One Body

Sermons of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 603 Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2026

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The modern ecumenical movement has made a profound impact on the contemporary Christian understanding of unity. But what overlap, if any, does this movement have with biblical unity? In this sermon on Romans 12:4–5 titled “One Body,” Dr. Lloyd-Jones reminds that an essential point for evangelical Christians to remember is the inevitability of the unity of the church. Because the church is a spiritual society called the body of Christ, there will necessarily be true unity. Striving to maintain visible unity is a necessity because evangelical Christians believe what the Bible says. Still, says Dr. Lloyd-Jones, the character of the church’s unity is spiritual – it cannot be manufactured by people as it is the supernatural result of the creative work of the Holy Spirit. Only when a person is born again and baptized into the body of Christ can genuine Christian unity occur. This along with the error of separating unity from the whole person – in a particular a person’s mind through doctrine – is the biggest error of the ecumenical movement. While some Christians rally around the claim “doctrine divides,” Dr. Lloyd-Jones offers a pointed biblical challenge saying there cannot be true unity by suppressing thought and denying a person’s ability to think about truth. Evangelical Christians need to hear afresh this important message on Christian unity, doctrine, and the ecumenical moment.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I should like to call your attention this evening to the fourth and the fifth verses in the
0:05.3	12th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
0:09.4	The Epistle to the Romans chapter 12, verses 4 and 5.
0:15.1	For as we have many members in one body and all members have not the same office. So we, being many, are one body in Christ.
0:28.1	And everyone members one of another. We really have to deal this evening with the fifth verse.
0:38.1	So, we being many, are one body in Christ, and everyone members one of another.
0:49.1	The word so, of course, reminds us immediately that what the apostle is doing in this fifth verse is to
0:56.3	apply the illustration which he has been using in verse four to describe the state and the condition
1:05.6	and the nature of the church. That's his whole object, of course. He's dealing now with life in the realm of the
1:13.6	church and some of the difficulties that arise and especially in connection with the use
1:20.6	and employment of the varying gifts which God in his grace has given to us as his people. This has been throughout the centuries
1:30.6	a great cause of trouble in the life and the experience of the church, both in general
1:37.1	and in particular Christian lives. And the whole trouble, as the Apostle is showing us here,
1:53.1	is due to the fact that we have failed, in some respect of another, to realize the true nature of the Church.
2:00.7	And in order to enlighten us on that, he has used this great illustration which we were considering last Friday night of the body, the illustration that he
2:02.3	uses in so many of his epistles, because he obviously felt that it was one which conveyed
2:10.0	this particular aspect concerning the unity of the church more clearly than any other.
2:23.3	Now, here we come then to the way in which he uses the illustration. This fifth verse in the 12th chapter of this epistle to the Romans is the most important verse.
2:29.3	It is the verse, perhaps, which more clearly than any other, in this particular epistle,
2:36.8	gives us an understanding of the Apostle's doctrine of the Church.
2:42.0	He does it in greater length in other places,
2:45.7	but in this particular epistle, this is, therefore, a very crucial verse.
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