaged' into it, as it were. It's quite simple on paper and gets terribly messy in real life.

HT: Trevin Wax