The following devotional message was presented at the Spring Meeting of the General Conference Committee April 18, 2001, in Silver Spring, Maryland. We left intact certain repetitions and other elements of oral delivery.-- Editors.

HE WORLD church has unity as its watchword this quinquennium. Therefore, I have chosen to speak on three levels of unity.

At home, when somebody wants to cheat someone to whom they're not related, they will say, "Blood is thicker than water." The fact, however, is that 90 percent of our blood is made of water. And 75 percent of our brain and muscles, 25 percent of our body fat, and 22 percent of our bones are made of water.*

In any case, the Bible clearly states that we are all blood brothers and sisters. In Acts 17:26 we read that God "has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings" (NKJV).†

Thus, even though we are born at a certain place, in a certain setting, and among certain people, we are still made of "one blood." And that blood is Adam's blood. So we share a blood that has just one color. It does not matter whether we're tall or short, black or red or white, great or small-we're all united by red blood. We are united by birth. We share the same blood, the blood of Adam.

Unity on the Second Level
Because of sin (which causes death), we also share one thing in common, and that is death. According to Romans 5:12, 14, it is the same Adam who makes us inherit this death.

However, we have another Adam, the "last Adam" (1 Cor. 15:45), Jesus Christ, our Lord. In the words of the apostle: "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26-28, KJV).

The second level of unity is achieved by rebirth, by the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross.

Unity on the Third Level
The third and highest level of unity is found in 2 Corin-thians 5:18-20: "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God."

This text clearly shows that the goal of redemption was and still is to restore to us the grand privilege of being one with God. And that is the highest form of unity that we should strive toward. The Greek word katallage¯ (which appears here as "reconciliation") is translated by the King James Version as "atonement." Some scholars have broken up the word "atonement" into three parts, rendering it as at-one-ment. Thus we are invited to be "at-one-ment" with one another. And then the highest level of unity is to be "at-one-ment" with God.

Maybe Jesus Christ had this in mind when He was talking about what He called "complete unity" in one of His final prayers, recorded in John 17:22, 23: "I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

It's About Love
The whole business about unity in the church centers on a love relationship. The Lord reveals here that unity is possible and is made complete only through love-love that is vertical (that is, the love we have for God) and love that is horizontal (the love you and I should have for one another). We are talking here about agape, a love that makes us honor others more than ourselves, a love that is unconditional. This love is found in Jesus Christ. Jesus is talking about us loving our neighbors, even if they happen to be our enemies. And that is a difficult one. But Jesus was not talking theory or philosophy, because we read in Romans 5:8 that "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." So Christ wasn't talking about a unity that He didn't experience.

Therefore, we are all united by birth through the blood of Adam that we share. Then we are united by rebirth, which is a spiritual experience through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Above all, we are united by our continuous connection with God, the highest level of unity. Love makes all these possible. Hence, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:20, we are made Christ's ambassadors of reconciliation-in terms of our at-one-ment with one another, in terms of the complete unity of which Christ speaks.

Imagine what would happen if the estimated 1.9 billion Christians in the world were faithful ambassadors of unity! Domestic violence would go down, and child abuse and abandonment and divorce. Crime would decrease, and there'd be no ethnic bitterness, no ethnic cleansing or genocide, no racial or gender discrimination. Nor would there be any cases of terrorism or civil and international wars if we were really involved in what Christ said is complete unity.

The need for us to be serious in the ministry of reconciliation or unity is underscored in 1 John 4:20, 21: "If anyone says, 'I love God [which is easy to say],' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother."

This is so clear. We cannot love a God we have not seen and yet fail to love our brother, whom we've seen. This is the Lord's message.

We are united by the shared blood of Adam. Then we are united by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Then we are united by faithful and continuous connection with God. That's the greatest privilege.

Above all, what is our final desired and expected outcome? This is found in the last book of the Bible, in Revelation 3:21: "To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

Today our ears should hear what the Spirit is speaking to the world church: unity. Unity by birth, unity by rebirth, and unity by continuous connection with God. That is the message for today.

* Tammy Darling, "Water Works," Vibrant Life, January/February 2001, p. 19.
† Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture references are from the New International Version.

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Luka T. Daniel is president of the Africa-Indian Ocean Division of Seventh-day Adventists, with headquarters in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.