As believers in Christ and members of the Body of Christ, we have the oneness, and this oneness is the subjective Triune God, for He is the element, nature, essence, and substance of our oneness.
What we have in the Body of Christ is not the oneness that comes from human organisation or outward conformity to certain rules.
In Christianity as a whole there may be a lot of organisation, hierarchy, and rules and principles that hold the system together, but the Body of Christ is an organism, something living and organic, and the Spirit is what keeps the Body in oneness.
The Body of Christ is the mingling of God and man; Christ as the Head is God mingled with man, and all the members of the Body – the many believers in Christ – are the mingling of God with man.
The genuine oneness of the Body of Christ is not something we work really hard to obtain and keep but it is the processed and consummated Triune God Himself, who mingles Himself with us.
There is one God and Father (who is over all and through all and in all), there is one Lord and Savior (who infuses us with the one faith), and there is one Spirit (who comes into us to make us the one Body of Christ).
God went through a process in His economy and was consummated to become a life-giving, compound, all-inclusive Spirit; as such a Spirit He enters into His believers to mingle Himself with them, and this mingling is the genuine oneness of the Body of Christ.
The oneness that we have in the Body of Christ is the very Spirit who regenerated us, and this Spirit is the consummated Triune God; God makes us one, and this God is not merely the One who created all things by His speaking, but the God who was processed and consummated.
Because the Body of Christ is the mingling of God and man, the Body itself is the oneness, and the oneness that we have in the Body of Christ is the enlarged oneness of the Triune God.
The only real and genuine oneness in this universe is the oneness in the Triune God, the oneness of the Divine Trinity.
Praise the Lord, through regeneration we have been attached to the Triune God, we were made the Body of Christ, and now we are part of the enlarged oneness of the Triune God!
It is imperative that we realise what our oneness is; our oneness does not consist in us agreeing in the set of doctrines we speak and keep, neither is it something related to organisation, but it is the subjective Triune God joining us and mingling Himself with us to make us the Body of Christ.
Our Oneness in the Body of Christ is the Subjective Triune God, not Organisation or Teachings
We are the church to be the Body of Christ not by being organised but by being enlivened, regenerated, and made alive with the Triune God as the very oneness within us (see Eph. 1:22-23; 2:4-5).
The church can be considered as something outward, formed of people, but the intrinsic meaning and essence of the church is the Body of Christ.
Christ is the inward, living, organic constituent in us, the believers in Christ; He has enlivened us, regenerated us with the divine life, and He has made us the church as the Body of Christ, a living organism.
Our oneness in the Body of Christ is unique because it is a oneness in the uniqueness of the Triune God.
As believers in Christ, we have God the Father dwelling in us (Eph. 4:6), Jesus the Son living in us (2 Cor. 13:5), and the Spirit dwelling in us (Rom. 8:9-11). We may think that we want to be in the heavens with God, but God desires to dwell with us and be in us; He takes us as His home to dwell in us, in our mingled spirit (2 Tim. 4:22; Rom. 8:16).
We may ask ourselves, How does the Triune God dwell in us – how can we know this for sure?
First, the word of God speaks about this and declares the fact, and second, our experience confirms this. We may be about to say something in an upset way to someone who wronged us, but the very God who lives in us may stop us, not allowing us to say it. We may be about to go somewhere and someone within gives us a feeling not to go.
God lives in us, Christ lives in us, and the Spirit lives in us; the Triune God is like the flow of electricity who reaches us and flows within us and among us, making us one with God and also making us one with one another.
God is in Christ, Christ is the Spirit, and the Spirit is with our spirit; on the one hand God is in the heavens and on the other He dwells in us as the Spirit. The Spirit within us is the essence of the oneness of the Body of Christ.
Hallelujah, the subjective Triune God is the oneness in the Body of Christ, and we have this oneness – we just need to keep it!
Our oneness in the Body of Christ is based upon the oneness of the Triune God; we all have the oneness of the Spirit because the Spirit dwells in us.
In Eph. 4:1-6 we see how the one God and Father is the source with His nature and life, the one Lord is the very element of the divine life with the divine nature, and the one Spirit is the essence of the element of the divine nature and divine life.
We have the Triune God as the source, the element, and the essence of our oneness, and we are one organically because of and in the subjective Triune God. It is the divine nature, the divine life, the divine element and the divine essence that are our oneness.
It is not our objective knowledge of the Triune God that makes us one but our experience and enjoyment of the subjective Triune God that is our oneness and makes us one.
Our Christ is not merely objective, in the heavens; He is subjective to such an extent that He has made Himself one spirit with us (1 Cor. 6:17); we and Christ are one spirit.
Our oneness in the Body of Christ is the subjective Triune God, the Triune God who has passed through a process to become the Spirit with our spirit.
The keeping of the oneness is the primary virtue of our Christian walk; we need to keep the oneness by exercising our spirit and experiencing the subjective Triune God.
The “written check of oneness” has been given to us, and we have the “cash in the bank” – we have the oneness, so we need to utilise, apply, and spend this oneness, by being in oneness and in one accord.
All the believers should be in the divine and mystical realm of the pneumatic Christ and the consummated Spirit to be mingled with the Triune God for the keeping of the oneness.
Thank You Lord for enlivening us, regenerating us, and making us alive with the Triune God as the oneness within us. Hallelujah, our oneness in the Body of Christ is not a matter of doctrines, teachings, persons, or organisation – our oneness is the subjective Triune God becoming our reality! Amen, Lord, we want to keep the oneness by living in the mingled spirit, walking according to the spirit, and being in the divine and mystical realm of the pneumatic Christ and the consummated Spirit so that we may be mingled with the Triune God!
All the Churches are the One Body Universally, and Blending helps us Keep the Oneness
Because we are one organically, intrinsically, and substantially in the subjective Triune God whom we enjoy and experience day by day, all the local churches are and should be one Body universally, doctrinally, and practically (see 1 Cor. 12:27; 1:2; 4:17).
When we live in the mingled spirit we cannot but be one. We are the Body of Christ, and members individually one of another; we are the Body of Christ, and as we live in the local churches, we all together are one Body in Christ.
Every local church is part of the Body; a local church is NOT the whole Body, but a part of the Body.
Therefore, we cannot and should not be independent of one another, neither should we seek to be autonomous in the local churches.
Rather, we need to learn to blend; God is blending the Body together, and He arranges things and people where He wants so that the members of the Body and the local churches would blend together for the keeping of the oneness.
May the Lord help us to see that the local churches are not independent but rather mutually dependent on one another, caring for one another, and fellowshipping with one another in an open atmosphere.
We need to be blended together as one Body in Christ; blending is the most helpful thing in keeping the oneness of the universal Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:24).
There’s a desperate need of blending in the Body of Christ; we need to recover the oneness through blending and the impact gained through blending, so that the Lord’s testimony would go on and spread on the earth, having a strong impact.
In Rev. 2 the Lord wrote to the seven churches in Asia – to each He wrote a different epistle according to their need, but they all read the epistles, thus being blended. Similarly, Paul wrote a letter to Ephesus and another to Laodicea, and asked the saints to read the letter for the other church.
The churches on the whole earth should be one; we should be one for the testimony and the growth of the Body of Christ, one to preach the gospel, one to spread the Lord’s recovery, one to build up the Body of Christ, and one to accomplish God’s eternal economy.
Through the blending, the Lord can accomplish this among us. Among us there should be the blending of all the individual members of the Body, the blending of all the churches in certain areas, the blending of the serving saints, and the blending of the elders.
To blend doesn’t merely mean that we visit a certain locality and fellowship with them; to blend is to stop and fellowship with others.
We need to learn to fellowship and learn to be blended; we may not have a taste for blending, but once we start to blend, we will get a taste for it, and we will keep the oneness of the universal Body of Christ.
Hallelujah, all the local churches are and should be the one Body of Christ universally, doctrinally, and practically! Thank You Lord, You as the Head are the One who assigns us where to be in the Body, and You are blending the Body together. We give ourselves to You, Lord, to be blended by You with the other members of the Body and with other local churches. Show us our need for the blending. Show us our need to stop and fellowship with the other members of the Body. Lord, may we realise that blending is the most helpful thing in keeping the oneness of the universal 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, 1991-1992, vol. 2, “Five Emphases in the Lord’s Recovery,” ch. 1, 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:
# For the issue of fruit bearing, / Brotherly love. / Fellowship in oneness sharing, / Brotherly love. / Here our soul life we’re forsaking, / And the Spirit’s way we’re taking, / Now from death to life we’re breaking, / Brotherly love. (Hymns #1277)
# How may we express such oneness, / be divine and shining too? / Hallelujah, eating Jesus is the way! / He’s the tree of life, the manna, / and the feast that’s ever new— / Hallelujah, we may eat Him every day! (Hymns #1226)
# As the members of one Body, Built up in love, support in spirit each, / Christ dispensing, Spirit minist’ring, Blending until we’re all made one in Him. (Song on, The Uniqueness of the Lord’s Recovery)
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