In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul talks about the unity of the Spirit. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:1–3.
Then proceeding further in the chapter, Paul emphasizes the function of the essential gift ministries—apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers—who are to bring the Church into a place of maturity.
And in verses 15 and 16 we read: but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
God has been speaking to us about the unity and the oneness of the Body for the last quarter of a century. Further aspects of it will be taught this year. God has many more people than just those who are in the Walk with God, and there will be a way in which He will reach them if we contend earnestly for that unity of the Spirit.
God is going to teach us now to relate to other people who will follow a different path in their relationship with God. He will show us how we will all come together. I think these various tributaries should all be flowing into one stream. We should be more concerned about that and look for the Lord to reveal it. If we do not, we will be concerned about doing our own thing, about that which God reveals to us. Then the revelation He is giving to us will never reach the rest of the Body.
We’re concerned about this in a very practical aspect. We have a marvelous website, but where is the outlet for it? How are we going to reach the rest of God’s people with our audio’s and our literature? We are concerned about this, but that is another issue.
My present concern is the fact that unless we, those whom God has raised up in this Walk, walk together in unity, we will never find the universal unity that belongs to the whole Church.
I hope you understand that. However, we don’t want to borrow those problems before they come. I want you to look to the Lord and say, “Lord, show me what is coming to pass among Your people and how I relate to it, and how You relate to it.”
This unity that God is bringing forth—the unity of the Spirit—is not to be confused with that which is mentioned later on in Ephesians 4:13, which tells us all these gifts were given until we all attain to the unity of the faith …
Don’t confuse the unity of the Spirit with the unity of the faith. I think that unity of the faith is quite another thing. We will come into the unity of the faith when the foundational ministries have ministered to the Body and laid the foundation. But in the meantime, we must have the unity of the Spirit. And the unity of the Spirit is more easily attained if we are diligent, as this Scripture says, to preserve that unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
You must be dedicated to absolutely refuse any contention between you and your brother. And even if your brother becomes contentious with you, determine that you will still walk with him because it takes two to cause a break. Even when he’s antagonistic to you, you can be so filled with the love of God that you will hold him fast.
Notice that verse 16 says, “the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies.” If we would only understand this—God doesn’t intend for us to lose any people.
When we get people into a real revelation of the Lord, they usually stay. Even though God puts them through seemingly unmerciful dealings, they still stay. When a few are so sorely tested that they are ready to leave, the Word tells us that the whole Body is held together by that which every joint supplies. We can hold on to people if we will. We can hold these pastors who are being sorely tested and brought right down to the extremity of dealings. I believe that.
There is a kind of unity that comes when we say, “We agree not to disagree,” but this unity I speak of is not an agreement that we will not disagree. It goes far beyond that—up into the realm of the Spirit where the whole Body is held together in the unity of the Spirit because we are diligent to preserve it.
We will allow nothing to get in the way. The members of the Body function, but in that functioning there is cohesion to one another. And this has to be. We must replace the old ideas of church organization. Once denominations held together with their ways of promoting and so forth. Those who couldn’t stand that would start independent churches, with each one doing his own little thing; and then they were a denomination with only four walls, instead of a vast conglomeration of churches.
What will keep us from being a denomination? What will keep us from being independent churches (private enterprises of some individual who does not want to walk with the other people)? You can’t blame him for not wanting to walk with a denomination. But when he says of us, “They’re just building a kingdom,” and withdraws, that doesn’t lead him anywhere either, because he ends by building his own kingdom. That is not what God wants of us.
How do we build the Kingdom of God? How do we walk as God wants us to walk? By the unity of the Spirit. The only way the Body will be held together, or cohere, is by this tremendous unity that the Spirit of God is bringing to our hearts. We believe for it. We will not let anything divide us. In no way will we be separated from our brethren.
I have noticed the demonic attack that comes against us as individuals in this Walk. In spite of the fact that the Body is coming together, how many times have you felt that this is a very lonely, individual walk?
I am aware that many of you have felt so cut off that it didn’t seem there was any flow from anyone else to you. We must break into this unity immediately because we won’t have a full year to work on this, and it is so important that this step be attained very soon.
There are a lot of differences in the Body of Christ. But if they are exposed to the things of the Spirit, the people will begin to pick it up immediately because it is highly contagious.” I liken it to the building of the wall in the days of Nehemiah. There were men positioned with the trumpets and Nehemiah said, “The builders stood by me, with a building tool and a fighting weapon, one in each hand” (Nehemiah 4:17–20). When the trumpet sounded at any point on the wall, everyone ran together and battled.
We cannot go to every church in association with us that is having problems, but we can minister to them through our bond in the Spirit, because there is no such thing as distance in the realm of Spirit. I can tell when people are approaching because I can sense their spirits. People tell me, “You’re something of a mystic.” I don’t know that I am, but I am becoming more and more perceptive and very aware of people’s spirits.
We must develop this unity of the Spirit so we can reach out in the Spirit. This is not a figure of speech; it is a breaking down of walls, a breaking down of our unawareness, until we become sensitive to each other.
How can this Scripture about the Body be fulfilled: “Whether one member be honored, they all rejoice with it, or if one member weep, they all weep with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26), unless a very keen, close bond is developed between the people?
More important than anything we have known in old order are these necessary steps to bond the people together in peace, to make them a strength to one another. I believe we have learned how to do this to some extent.
Do you think that what we are physically and in our personality can be affected by the oneness we have in our spirits? Do you think we would be mystics if we set about to do exactly what the Scriptures say about the oneness and the unity of the Spirit? We could take some of these new ones who are under assault, and young folks who are facing hostility in the home, and by making bonds with them in the Spirit, we could bring them into the unity of the Spirit, and see them brought through these difficult times.
More important than doctrine, more important than teaching, is the strength the Body can give individuals at when they are struggling.
Begin to think differently. Throw out of the window the old order idea of joining a church. Why? Because the Spirit of God sets you in the Body as it pleases Him. You don’t join it; He sets you into it.
It is not that you decide to get a letter of transfer from your previous church and then come here and ask the elders to bless you and pray over you. Even when you have done that, you may say, “I still don’t know what is wrong.”
But one day—It’s done! Finally you realize that God has set you in that body. God has done it for you. As a member of the Body, you can feel the flow from the other members of the Body to you. And the other members of the Body can feel that which you have flowing out to them. It is God who does this.
In our concept of the Body, we must entirely eliminate the idea of “local” churches, so that the call can go out as clear as a bell, and church after church will be stirred, not by denominational organization, but by a bond that no denomination could create in a thousand years—something that holds us together, fuses your spirit with your brother’s and sister’s and then brings about a unity of the faith. Then when someone is in trouble, the alert immediately goes out, and everywhere the churches begin to pray.
The watchmen will see eye to eye when He brings again Zion (Isaiah 52:8). The army of the Lord is coming forth and they will not thrust one another through, nor break ranks, but they will move because of the unity in the Spirit (Joel 2:7, 8).
In the strength of that unity, we’re going to lose sight also of the individual attainment of a gift. We will become more concerned about the well furnishing gifts for the whole Body.
No longer will we pray, “O Lord, I want to do my thing!” What is your thing, brother? “Oh, I want to prophesy, I want to reveal things, I want to search people’s hearts—all of this I want to do.” We’re going to lose sight of that individual seeking of the gifts, and we’re going to be more concerned about the entire well-rounded flow in the unity of the Spirit, because that is the key.
It is possible for someone who has just come into a walk with the Lord and who knows nothing about the gifts of the Spirit to be commissioned, with the laying on of hands by people who have gifts of healing or faith, and sent out to minister. But to minister in it consistently, they have to develop their own walk with God.
The Body can learn how to transfer the flow of the Spirit through the ministries, so that if one of our brothers were in prison, alone and discouraged, and we were not allowed to see him, we could visit him in the Spirit and bring revelation to him.
By our bond in the Spirit we could do this. We will have to shift gears and remove ourselves even further from the rank and file of the old-order churches and their procedures.
We have to become a more spiritual people. This does not mean that we’re not going to be practical. Though we are seated in the heavenly places, at the same time our feet are on solid ground. The gates of hell cannot prevail against that kind of walk.
This Walk must have the aspect of practicality; it must be workable. I have seen things that were spooky, far out, and mystical, and that’s not what God is talking to us about—in no way!
Don’t begin to think in terms of the occult, because that’s a psychic realm with which we want nothing to do. That realm has been invaded by Satan, and it will not be restored until the Kingdom is well established on earth. So stay out of it! Don’t get mixed up in astral projection. It is Satan’s territory at present. Stay away from it! But we have a truth you can believe in. It is not only related to your psychic or soul life and your mind, but it goes on into the realm of your spirit.
I don’t think people really understand yet that the Kingdom is basically the day of spirit. We are not yet in the day of spirit, but we are far enough advanced in its beginning that we must think in terms of what the Kingdom is.
What is the Kingdom of God? It is not meat and drink, but righteousness and joy and peace in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). The Kingdom of God is within you. It doesn’t come with observation (Luke 17:20, 21). It’s not in the realm of the psychic nor is it in the realm of the senses. It is in the realm of your spirit. This is what the Kingdom of God is. We need more teaching about the Kingdom. The Kingdom is coming and will invade every realm of the earth—every realm.
All creation is going to be liberated into the freedom of the sons of God. We have to start somewhere, and if you want to take a step toward the glorious manifestation of the sons of God, start praying this in your church: “O God, make us one spirit here. Cause us to participate in one Body by one Spirit. Teach us how to do this.”
In the first place, some of you will never overcome your moods—your ups and downs—until you participate in the stability of the Body of Christ. As long as you move as individuals, fluctuating and varying moods will control you because your soul life is entering into it. But as we come into the pure realm of the spirit, we will find ourselves moving on a sustained level, coming up to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:13).
I am deeply burdened about our attaining this. The members of the Body will have to learn to draw on one another more and more.
He desires us to reach into that great flow of life that belongs to the Body, so we can participate in the resurrection life of Jesus Christ.
When that invades your body, and the Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, it will quicken your mortal body (Romans 8:11).
That will be the key of the way it comes. It’s a quickening of the mortal body. Therefore we will not be ministering so much on the level of divine healing, as we will be learning, in the unity of the Spirit, to walk in divine health. We will not be striving for victories over various things, but we will learn how to walk on a sustained plane of victory because we will be walking in the Spirit.
We will have to stop relying upon what we did before, and enter into it by learning to draw on one another and from the Lord. We will work on this until our hearts beat as one and our spirits respond to the Lord as one.
I wish to go a little further and tell you something about witchcraft. Then I will go on to show you how the ministry of the Body works.
Witchcraft is said to be the oldest religion in the world, and claims are made that Christianity is a come lately religion. That is not true. And I think I can prove it to you beyond any reasonable doubt. Witchcraft is Satan’s way of borrowing from something else. For example, it takes something like a curse and transfers it to another person. But in doing that, Satan is only applying a principle that God turned loose in the world. Read Isaiah 53:6 again to see that our walk with God is based on transference: … and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. This is transference. If you have any righteousness, you didn’t generate it—it was transferred to you. God imparted it to you. He gave you Christ’s righteousness.
The basic principle of the Scriptures is transference. “Well,” you may say, “I never heard that before.” The fundamental church world doesn’t use our terminology because they haven’t had enough revelation to know that these terms are needed, but we have the revelation that drives us into the depth and the heart of the Scripture where we learn that everything is received by way of transference.
In the Old Testament, when the Day of Atonement came, they laid their hands upon the scapegoat, transferring to it all of their sin, and then they led it out in the wilderness to die. The Lord has laid upon Jesus the iniquity of us all. He bore our sins, carried our sorrows, and our iniquity. The truth of it is right there. God did that.
Our sin was transferred to Him so that His righteousness could be transferred to us. That’s the whole idea. If you have never understood why God had to send His Son in the form of human flesh, now it is plain.
He had to come, as a man, and be made a curse in order that we, as men, might be liberated and take on the divine nature and become sons of God.
If He hadn’t come that far down and had all our filthiness imparted to Him, we could not have His glorious nature imparted to us. Doesn’t that make sense?
Satan recognizes this divine principle and perverts it in an attempt to destroy it. How do witches perform a healing? They find an open channel and take one man’s sickness from him and put it on another. In the psychic realm they learn how to transfer things.
In reading about the early days of Hawaii, I remember an interesting thing the Kahunas (the tribal priests) were able to do. The Kahunas thought it great sport to find some fine looking Episcopalian or Anglican minister walking down the street, wearing his clerical collar, and then seeing a drunken sailor lying in the gutter, they would transfer his drunkenness to the priest, so he would pass out. This was great sport for them. In a positive way, I have been able to impart to others what God has given to me.
Paul told Timothy, And things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. 2 Timothy 2:2. That’s why we lay hands on people. That’s why we recognize a form of apostolic succession, though not as taught by the Roman Catholics, because you have to start with an apostle.
Their apostolic line was fouled up, and the succession ended right there. But God is able to come on the scene and speak and raise up apostles in any generation. He is doing it now. All over the world He is raising up His men, and when He puts an anointing upon them, He gives them the capacity to impart to others what He has put within them. On and on it goes.
The whole succession continues, for they can impart to others, who in turn can impart to still others. That again is transference. He gives His gifts and the gifts are then transferred.
There is another marvelous truth here. The transference does not deplete you, for in spite of all that you give, you are not diminished by it. It’s like the miracle of the loaves and fishes—the more you break and give out, the more you have left over. It just keeps on going.
As we learn this principle, I think we will start learning how to draw from what God has imparted within the Body. The Body is like a great bank and all the people represent channels God has raised up.
As we concentrate on making each a great depository of all the gifts and ministries necessary for their function with a unity, they could be made so strong that they would not simply function as individuals, but as a Body.
The babes in Christ would be able to draw on all of that. This is a true concept of what God wants in the unity of the Spirit.
We must receive this revelation and start right here! We may make some mistakes, but we learn from our mistakes. I learn more from a mistake than from doing something right. When I do it right, I don’t know what I did right that made it right, but when I do it wrong, I know what I did that made it wrong.
How are we going to learn to walk in this unity? The first thing we do is to eliminate the idea that we are a congregation of individuals. We show believers how to take their walls down, how to start flowing together, and how to bless one another. As soon as the blessing is flowing from one to another, they are brought into a kind of unity.
In the old order, a young people’s gathering had to have special musical numbers, a real peppy sermon, a lot of psychology, and an altar call. Trained workers would whisk them down to the altar, work with them a little, and feel that they really had it going. You wonder just how much deliverance the people received.
Some ask, “Don’t you believe in altar calls anymore?” I believe in something better. I don’t believe that we have to go through that old psychological route. I am very much in favor of men and women confessing Jesus Christ, that He might confess them before the Father. I agree that you should believe in your heart and confess with your mouth. I don’t deny that.
But the Scriptures which teach that are not speaking about altar calls. People can be saved right in their seats as they believe and confess Him as Lord. When the Spirit is flowing and they learn to take their walls down, such deep conviction comes upon them that they come right through to the Lord. “
This bond of unity in the Spirit is the most important thing at this time. More important than the need of money, far more important than the need of doctrine, is the need of this unity, this oneness of spirit.
If we get this vision, there will never be such a thing as a little church off on an island feeling alone, battling it through. If you question that, I have some Scriptures for you in the book of Hebrews. There are so many good verses in the Bible, so full of revelation, so full of truths that have deep mysteries and pictures in them, and here we are reading them over and over, waiting for God to lift the veil from our eyes and enable us to see the truths that are hidden in plain sight.
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Hebrews 12:1.
What is this cloud of witnesses? The eleventh chapter talks about all of those who died in the faith, of whom the world was not worthy and ends with this: And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Now eliminate the chapter division and continue on: Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us.…
Regarding these who are in the cloud of witnesses, the Word tells us that those who sleep in Christ will God bring with Him. And we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord shall not precede, or get ahead of those who are asleep (1 Thessalonians 4:14, 15). He brings them with Him.
The Parousia, the time of His presence, which will be culminating in the first resurrection, can all happen within our generation. We are in the beginning of the Parousia, the days in which all these things will unfold. All the saints, as a cloud, are hovering closer all the time.
Don’t get the idea that I’m talking about distance. It isn’t that the dead are far away and then they come closer. In the realm of spirit distance does not exist as a reality. Remember that. Distance is a physical thing, not a spiritual thing. They are just on another spiritual plane, and we are surrounded by that cloud of witnesses. You may say, “That sounds like spiritualism.” The spiritualists try to break through that cloud and they generally manage to get closer to the soul and mental level than the spirit level and there they encounter demons. Most of the time that is what they tune in to.
We are not spiritualists and we are not practicing spiritualism or witchcraft. We are practicing the positive application of God’s principle in the transference of righteousness and blessings to people. We bless and curse not.
I’m pointing out to you that the Scriptures bear this out, that even those in that cloud of witnesses can be so close to us that it is an incentive for us to lay aside every weight and to run. How much more should those of us who are here on this earth have an incentive to enter into the unity and the spiritual awareness of one another! How much more should we do this!
Don’t think that the physical world you see is the true reality. The reality is not found in the physical world; reality is found in the spirit world. Regardless of what you are physically, you can’t prove that you’re a child of God by your physical body. Your body has the promise of redemption, and He gave you the Holy Spirit as the seal of your inheritance so you would know that He will finish the job and that this physical body will be redeemed.
What about your soul? In the past we talked so much about the saving of the soul, about going out and getting a soul saved. That is a process. Your soul has to do with your emotions. I have seen many a man who has been serving the Lord a long time, but still has a temper. This means that his soul still has need of being saved and fully delivered. He is still mixing the psychic, soulish element into redemption.
What happens when a man is born of God? His spirit is born of God! God is a Spirit and His sons are going to be spirits. “Spirits of just men made perfect” is the way the Word of God describes it (Hebrews 12:23).
You had better be more concerned about your spirit, because you may have conned your soul into a reasonable facsimile of a Christian walk and still not yet have it worked in your spirit.
There are some people who say, “I’m in the Walk,” and they have not yet had a revelation of it to their spirits. They are not in it until God brings the revelation to their spirits. They will continue to hold onto everything of their old self-life and their ambition, walking fearfully and without being fully committed, until the day God reveals the truth to their spirits.
Since the reality is found in the realm of your spirit, you need more teaching regarding your whole spirit, soul, and body being preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 5:23). We need to learn how to become whole people.
There must be real diligence to flow together as never before with pastors and churches flowing together in one Body all the way through. We will make the step toward what God wants. We can make no progress except in the direction God is moving. If we go back to anything else, even to what God has done in the past, we will find only a diminishing amount of anointing upon it. The key will be to move forward into this unity of the Spirit, learning how to flow in God.
Let me point out to you why the Body must be pure. Remember the warning in Hebrews 12:15: “Beware lest there be in any of you a root of bitterness springing up and thereby many defiled.” Because this Walk is reaching into the realm of spirit, whatever is in any one person can spread through the Body because people are open in spirit to each other. If that will work in the wrong way, how much more will it work in the right way, because we are constantly overcoming the bad spirit. If we have a good spirit and someone begins to prophesy out of a greatly anointed spirit, that prophecy will be creative. It will flow through the Body and everyone will receive it and be lifted up. Don’t you yearn for the day that we stand in the presence of the Lord and whatever God starts moving through the Body, the whole Body flows in it, and it becomes contagious? Reach in, for we can have this in the name of the Lord. What a purifying experience it will be to come to the house of God and find every oppression wiped away because of this unity in the whole Body. Lord, seal this revolutionary word to our hearts. It is pointing toward a day to come.
I think that the spirit which was upon Christ when He faced the cross, is the spirit that will be upon us when the work of the cross is done in us. What did Christ have when the crowd came to Him with torches, clubs, and swords in Gethsemane? He asked, “Whom seek ye?” They said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” When He replied, “I am He,” they all tumbled down like ten pins. This was a little exhibition of what He could do. He knew He could have called for twelve legions of angels if He chose. What an awareness of that world He had. As He faced the cross, that spirit world was very real to Him! When the work of the cross is done in us, we will walk the same way.
Do you believe in the manifestation of the sons of God? I don’t think it will be individual sons going around showing their muscles. It will be the family; this will be a family affair. We are going to flow together and there will be neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female. It will be something of another order, and everyone in the Body of Christ who is moving into this realm of spirit will experience it.