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1 Cor. 8:4; Isa. 45:5; John 17:20-23; Eph. 2:15; Rom. 15:7; Phil. 2:2; 1 Cor. 12:25; Psa. 133:1-3
I. God being one
А. In His essence
B. In His purpose
C. In His economy
D. In His acts
II. The unique God having a unique expression
III. The Lord’s aspiration and prayer concerning the oneness of the Body
IV. The Lord’s accomplishment of the oneness of the Body
V. The fulfillment of the oneness of the Body
VI. The practice of the oneness of the Body universally
А. Receiving the teaching and fellowship of the apostles
B. Staying in fellowship with all the churches
VII. The practice of the oneness of the Body locally
А. On the ground of oneness
B. Being one with all the saints
C. Submitting to the authority of the elders
Oneness is crucial for Christ, the perfecting gifts, and the perfected saints to build up the Body of Christ. If there is no oneness, it is impossible to build up the Body of Christ. Christ is not divided. He has only one Body; therefore, everyone who is related to the building up of the one Body of Christ must be in oneness. Oneness is different from unity. Unity is outward. Different people with different purposes and opinions may try to unite themselves in organizations like the United Nations or labor unions. But they are not one. Oneness is inward, it is of the same essence and nature. Out of this inward oneness comes the outward one accord expressed in the way people act and move. By the intrinsic oneness and the outward practice of the one accord, Christ the Head, the perfecting gifts, and the perfected saints will build up the Body of Christ.
There is only one God (1 Cor. 8:4; Isa. 45:5; Psa. 86:10). He has three aspects — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14). Though He has the aspect of three, nevertheless, He is one God. The Father, Son, and Spirit may be distinct yet never separate. Though they coexist from eternity to eternity, they coinhere, living within one another. You can never find the Father without the Son in Him, neither can you find the Son without the Father in Him, nor can you find the Spirit without the Father and the Son. All three are one; thus, God is called the Triune God. God is one in essence and cannot be divided.
God is one in His purpose. God, the Triune God — Father, Son, and Spirit — has one purpose. The purpose of God is to build up the church to express Him and to satisfy Him.
God is also one in His economy. God’s economy is to work Himself — Father, Son, and Spirit — into His chosen, created, redeemed, and regenerated people so that they may be filled with Him, be transformed, and be built up into the one Body of Christ.
The one God accomplished many things to work out His economy. You can see the principle of oneness, which is according to God’s nature of oneness, in everything He did. He created one universe. He created one earth for His purpose out of hundreds of billions of galaxies and stars. God needs billions of people for His purpose, yet He created only one man. He did not create a woman. Out of this one man, He built a woman. From this one couple came billions of people.
During the flood, He saved one family, Noah’s family. He selected and called one man, Abraham, to be the head of one chosen race. He used one man, Moses, to bring His one people out of Egypt at one time. He desired one tabernacle for the children of Israel to worship Him. He brought them into one good land at one time and required them to fight together in oneness. He required His people to worship Him at one place — the one temple in one city, Jerusalem.
In order to have a new creation, He was first incarnated as one man, Jesus. Out of the death and resurrection of this one Man, He created one new man, the church. Ultimately, the church will become the one and only New Jerusalem for eternity.
You can see that our God is one in Himself, in His purpose, in His economy, and in His acts. Because He is in oneness, His operating principle is oneness, His actions are in oneness, and His finished work is in oneness; therefore, the way to build up the church must be in oneness.
God is one in every respect. His expression must also be in oneness. Since there is one God, there can only be one house of God to be the one dwelling place of God. Since there is one Head, there can only be one Body. As with one husband there is one wife, so also, there is only one church as the full expression of the one God. Any division is disallowed because division does not build up the church. It is impossible to build up the Body of Christ when there is division.
The Lord’s prayer in John chapter 17 shows His aspiration for the oneness of His Body. The organic oneness of the Body of Christ is the organic oneness in the Triune God. [Verse 20 says, “And I do not ask concerning these only, but concerning those also who believe in Me through their word.’’ This verse tells us that the Lord’s prayer here includes us, all the ones who believe in Him. Verse 21 says, “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You…’’ This shows that the oneness of all the believers should be like the oneness in the Triune God. The Triune God is three yet one. The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father. The oneness in the Godhead is not a mere unification. That is the oneness of men. The oneness of the Three of the Godhead is that They mutually indwell one another. What is the oneness among the believers? No word can adequately explain it, but there is the example of the divine oneness among the Three in the Godhead.]
[Verse 21 goes on to say, “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.’’ As the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, we also are in the Father and the Son. Before we believed in the Lord Jesus, we were separate from the coinhering Triune God, but now we are in the Triune God. God the Father’s being in the Son, God the Son’s being in the Father, the Father and the Son’s being in the Spirit, and the Spirit’s being in the Father and the Son has an issue, an outcome. This issue, this outcome, is that all the believers may also be in the Three of the Godhead. In the entire universe there is such a oneness, and this oneness is that the believers are mingled and wrapped up with the Triune God.]
[Verse 22 says, “And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one.’’ What is the glory in this verse? The Father has given His divine life to the Son that the Son may express the Father. This expression is the glory. Now the Son has given us His life by which we can express Him. This expression is also glory. This indicates that the oneness we have with the Triune God is the divine life, and by this divine life we can express the Triune God. The divine life has been given to us and is within us. When we express the Triune God by this divine life, that is the oneness. The oneness is the very expression of the Triune God in and by His divine life.]
[Verse 23 says, “I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.’’ The Son is in the believers, the Father is in the Son, and by this the believers may be perfected into one. On the one hand, we are in the divine oneness. On the other hand, we still need to be perfected. This means that we may be in the oneness only to a small degree. This is why we need to be perfected into one. To be perfected is for us to have the growth in the divine life every day. The divine life has been given to us, and we need to live by this divine life. Then our expression will be the divine oneness. At the start of our Christian life, we have just a little of the divine life, so we need to be perfected. This means that the divine life within us is continually increasing, and that we are growing in this increasing of the divine life. The more we grow in the increasing of the divine life, the more we are perfected and the more oneness we live out. I hope that we all can realize that the very Christian oneness is the mingling of the Triune God with the believers in an increasing way. Last year the divine oneness expressed among us might have only been fifty percent. This year our expression of the divine oneness may increase to sixty percent. Later we may go up to seventy percent. This increasing of the divine life and its expression is our being perfected into one.
The prayer of the Lord in John 17 is a unique prayer made by the Son to the Father. We may be accustomed to calling the prayer in Matthew 6 the Lord’s prayer, but the prayer in John 17 is also the Lord’s prayer. Actually, the prayer in John 17 is much higher than the one in Matthew 6. As we have seen, the Lord’s prayer in John 17 is that we, all the believers in the Son, may be one; even as the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father, that we also may be in the Triune God (v. 21). The oneness among us is a oneness of coinherence. The Three of the Godhead mutually indwell each other as one, we are one with the Triune God, mutually indwelling each other as one, and we believers all are one in the coinhering Triune God. We believers and the Triune God are all one. Although the believers in Christ come from many different countries and cultures, they all have the same unique divine life. The same life that is in you is also in me. Through this life we are one with each other and with the Triune God.]
Immediately after the Lord’s prayer in John 17, He went to the cross. On the cross, He accomplished redemption for us. He also “abolished in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances, that He might create the two (both Jews and gentiles) in Himself into one new man, making peace’’ (Eph. 2:15). In His resurrection and ascension, He became the Spirit. As the life-giving Spirit, He breathed the Spirit into His disciples (John 20:22). Before His crucifixion, His disciples were arguing to see who would be greater in the kingdom. They were afraid of the Jews and the soldiers who sought to seize Jesus and therefore ran away when Christ was captured. They were divisive and cowardly, but after receiving the Spirit they were able to pray in one accord (Acts 1:14). This indicates that they received the Spirit of oneness. Later, on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) and in the house of Cornelius (Acts 10), the Spirit was poured out upon them to form the one Body of Christ. In one Spirit, they were all baptized into one Body (1 Cor. 12:13). These are all accomplished facts.
The oneness of the Body was accomplished by the Triune God and we began to experience this oneness when we believed and were baptized. [Matthew 28:19 refers to a marvelous fact in the universe: we believers have been baptized into the Triune God. This verse says that we have been baptized into the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit. The name of the Triune God denotes the person of the Triune God. To be baptized into the Triune God is to be baptized into the divine person of the divine Trinity. Our baptism brought us into a mystical and organic union with the processed Triune God so that all of us, the believers in the Son, may be one in this organic union. The proper oneness among us Christians is a oneness in the organic union among one another and a oneness between us and the Triune God. The Lord prayed in John 17 based upon the fact that we all have to be one in the Triune God.]
As we have pointed out in earlier lessons, the Lord sent the apostles out to raise up churches by their gospel, teaching, and fellowship. The saints in these local churches were once sinners under God’s righteous condemnation, but due to the apostles preaching of the truth of the gospel they became obedient to the faith. They repented, believed, and were baptized into the Triune God, Christ, Christ’s death, and His Body. Then they continued in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles that they might grow in the Lord and be perfected to build up the church. Because they were begotten of the apostles and were shepherded by the apostles, they should always receive the apostles, their teaching, and their fellowship. Local churches should never be divided from the apostles who raised them up. This type of division causes a local church to lose its supply of life.
On the negative side, a church must not be separated from the fellowship of the apostles. On the positive side, it is the apostles who raised up the church, and therefore can and must continue to nourish the church and perfect the saints. They have the authority to resolve problems in the church, as was the case in the church in Corinth and the churches in Galatia. As a result of the care of the apostles, the church will be built up. This is God’s very sweet and effective ordained way to care for the church. Any deviation from His ordained way will cause the building up of the church to slow down and possibly stop. This is very practical.
Some may have a [different opinion concerning the apostles’ relationship with the churches that they have established. Some have said that once the apostles establish churches and appoint elders, they should keep their hands off the churches. To their feeling, the churches should be absolutely independent from the apostles. But according to the Bible, after the apostles established churches and appointed elders in them, they still took care of the churches.
The apostle Paul’s relationship with the church in Ephesus is a strong evidence of this. According to Acts 20, Paul established the church in Ephesus and appointed elders in that church, but after this he did not leave the church and the elders alone. Instead, he once stayed with the church in Ephesus for three years (v. 31). While Paul was on his way to Jerusalem, he sent some from Miletus to call the elders in Ephesus to come to him (v. 17). When they came to him, Paul reminded them of how he behaved, worked, and labored among them for three years, admonishing the saints with tears (v. 31) and teaching them publicly and from house to house (v. 20). He charged them to take heed to themselves and to the flock committed to them (v. 28). He warned them that after he would leave, wolves would come in among them, not sparing the flock (v. 29). He told them that some would rise up from among them, speaking perverted things to draw away disciples after themselves (v. 30). This portion of the Word in Acts 20 shows that Paul did not leave the church in Ephesus alone. On the contrary, he was always caring for them.]
All the local churches should remain in fellowship with one another. No church is a separate entity. All the local churches constitute the one Body of Christ. Each local church may have different practical needs locally, but its main need is to be filled up with the one Triune God. Each local church may have a different administration (eldership), but one universal fellowship. No local church should be secretive. There should be no particular fellowship between local churches. Any saint can fellowship with any local church at any time. The spiritual and financial surplus as well as the needs of a local church should not be restricted to one particular locality. The churches should fellowship with each other regarding their surplus and lack. In this way, all the churches will maintain the proper relationship for the building up of the Body of Christ.
In order to practice the oneness of the Body locally, we must stand on the ground of oneness. Many groups of Christians call themselves churches. But what ground are they standing on when they call themselves churches? Many take the ground of nationality, for example, the Church of England, Chinese for Christ, etc. Many take the ground according to a person, such as the Lutheran Church. Some take the ground of practice, for example, the Baptist church. Some say that unless a person is baptized their way, he is not saved. Some say that unless a person rests on Saturday (Sabbath), he is going to hell. All these are divisive grounds. What ground should we take? The genuine ground of oneness. Since the Triune God is one, we should receive all those He has received (Rom. 15:7). We are one with all the ones God the Father created and begot, with the ones Christ redeemed and loved, and with the ones the Spirit regenerated and is transforming.
Christians always like to ask, “What church do you go to?’’ We should never ask this question. There is only one church. All the saved ones are in the church. All are one in Christ. Christ is not divided; there cannot be more than one church. We do not go to church because we are the church. We do not join any denominations because they are built on divisive ground. Joining a denomination will cause us to be divided from other Christians. We fellowship with all the believers, yet we should never join a divisive group. We stand on the ground of oneness, one with the Triune God, accepting all the believers in Christ.
Some say they are interdenominational — accepting people from all denominations. The problem is that they all return to their denominations. They are not truly standing on the ground of oneness. They are shaking hands over a fence.
Some call themselves non-denominational churches. These are like those in 1 Corinthian 1:12 who said that they were of Christ. They still separate themselves from all other believers. They are “free groups’’ not standing on the genuine ground of oneness.
The Biblical principle is one church in one city. It is not many churches in one city or one church over many cities. Denominational, interdenominational, and non-denominational churches are not built on the genuine ground of oneness. The genuine ground of oneness is in the Triune God, accepting all believers, and having one church in one city, yet fellowshipping with the apostles and the other local churches. Without such a genuine ground of oneness, it is impossible to build up the church.
In order to build up a proper local church, we need to be one with all the saints in the church. We should never criticize or backbite. Neither should we have a particular love for some and not for others (Phil 2:2). Since we need to build one another up, we must be one with one another without any division. “There should be no division in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another’’ (1 Cor. 12:25).
Submitting to the authority of the elders is essential to keep the oneness for the building up of the Body. The elders are the more mature brothers in each locality appointed by the apostles to shepherd and perfect the church. Not being one with the elders and not submitting to their authority leads to spiritual suicide. A local church not in fellowship with the apostles cannot go on. Likewise, saints that do not submit to the authority of the elders cannot be built up. Our God is not a God of confusion. He has established the proper order in the Body. Elders do not have authority of themselves, but they are the deputy authority of the Lord to care for the churches. The saints should not fear the elders but should fellowship with them continually and be open to receive their fellowship, realizing that the elders have been appointed by the Lord to shepherd the church. By submitting to the authority of the elders, all the saints will be shepherded into life and be perfected to build up the church.
Psalm 133 is a psalm on building up the church. The key is the oneness among the brothers. Because of the oneness, the anointing oil and the watering dew flow from the Head to the Body. There is also the commanded blessing of life for evermore. Division kills. Oneness brings in life and building. We all must live in our spirit to keep the oneness of the Spirit to build up the Body of Christ.
