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I have the burden to give another message on the genuine oneness revealed in John 17. In order to know what oneness is, we need to consider the situation at Babel in Genesis 11. Originally, God created one man. He created man not in an individualistic way but in a corporate way, for God’s intention was not to have many men individualistically but to have many men as part of a corporate man. Therefore, in the creation of mankind there was oneness. But this oneness was broken at Babel. Before Babel there was just one race; but after Babel mankind was divided, and the many races came into existence. On the day of Pentecost the many races of divided mankind came together as one, not in creation but in God’s full redemption. Hence, at Pentecost at least three thousand one hundred and twenty people were one, and there was a practical answer to the Lord’s prayer in John 17. In John 17:20 the Lord prayed not only for the disciples with Him at that time but for all who would believe in Him through their word. In Acts 2 at least three thousand people were saved through the word of the Lord’s disciples, and they were truly one.
In the Bible there are two Babels, two Babylons, one in the Old Testament and another in the New Testament. In a sense both the Old Testament and the New Testament end with Babylon. The first Babel caused division among mankind; the second Babel has also caused division. After the departure of the apostles, the second Babel emerged in the second century as a cause of division. According to church history, the result of the second Babel was the same in nature as the first. With the first Babel the languages were confounded, and the nations came into existence; with the second Babel the denominations came into being.
It was with the first Babel that the God-created earth along with mankind fully became Satan’s systematized world. Before Genesis 11 the world as a satanic system had not yet come into existence in its fullness. When the Lord spoke of the world in John 17, He was referring to this satanic system. In verses 14 through 18 the Lord mentioned the world eight times. This is the satanic system with Satan as the evil within it.
In verse 15 the Lord prayed, “I do not ask that You would take them out of the world, but that You would keep them out of the hands of the evil one.” The word one in this verse is in italics, indicating that it is not in the Greek; hence, the literal rendering of the Greek here is “the evil.” Most translators agree that the evil here is a personified evil. It is not a thing but a person. Satan has become the personified evil in the world. Now in the world there is someone called “the evil.” This evil is the essence, the basic factor, of the satanic system. This evil is Satan who is himself the personified evil in his satanic system. In the eyes of God, the whole world today is the evil. In verses 14 through 19 there is the implication that Satan is one with the world. Satan is the evil, and the world is also evil. They are one entity.
Verse 15 indicates that the evil and the world are synonymous. In this verse the Lord prayed not that the Father would take us out of the world but that He would keep us from the evil one. First the Lord speaks of the world and then, using a synonymous term, of the evil. This reveals that the world and the evil are virtually identical. The world is the evil, and the evil is the world. Although we cannot say that Satan is the world, we can say that Satan is the evil and that the world also is the evil.
The major symptom of the sickness in the satanic system is division. In the world today there is no oneness. On the contrary, there is division everywhere—among the nations, in the family, in the schools, in business, and in politics. Every society is filled with division. The whole world is ill with the disease of division. This divisiveness is the evil in the world. According to Genesis 11, at Babel division and confusion came in. We see the same on earth today. Every nation and every people are divided. This is the evil in Satan’s system.
This evil has crept into Christianity and has produced denominationalism. Division is therefore the evil in today’s Christianity, just as it is the evil in the world. By this we see that Christianity has become an intimate and faithful follower of the world. Eventually, in the book of Revelation so-called Christianity is named Babylon the Great. By following the world with its evil of division, it has become “great.”
This evil is constituted mainly of worldliness, ambition, self-exaltation, and concepts and opinions. The entire world is the evil, and within this evil there are ambition, self-exaltation, and concepts and opinions. All division comes from ambition, self-exaltation, and concepts. If these three things were removed from the world, the world would no longer be Babel, and there would no longer be divisions.
Our concept is the expression and enthronement of our self-exaltation. Concept is the enthronement of the self exalted as a little king. We should never regard a concept as an insignificant matter. Even the sisters of high-school age enthrone themselves as queens whenever they express their concepts. To kill our concepts therefore is to dethrone the self. The whole world is divided by concepts; hence, concepts are the factors of division.
Self-exaltation comes from ambition. We all are ambitious and self-exalting. The only difference among us in this matter is degree. Ambition is in our very blood. Self-exaltation issues from our ambition and is embodied in our concepts. When our concepts are expressed, the result is division. This is the evil in John 17. The evil is the world with its ambition, self-exaltation, and concepts, all of which produce division.
We Christians often talk about the world, but we may not always realize what we are talking about. Worldliness does not involve only superficial matters such as buying a certain style of clothing at a department store. This understanding of the world is very shallow. The world is constituted of ambition, self-exaltation, and concepts. When these three things result in division, the world becomes the evil. Perhaps you have never before realized that the world includes your ambition, your self-exaltation, and your concepts. In his translation of the New Testament, Wuest uses the term Pernicious One with respect to Satan, denoting that which is poisonous and damaging. The entire world, including Christianity, is pernicious; it is full of the poison of ambition, self-exaltation, and concepts and opinions.
Throughout the centuries Christians have been divided by concepts. These concepts come from self-exaltation, which in turn issues from ambition. In the eyes of God the world is constituted of ambition, self-exaltation, and concepts. We need to delve into John 17 to find out what the world really is. The world is not merely certain modern fashions; it is ambition producing the self-exaltation that culminates in concepts. This brings about division, which is the evil, the pernicious thing on earth today.
Because this pernicious poison is still in us, we need to see how to extract it. In the previous chapter we saw that we need to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God. In order to be one, we need to be saved from worldliness, ambition, self-exaltation, and concepts. No matter how gentle or meek we may be, in ourselves we are still ambitious. But when we move out of ourselves and into the Triune God, into the “Us” (John 17:21), our ambition is swallowed up. In the Triune God there is no room for ambition. In the universe there is just one place where there is no ambition, and that place is the Triune God. To the Triune God ambition is a foreign element. According to my experience, I can testify that the only way to be free from ambition is to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God. The Lord’s word in verse 21 implies dealing with ambition by being in the Triune God.
During the past several months I have been very exercised regarding the genuine oneness. I began to research the Word again concerning this matter. The first thing I saw was the matter of worldliness in John 17:14-19. Then I realized that ambition is implied in verse 21, in the Lord’s word about being “in Us.” I saw that we need to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God. Here in the Triune God there is room for us, but there is no room for our ambition.
John 17:22 says, “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one.” The glory in this verse refers to the expression of the Father, to the sonship with the Father’s life and nature to express the Father in His fullness. This glory is not only for the future; it is with us today. When we express the Father in His life and nature with all His fullness, we are in the glory. In this glory there is no possibility of self-exaltation. Self-exaltation is versus the Father’s glory, the Father’s expression. When we express the Father, we do not exalt ourselves. Self-exaltation and the glory of the Father are in two different realms. Self-exaltation is in the realm of the self, and the expression of the Father is in the realm of His kingdom. In the Father’s kingdom there is no self-exaltation.
Today’s Christianity is filled with human exaltation. As a result, there is none of the divine glory, no expression of the Father. We need to pray, “Lord, have mercy on us. In Your church we cannot tolerate self-exaltation. Lord, we want to express You, not ourselves. In the church we want to see the expression of the Father. We don’t want any man to be exalted.”
Just as verse 21 implies the matter of ambition, verse 22 implies the matter of self-exaltation. Self-exaltation is like a ferocious beast that is crouching as it awaits an opportunity to attack us. In recent years there has been such a crouching self-exaltation among us. This self-exaltation has caused division. Wherever a certain self-exalting one went, there was no peace. The peace in many local churches was shattered by this self-exaltation. This even divided elders in some churches from each other so that a certain one alone could be exalted. This is the opposite of the oneness in John 17, a oneness that is versus evil. Praise the Lord for clearing up the situation! Now we can proclaim that we are no longer in the evil, but we are in the pure and genuine oneness. We are in the Triune God, where there is no ambition; and we are in the glorious expression of the Father, where there is no self-exaltation. Now only one person—the Lord Jesus—is on the throne to express the Father. Although we reject self-exaltation, we believe in our co-enthronement with our King to express our Father in His glory. Here we enjoy the sonship in the Father’s life and nature with His fullness. What an enjoyment we have!
There is no need for us to strive, endeavor, maneuver, or manipulate. We are not “wolves” or “donkeys”; we are “lambs” and “doves” who enjoy being in the Triune God and in the glory of the Father. Because there are no “wolves” or “donkeys” among us, we can have the genuine oneness. Whenever someone exalts himself, his “wolf” nature is exposed. Self-exaltation has nothing to do with the nature of a lamb or a dove. Praise the Lord that we are “lambs” and “doves”! In these days I am very happy to be a little one. How sweet it is to be small! We all need to have a new appreciation for smallness. Are you willing to be small for the church life? In our smallness there is the expression of the Father’s glory.
Verse 23 says, “I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one.” This verse refers to Christ living in us (Gal. 2:20). When Christ lives in us, we have no concepts or opinions.
Ambition is implied in John 17:21 self-exaltation, in verse 22; and concepts and opinions, in verse 23. In ourselves it is impossible for us to be free from concepts and opinions. The source of friction in married life is our opinion. If a married sister would not express her opinion to her husband, there would be no arguments. Separations and divorces are caused by opinions. Likewise, Christians are divided today because of concepts and opinions. Only when Christ lives in us is it possible for us to have no opinions. When Christ lives in us, our opinions and concepts are put to death.
In the Triune God there is no ambition, in the glory of the Father there is no self-exaltation, and in the place where Christ lives and reigns there are no opinions and concepts. In this realm ambition is swallowed up, self-exaltation disappears, and concepts and opinions are killed. Here there is no evil; instead, there is the genuine oneness. Now we can see that the genuine oneness is versus evil. We need a oneness that is so genuine, real, and pure.
In order to have this oneness, we need to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God. We also need to express the Father’s glory and allow Christ to live in us. Then we will have the genuine oneness, which is versus evil. But if we remain in ourselves, we will have the ambition that issues in the self-exaltation which is enthroned in our concepts. The result is division. Where there is such division, the church becomes the world. When the evil is present, we can scarcely see the church. What we see is mainly the evil. This is why we have recently been saying that we must purge out the leprosy. The leprosy is this evil constituted of ambition, self-exaltation, and concepts.
If we would purge out the evil, the leprosy, we must do more than repent. Repentance is good, but as far as this evil is concerned, it is too superficial. In addition to repentance, we need to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God and remain in Him for the expression of the Father’s glory. We need to allow this glory to swallow up our self-exaltation so that Christ can live in us. When Christ lives in us, all our concepts will be put to death. Then, instead of evil, we will have the genuine oneness.
This oneness is what the Lord desires; it is the well-pleasing will of God (Rom. 12:2). It is also the real building. The building is possible only in the Triune God, and it is prevailing only when Christ lives in us. Hallelujah, now we are in the Triune God, and we are allowing Christ to live in us! Now we can express the glory of the Father and experience the genuine oneness. May we all bring this word to the Lord in prayer.
