The creation account recorded in Genesis 1 reveals that God created physical life through a process of division:
- On Day 1, God divided light from darkness.
- On Day 2, He divided the waters above from the waters beneath.
- On Day 3, He separated land from sea and created vegetation that was divided and reproduced “after its kind.”
- On Day 4, God formed the sun, moon, and stars, and thereby divided day from night.
- On Day 5, birds and fish were created and separated according to their environments and kinds.
- On Day 6, God created humanity in His image and divided them into male and female. Adam was formed through separation from the dust of the ground, and Eve was created through separation from Adam.
- On Day 7, God divided time itself by setting apart the seventh-day Sabbath as holy and distinct from the other six days. “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made” (Genesis 2:2, 3).
God’s work of physical creation, therefore, centered on the division principle. If there was no division, there would be no physical life. The Bible tells us that God’s work in the visible, physical realm reveals how He works in the invisible, spiritual realm. Romans 1:20 says, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” The division principle demonstrated at creation reveals that if there is no division from sin, there can be no spiritual life.
Numerous Bible examples reveal this truth. For example, after freeing the Israelites from Egyptian slavery, God promised to make them a distinct and separate people if they obeyed Him. “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine” (Exodus 19:5). In the New Testament, the apostle Paul extended a similar call to Christians. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? … Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you” (2 Corinthians 6:14, 17).
Jesus Himself spoke of division in striking terms when He said, “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division. For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law” (Luke 12:51-53). Christ, of course, was not advocating hatred or conflict for its own sake. But the gospel divides light from darkness and truth from error. Separation between people inevitably results when they respond differently to truth.
The division principle is also demonstrated in Christ’s prayer for His disciples that “they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:21). This verse is often quoted by those supporting unconditional visible unity among Christians. But a few verses before Jesus prayed for unity, he said of His disciples, “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:14). Division from the world based on Bible truth must always take place before true unity can be achieved. Ignoring the importance of such division, or attacking it as harmful, results in a merely superficial unity that ignores truth and produces no true freedom from sin.
The division principle is central to the free exercise of religious liberty. The union of church and state in the medieval Holy Roman Empire produced frequent religious oppression and persecution. The Protestant Reformation challenged this system, and eventually, biblical principles of genuine religious liberty became embedded within the founding framework of the United States. The genius of the American constitutional system lay in its separation of powers and its protection of liberty of conscience. The founders understood from Europe’s history that concentrated religious and political power leads to tyranny. James Madison, for example, warned, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
Thomas Jefferson similarly defended the separation of powers as essential to free government, and coined the now-famous phrase “separation of church and state.” He wrote, “The principle of the Constitution is that of a separation of legislative, Executive and Judiciary functions, except in cases specified. If this principle be not expressed in direct terms, it is clearly the spirit of the Constitution, and it ought to be so commented and acted on by every friend of free government.” The spirit of separation woven into the United States Constitution was also expressed in the First Amendment, which declared that Congress could make no law establishing religion or prohibiting its free exercise.
Bible prophecy predicts, however, that a restoration of the church-state union found in Europe during the Middle Ages will eventually reappear on a global scale. When this happens, religious liberty will disappear, and persecution will result for those that choose to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Speaking of these developments, Revelation 13:14 says, “And [he] deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.”
A sword does its work by dividing, and the medieval papacy received its “deadly wound” (Revelation 13:3) when its political and religious elements were separated. This was accomplished first by the symbolic sword of the Word of God during the Protestant Reformation, which greatly weakened the moral and spiritual hold it had held on people for centuries. In 1798, the literal swords of the French army finished the work of separation when Napoleon took Pope Pius VI captive, ending the papacy’s temporal power and leaving the Roman Catholic Church as only that—a church.
The image of the beast represents a rejection of the division principle and the implementation of a forced visible unity among the nations and religions of the earth. Revelation describes it this way: “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast” (Revelation 17:12, 13). The resulting unity, though short-lived, will be deadly. “And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed” (Revelation 13:15).
According to the Bible, only one group of people survives this end-time apocalypse of counterfeit unity, and it is those that heed heaven’s call to separate from the world. “And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Revelation 18:4). Those who answer this call are promised the blessing of true and eternal unity with the Author of freedom. Their song is recorded in Revelation 19:7, 8. “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.”
Scripture’s division principle is not a call to unnecessary conflict. It is a call to holiness, faithfulness, and spiritual clarity. We separate from the world so that we may be fully united with Christ. Religious liberty is rooted in the principle of division. Confusion, oppression, and tyranny arise when humanity attempts to unite what God has separated.
Endnotes
- James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 47; https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed47.asp
- Thomas Jefferson, Barbara B. Oberg, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 29: 1 March 1796 to 31 December 1797 (Princeton University Press, 1950), p. 271.