Prayer: Lord, how we thank You. We thank You that You have brought us to this last meeting. We praise You that You are the Alpha and the Omega. We believe that You have blessed the beginning and that today You will bless the ending. We trust in You for this last meeting. This is the last day as the great day. In a great day, Lord, come to bless us greatly. Lord Jesus, we need You every moment. We can never forget You. You are in our mind, in our spirit, in our heart, and in our whole being. Thank You, Lord Jesus. You have the Word and You are the Spirit. Both Your Word and Your Spirit will always be with us. Amen.
In this chapter we want to continue our fellowship concerning the oneness of the Body. Then we want to see how division can damage this oneness.
In Ephesians 4 two aspects of the oneness of the Body are unveiled—the oneness in reality and the oneness in practicality. The oneness of the Body is not merely a doctrine but a reality. This oneness is more than a oneness among all of the believers and among the local churches. It is a oneness of the Triune God, existing among the three of the Godhead. There is one God, yet His Godhead is three. Thus, He is the three-one God, the Triune God. Among the three of the Godhead there is an eternal oneness. God the Father is one with the Son and with the Spirit, the Son is one with the Father and with the Spirit, and the Spirit is one with the Son and with the Father. All of the three are one with one another.
Furthermore, this wonderful, divine oneness among the three of the Godhead has been increased. The Lord Jesus told us that as the one grain of wheat, He fell into the ground to die so that He could bear much fruit (John 12:24). Thus, the one grain has become many grains. The many grains are an increase to the one grain.
In eternity past the Triune God did not have children. This means that He did not have an increase. One day, He created man, and the man He created was multiplying and increasing all the time to replenish the whole earth (Gen. 1:28). However, the Triune God Himself was still childless. Four thousand years after His creation of man, He was incarnated, putting on the human nature to be a man. Even at that time, however, He was still childless.
When did the Triune God beget His many children? This took place in the resurrection of Christ. This resurrection was a great birth, a great delivery. In that great delivery in resurrection, Jesus, who was already the only begotten Son of God from eternity (John 1:18; 3:16), was begotten to be the firstborn Son of God among many brothers (Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29). Now the Triune God has millions and millions of children. In resurrection Jesus is the firstborn Son of God, and we are His many brothers. The firstborn Son and His many brothers were all delivered on the same day, at the same time. First Peter 1:3 says that when Christ was resurrected, we all were regenerated. In His resurrection, He imparted the divine life into us to make us His brothers and the many sons of the Triune God.
This great delivery, this great birth, of God's firstborn Son and His many brothers took place on the day of resurrection. But in another sense, in the process of time, this delivery has not been fully consummated. It is still going on in time. Whenever the local churches gain some increase, that is the continuation of that unique delivery. It will go on and on until the record in the heavens is fulfilled. This great, universal delivery will be fully consummated, completed, when the Lord comes back. The many sons of the Triune God are His increase. Thus, the oneness of the Triune God has also been increased to include His sons, the members of His Body.
At one time this oneness was only among the three divine persons of the Godhead, but now it has gotten into millions of believers. These millions of believers, the many sons of God, are the corporate Body of Christ. Millions and millions of believers are incorporated in this corporate Body. Now we can see how great this oneness is.
In the local churches, we have believers from every continent and of all races, of all colors. Instead of quarreling, we are singing together and praising together. How wonderful this oneness is among us! But the oneness we enjoy is just a miniature of the great universal oneness of the entire universal Body of Christ. This oneness was merely among the three of the Godhead in eternity past. Now it has been expanded, enlarged, and increased to include the millions and millions of sons of God who are the members of the great universal Body of Christ. We are now testifying of this oneness.
We believers are one with the Triune God. Man can be one with God because he was created after God's "kind." Genesis 1 tells us that in God's creation, everything was created after its kind. Man is after God's kind because he was created in God's image and after God's likeness (v. 26). We are not God, but we bear God's image and even have God's likeness. We are the photos of God. We say that we are mankind, but we need to realize that mankind is after God's kind.
Those created men who were chosen by God were born of Him to become His children. We have been born of God, and God is now our Father. The children of a father are the same as their father in life, but they are not the same as he is in his fatherhood. Only he is the father. They are the children. In the same way, as the children of God, we are the same as God because we have His life and nature. However, we are not the same as God in His Godhead or in His fatherhood. As the children of God, we are one with our Father God.