The Lord sowed the seed of life into His disciples and gave them the Father’s name. He also gave them the word of the Father (John 17:8, 14, 17-21). The word of God sanctifies the believers, separating them from all things other than God (v. 17). The things of the world within us are a replacement of God. Therefore, we need the sanctification in the word. The more we read the Bible, the more we are sanctified. The word of the Bible is like water washing us, cleansing us, and purifying us, purging our being of all things other than God (Eph. 5:26). The longer we live in this world, the more of this world we accumulate and pick up. This “picking up” always replaces God. Hence, we need the word to sanctify us, to wash us and cleanse us.
The Lord prayed that the believers would be one in the divine glory for the expression of the Triune God (John 17:22-24). The glory which the Father has given the Son is the sonship with the Father’s life and divine nature (5:26) to express the Father in His fullness (1:18; 14:9; Col. 2:9; Heb. 1:3). The Lord Jesus has given us this glory. He has given us the divine sonship so that we can be sons of God to express God. We need to realize that we are glorious because we are the sons of God to express God. We should not go shopping in a light way, because we are sons of God expressing God. We do not want to lose our glorious status as sons of God. It is in this glory, the glory of the Triune God, that we are one. We are one in the name of the Father, in the life of the Father, in the word of the Father, and in the glory of the Father.
We are one in the Triune God (John 17:21, 23), and we are one as the Triune God is one (vv. 11, 21-22). Our oneness is the oneness in the Godhead. In John 17 the Lord prayed for His believers to be one in the Triune God. Verses 21-23a say, “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me. And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one.” The three of the Godhead are one, and we are one in Their oneness. This is the unique oneness in this universe. Actually, our oneness is the oneness of the Divine Trinity, the divine oneness of the Triune God. Since the Triune God is our oneness, we should not have any division among us.
This oneness is for the expression of the Lord’s glory (John 17:1-3, 22, 24). When we all remain in the divine oneness, the real glory is expressed among us to the whole world. The Lord prayed for this divine oneness in the divine glory. I believe this prayer is still prevailing over us today. There is the need of the recovery today because many Christians have been divided by religion. In the history of the church, there was the development of Roman Catholicism. Then Christians divided from the Roman Catholic Church into the state churches such as the Church of England and the Church of Denmark. There was a third division from the Catholic Church and the state churches to private churches, or denominations, such as the Baptist, Presbyterian, and Methodist denominations. A fourth and even further division are the free groups. Although we stand as one with and receive all the Lord’s children, His believers, we do not agree with any of these divisions. We cannot leave our standing of oneness to join others in their divisions. We should not create or make any division. We have the oneness of the Triune God, and we are one in Him for His expression, His glory.
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