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ONENESS

W. S. Spence We have been hearing about the necessity of spiritual perception and how important it is that we should be spiritual persons; the thought of spiritual perception is a very extensive one, covering a great many aspects of the truth, moral and spiritual. I am thinking now of the need of spiritual perception in going through the gospels, to enable us to understand, with the help of the Holy Spirit, what is the mind of the Lord Jesus. Our brother has referred to Ezekiel being lifted up by a lock of his head, and we might well cherish that everything connected with us should be so regulated that we might be moved by the Holy Spirit as easily as that. In chapter 43 of that book, Ezekiel is again easily moved; he is lifted up, and sees the glory of Jehovah filling the house; it is the glory side of things that is before me at the moment.

We have been occupied with the important matter of unity. God has unity before Him, and I suppose the consummation of it will be when everything in heaven and earth is headed up in Christ. What a day to look forward to! But it has many different bearings, as we have been noticing together, and one’s thought is that reference to these verses might serve to emphasise in our minds and affections what has been before us, and link on with what may, if the Lord will, occupy us on the morrow. This afternoon we were considering what the Lord Jesus Himself said in chapter 10 of this gospel, in relation to the sheep and the flock. How sobering to listen to the Lord’s own words and to remember that what He said involved His going into death. In verses 14 and 15 He says, “I am the good shepherd; and I know those that are mine, and am known of those that are mine, as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep”. How much might be said about that! “As the Father knows me, and I know the Father”, We are brought into that kind of knowledge, known and knowing in this wonderful way. But how touching to think of the Lord saying, “I lay down my life for the sheep”. How it stirs our affections, dear brethren, to think of the Lord Jesus having laid down His life for us, that we might be brought into this wonderful relationship! Our affections will be moved eternally, I am sure, but we need to have our affections stimulated now in connection with this great service of our beloved Lord for us. But then He speaks of the flock, and says (verse 17), “On this account the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again”. He does not now say for the sheep, that is not now the primary thought, I judge, in the blessed Lord’s mind; He is thinking of the Father, thinking of God; and what He had come to secure for the delight of the Father’s heart eternally. It is wonderful to think of the love of Christ going to the point of death in order to secure that which would satisfy the Father’s heart! And to think of the love of the Father, having, if we might so say reverently, a fresh impulse in relation to His beloved Son in His yielding up His life to this great end, that there should be one flock, and one shepherd.

The words in chapter 17 which are in my mind particularly are, first, in verse 11, “that they may be one as we”. They are very simple words, but they are very wonderful. Then in verse 21 He says “that they may be all one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us”, and then in verse 22, “that they may be one, as we are one”. May the Holy Spirit help us to enter a little into what is in the mind of the Lord Jesus in these simple words. They are wonderful, infinite, and we shall never exhaust them, and may the Holy Spirit help the servant who speaks, to say just a word about them briefly.

“That they may be one”, the Lord says in verse 11. This section of the chapter refers, as we have been saying together, to the servants, primarily to the apostles, that they should be one, as the Father and the Son are One, in the work that they were now to undertake. The Lord Jesus said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” and He would have those who carry on the work to be one with Them in it. That is a very great thought for us to ponder over. Primarily the apostles were in mind, but it comes down to our time, for the service goes on to the end of the dispensation. The Lord Jesus is looking down the whole dispensation to the day of glory; an important thing to have in mind in reading this marvellous chapter! The service goes on; every service rightly carried out has a unifying effect, and is, I believe, only carried out rightly as in this oneness with the Father and the Son. One almost feels that it is too much to say that all true service must be carried out in that way, but I do not think it is, because the Lord Jesus says “that they may be one as we”. It necessarily involves the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not mentioned in this chapter, but it is only by the Spirit that there could be this oneness. I think there is an instinctive feeling of hesitation in the use of the word ‘unity’ when speaking of divine persons. Unity is rightly used, I need not say, in regard to the saints, but the Lord says “that they may be one”, and it is this “oneness” into which we are brought. As John says in his first epistle “that ye also may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son”. Now the last request the Lord makes in regard to the servants is in verse 19; He says, “I sanctify myself for them”. Those two words “for them”, should be pondered. “I sanctify myself for them, that they also may be sanctified by truth”. The Lord is going to the Father and, in this chapter, marvellous to think of it, as a Man here on the earth, in all the blessedness of His manhood. He says so simply to the Father, “I come to thee”. Those simple words have greatly impressed my mind - “I come to thee”. The Lord, as going to the Father, says, “I sanctify myself for them, that they also may be sanctified by truth”, that is in order that we should be set apart for the service which is before the Lord’s mind in this section, that is set apart by the truth as it shines in glory in Christ, from everything that makes up the present evil world. In Ephesians, it is “according as the truth is in Jesus”; this, by the Spirit, shines upon us from the glory, and separates us from the evil in the world, such for example, as our brother has been speaking of in Ezekiel 8, in order that we might move in service here in unison with the Father and the Son.

Then there are those who hear through the apostles’ word, so the Lord says, “I do not demand for these only, but for those who believe on me through their word”. That includes ourselves, for all down the dispensation there are those who have believed through the word of the apostles, whose work is fundamental to the dispensation, as we see from Revelation 21: 14. So the Lord says, “that they may be all one” - that is the apostles, and all those who come into the blessing through their word. But then, what a oneness it is! “As thou” - note the word ‘as’, we had it in verse 11 - “may be one as we” and now here “as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us” (verse 21). I believe this is oneness of love. It is a very beautiful thought that we are brought into a oneness of love with the Father and the Son; that is the great thought that was before the heart and mind of our beloved Lord. Our hearts are bowed in worship as we ponder over His words and perceive something of what was in His mind! We cannot reach all that was in His mind, but we get an impression of the blessedness of what was before Him in speaking to the Father. How reverently we should read these passages! How reverently we should speak of them, and think of them, that we might, by the blessed Spirit, be helped to enter a little into what was in the mind of the Lord. Think of the desire of His heart that all those who come to Him through the word of the apostles (embracing the whole dispensation in its full thought), may be one, “as thou Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us”. And this is a communion of love, to be enjoyed now by the Spirit. Then this is to be testimonial in character, for the Lord says, “that the world may believe”. In this aspect it links with what the Lord said in chapter 13, “Children ... a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine, if ye have love among yourselves”. It is “as I have loved you”, that is to say, the love that was here in Jesus is here today, testimonially. What love shone in the Lord Jesus here in His movements, and in the sphere of testimony, if one might say so reverently, and now His mind is that the same character of love should be continued in persons like ourselves! How it would deepen our desires to be liberated from every hindering cause, that our testimony might flow from the warmth and enjoyment of this precious oneness of love with the Father and the Son.

Then in verse 22 He says “the glory which thou hast given me I have given them, that they may be one as we are one”. What great thoughts were in the Lord’s mind, and He was going to die in order to secure them. He says “I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”, and though the Lord had not died at that time, the whole chapter is based, in principle, on the work being completed, and that this oneness might exist practically by the Spirit. Thus, that in this present time we have oneness in service, oneness in testimony, oneness in love, oneness in glory, and then, we might add, a oneness which will continue eternally. This oneness in glory is very marvellous and “perfected into one” would carry our minds on to the holy city, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Time does not permit to speak in detail, but it may rest upon our spirits that the Lord Jesus, speaking to the Father should say, “the glory which thou hast given me, I have given them”. That glory will shine out in the day to come, in the holy city, having the glory of God, and the glory of Christ. But then, it is to shine out now, the glory is here. It says in Romans 8, “whom he has called, these also he has justified; but whom he has justified, these also he has glorified”. That is the position today! Reference has been made to the ruling class, they are the glorified class, wonderful thought! We do not want to make anything of it publicly, but that is what the scripture says, and we are given to share the glory; “The glory which thou hast given me, I have given them that they may be one, as we are one”.

Then I would touch briefly on the last verse, “I have made known to them thy name, and will make it known”. Why? “That the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them”. The love wherewith the Father has loved the Son is to be in the saints. How we need to ponder this. It involves the Spirit, the Father’s Spirit, as the power by which the love wherewith the Father has loved the Son is to be in us. But how marvellous it is that the Lord should desire this of the Father for us, and that the Father’s Spirit should be available, to form, in the souls of the saints, the same character of love for His beloved Son that the Father has Himself. Not in the same fulness, of course, one could never say that, but the same kind of love, that we should be brought into communion with the Father in the Father’s thoughts of and love for the Son. It is a very wonderful thing, yet it is this of which the Lord speaks. And then the Lord says “and I in them”. I believe that that would be the spirit of sonship in the saints, giving affections in the saints akin to those of the Son in relation to the Father. So that we are brought into a wonderful system of reciprocal love. We see the workings of love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and find ourselves in it, in marvellous grace. We are to have the joy of it in our souls now, and these meetings are all to help us to be more in this. We are coming into the best and the highest and the most wonderful things as a matter of present enjoyment. So, in this last verse, we are in the presence of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These glorious Persons, come before us in such a wonderful way, that we can only bow our hearts in adoration. That indeed is the great object of the meetings which we are privileged to be enjoying together, that what comes before us may promote a worshipful spirit, as the light of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in this wonderful economy of love, shines more brightly before us. Thus we worship together the God who in infinite grace we have thus come to know.

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