This mingling of the Triune God is in you, in me, and in every saint. Moreover, the common and unique life which is in all the millions of believers has mingled us all into one. This is the oneness of the Body. This oneness has nullified all of our old creation and the natural man. This is accomplished by the Father’s name and the Father’s life. This oneness has also sanctified us from the Satan-ensnared world and has freed us from the world and Satan. This is the effect of the Father’s word of reality. Finally, this oneness will deliver us from the self so that there will be only God, and the splendid glory of divinity will be expressed.
May the Lord be merciful to us that we would see this revelation and would genuinely practice this oneness. Our human source, our natural life, the world with Satan, and even our selves are all put aside to allow this Triune God who is mingling Himself in us to fill and saturate us, with the result that the radiance of His divinity and the splendor of His glory are expressed, thus attaining to the highest level of oneness. This then is the church. In this oneness our natural source, life, and element are all nullified. The world is put aside, our self has no more ground, and spontaneously we will be in one accord.
After studying the Bible and looking into church history, we realize that although this matter is revealed in God’s holy Word in such a way, the practice of the church on earth is greatly contrary to such revelation. Many problems arose and even divisions were created as a result of man becoming the source and man’s natural life being active. In the church life, when there is too much human natural element, there will be opinions. First, they will create dissension. Later, they will lead to division, and eventually, they will end up in sects. This kind of thing has happened again and again throughout the last two thousand years. Those of us in the Lord’s recovery are no exception to this. From 1933 when I entered the work of the Lord’s recovery until today we have had a storm every few years. It seems as if this matter is a cycle. It is like our own body when infected with germs or poison. When the time is ripe, the sickness surfaces.
Recently, I have spent some time to list all the great and small problems in the churches in the New Testament. From the murmuring of the Hellenistic saints in Acts 6 to the failure of the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3, there were altogether fifty-one cases (see the book The Intrinsic Problem in the Lord’s Recovery Today and Its Scriptural Remedy, chapter 3, published by Living Stream Ministry). We can say that all of them violated the genuine oneness the Lord gave to the church. For this reason, I treasure the oneness all the more. May we all emphasize the oneness that the Lord has given us and preserve the oneness of the Spirit by being mingled constantly with the Triune God, thus removing the natural man, the world, and our self, and satisfying the aspiration of the Lord’s desire.
In the first message we mentioned the aspiration in the Lord’s desire, which is the oneness of the believers. In this message we come to the pleasure of the Lord’s heart, which is the expression and service of His Body. The thing that pleases the Lord the most is the expression of His Body and the service to Him. Let us first consider the expression of the Lord’s Body.
Ephesians 1:23 says that the church “is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.” The church is the Body of Christ. It is not a human organization but the organism of the Triune God. This Body is the fullness of Christ. Fullness means expression. Christ is the all-inclusive, expansive God. He is so vast that He fills all and is in all. Such a great Christ requires the church to be His fullness that He may have a full expression.
When we come to Ephesians 4:4-6, we see one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and One God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all. This shows us that the Body of Christ is uniquely one. In this unique Body is the one Spirit. At the same time this Body is of one Lord and is constituted by one God and Father who is over all, through all, and in all. Hence, this Body of Christ is fully mingled with the Triune God as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
(The Oneness and the One Accord according to the Lord's Aspiration and the Body Life and Service according to His Pleasure, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee)