When we believed in the Lord Jesus, the Spirit immediately entered into us. Because the same Spirit has entered into all the believers, the Spirit is our very oneness. All the lights in a room are one in the electricity; the electricity within them is their oneness. When electricity is gone, the lights are divided. When electricity is in the lights, they are one, yet they are not one in themselves but one in the electricity. Thus, the oneness of the lights is the oneness of the electricity. Likewise, our oneness is the oneness of the Spirit because we all have the same Spirit in us. The Spirit is our oneness. We need to keep this oneness until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith.
According to the context, the faith mentioned in verse 13 does not refer to our subjective ability to believe but to the things in which we believe. The word faith in verse 13 refers to the Christian faith, composed of all the things in which we believe. The items that constitute the Christian faith are related to Christ’s person and His redemptive work. These items are that God in Christ became a man, that this man, Jesus, died on the cross for our sins in order to redeem us, that He resurrected from the dead and ascended to the heavens to be our Savior, our Lord, and our life, and that He is coming again to receive us to Himself in His kingdom.
When we are saved, we become one with all other believers, for we all believe in the same items of the faith. However, we also bring things with us that are not items of the faith. Then as time progresses, we gradually pick up more things that are not items of the faith. For instance, four college students may be saved during a gospel campaign. Because the Spirit enters into all of them, they have the oneness of the Spirit. Furthermore, because they all believe in the same things, they have the same faith. However, one, a doctoral student, may have a peculiar concept that eventually becomes a great problem in the church life. Another one may decide to study theology. Therefore, he may enter a seminary and acquire many modernistic teachings. The third student may attend a Baptist church and become convinced that immersion by that church is the only proper form of baptism. The fourth student may be brought into the practice of speaking in tongues.
On the day the four students were saved, they were all one. However, if they come together some time later, they may argue with one another over their different concepts. The doctoral student will contend for his peculiar concept, the seminary student for his modernistic teachings, the Baptist for baptism by immersion, and the fourth student for speaking in tongues. Their oneness will be lost because they picked up various things other than the oneness of the Spirit and the oneness of the faith. The things they picked up, which are according to their preference and choice, are like toys to them. Although the first brother is a doctoral student, in the eyes of the Lord he is a young boy who likes the toy of his peculiar concept. The others also have their toys of modernistic teachings, baptism by immersion, and speaking in tongues. Because they are spiritual children, they love their toys.
Ephesians 4:13-14 says, “Until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we may be no longer little children tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching.” All the teachings that are toys to the four students are winds that blow them away from the genuine oneness. If we are not careful, a wind of teaching may become a toy to us, just as some in the churches today have picked up the teaching that it is legalistic not to go to movie theaters and that it is religious to regularly attend the Lord’s Day morning meetings. This kind of teaching becomes a toy to some saints, and such toys become factors of division.
Although we have the oneness of the Spirit as soon as we are saved, we may pick up many other things as toys. Thankfully, however, as we go on with the Lord, we will grow and mature. When a child grows up, he eventually drops his childhood toys. A full-grown man does not have toys. As we are growing, on the one hand, we will pick up toys, but on the other hand, we will drop our toys so that we eventually arrive at the oneness of faith. At a certain stage of maturity in the Christian life, we will care only for the oneness of the Spirit and the oneness of the faith. No doctrines will be able to blow us away. Because young saints are more vulnerable to winds of teaching, my burden in this chapter is to inoculate them. We need to learn not to pick up any winds of teaching. Rather, we need to remember that the church is uniquely Christ, that the nature of the church is life, which is Christ, and that the standing of the church is the genuine oneness, which also is Christ. If any kind of doctrine comes to us, we should say, “I do not care for this toy. I care only for Christ.” Someone in the charismatic movement may ask us if we have experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit and may tell us how good it is to speak in tongues. This may become a wind of teaching that blows us away from the genuine oneness. Today’s Christianity is full of division, but the Lord’s recovery is to recover us back to the genuine oneness.