The Bible is Always Specific on the Blame for Divisions

It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.

Jude 19

Not all divisions are equal. God divided things at the beginning,

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring” (Gen. 3:15).

Christ came to divide in the Incarnation: 

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household” (Mat. 10:34-36). 

Paul even told the Corinthians that, “there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized” (1 Cor. 11:19).

So if there is a good division and a bad division, what marks the difference? An easy way out of thinking about this is to simply say, “God does! When God divides, that is always right; when we divide that is always wrong.”

However, that is a very dualistic way of thinking about right action and wrong action, in the sense of being dualistic about causality in this world: as if God’s action and human action are two ultimate parallel tracks. This is not the way that classical Christian theology (much less the Reformed) have conceived of the relationship between primary and secondary causation. The Bible says that,

“The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD … The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps … The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.” (Prov. 16:1, 9, 33).

Are you both a monotheist and a Calvinist? Well, then, have you never thought to apply what must be true about God to the arena of division? Why should righteous and sinful division function any differently than everything else does? 

Let me make the application plain. If Christ divides within the church—as to primary cause—doesn’t that imply that people in the church will make up the level of secondary causes, dividing from each other? And if that is true, it follows that some will wind up on the right side of various divisions and others on the wrong side. The point is not to say that those who fall on the right side will therefore have acted sinlessly during the whole affair. But the opposite extreme is equally absurd—namely, that we ought to remain agnostic or pacifistic with respect to standing for a right cause in the church. 

Comparing Jude and Paul on ‘the Spirit of Division’

As it is, Jude makes an interesting claim here, so concise that we are liable to miss it: IT IS THESE WHO CAUSE DIVISIONS. As a reader of this text, my antenna immediately goes up at the sound of the word “these.” Someone may say, “There is not much to that. Jude describes these in the rest of the verse. He is not giving us a whole doctrine.” Certainly the two descriptives are important. 

The word that the ESV renders worldly is from psuchikos, which is a descriptive from the root for the natural “soul” or “mind” (psuché). When used in a context that contrasts with the “spiritual,” it especially takes on that “lower nature” connotation. To be devoid of the Spirit is not some way of demoting them in the Christian life as “less spiritual,” as Paul seems to do in criticizing the Corinthians (cf. 1 Cor. 3:1-3). No, in this case there can be no real Christian life at all, since “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Rom. 8:9). The people being described are not born again. They are utterly deceived, since they put themselves out as teachers of the regenerate, being themselves unregenerate. 

Having taken the rest of the sentence for all its worth, the demonstrative “these” is still pointing back to the same group of people he has been talking about. That means that we cannot go off and separate our understanding of the divisive person from the other descriptives earlier in the letter. It is a small letter. It is not too much of a stretch for our minds. Paul’s words to Titus must be understood the same way: 

“But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, thave nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned” (3:9-11).

Surely Paul cannot mean that the matters he is contending for, through Titus, to the Cretan church, are in the same crosshairs as “foolish” and “unprofitable” and “worthless” things to fight for! Surely he would not warn Titus about such a divisive man only to cause Titus to sin in the same way! And yet he counsels him, “Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you” (2:15); and “I want you to insist on these things” (3:8). We see the same in Paul’s admonition:

“I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them (Rom. 16:17).

Far from giving us license to stay confused about division and skittish about contending for the faith—lest we be divisive—such passages are doing the opposite. They are rousing us from our spiritual pacifism. They are correcting us when we weasel out of the fight with our disingenuous whimpers, “Well, I don’t want to be divisive.” The Spirit-inspired Apostles are saying, “No! These are those who cause division!”