The Lord Jesus confirmed the first commandment, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. Then He said, And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Matthew 22:37–39.
This message sprang forth from a meditation upon this one phrase: “The second is like unto it.” What is this Scripture about? It is speaking about our relationships. But all relationships begin with loving the Lord. Nothing is mentioned in this passage about oneness with Him. Basically, being one with the Lord has to be related to an appropriation of His love. You cannot be one with the Lord without loving Him with all your heart. But the second commandment was likened unto it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
This level of love reaches a very high plane. It doesn’t mean that you love your neighbor enough to be charitable to him; it goes beyond that. You can give your body to be burned and still not have love (I Corinthians 13:3). Even sharing is an evidence of division. When you share, you are giving out of your abundance to someone in need, which, thereby is a confession that he is on a different level than you—he has another status in life than you. So you must be charitable to him. Give to him; and you should do it with a willing heart. But they reached the place in the early Church where they had such a love that no one said anything was his own (Acts 4:32). Our sense of possession, of property, can exclude us from the oneness we are to have together.
This starts our thought along another line. Ephesians chapter 4 speaks of “apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers” (verse 11). But the key was: “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all” (verses 5–6). We read one, one, one, all the way through. We read about “unity of the Spirit, and unity of the faith” (verses 3, 13); for the main thing the Lord is trying to produce is the oneness. That is what makes it all work. There cannot be any efficient ministries without a oneness with Christ and a oneness with one another. There never will be. Consider the relationships we strive for: relating, communicating, commissions, all the principles and truths that we have learned. But none of these things will work efficiently without oneness.
Understand that we are not speaking about unity. People can be united and still not be one. I believe that Satan has a certain unity. But I doubt if there can be any oneness at all in the realm of spirit apart from God. Christ said that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand (Mark 3:24). Is devil going to cast out devil? (Matthew 12:26.) Yet look at the devil-possessed people destroying devil-possessed people. They do destroy one another, and Satan’s kingdom will be destroyed because it is impossible for him to be one with anybody. Satan is division personified, just as a Christian who believes God and is filled with the Spirit is one with God. In fact, it was on the basis of this oneness that God could flow in the early Church. They were all in one accord in one place, of one heart and one mind. These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer. Acts 1:14a. And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. Acts 2:1. And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord. Acts 4:24a. And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own; but all things were common property to them. Acts 4:32. That oneness was very much in evidence. And that oneness is totally impossible in a relationship until the individuals are first one with Christ, The Lord.
I think we keep struggling over our relationships with one another instead of knowing that they are based upon oneness with the Lord. John said, “How can you love God and not love what is begotten of Him?” Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If some one says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar, for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. I John 4:11–5:1.
There is no oneness, nor is there any real love, until we love God and we are one with Him. Without that oneness, nothing is going to work. Unity is impossible if Satan can create division. That division is exactly what has happened in the entire Christian world. They have division, not oneness.
It is an important principle that there can be no oneness apart from Christ Jesus. Anything that starts from any direction other than Him will have confusion and conflict. God Himself is often in the magnifying of contentions between people, especially in this walk with God, in this Kingdom message. If He didn’t magnify these contentions, we would never strive for the real oneness. He brings into focus the division and the confusion, so that we won’t accept anything less than Oneness together and with Him. He will not allow a counterfeit oneness.
No one is missing God as much as those who are preaching about “sweet, wonderful Jesus,” so that they can promote the backing and the finances of naive believers everywhere who give their money and support. They bring out none of the issues that would divide men from their division and separate them from their separation. They bring them only a word that will gloss over their divisions. What a tragedy, if the only gospel they can preach is some very beautiful filler which can be putty between the cracks of division and then painted over so they can say, “Look, we’re all one!”
God is not allowing us to do that. He is not letting us do it in our personal relationships, either. A person should see that everything is done in the Spirit first, then in the soul and fleshly realm (I Thessalonians 5:23). Look back to the story of Adam and Eve. God blessed them and started them out. And by the simple act of being married they were one flesh (Genesis 2:24). But when their oneness with God was broken, they found that neither did they have any oneness with each other. Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent (Genesis 3:12–13); and from that time on there has been a struggle for supremacy between male and female. There is a great sense of confusion in the whole relationship.
A couple can say, “Well, our marriage is of God. We have had it checked out by our pastors. We want to have a Kingdom marriage.” There can’t be any Kingdom marriage without their mutual dedication to the Lord has absolute supremacy in their lives. The minute we put something else first, we are creating in our relationship a foreign thing, because oneness with God is the only way that our oneness can flow. God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4; Mark 12:29). Most people have not understood this. They think, “Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit—how can God be one?” They do not realize that oneness of spirit is attainable only in God, for God is one.
It was when the early believers were all in one accord, with one mind, and one spirit that the Lord added daily to the church. And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. Acts 2:1, 46, 47. How can we be concerned about multiplication when we don’t even know what one is? How can we see God bring forth anything without that oneness?
At the very beginning of this move of God, it seemed that the Lord brought a number of points of emphasis; however, the main one was that the Body was coming together into one under Christ’s Lordship. The Latter Rain movement divided and splintered in every direction not because it refused a denominational connection, but because they did not have the faith for the oneness of spirit. The same has happened with many other movements. They finally settled on the division of sectarianism.
Of course, that is what Paul condemns in I Corinthians 3:3–4: For you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men? Sectarianism is the sin of the carnal baby Christians.
Do we really understand that God wants to bring about one. Do we realize that the true unity of the faith can never exist between two separate individuals. As long as we are individuals we will not be one in faith and one in spirit (Ephesians 4:3–7, 13). If we concentrate on the grace of God that is bringing us into one, we will experience the deepest devastation we have ever known. If you were to ask me if our battles against satanic powers in years past were greater than our struggle for unity in oneness to communicate and to relate—I would say that the latter battle has been greater by far. This has been the time when God has said, “Do you want to be one? Then you can have only one Kingdom—My Kingdom! If you want to be one, then you’re going to lose your individuality. You’re going to reach the place where you don’t have a sense of possession, a sense of identity or position. You’re going to be one in the Lord.”
What we are doing now is based on separateness. Someone says, “Let’s give to Brother So-and-So!” We shouldn’t have to be called upon to share, because when we share, we are saying, “I have more, my brother has less, so I’ll give some of what I have to him.” The early Church lost any sense of possession. They did not speak of anything as though it were their own (Acts 4:32). Their oneness had completely submerged the individual in the Body. Would to God that their oneness could have been maintained throughout the centuries! Our giving is not always of the highest scriptural level. If we tithed the way we should, we would at least use the legal system of the Levites. Their tithe was brought in and then shared among all the Levites (Nehemiah 10:37–39). We have seen times in which the only pastor who could travel was the one who had a financially successful church, or enough money of his own. It is a tragedy that a prophet who has nothing, and no church to back him, is held back. “Well, we can’t send him anyplace, because we don’t have any money.” That’s wrong. It’s a sin. If the financial structure of the apostolic company, the Living Word Building with the various communication and Word-work centers should mean anything at all, it ought to provide funds so that there is an equality among all the ministries in their support.
The Communists come into power on this one guise: “Share the wealth.” Then they take over the possessions of the individuals. What an Ishmael, demonic system that is! Someday we will come to the true dedication to share with one another in the oneness of the Kingdom. Then we will be sharing the life of God and the provision of God together. Our oneness will share together His fullness.
Paul admonished the Corinthians that no one should eat the Communion ahead of another. They were to wait for one another, because there was to be a mutual participation into the fullness of Christ (I Corinthians 11:33). We do not know yet what that oneness means—we still don’t know what it means to be one. We are “enemies of the cross of Christ” when we refuse to die out to ourselves and to our individuality. For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. Philippians 3:18–19.
There is so much more to what God intended when He made man in the Garden of Eden. He took a rib and made a woman. Then He gave her to Adam (Genesis 2:21–22). She was the same tissue, the same life, the same essence, from the same organism. And so we too have become partakers of the divine nature (II Peter 1:4), as though the blood of Jesus Christ is the source of our mutual creation and we share His life together. It is more than a symbol. It has become a spiritual reality to every one of us.
Many things concerning this oneness will surface for us to examine. We will begin to see that the sins of the spirit have usually been the sins against the oneness. This same Word from the Lord has come before—that we would have to repent of individual action. We could even be so blunt as to say that we will have to repent of our individuality and claim that it be crucified, in order that our oneness in God can come forth together. Satan still seems to be winning the battle in the field of religion, because in religious circles, individuality prevails. The individual’s right to judge another person and his faith prevails. The lack of witness between brothers prevails. Paul writes in Ephesians that God broke down the partition between those who were afar off and those who were nigh, and took of the two and made of them one new man (Ephesians 2:14–17). We could profitably spend another twenty years studying in the book of Ephesians. May we find out yet what this oneness is all about!
Local churches have experienced dealings in which some pastors have very greatly protested. What a pharisaic hypocrisy it is to say, “This is a violation of New Testament Church sovereignty!” No, it is just a violation of the “lord and noble” who is ruling over the people to keep them apart from the oneness of the whole Kingdom of God. What strange excuses they can give for cutting off the Living Word tapes and This Weeks from the people because it is the one voice that is saying, “Be one with God, and be one with one another.” It is the finger that is pointing out the hypocrisy of movements which stress cooperation; but it is a cooperation without oneness, something more of Babel. “Well, we don’t want to be scattered, so let’s build a tower to God” (Genesis 11:1–9). The spirit of Babylon still lives, and it started with the Tower of Babel. That’s what Babylon really is. That’s what we have to avoid.
I cannot believe that the fires of judgment will be any less for those who would divide, than for the Pharisees who crucified Christ. These ones today are crucifying the Body of Christ coming forth in its oneness, and always in the name of a religious cause. They say that they want to be one with all Christian people, and they don’t even know what oneness is. They don’t even know for what the blood of Christ was shed. It was not just to save them individually; it was to bring us into oneness with God. Still they limp on, without revelation, without a sense of what the Body of Christ really is to be, and without a sense of the Lordship of Christ over them. They labor along no better than the heathen in a jungle, and they would do anything to obtain a special favor from God to help them further their plans and their ambitious religious motivations.
The leaven of the Pharisees is a deep jeopardy (Matthew 16:6, 11). A pharisee can be a pharisee of the pharisees within their various ranks. Take away positions and ranks among them and ask them, “Are you one together?” and you will find that it is not so. How well Paul understood that there was no oneness in the religious camp when he stood on the stairs and proclaimed one thing: “It’s about the resurrection of the dead that I am called in question” (Acts 23:6). Then the Pharisees and the Sadducees began to argue against each other because their doctrines were at stake. And their doctrines were evidences of their division and their lack of revelation. So Paul prevailed because he sensed the division in the camp of the religious (Acts 23:1–10).
That is our strength too. We understand what hypocrites the pharisees are. They can always take a good principle of the Scriptures and distort it to their own advantage. They can rise and defend the local church as a principle, in order to divide that local church from the rest of the Kingdom. They can rise and defend the Kingdom, so that they can withdraw from the only oneness that is going to bring the Kingdom forth. These are hypocrites and pharisees who are using doctrines of men to divide the Body of Christ, and usually all in the name of unity (Mark 7:6–9).
When we read the story of the Garden of Eden, we find that the Lord created man in His own image. Male and female created He them (Genesis 1:27). Yet, it says that they became aware of their nakedness after they had sinned. Before they had sinned, there was no self-consciousness; consequently, there were no religious taboos about dress, their relationship, or anything. But after they sinned, they discovered their nakedness (Genesis 3:7). Then they became aware that they were individuals. For self-consciousness is an awareness of yourself as an individual. This self-consciousness may be with arrogance, or it may be with a self-condemnation that is destructive. But, you see, the sin they committed did actually violate the oneness that God had given. Whatever they did—some say that they ate an apple, but we read that they ate from the tree of forbidden fruit (Genesis 2:17)—the fact is, they broke their fellowship with God and everything else that followed came out of that. They became aware of their individual guilt and their individual position before God (Genesis 3:7–13). Everything God has been working from that time on has been to restore man to Himself, and to bring a oneness between men which probably existed in a measure with Adam and Eve to begin with. To be one with God is not to be an individual who is one with Him, but rather to be one with God and one with all that He has begotten and brought forth.
It is on this battleground, in the field of religion today, that Satan still seems to be winning. For even in religious circles, individuality and isolation prevail. The individual movements prevail. The individual’s right to judge prevails. The lack of witness between brothers prevails. The competitiveness between brothers prevails. Schisms develop until they work one against another. Even among the most spiritual groups, the carnal mind is still exalted to judge the validity of any action of any other brother. There is still a lack of confirmation between them. They still miss this scriptural requirement of confirmation, and this looking to God for the Holy Spirit’s witness as to a commission, and this abandonment of a position wherein a person assumes more and more that is not confirmed by God, until he becomes a despot ruling over his brethren. That has to go. It is not of God.
It is one thing for two or three to agree in rebellion on what they think is of God, for their own advantage. It is another thing to reach the place of having “one spirit, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, in nothing dismayed” (Philippians 1:27–28). This is a difficult time, because the shift to the Kingdom has begun with the removal of the local church feudal system, and of individual kingdoms, of pastors who owned the businesses and properties where people lived. It has begun with the removal of the individual position in favor of a commission where brethren walk humbly before God. We are at the point of beginning; we are commissioned to be one. And that is just beginning.
No church in the whole world will survive as they have been. They will become as obsolete as the first century synagogues. Not one church movement will survive, because every one of them is existing by virtue of an individual identity, a distinct identity from the rest of the Body of Christ, that reaches over walls to shake hands with a neighbor and says, “We fellowship with you.” But they don’t take down those walls. That fellowship and that oneness is as phony as a three-dollar bill. God will judge it.
Satan will not fight this kind of unity because he knows that is not what God wants, and therefore, he will allow it to go on to its full course and let God judge it. The union of the churches, or any federation or council of churches, Satan will not oppose; he will encourage atheists to come in and be their preeminent men of religion. There is nothing he is going to fight on that score, because there is no purity in it. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their deeds. II Corinthians 11:13