The unique ground chosen by God in the Old Testament for His people to gather to worship Him is a physical type. We need to see the spiritual interpretation, the spiritual application, of this type. For years it was difficult for us to see this, but by the Lord’s mercy and through much experience, we have seen what today’s Jerusalem is.
The New Testament application of this type is revealed in John 4. One day the Lord Jesus spoke with an immoral Samaritan woman (vv. 4-26). In their conversation she was exposed for having had five husbands and for living with a man who was not her husband. Surely, she was a sinful woman. When her sinfulness was exposed, she turned the subject of conversation from her husbands to the worship of God. She said, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, yet you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men must worship” (v. 20). The Lord said, “An hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness, for the Father also seeks such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness” (vv. 23-24). By saying, “An hour is coming, and it is now,” He meant that the age had changed. The real Jerusalem today is “in spirit.” Jerusalem is the place where the temple of God is, where God’s dwelling place is. Ephesians 2:22 reveals that God’s dwelling place today is in our spirit.
We all need to realize that today our human spirit is the place chosen by God for us to keep the oneness. Our experience verifies this fact. Whenever we exercise our mind to think about various teachings, we are immediately divided. When we come together, we should not exercise our mind to discuss, muse over, or consider various matters. We need to forget about our mentality and turn to our spirit, where we are all one. We cannot be one in our interpretation of any portion of the Bible, in any doctrine, or in any practice. We can be one only in our human spirit because today our spirit is the place chosen by God for all of us to worship Him.
When we come together, we should not gather in our doctrinal agreement or in certain practices. We should not gather together because we all shout in the meetings, because we all pray-read, or because we all call on the name of the Lord. Rather, we should gather in our spirit. Today our human spirit is the unique place where we can keep the oneness. We need to consider the kind of Christians we are. We are not Baptists or Presbyterians, nor are we pray-readers or callers. Rather, we are Christians who are in spirit (Rev. 1:10). We come together in spirit. Because we are in spirit, we are one. I am not concerned about the length of the sisters’ hair or the length of their skirts. I do not care for whether the sisters wear head coverings. I do not care for any of these things. We do not come together in the matter of head covering. We come together in our spirit.
Some dear new ones among us who are not accustomed to the brothers and sisters shouting Amen! Hallelujah! may wonder, “Amen what? Why so many Amens?” Many years ago some denominations had an amen corner in their church building. That age is over. Now we have not only an amen corner but an entire amen hall. Everyone says Amen. Some new ones may think that this is crazy. They may prefer to be silent. We should not be bothered by the silent ones. They are dear saints; nothing is wrong with their being quiet. We all simply need to come to the spirit. I have the full assurance that by being in the spirit for two weeks, the silent one also will say Amen. I have seen this happen. If a silent brother comes to his spirit and stays in his spirit for two weeks, he will become the loudest one, shouting, “Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! I have been liberated from my quiet disposition!” The place where we can be one, typified by Jerusalem, is our spirit. As long as we are in spirit, we are one in the place chosen by God for His dwelling place. God’s dwelling place is simply the human spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:16). Therefore, we need to keep the oneness of the Spirit (Eph. 4:3). Oneness is of the Spirit and is kept in our spirit.
You may ask, “Then what about the Bible?” The Bible is simply our food—it is not mainly for our understanding but for our eating. When we come to the Word, we should not care for doctrinal understanding; we should care mainly for eating. We can eat the word by pray-reading any verse. By pray-reading the word, we will be fed and nourished. We do not need to ask what every verse, phrase, and word in the Bible mean. Regardless of whether we know what every word means, the Bible is good for food. The Lord Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4), and the prophet Jeremiah said, “Your words were found and I ate them” (Jer. 15:16a).
Our oneness is not in our understanding of the Bible but in our spirit. Although another brother and I may have different interpretations of a verse, since we are both saved and love the Lord, we are brothers and should come together in our spirit. The spirit is our place of meeting; it is where the Lord has caused His name to dwell, where His habitation is, where we can be one, and where we can be delivered and rescued from all our different concepts. If we come together to discuss doctrines, we will fight. However, in our spirit we are one. Fighting leads to division, not the oneness of the Spirit. In our spirit we have the oneness of the Spirit. When we are in our spirit, we do not need to try to keep the oneness of the Spirit; rather, we spontaneously have the oneness of the Spirit. When we are in our spirit, we are all one. Oneness is in our spirit.