The most effective weapon ever created by God is coming forth in the earth, today. It is the ministry of the Body of Christ.
A oneness of spirit is coming forth in the Body of Christ. It is first a oneness with the Lord and then a oneness with one another in the body.
Being one in spirit means that we will not criticize one another, we will not withdraw from one another, we will begin to learn how to work together. But even after we eliminate all of the negative aspects of division, we still may not have the oneness of spirit that is spoken about in the Word.
This is the day in which one of the greatest sins is for an individual to retain his individuality, because God says that He is going to live in us and walk in us and be our God and we shall be His people.
In II Corinthians 6:14 Paul said, Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers…
Then in verses 16 and 17 Paul went on to say, … ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate…
Following that, chapter 7 begins, Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Verse 1.
The wonderful promises in the sixth chapter indicate that the day of individuality is ending. Almost everything that is an offense to the Kingdom of God comes from being unequally yoked. It comes by not separating the precious from the vile (Jeremiah 15:19). It comes from the believers’ reluctance to be separated from the world so that they can be really one together in Christ.
We must understand this oneness in which individuality is going to be lost.
There must be a clear understanding of the revelation God has been bringing in this end time. Although many believe for a company of apostles to come into a full manifestation, others are finding that the Spirit of the Lord is focusing upon the apostleship that brings forth the Kingdom.
Many are without the clear revelation that in the Kingdom there will be one Apostle, not many, even though there will be more apostles and prophets raised up in this generation than have existed in all the generations before.
The reason that this is not a contradiction is because we will all participate in Christ who is the head Apostle, the one Apostle.
Impartation as we have known it seems to be something that is given out, but the impartation of the Kingdom is something that draws in. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians, Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you. Philippians 4:9. In this the individuality is lost.
We do not contend for one apostle to come forth as an individual. We contend for one apostle to be freed into his full apostleship and for our own blending and flowing into that until we lose our individuality.
There will be no contest on individual apostolic ministries, because the minute the Body flows into the oneness, they can no more reject one man’s apostleship than they can reject the apostle who brought him forth or Christ’s apostleship. It is all one. It is an apostolic company. It is the manifestation of the son (Jesus) in many sons. Sons are generic for male and female. We are all sons of God, and the bride of Christ.
God is bringing forth an apostolic company, and all will participate in it. The time has come when the individual has to disappear and the Body has to emerge. The Body is not one member, but many members.
I Corinthians 12:12 says, For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; SO ALSO IS CHRIST.
In this we begin to see Christ as a many-member Body. We must grasp this concept, because if our focus is upon an apostle as an individual, upon seeing liberation of certain circumstances, certain spiritual situations, and certain levels of spiritual assault that he or she may be under, we are missing the revelation of the purpose for which God is bringing them forth.
According to II Thessalonians 1:10, Christ is coming to be glorified in His saints, not that a lot of individuals will be running around with Christ glorified in them, but that they will lose their own individuality as saints; and the glorifying of Christ will have the emphasis. This is the purpose of the Parousia, which is the manifestation of Christ’s presence.
Paul said in Philippians 1:27, Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ; so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel. There must be revelation of this oneness, that all stand fast in one spirit, with one mind. This must become a reality to us.
The ministry of an apostle is not fully expressed in their traveling to minister to a few prophets in various areas. That is still missing the full revelation of apostleship. The day has come when the apostolic ministry is so identified with groups of ministries that they will not have to travel to them, but they will be able to minister to them even from their home church.
This is what the Apostle Paul was saying, that the things which are seen and heard in the apostle are to be multiplied among others to bring about a perfect oneness, a perfect spirit.
God is bringing forth many ministries of apostleship, but they will not come forth as individuals contending for an apostleship.
They will be individuals losing their individuality in the apostleship. They lose their position as individuals. This is why God is giving us new names, so that people no longer look at the man or woman of God, but see the Christ in them that is coming forth.
For a period of time we must be very careful about seeking confirmation, about working together, and about walking together, because individuality is not swallowed up that quickly. We tend to hold on to individuality, not wanting to let it go. Some may have experienced years of God’s dealing, in which all He was doing was getting them to die out as individuals.
God had already taught them about holiness and an overcoming life, and this no longer held the emphasis in their lives. Once such things are dealt with, they no longer seem to hold any significance in the natural realm. The main focus comes through a circumcision of the heart, as the Holy Spirit displaces everything that a person loves as an individual.
It is not God’s dealings upon the bad things in a person’s life that hurt; it is the relinquishing of their position as an individual, as they cease to be a human being and becomes a member of Christ.
This oneness with Christ is a touchy point with some, and it will stir up great persecution. As a brother or sister comes into submission to another’s ministry, it will not be on a human plane as to an individual, but to the Christ in them that the Holy Spirit is liberating.
In Matthew 25 is a parable that Jesus gave, telling how the righteous would inherit the Kingdom. Verses 34–40: “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ ”
This parable shows that what we do to an apostolic ministry is not done to an individual, but to Christ—to Christ, the chief Apostle who is coming forth in the brother or sister. As we strive to minister to the Christ in them, we come forth in that apostleship too. This is the pattern of the Kingdom. This is the way of the Kingdom that is taking place today.
It does not exalt an individual; it is the first time in the history of the Church, that we no longer exalt an individual. It opens the door for the exaltation of Christ to come forth. We can look at a brother or sister and see many things that can be changed in their life. They, too, want many things to be changed, because they want Christ to be glorified in thems. They want every little mannerism and everything that creates a human image to change. They want their speech to be with grace. They want everything and every association with people to be that which looses Christ to come forth in them.
Christ must increase, and we must decrease as individuals (John 3:30). This is the law of the Kingdom. There is no other way that it will come to pass. Some may seem to focus their prayers too much on an end-time ministry of apostleship. However, they are not focusing on a individual; they are focusing on the Christ that is in them until the Christ in them is liberated into full apostleship. And in doing so, they identify with their ministry and flow with it and become one with it.
What God is setting before His people to walk in will not happen to any of them as individuals. In the beginning there may be many personal prophecies and revelations over individuals. But today they are becoming briefer, more condensed, and less specific, more an identification of the aspect of a member of the Body of Christ, such as a hand or a foot. The day is past when there will be many prophecies over individuals.
We have come to a time when this is becoming impossible, because bodies of believers are growing too fast to prophesy over every individual. However, an astonishing thing is happening now. People come into a church which is moving in divine order, and the minute they are set into that body, they are loosed to begin to move into a ministry.
It does not take weeks for this to happen anymore. After a few days, they are set into it, and the dealings of the Holy Spirit start working. The dealings of the Lord are not working so much on the discipline of the individual’s life, as on the discipline of their spirit to be a part of the Body. Our survival almost depends upon our being baptized by one Spirit into one Body (I Corinthians 12:13).
We need to pray for a second great Pentecost in which we can all be baptized into one Body, so that there are not just many different New Testament churches.
Let us cry for the oneness—a oneness in which all are responding together. What God is doing today cannot be measured by the numbers of members and churches involved. The emphasis in this hour is not on the number of churches, but on the Kingdom.
We do not want to count numbers. We have an example of that in the Old Testament when David, a true king of the Lord, took a census to see how many men he could count on. God sent a great plague and destroyed many of them who would have lived and been a blessing. But David was leaning on them, and so God destroyed them (II Samuel 24). We are not counting numbers, because the emphasis of the Kingdom is not on how many, but on one. The emphasis is on one—one in Christ.
Being one in Christ (Romans 12:5) is not glorifying to flesh; it is not glorifying to individuals. The people that God is bringing forth do not have to impress anyone. They could be divided into ten thousand little groups, all meeting in garages. What God is doing does not depend upon pride or arrogance. It does not depend on a liturgy or a form of worship. It does not depend on any of those things. It depends upon Christ being in the midst of His brethren, singing praises to God (Hebrews 2:12). Let us dedicate ourselves to the loss of individuality, and see Christ glorified in all of us as one in His apostleship. Believers have never understood how the power of God is going to be released to the Body of Christ, and how superior it will be to what has been known as individual ministry. It will come through their oneness.
End-time judgment will not come through individuals voicing judgment. Judgment will come through the Body voicing judgment. When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church to bring judgment upon a young man in the church who had committed a grievous sin, he said, “You have not even mourned.” They were unconcerned because they did not see their identity with this young man. They did not realize that his being within the Body was a source of contamination for all of them. They did not recognize the oneness of the Body, and therefore they were in trouble. Paul wrote that when they gathered together, his own spirit and the power of the Lord would be with them to deliver that one to judgment (I Corinthians 5:1–5). They did that. It was not a majority vote of a church which brought it about.
For centuries, church discipline has been a miserable failure. It has been nothing more than individuals judging one another, rather than Christ ministering through the Body. It has been vicious. Church judgment and discipline in which everyone votes to kick someone out of the church never accomplishes anything good. But Paul did accomplish something, because it was with his spirit and by the power of the Lord that the young man’s discipline was ministered. The Corinthian church entered in with the Apostle Paul, and therefore it became an apostolic judgment.
That is what God is restoring for His people in this hour. As they enter into an oneness with the apostolic ministry, they as individuals cease to function. The issue is no longer their opinions or an apostle’s opinion. It is Christ moving through an apostolic company, through the Body of Christ. This becomes the key of effective ministry.
The fourth chapter of Acts tells how Peter and John were released after being threatened, and they said, “We cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard.” And when they had threatened them further, they let them go… Verses 20 and 21. And when they had been released, they went to their own companions, and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord (we have no other illustration in the Bible of oneness like this) and said, “O Lord, it is Thou who didst make the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them.” Verse 23 and 24.
The prayer that follows is a prayer that came simultaneously from many voices. It was an instance of prophecy, and people were prophesying the same thing.
In verses 29 through 32 we read, “And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Thy bond-servants may speak Thy word with all confidence, while Thou dost extend Thy hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Thy holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak the word of God with boldness. And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul… Notice their oneness. The big miracle was not their actions that followed of selling their properties and saying that everything was held in common. This was just a natural expression of the fact that they were totally one. It was a natural expression of oneness. They were so one with one another that they simply could not see the possibility of not being one with each other.
The day of the individual passes away, and the day of the Body comes forth. Christ is not coming to glorify the individual ministry. In this present overlapping period, God continues to bless some of the big evangelists who still honor Him with a measure of encouragement to some of the saints of God, especially to the babes, the weak ones.
The Spirit of the Lord was upon many synagogues in the day of Paul, and yet Christ had already turned away and left the house of the Lord desolate (Matthew 23:38). What an overlapping period of a number of years was there! In fact, almost until 70 A.D. many different little synagogues were being blessed of the Lord, and God was still dealing with those people. Although God had done a new thing, He did not just wipe them all out.
God has brought many of His believers out of denominations and into the New Testament restored pattern of divine order. The moving of God in denominations that have missed the will of God is over, and yet God is still dealing with them.
For instance, the dealings of God upon priests and nuns in the Roman Catholic Church today have been greater than at any time in the history of that church. Looking at all the different denominations, we might think that God is blessing them. No, He is not blessing them; He is dealing with them. He is still trying to pull them out, still trying to bring the people forth to walk with God.
The day of the individual has passed. Today is the day of Christ’s Body. He is coming to be glorified in His saints (II Thessalonians 1:10). It is another operation completely. Never again will the Church be effective on the level that it has been.
The Church age in its past expression is finished, and it will phase out. As it phases out, the greater works will come forth. Jesus promised the believer, “Greater works than these shall ye do” (John 14:12). These will be done through the unity of the Body.
We read in the New Testament of times when the believers were one in their prayer, and the place was shaken and earthquakes came. There is never such total raw power from God released as when believers have that oneness of spirit. The key of the coming judgments will be found in the Body of believers through whom Christ is moving. God is creating His instrument with which to thresh the mountains.
Isaiah prophesied, “Fear not, thou worm Jacob” (Isaiah 41:14–15). At the time that the prophet Isaiah was speaking, Jacob was not an individual. Jacob was the name of a people. When God speaks of Israel, He is not speaking of the original Jacob. He is speaking of the people. When God speaks of Christ today, He is not speaking of the Nazarene, because we know Him so no longer (II Corinthians 5:16). Whenever the name Christ appears, referring to this hour, we must adjust ourselves to the fact that it is Christ in a many-member Body (I Corinthians 12:12).
In this end time, Christ will not be coming forth and saying, “Are you wondering when I was in prison? Well, I was down here, reincarnated, and I was out there in the city jail; and you did not visit Me. I was hungry. I was walking down the street when you walked by with a big hamburger, and you did not give Me any.” That is not what He will say. That is not what He had in mind.
In order for Christ to be glorified today, He has to be released. When we are praying for a ministry to be set free, we are saying, “Set the Christ in them free.” We are calling for a liberation. It may seem to be very personal and very focused, but it will be very effective, because it is part of the Body’s release. Christ is being released in the Body.
When you pray for a ministry, we are not just loosing one person to minister to us or to others. We are liberating the Christ to come forth, and we are one with their ministry in Christ. Paul said, “The things that you have heard from me commit to faithful men” (II Timothy 2:2). It was Christ in Paul that Timothy had heard. He had seen Him; he had heard Him.
Jesus was speaking about the same principle when He was speaking about the Father. Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father …” John 14:8–9.
The same is true today. Many people do not have a revelation of the ministry of apostolic authority. They have no revelation of the Christ that is in an apostle, or any other ministry, just as those first disciples could not understand without further revelation when Christ said, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” This oneness with Christ is very difficult for people to understand, because they tend to look and evaluate on the natural plane of different individuals. Yet in the realm of the Spirit, God is bringing us together into one.
The seventeenth chapter of John is a prayer of Jesus to the Father, in which He said, “And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one (in Us), just as We are one; I in them, and Thou in Me …” Verses 22 and 23. This whole concept of oneness with the Father is emphasized in chapters 14 through 17 in the book of John.
The word of God speaks of the fullness of God dwelling within each one of us, and our dwelling in the fullness of God and being made one together. This is the experience God is bringing to His people now. The time is coming when rarely will those in the Body of Christ experience anything individually; their experiences will be collective.
In Acts 4:31 we read that the disciples were praying together, and the place was shaken. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak the Word of God with boldness. They all began to do it. Today, too, we are all going to be swallowed up into one.
The world is still looking for numbers to evaluate its success, and most denominational Sunday schools have bulletin boards with numbers posted to show the attendance from Sunday to Sunday.
Is God concerned about how many attended a year ago or last Sunday or this Sunday? Many churches bus young people in from all over the city so that they have a good attendance record. That does not mean that those youngsters receive anything more than a glorified baby-sitting action. One of the most wasted hours, and requiring the most expensive of facilities, is that of the Sunday school in which people are not reached by the Spirit of the Lord. They do not experience the Lord or learn to walk in a dedication of discipleship.
Today God is raising up churches by His Spirit that are dedicated to divine order. Young prophets and prophetesses are coming forth with a walk with God. This concept emphasizes not how many there are, but how much is done in each one. How much do the believers come into oneness? With this concept of oneness, a child raised in a church that is based on the New Testament pattern is protected by the oneness of that Body. The child is protected by what God has laid as an endowment upon each member.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit ultimately are not to be endowments upon individuals, but endowments to which the Body breaks through. There may be many people who do not have any gift and barely have a walk with God themselves. Yet the overseeing elders can bless them and impart something to them, enabling them to do a certain job. They can actually borrow on all of the existing gifts and ministries of the church to go and do what they had to do.
No longer are individuals’ qualifications regarded as significant, because their relationship to the Body determines how effective they will be. We can completely disregard their qualifications, as does the Lord. The early Church was not based upon the fantastic abilities of individuals; it was based upon the oneness by which the Spirit of God flowed through them.
Another significant example of oneness is the fact that certain Scriptures were not written by individual apostles. Much of the New Testament that gave the instructions and divine order for churches many times included other people who joined together with Paul in the writing of an epistle. They were sending forth a confirmed living Word. Not only one man was giving it, but several were participating in the Word that came forth.
We are facing the time when we must learn how to move as one. That should be first in our relating in the Body. God will make certain things repulsive to us as individuals. For instance, in prayer, no one can be concerned only for their own ministry. No one will be able to pray very much for themselves; and yet they will be aware that God is meeting the needs of their life while they are focused on the needs of the Body.
If we pray for our pastor, we are praying for ourselves too. We all come forth as one Body; we do not make our way into the Kingdom of God as individuals. If, in prayer, we concentrate on having the Lord work out the details of our life in a certain way, it can be a tragedy. It can perpetuate our individuality. God does not seem interested in giving His people anything as individuals to make them happy and contented. God will do many things to benefit a person spiritually and to better their service to the Body, but nothing for their personal satisfaction and contentment. God does not want to protract the problem of individuality.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4). However, those desires are certainly not on an individual, human plane, they are the desires birthed in our spirit by the Holy Spirit. The days have passed for preaching a doctrine of unity. We are all simply going to be one, as our intimacy with the Lord increases.