The Genuine Oneness of the Body is the Triune God Mingling Himself with the Believers

What is the genuine oneness of the Body of Christ? The genuine oneness of the Body is the processed and consummated Triune God who mingles Himself with us, the believers in Christ; it is the enlarged oneness of the Triune God as He mingles Himself with us.

Everywhere in the world there’s the need for oneness, and especially among us in the church life we need to keep the oneness of the Spirit.

When we were regenerated, the Spirit came into our spirit and regenerated our spirit; the Spirit is the essence of the Body of Christ, and the Spirit as the reality of the oneness of the Body of Christ is mingled with our spirit.

Hallelujah, all genuine believers in Christ have the oneness of the Spirit in their spirit, for this oneness was imparted into us at the time of our regeneration! When we live in the spirit, exercise our spirit, and walk according to the spirit, we keep the oneness of the Spirit, the oneness of the Body of Christ.

In Eph. 4 we are told to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace, with the transformed human virtues.

We need to walk worthily of the calling with which we were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, bearing one another in love, being diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace (Eph. 4:1-3).

We need to have these transformed human virtues for us to keep the oneness of the Spirit. This means that we need to have Christ with His virtues wrought into us, for only He can bear others in love, He can be long-suffering, He can be lowly and meek, and He can be forbearing.

We may outwardly be humble, greeting others in a humble way, but inwardly we may not be lowly or meek. We may allow others to say certain things about us, and we may forget some of the negative things others say or do to us, but we are not able to bear things or let them go.

We need to have Christ with His divinely enriched humanity be wrought into us so that His virtues would become our virtues, and we would spontaneously keep the oneness of the Spirit.

The genuine oneness of the Body of Christ is universal and in spirit, for the Body of Christ is universal, and the essence of the Body is Spirit.

May we realise that all the local churches are part of the universal Body of Christ, and may all the local churches be kept in the unique oneness of the Body of Christ!

The Genuine Oneness of the Body is the Triune God Mingling Himself with the Believers

The genuine oneness of the Body of Christ is nothing else but the processed Triune God who mingles Himself with us, the redeemed and transformed believers in Christ.

Oneness is a Person; oneness is the Triune God Himself, and this Triune God passed through a process and was consummated as the Spirit, who came to dwell in and be mingled with our spirit.

The processed and consummated Triune God mingles Himself with us, His chosen people, and this mingling is the genuine oneness. The genuine oneness of the Body is not a matter of believers meeting together; rather, it is the mingling of God and man.

Because the oneness is such a mingling, the Body itself is the oneness. Wow! The factors of the genuine oneness of the Body is the Triune God – the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and these three divine factors are mingled with one human factor, consummating in the Body of Christ.

Hallelujah, the Body of Christ is the genuine oneness!

In John 17 we see that in the Lord’s heart there was a deep desire, which became His aspiration; this aspiration was expressed in His prayer (see vv. 2, 6, 11, 14-24).

At that time the oneness of the Body was not there yet, but there was a model of this oneness – there was the oneness in the Divine Trinity. The Father and the Son are one (vv. 11, 21), and this oneness implies or includes the Spirit. The Father is in the Son, the Son is in the Father, the Son does everything in Spirit and by the Spirit, and the Spirit comes from the Father and with the Son.

The divine oneness is the in-oneness, the oneness of the Son being in the Father, the Father being in the Son, and the believers being in the Father and in the Son.

The oneness of the Body of Christ, for which the Lord prayed in John 17, is the enlarged oneness of the Divine Trinity.

This enlarged oneness came on the day of Pentecost, for through the outpouring of the Spirit, the Body of Christ was produced (see 1 Cor. 12:13). This Body, the organic Body of Christ, is the mingling of God and man, and the Body is the genuine oneness.

The processed and consummated Triune God mingles Himself with His chosen and redeemed people in their humanity, and this mingling is the genuine oneness of the Body of Christ. Because the Body is such a mingling, the Body itself is the oneness.

How can we experience this? We see this principle in God’s word, and we enjoy it, but how can we enter into such a reality?

We need to bring this to the Lord and ask Him to do this in us, to give us the experiences that we need for us to be mingled more with the Triune God and to have the enlarged oneness of the Divine Trinity.

We need to ask the Lord to give us the experiences we need for the mingling of the Triune God with us to be realised and experienced by us day by day.

Hallelujah, the oneness of the Body of Christ is the oneness of the Divine Trinity, so the oneness of the Body of Christ is the enlarged oneness of the Divine Trinity!

Hallelujah, the genuine oneness of the Body of Christ is the Triune God mingling Himself with us, the believers in Christ. Thank You Lord for coming to display a model of the divine oneness and to bring us into the enlarged oneness of the Triune God! Amen, Lord, give us the experiences that we need for us to enter into the reality of the genuine oneness of the Body of Christ. Mingle Yourself with us more today. Work Yourself into our being. May we in the church life realise the mingling of the Triune God with man for the producing of the genuine oneness of the Body of Christ!

Having the Genuine Oneness in the Divine Life, the Sanctifying Word, and the Divine Glory

The genuine oneness of the Body of Christ – which is nothing else but the mingling of the Triune God with the redeemed humanity – has three main aspects, as seen in John 17.

The first aspect is seen in John 17:11, where the Lord prayed that we would be kept in the Father’s name, that is, we would be kept by His life. Only those who are born of the Father and have the Father’s life can participate in the Father’s name.

God the Father has given His life to the Son, and the Son has given the Father’s life to those whom the Father has given Him (v. 2); now we as believers in Christ are being kept in the Father’s name, and we are one in it.

The first aspect of the genuine oneness of the Body of Christ is being one in the Father’s name, that is, one by the divine life; in this aspect we enjoy the Father’s life and are kept in His name as the factor of our oneness.

The second aspect of the genuine oneness is seen in John 17:17, where the Lord prayed that we may be sanctified by the Father. To be sanctified is to be separated from the world with its usurpation unto God and His purpose; this is not only positionally but also dispositionally, in our very nature and disposition.

God’s word is reality, and by being under His speaking we are washed, cleansed, sanctified, saturated with God’s element, and made true, genuine, and real.

Since the Triune God is contained and concealed in His Word, His word is reality; we are sanctified in the reality of this word. The Father’s word carries the reality of the Father with it; when the Father speaks something, things happen, and when He says something, things come into being.

The second aspect of the believers’ oneness is the oneness in the Triune God through sanctification, separation from the world by the word of God. As we enjoy God’s speaking in His word, we are separated from the world and are saturated with the element of the Triune God, enjoying the Triune God as the factor of our oneness.

The third aspect of the believers’ oneness is the oneness in the divine glory for the corporate expression of God.

This means that we need to deny the self and enjoy the glory of the Father as the factor of our perfected oneness, and thus express God in a corporate, built-up way.

God’s glory is His divine life with His divine nature to express Him; if we did not have the Father’s life with His nature, it would be impossible for us to express the Father.

When we don’t act or do anything by ourselves but by the Father’s life and according to Father’s nature, we express the Father; this is glory, and in this glory we all are one.

Thank You Father for giving us Your divine life, Your sanctifying word, and Your divine glory so that we may be one! Hallelujah for the believers’ oneness in the divine life, the sanctifying word, and the divine glory! We want to be filled with the divine life and live by the divine life so that we may be one in the Father’s life. We want to be sanctified in Your holy word so that we may be perfected into one. Amen, Lord, we choose not to live by ourselves or in ourselves but by the Father’s life so that the Father may be glorified in us. Hallelujah for the genuine oneness of the Body of Christ!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by the brothers for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1989, vol. 4, “Elders’ Training, Book 10: The Eldership and the God-ordained Way (2),” ch. 3, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Living in the Reality of the Body of Christ by Keeping the Principles of the Body (2019 ICSC), week 2, The Oneness of the Body and the Function of the Body.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # One God, one Lord, one Spirit- / Her elements all one- / One faith, one hope, one baptism, / One Body in the Son; / The triune God is in her, / One Body members own, / By faith they are united, / In hope of glory shown. (Hymns #824)
  # Oneness is not unity, / Outward agreement / But a life within— / God’s very life! / The Triune God—included us / In His divine— / Oneness—Oneness. / That they all may be one; / Even as You Father, are in Me / And I in You— / That they may be— / May be in us. / Oneness—Oneness. (Song on, Oneness)
  # How we thank Thee that Thy holy Word / With Thy nature, saturates us; / From the world it separates us. / Thank Thee, Father, for Thy holy Word. (Hymns #1081)