Search
Scripture Reading: John 17:2, 6, 11, 14-24; Eph. 4:1-6, 11-16
Prayer: Thank You, Father, that we have Your name. Your name is the source of life. We have Your life, and now we have Your word. Thank You that You are the source of the oneness. You are also the element of the oneness. Now we do have the sanctifying word. It sanctifies us all the time to make us all one in You.
Lord, we do praise You. The Father has loved You and has given You all His glory. And You love us. Oh, how much You love the church! You have given us the Father’s name, the Father’s life, and the Father’s glory, and You have given us the sanctifying holy word. Lord Jesus, we worship You for all of this. Tonight, bring us into all the reality of the name of the Father, of the divine life, and of the glory of the Triune God with the sanctifying word that we might be really one.
Lord, how we praise You that there is oneness among the Triune God. We worship this oneness of the Divine Trinity. Oh, what a wonder and what a blessing that the Father loves You, and You love us, and now in turn we love You! Lord Jesus, thank You that there is such a divine love, a mutual love, from the Father to You, from You to us, and now from us to You. We love each other, and we love each other in the Triune God. Thank You, Lord, for the divine name, for the divine life, for the divine word, for the divine glory, and even for the divine love. We do love You; we love You with Your love. We are in Your love. Thank You, Lord Jesus. Here we have the oneness, the oneness of the Triune God.
Thank You, Lord, that You are still giving. You are the loving Giver, the rich Giver. The Father has given us to You, and You have given to us the Father’s name, the Father’s word, and even the Father’s glory. We are just the receivers. We desire also to be the givers, to give You to one another.
Lord, we do thank You for this occasion. We believe that this is a gathering conducted by You. You have gathered us out of so many occupations into Your name. Do bless this gathering. Lord, we pray for these meetings. Release all Your riches. Do release Yourself by releasing us. Release us in Your Spirit, in Your anointing, in Your presence. We desire to have the fellowship and this release, Lord, that we may release You. O Lord Jesus, we enjoy You. We enjoy Your essence, we enjoy Your element, we enjoy Your presence, and we even enjoy Your countenance; we see You face to face. Lord, we pray that in all these meetings You will touch us. We desire to be touched by You, and we also desire to touch You. Touch us, Lord, and cause us to touch You. Lord, we ask You to feel free to move among us. Feel free to do everything that is on Your heart. We desire to see, to know, and to realize what is on Your heart. We want to see Your pleasure, Your heart’s desire.
For Your sake, Lord, You must rebuke the enemy. He is Your enemy and ours. We hate him. We accuse him before Your throne. Lord, do rebuke him and condemn him. Rebuke him away from Your presence. Rebuke him away from the very oneness of Your Body, away from all the local churches. Lord, even crush him under our feet. Lord, do Your recovery work. Recover all that has been lost.
As we were praying, I was reminded that the book of Romans consummates with the local churches (16:1, 4-5, 16, 23). In the last chapter of that book, there is a promise from God to the local churches, that is, that God will crush Satan under the feet of the local churches (v. 20). We need to stand on this promise and believe that our God, the God of peace, will surely crush Satan under our feet. We claim the fulfillment of this promise.
The subject in these elders’ meetings is the intrinsic problem in the Lord’s recovery today and its scriptural remedy. We cannot deny that there is still a problem in the recovery today. The intrinsic nature of this problem is quite hidden; it is an intrinsic problem. To face such an intrinsic problem, we need a clear vision of the genuine oneness of the Body of Christ, which is unveiled in the Lord’s prayer in John 17. As we are trying to find the scriptural remedy for this problem, I have a burden to point out to you this genuine oneness, which the Lord prayed for before He went to die and resurrect for the accomplishment of God’s New Testament economy. I believe that this is the excelling way to obtain the needed remedy.
According to my observation, the problem among us came in because of the shortage of the proper understanding of the genuine oneness. The oneness to which I am referring is the genuine oneness, not the oneness that many Christians talk about so lightly. My burden in this chapter is to fellowship with you concerning the genuine oneness of the Body.
First, the New Testament shows that what the Lord desired in His Body is oneness. Then when the church came into being, there was the need of the practice of this oneness. The practice of the genuine oneness is the one accord. The New Testament reveals that as the churches were practicing the genuine oneness in the one accord, many negative things came in to test the oneness. These tests of the genuine oneness can be seen from the book of Acts, the beginning of the New Testament record concerning the church, to the book of Revelation, the end of the record of the church life in the New Testament. By considering the problems in the early church, we can find some examples that will help us to find a remedy for our present situation.
One of the most positive items in the New Testament revelation is the genuine oneness of the Body. This genuine oneness is just the processed Triune God, who mingles Himself with us, the redeemed and transformed Christians. The genuine oneness of the Body is nothing less than the Triune God, who is not only triune but also processed and consummated. This consummated, processed Triune God mingles Himself with His chosen people in their humanity, and this mingling is the genuine oneness.
The genuine oneness is not merely a matter of our meeting together. The worldly people meet together, and in their gatherings they have their kind of oneness. However, that is not our oneness. Our oneness is the oneness of the organic Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is a mingling of the Triune God with His redeemed and transformed people. Because it is such a mingling, the Body itself is the oneness. The three of the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — are three divine factors of this oneness, and these three divine factors are mingled with one human factor, consummating in the Body. This Body is the genuine oneness.
First, this oneness was something in the Lord’s desire. This desire of the Lord’s became His aspiration, and this aspiration was expressed in the prayer offered by the Lord in John 17 (vv. 2, 6, 11, 14-24). The subject of the Lord’s prayer in John 17 is oneness. The Lord uttered this prayer out of the divine aspiration. At that time this oneness was not yet a reality; however, a model of this oneness — the oneness among the three of the Divine Trinity — was there. The Father and the Son are one (vv. 11, 21), and this oneness implies or includes the Spirit. In John 17 the Lord used the plural pronouns We (v. 11) and Us (v. 21) to signify the Triune God. The Triune God is one, and that oneness is a model of the oneness of the Body of Christ. Because the oneness of the Body has the oneness among the three of the Trinity as a model, John 17 tells us that this oneness is altogether wrapped up with the Triune God (v. 21). The oneness of the Body of Christ is just the enlarged oneness of the Divine Trinity. The model was there at the time the Lord prayed, but the enlargement was still to come. This enlarged oneness came on the day of Pentecost. Through the outpouring of the Spirit, the Body of Christ was produced (1 Cor. 12:13). That Body is the solid oneness.
The oneness of the Body is the oneness of all the believers in Christ in the Father’s name (John 17:2, 6, 11). To be in the Father’s name is to be in the Father’s person, for in the New Testament the name always denotes the person. Thus, to be in the Father’s name is to be in the Father Himself. In the sense of the New Testament, the Father always bears the denotation of the source of life. The father of a family is the source of the life of that family. In John 17:11 the Lord prayed that the believers would be one in the name of the Father. To be one in the Father’s name is to be one in the very source of the Divine Trinity.
This oneness is also by the Father’s divine life and with the Father’s divine nature. Since we have the Father’s life, we also have the Father’s nature, for the nature always goes along with the life. We have the Father’s person as the source of the genuine oneness, and we have the Father’s divine life with His divine nature as the very element of this oneness. These are the intrinsic contents of the oneness of the Body.
The oneness of all the believers in Christ is in the Triune God through sanctification by the reality of the word (vv. 14-21). In the portion of His prayer in verses 14 through 21, the Lord referred to the word and to the truth. The word sanctifies, and the truth sanctifies. Thus, the word and the truth are one. The word contains and bears the truth. This word, which is the truth, sanctifies God’s redeemed people from the world (v. 17) and keeps them from the ruler of the world, the evil one (v. 15).
In John 17:21 the Lord prayed, “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us.” The word Us here refers to the Triune God. This shows that the oneness of the believers is in the Triune God, which means that the believers are mingled with the processed Triune God. The believers could not be one without being mingled with the Triune God. Hence, the Triune God is the very base and element of our oneness.
Before being saved, we were in the world and were mixed with the world. To be in the Triune God as our oneness, we need to be sanctified; that is, we need to be separated from being mixed with the world. If we would practice the genuine oneness, we must realize that the world must go. We cannot be mingled with the Triune God and at the same time remain in a mixture with the world. Therefore, we must be separated from being mixed with the world so that we can be holy unto the Triune God to have a pure mingling with Him. This pure mingling is the oneness. If we desire to realize the genuine oneness, we must be separated from the mixing world unto the sanctifying God through the reality of His sanctifying word.
In addition to being separated from the world, we need to be kept from the evil one (v. 15). When we were mixed with the world, we were captured by the evil one. Thus, we need to be sanctified from the world and to be kept from the evil one unto the Triune God. Then we will be freed and purified to be mingled with the Triune God, that is, to practice the genuine oneness.
The oneness of all the believers in Christ is through the reality of the word, that is, through the reality of the processed Triune God conveyed in His sanctifying word (v. 17). Without the Triune God as the content, the word would be empty. The New Testament shows us clearly that the truth, the word, and the Triune God are one. The word is the truth (v. 17), and the truth is the Triune God (14:6; 1 John 5:6b). Hence, the word that is the reality contains the Triune God as its content. To be sanctified by the reality of the word is to be sanctified by the Triune God Himself. The Triune God is the very content of the sanctification. By this we can realize what the nature of this genuine oneness is.
The genuine oneness, which is the mingling of the Triune God with the redeemed humanity, has three aspects. The first aspect is the oneness in the Father’s name by His divine life, and the second is the oneness in the Triune God by His sanctifying word. The first aspect concerns the source and the element of the oneness, and the second concerns the standing of the oneness. If we are in the world and under Satan’s hand, we cannot practice the oneness. To practice the oneness, we must be separated from the world and kept away from Satan’s hand.
The third aspect of the genuine oneness is the oneness of the believers in Christ in the divine glory (John 17:22-24). After many years of studying the New Testament, we have found out that God’s glory is His divine life with His divine nature to express Him. If we did not have the Father’s life with the Father’s nature, it would be impossible for us to express the Father. The expression of the Father comes from the Father’s life with the Father’s nature. This expression of the Father is the glory.
First, the Father gave this glory to the Son that the Son may have the Father’s life with the Father’s nature to express the Father. Then the Son gave the same glory to His believers. This means that the Son has given the divine life with the divine nature to His believers that they may express God. It is in this expression that we are one. The oneness of all the believers in the divine glory is the oneness in the expressed sonship with the Father’s life and nature. If we live by our life with our nature to express ourselves, there will be no glory of God. In the expression of ourselves there is no oneness; rather, there is division.
In the second aspect of oneness, we must be sanctified from the world and kept from Satan. In the third aspect, we must be saved from ourself, we must lose ourself. We must not act or do anything to express ourself; rather, we must do things in the Father’s life with the Father’s nature to express the Father. This is glory, and it is in this glory that we all are one.
Even in a small town where only fifteen saints are meeting as the church, if these fifteen do not behave, act, and do things in the divine life with the divine nature to express God, they will have opinions and will surely be divided. However, if they would be willing to be saved from themselves, willing not to live in their natural life with their own nature to express themselves, but to live the divine life with the divine nature to carry out the divine expression, spontaneously, among those fifteen there would be a genuine oneness, and this oneness would swallow up all their opinions.
This oneness is to express in His fullness the incarnated, crucified, and resurrected God, who has mingled Himself with the believers in their humanity. The oneness in the divine glory is to express the whole and entire incarnated, crucified, and resurrected God in all His fullness, that is, in all His riches. This rich God has mingled Himself with the human believers for His corporate, all-inclusive expression. Such an expression is a mingling of the incarnated, crucified, and resurrected God with all His redeemed in their humanity. This is to be one in the glory of the Divine Trinity.
The first kind of oneness revealed in the New Testament is the oneness of the Lord’s aspiration and prayer. The model for the genuine oneness was there at the time of the Lord’s prayer, but the actual oneness had not yet come. On the day of Pentecost the actual oneness came. At that time the oneness of the Lord’s aspiration and prayer became the oneness of the Spirit (Eph. 4:1-6). This matter touches the depths of the holy Word. The Spirit is the very consummated Triune God. When we have the Spirit, we have the totality of the processed and consummated Triune God. The Spirit is the consummation of the Triune God, and this consummation is now one with the saved ones. This is the enlarged oneness in actuality but still not in practicality. To have something in actuality means that it exists, that it is a fact, whereas to have something in practicality means that such a thing has become our practice, our experience. Hence, in the second kind of oneness, the oneness of the Spirit, we have only the actuality of the oneness; we do not yet have the practicality. First, this oneness was in Christ’s aspiration, and it became His prayer. Then this oneness became the oneness of the Spirit, which is the oneness in actuality, the oneness in fact.
On the day of Pentecost the Triune God mingled Himself with His redeemed people, and this mingling became the actuality of the oneness. In John 17 this oneness was there among the Divine Trinity only as a model; it had not yet been enlarged. But on the day of Pentecost the Triune God, after being processed and consummated, was poured out as the Spirit; that is, the processed and consummated Triune God mingled Himself with His chosen and redeemed people. This mingling is the actual oneness, and this actual oneness is the enlargement of the model of the oneness of the Divine Trinity. In John 17 the oneness was an aspiration in Christ that Christ uttered into a prayer. On the day of Pentecost the oneness that had been in Christ’s aspiration and prayer came into being. This is the oneness of the Spirit, which is fully defined by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 4. In verse 3 Paul says that we all must be diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit. Then in the subsequent verses he gives a definition of the oneness of the Spirit.
This oneness is composed of one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one God as its four factors (vv. 4-6). These four factors are four persons — the Body, the Spirit, the Lord, and God. The Body as the object is mingled with the Divine Trinity as the elements to be the factors of the oneness of the Spirit. The three factors — the Spirit, the Lord (the Son), and the one God (the Father) — are the elements of the oneness of the Spirit. These three elements are mingled with the Body, producing a fourth factor. The mingling of these four factors is the oneness of the Spirit.
The one faith and the one baptism mentioned in verse 5 are the two means to accomplish this oneness. Faith is the means for the Body to be joined to Christ the Head, and baptism is the means for the Body to be separated from Adam, the old head. Baptism separates us from Adam, and faith joins us to Christ.
The oneness of the Spirit has the one hope of our calling, mentioned in verse 4, as the one goal. This goal is for the Body to be brought into the divine glory of the processed Triune God, who is mingled with the Body. Thus, in the oneness of the Spirit there are four factors, two means, and one goal. The genuine oneness is the Spirit, the Son, and the Father mingled with the Body through baptism and faith, with a hope of something to come. This is the oneness. Anything besides these seven items is a foreign article that divides the Body.
The one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God, one faith, one baptism, and one hope make the Body one in every aspect as its attributes. The four factors of which the Body is composed, the two means by which the Body is separated from Adam and joined to Christ, and the one hope that is the glorious goal of the Body are the Body’s attributes, which make the Body one in every aspect. The Body is altogether a matter of oneness.
This oneness of the above three attributes accomplishes the aspiration and prayer of the Lord. However, it is not yet the fulfillment of the Lord’s aspiration and prayer.
This oneness is possessed by all the believers in Christ, who have received the Spirit as the seal of God’s possession, which is the church, and the pledge of our inheritance, which is the Triune God (1:13-14). Because we have received such a Spirit as the consummated God, we have the oneness. We all possess this oneness; this oneness is our possession. However, we need to experience it. To possess the oneness is to have the actuality of the oneness. When we experience this oneness, the actuality becomes our practicality; the actual oneness becomes our practical oneness.
First, we possess this oneness, and then we should keep it. This oneness must be kept diligently by all the believers in Christ with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, bearing one another in love in the uniting bond of peace, that we may walk worthily of the calling with which we were called (4:1-3). We keep the oneness by practicing the oneness, first, diligently and then with all lowliness, all meekness, and all long-suffering. Then we need to bear one another in the divine love and in the uniting bond of the divine peace. In this way we practice the possessed oneness and thus keep it to have a walk that is worthy of the calling with which God has called us.
When we keep this oneness, it will become the third kind of oneness, that is, the oneness partly of the faith and partly of the full knowledge of the Son of God (vv. 11-16). The faith mentioned in Ephesians 4:13 is the objective faith, denoting all the things in which we believe for our salvation. The faith equals the apostles’ teaching, which is the teaching of the entire New Testament. The faith in which we believe is the contents of the entire New Testament. The three main things in the New Testament are God Himself, the person of Christ, and the work of Christ. We believe in what God is, we believe in what Christ is, and we believe in what Christ has done. This is our faith.
If we do not believe in any one of these main aspects of the New Testament teaching, we are divisive. Some so-called Christians say that they believe that Christ is the Savior, but they do not believe that Christ is God. They believe that Christ loved them and died for them, but they do not believe that He is God. We might mistakenly think that because they believe in Christ, these people are Christians. The Mormons and the modernists are such persons who do not believe that Christ is God. Because of this they are divided from us.
This oneness is also the oneness partly of the full knowledge of the Son of God. We may know Christ, but we may not know Christ in full. The Christ whom we know may be very narrow. We need to have the full knowledge of Christ, that is, to know Christ in full. Then the Christ whom we know will be the enlarged Christ, the expanded Christ.
The believers in Christ need to go on until they all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God (v. 13a). When we say that Christ is all-inclusive, we mean that He is not only the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — but also the man; that within Him is His marvelous death and His powerful resurrection; and that He is all that we need — salvation, peace, hope, our spiritual food, our spiritual drink, and our spiritual home. Some people argue with us and try to discourage us from speaking in such a way. Because I teach that Christ is our food (John 6:57), our drink (7:37-39), our clothing (Gal. 3:27), and our dwelling place (John 15:4a), some have misunderstood my teaching concerning the all-inclusiveness of Christ and have even accused me of teaching pantheism. They believe in their kind of Christ, and I believe in Christ according to the full revelation of the Bible. Because of such differences in the knowing of Christ, there is a lack of oneness. Thus, there is the need for us to go on to arrive at the full knowledge of the Son of God.
Christians disagree and argue over many small matters. For example, some argue over whether a person should be baptized by sprinkling or by immersion, and others have disagreed over the number of times and in what direction, forward or backward, a person should be immersed. Disputing over small matters such as these causes division. Those who are preoccupied with such things may be genuine believers, but they have not arrived at the oneness of the proper faith or at the full knowledge of Christ. They are like small children who are preoccupied with certain toys. Therefore, we all need to advance; we all need to grow. The more we advance in the growth of life, the more we will drop all the “toys,” and the more we will arrive at the genuine oneness in practicality.
This oneness in practicality needs the full growth of the new man and needs also the measure of the stature of the fullness (the Body) of Christ (Eph. 4:13c). This means that we need to grow. A child who is only four feet tall is not full-grown; he needs to grow further until he arrives at the measure of six feet, the measure of the stature of a full-grown man. In a similar way we need to grow in the divine life until we arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness, the Body, of Christ.
When we are full-grown, that is, mature, we will no longer be little children tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching in the sleight of men, in craftiness with a view to a system of error (v. 14). The problems among us today are due to the immaturity of many of the saints. A number of saints have been damaged by the negative speaking of the divisive ones because they lack the full growth, which means that they are short of the adequate knowledge of Christ and the proper understanding of the faith. Because of this they listened to and believed the negative talk.
Ephesians 4:14 speaks of the winds of teaching. Every wind of teaching comes in the sleight of men, that is, in a cheating way, and in craftiness. In this verse sleight and craftiness are used in apposition, meaning that they refer to the same thing. Sleight implies cheating, and craftiness implies deceiving. To deceive people is to cheat them. The winds of teaching in sleight and in craftiness are related to the system of error. The word system indicates that the system of error must be of Satan; it must be a satanic system of error designed to systematize people into a division. The winds of teaching may have the appearance of truth, but in such teaching the truth may be applied for the purpose of causing division. Anything that divides the believers is a wind of teaching.
In 1 Corinthians 1:12 some of the Corinthian believers said, “I am of Paul,” some said, “I am of Apollos,” and some said, “I am of Cephas.” Surely we all would condemn this kind of speaking as divisive. However, some of the Corinthians said, “I am of Christ.” This does not seem to be divisive; rather, it seems very spiritual. Nevertheless, even such a “spiritual” saying was divisive; it was a wind of teaching. We all must be of Christ, but to say that we are of Christ so as to designate ourselves as different from other believers is divisive. To designate ourselves by saying either “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ” is divisive. To say “I am of Christ,” in itself, may be right, but as long as it is divisive, it is a wind of teaching that carries the believers away from the genuine oneness. It is not a matter of whether a certain kind of speaking is right or wrong; it is a matter of whether or not it is divisive.
Satan is subtle. It is difficult to seduce people by using something that is obviously wrong. However, anything that is good and right can easily be used to attract people. Whether a certain thing is divisive or not does not depend on whether that thing is right or wrong; it depends on whether that thing divides or does not divide. In recent days some have declared that they have come back to the enjoyment of Christ. This kind of speaking seems very good, because to enjoy Christ is a wonderful thing. However, if we use this wonderful thing to designate ourselves, to separate ourselves from others, this is divisive.
We all need to grow up into the Head, Christ, in all things by holding to truth in love and being built up in the organic Body of Christ by each one part, that is, each member, functioning in its measure (Eph. 4:15-16). When we grow in life and function as members of the Body, we will spontaneously grow up into Christ. This growing up into Christ, the Head, equals the building up of the Body of Christ.
The oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God fulfills the aspiration and prayer of the Lord in John 17. The first kind of oneness is the oneness in the Lord’s aspiration and prayer. Then in the second kind of oneness, the oneness of the Spirit, that aspiration and prayer was accomplished but was not yet fulfilled. Finally, in the third kind of oneness, the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, the oneness in the Lord’s aspiration and prayer is fulfilled. This third kind of oneness is the practical oneness for us to live in the church life.
