God Himself is the prime mover of a distinctive kind of division that results from His judgment. Evaluating a superficially unified people, He detects an essential disunion in their level of commitment and obedience, and He divides them into two groups, sometimes overtly a fifty-fifty split. One group is blessed and the other cursed, and their destinies differ vastly. Scripture gives many examples. In Matthew 24, one man in the field is taken and one left, and the faithful servant is set over his master's possessions while the wicked, hypocritical servant is cut in two. In Matthew 25, five virgins are wise and five foolish, and the door is shut on the foolish. The Parable of the Talents likewise separates those who grow what God gave them from those who refuse. In Jeremiah 24, the good figs are the exiles God will build up and bring back, while the bad figs are Zedekiah, the officials, and the remnant who stay, whom He will destroy. Paul affirms that there must be divisions so that the approved may be evident (I Corinthians 11:19), and Scripture gives no indication of church unity at the end. God's judgment usually involves surprise, since His lines of division run athwart human expectations. The wicked servant did not expect the master's return, the foolish virgins did not expect to run short of oil, and the blessed were the deportees rather than those who remained in Jerusalem. His division is a reconfiguration along unfamiliar lines.

God divides His people into two groups of equal size in the context of judgment, giving one group blessings and the other curses. Deuteronomy 27 and Joshua 8:30-35 show this in the six tribes standing on Mount Gerizim for blessing and the six on Mount Ebal for cursing. The blessing-curse division corresponds strictly to the obedience-disobedience division, and the two are mutually exclusive, since no one can obey and disobey the same rule at once. The puzzling features of Ebal point to the deeper meaning. God commanded that the law be inscribed on plastered stones and that an altar for burnt and peace offerings be built on Ebal, the mountain of cursing, and not on Gerizim. Those on Ebal are like the unwise virgins who lack God's Spirit. They cannot discern spiritual things and have only the law written on stones, kept at best in its letter. In His providence God supplies them with the law and an altar so they may use it. Those on Gerizim have the law written on their hearts. They are at peace with God and fellowship with Him, so they need no peace offering. They are truly repentant disciples who have held back nothing and are living sacrifices, so they need no burnt offering. Stones and altar are superfluous to them. This division therefore speaks to the members of God's church today.

Godly division is separation from unrepentant sin within the congregation, motivated by the fear of God. In I Corinthians 5, Paul charges the church to purge the old leaven, because a little leaven ferments the whole lump of dough. Believers are not required to shun the immoral people of the world, since that would mean leaving human society altogether. They are told not to associate closely with anyone who bears the name of Christian brother yet is known to be guilty of immorality, greed, or idolatry.

Not all division is evil; its moral quality depends on what is divided from what. God's calling is a deliberate, purposeful separation: Jesus prays, "Sanctify them through Your truth," and sanctify means to cut out or separate. The Father draws a person to Himself, which means away from something else, and Revelation 18:4 commands, "Come out of her, My people." God begins the separation, but each person must participate by dividing himself from attitudes, conduct, and ways of life that disagree with God. Obedience therefore unifies and separates at once, uniting a person with God and separating him from the world, just as sin does the opposite, uniting with the world and separating from God. This separation may even divide a person from family and friends, as Luke 14:26 shows, depending on how they react to his acceptance of the calling. Truth divides as well as unifies, according to how people respond, and stubborn pride keeps many closed to it. At Babel, God's confusing of language was also a good division, since it hindered united evil. Godly separation is never an end in itself. It serves a greater unity with God, which must come before unity with man, and God promises to bless relationships as one lives in unity with Him.