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Scripture Reading: Eph. 4:1-6; 1:22-23; John 17:1-3, 6, 8, 11-12, 14, 17-24, 26; 1 Cor. 1:10-13; 12:25a; 11:19; Rom. 16:17; Titus 3:10
My burden in these messages concerns five important emphases in the Lord’s recovery: the oneness of the Body of Christ, Christ, the Spirit, the church, and the God-ordained way. In this chapter we want to see the oneness of the Body of Christ.
Ephesians 4 and John 17 reveal that the oneness of the Body of Christ is divine. It is neither natural nor human but something of God and something that even is God. This oneness is also organic, not humanly organic but divinely organic. The oneness of the Body of Christ is of God and also of life. This life is not the human, created life but the divine, uncreated life. Therefore, the oneness is divinely organic and full of life. We need to be impressed with these two points: the oneness of the Body of Christ is divine, and it is divinely organic.
Ephesians 4:4-6 says, “One Body and one Spirit, even as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” These verses reveal that there is one God and Father, one Lord, one Spirit, and one organism — the Body of Christ as the church of the Triune God. The issue of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is the organic Body of Christ, which is the living church of the living God. The oneness of the Body of Christ is actually the triune, organic, and living God Himself.
The oneness of the Body of Christ is unique because it is a oneness in the uniqueness of the Triune God. Paul speaks of the Triune God in Ephesians 4:4-6 by saying that there is one God and Father, one Lord, and one Spirit.
The apostle Paul’s reference to one God and Father indicates that the Father is the very source of our oneness in nature and in life. Ephesians 1 shows that God the Father has chosen us to be holy for sanctification and has predestinated us for sonship (vv. 4-5). In order for us to be holy, God must give us His holy nature. The nature of God is holiness itself. God gives us His nature of holiness to be our nature. Our being predestinated for sonship is a matter of life. For us to be God’s many sons, we must have God’s divine life. Therefore, God’s choosing and predestinating us indicate that He shares His holy nature and His divine life with us.
By being chosen we have God’s nature, and by being made sons of God we have God’s life. Second Peter 1:4 says that we are partakers of the divine nature. In John 3:16 the Lord Jesus said that everyone who believes into Him will have eternal life. As those who have believed into Him, we have the divine life. The divine nature and the divine life are of God the Father. The divine nature is included in the divine life. If there is no life, there is no nature. The divine nature is a nature of life. Therefore, when we receive the divine life, we have the divine nature. When we are enjoying and partaking of the divine nature, we are also experiencing the divine life. These two things can never be separated. God the Father as the source of the divine oneness has become our nature and life.
Paul says in Ephesians 4 that there is one God and Father and that there is one Lord, the Son. The one Lord refers to the element of the divine nature and the divine life. In the divine life and divine nature is the divine element. Any kind of substance has a certain element. A stand made of steel has steel as its element. The element of the divine life and nature is Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God. The Son is the embodiment of the Father, and this embodiment is the element.
Within the element there is the essence. Grape juice is the essence of grapes. The wine from grapes, the liquor, is sometimes referred to as the “spirit.” The spirit is the essence. God the Father is the source as our nature and life, God the Son is the element of this nature and life, and God the Spirit is the essence of the element.
God the Father is within us (v. 6), Jesus the Son is within us (2 Cor. 13:5), and the Spirit is within us (Rom. 8:9-11). We need to realize that God desires to be the God in us. Because we love the heavens, we would like to be in the heavens with Him. God, however, does not love to dwell in the heavens. He loves to dwell in us, in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22; Rom. 8:16). The Triune God today is within us.
We may ask, “How do we know that God is in us?” Let me illustrate in this way. Perhaps this morning I was unhappy with a certain person and wanted to correct him in an impatient way. But the very God within me said, “Don’t do that.” Is this not evidence that God is in me? Where is Jesus today? Surely He has ascended to the heavens, because Romans 8:34 says that He is at the right hand of God. But at the same time, Romans 8:10 says that He is in us. How could Jesus, on the one hand, be in the heavens and, on the other hand, be within us? Consider the example of electricity. The same electricity in the power plant is also in our home. Our Jesus today is in the heavens, and at the same time, He is in us as the Spirit. The Spirit within us is the essence of the oneness of the Body of Christ.
Paul’s teaching about the oneness of the Body of Christ is based upon the oneness of the Triune God. We all have to keep the oneness of the Spirit because there is one God and Father as the source with His nature and life; one Lord, the Son, as the very element of the divine life with the divine nature; and one Spirit as the essence of the element of the divine nature and divine life. Since we have the Triune God within us as the source, the element, and the essence, we are one. We need to realize that we are all one. We are not one according to our race or culture, but we are one in the divine essence of the divine element of the divine nature and life. We need to see that the divine nature, the divine life, the divine element, and the divine essence are our oneness.
Actually, our oneness is the subjective Triune God, not the objective Triune God. The subjective Triune God is our real oneness. In 1963 I wrote a hymn on the subjectiveness of Christ (Hymns, #537). Our Christ is not merely objective. If He were merely objective, He would have nothing to do with us. He is subjective to such an extent that He has made Himself one spirit with us (1 Cor. 6:17). He and we are one spirit. This oneness is altogether by the essential Spirit, who is the very essence of the Divine Trinity.
In this oneness with the Triune God, we have oneness with one another. This is the oneness of the Body of Christ. This oneness is unique, that is, unique in the Triune God. It is also unique in the organism of the Triune God, which is the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23). The Body of Christ is altogether organic. It is not an organization. We are the church to be the organic Body of Christ, not by being organized but by being enlivened, regenerated, and made alive with the Triune God as the oneness within us. No one can divide this oneness. Although Satan has divided many in Christianity, he can never divide the organic Triune God as the very essence of the oneness within us.
The Lord prayed in John 17 for this unique, organic oneness, a oneness totally of and in the divine life (vv. 2-3). We have pointed out in the past that the new way of meeting and serving for the building up of the Body of Christ is the way of life, whereas the old way is the way of organization. Today’s Christianity is a religious organization. The Body of Christ, however, is altogether a matter of life. Our physical body is not an organization but an organism. Likewise, the Body of Christ, the church, is the unique organism of the Triune God. A wooden stand is made of pieces of wood organized together into one entity. Our physical body, however, is not organized but organic. Our body is built up by growing, because it is an organism full of life. The Body of Christ is also an organism built up by the growth of the divine life.
Because our physical body is organic, we sometimes feel weak or sick. Even though we do not always feel happy about the condition of our body, we still have to nourish, cherish, and take care of it. The reason why the church life is not always so easy is because it is organic. New believers may declare how good and how marvelous the church life is. However, the church life may be good to them for only a short period of time, a “honeymoon” time. We do not always feel so happy in the church life, but we must take care of the church life organically just as we take care of our physical body. Our oneness in the church life is an organic oneness in the divine life, and we must care for this life.
After the Lord Jesus lived and accomplished His ministry in thirty-three and a half years, He prayed for the oneness of the Body of Christ, for the oneness of the believers. The Lord’s prayer in John 17 is the conclusion of His life and ministry on the earth. He did not pray such a prayer at the beginning of His ministry. The Lord prayed for the oneness at the end of His ministry because He had sown the seed of life into His disciples. By themselves and in themselves the disciples could never have been one. James and John were called “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17). How could a son of thunder be one with others? After the Lord Jesus sowed Himself as the seed of life into His disciples, He prayed for their oneness in the eternal life. Peter, James, and John did not realize that Jesus had sown Himself as the spiritual seed of life into them. Based upon His sowing, He prayed, “Father...glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You; even as You have given Him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom You have given Him” (John 17:1-2). The oneness of the believers is in the eternal life.
In His prayer the Lord revealed that the oneness of the believers is also in the name of the unique Father (vv. 6, 11-12, 26). Although the disciples did not realize it at that time, the Lord infused into them the name of the Father. It is very intimate to call God “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). When we realize that God the Father is within us, we feel that He is very intimate. The sweet title Abba, Father has been made fully known to us in an experiential way because we have His life. Now we are one in Him by His life.
The Lord sowed the seed of life into His disciples and gave them the Father’s name. He also gave them the word of the Father (John 17:8, 14, 17-21). The word of God sanctifies the believers, separating them from all things other than God (v. 17). The things of the world within us are a replacement of God. Therefore, we need the sanctification in the word. The more we read the Bible, the more we are sanctified. The word of the Bible is like water washing us, cleansing us, and purifying us, purging our being of all things other than God (Eph. 5:26). The longer we live in this world, the more of this world we accumulate and pick up. This “picking up” always replaces God. Hence, we need the word to sanctify us, to wash us and cleanse us.
The Lord prayed that the believers would be one in the divine glory for the expression of the Triune God (John 17:22-24). The glory which the Father has given the Son is the sonship with the Father’s life and divine nature (5:26) to express the Father in His fullness (1:18; 14:9; Col. 2:9; Heb. 1:3). The Lord Jesus has given us this glory. He has given us the divine sonship so that we can be sons of God to express God. We need to realize that we are glorious because we are the sons of God to express God. We should not go shopping in a light way, because we are sons of God expressing God. We do not want to lose our glorious status as sons of God. It is in this glory, the glory of the Triune God, that we are one. We are one in the name of the Father, in the life of the Father, in the word of the Father, and in the glory of the Father.
We are one in the Triune God (John 17:21, 23), and we are one as the Triune God is one (vv. 11, 21-22). Our oneness is the oneness in the Godhead. In John 17 the Lord prayed for His believers to be one in the Triune God. Verses 21 through 23a say, “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me. And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one.” The three of the Godhead are one, and we are one in Their oneness. This is the unique oneness in this universe. Actually, our oneness is the oneness of the Divine Trinity, the divine oneness of the Triune God. Since the Triune God is our oneness, we should not have any division among us.
This oneness is for the expression of the Lord’s glory (vv. 1-3, 22, 24). When we all remain in the divine oneness, the real glory is expressed among us to the whole world. The Lord prayed for this divine oneness in the divine glory. I believe this prayer is still prevailing over us today. There is the need of the recovery today because many Christians have been divided by religion. In the history of the church, there was the development of Roman Catholicism. Then Christians divided from the Roman Catholic Church into the state churches, such as the Church of England and the Church of Denmark. There was a third division from the Catholic Church and the state churches to private churches, or denominations, such as the Baptist, Presbyterian, and Methodist denominations. The free groups are a fourth and even further division. Although we stand as one with and receive all of the Lord’s children, His believers, we do not agree with any of these divisions. We cannot leave our standing of oneness to join others in their divisions. We should not create or make any division. We have the oneness of the Triune God, and we are one in Him for His expression, His glory.
We have the Triune God within us, and the Lord is answering His prayer to keep us and make us one. Based upon the Lord’s desire, the apostle Paul exhorts the saints in Ephesus concerning their walk. He exhorts them to keep the oneness of the Spirit. In the church, in the oneness of the Triune God, the saints should walk worthily of the Father’s selection and predestination. Paul says, “I beseech you therefore, I, the prisoner in the Lord, to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, bearing one another in love” (Eph. 4:1-2). We need to be lowly and meek, to suffer long, and to bear one another in love. To walk worthily of God’s calling, we need to be “diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace” (v. 3). Our mind, our will, and our emotion need to be attuned to the Spirit (1 Cor. 1:10) to keep the oneness of the Spirit.
In 1 Corinthians 1:13 Paul points out that Christ is not divided. The unique and undivided Christ, taken as the unique center among all the believers, should be the termination of all divisions. Christ has not been divided, and neither should the believers be divided (vv. 10-12).
Perhaps one brother is quiet in the meetings, but another brother is very loud. Both of them need to be attuned to keep the oneness. Paul speaks of our need to be attuned in 1 Corinthians 1:10: “Now I beseech you, brothers, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be attuned in the same mind and in the same opinion.” There should be no division in the Body of Christ (12:25a). In the Triune God, we have oneness. We have the oneness that is the Triune God Himself. Although this oneness is in us, we are full of opinions and preferences. Hence, we need to be attuned. We all need attuning so that there will be no division in the Body.
First Corinthians 11:19 indicates that there must be parties among the believers, that those who are approved may become manifest among them. Division annuls the oneness, and there should be no division in the Body. But when there are parties in the church, which are real divisions, these parties manifest the experienced ones and the approved ones. Parties, or sects, are useful to manifest the approved ones, who are not sectarian.
Paul instructs us in how to deal with divisions in Romans 16:17: “Now I exhort you, brothers, to mark those who make divisions and causes of stumbling contrary to the teaching which you have learned, and turn away from them.” Concerning those who make divisions, we have to be watchful, mark them out, and turn away from them. In Titus 3:10 Paul says, “A factious man, after a first and second admonition, refuse.” In a family someone may become very ill with a contagious disease. Then the whole family has to quarantine him, to be separated from him. This, however, does not mean to hate him or to give him up. But for the sake of the health of the whole family, there is the need of some quarantine so that the family can be preserved and even healed.
Among us in the family of faith, there may be some who have the sick intention of spreading the germs of division. What shall we do? The natural, human thought is that to reject a saint is not so nice or polite. We feel that we are all the Lord’s children and that we should not offend people. Paul, however, says to mark those who make divisions and turn away from them. We should practice the Body life in this way. On the one hand, we receive all the believers in the principle of love according to God’s receiving and not according to doctrinal concepts. This is according to Paul’s instruction in Romans 14. On the other hand, Paul tells us in Romans 16 that we must mark those who make divisions and turn away from them.
In order to maintain good order in the church, a factious, divisive person, after a first and second admonition, should be refused, rejected. This is to stop communication with a contagiously divisive person for the church’s profit. Today we are here in the Lord’s recovery, and we must be faithful to the recovery. If we bring in division, we are no longer the recovery and become a part of the divisive situation today. We have to stand for the Lord’s recovery in truth and in life.
