The oneness in practicality is first the oneness of the faith. The faith is the object of the believers' believing. To insist on anything besides the faith as a basis for receiving the believers is to be divisive. Today's denominations have been founded on something other than the unique faith, which consists of the truth concerning the divine person of Christ and His redemptive work accomplished for our salvation. The Presbyterian denomination is founded on the practice of the presbytery, the eldership. The Southern Baptist denomination is founded upon the practice of baptism by immersion. A person has to be baptized by the Southern Baptists in order to be received into their fellowship. Because they receive the saints on a condition other than that of the faith, they have become a division.
Our faith is focused on a wonderful person—Jesus Christ. He is God becoming a man to be our Savior. He died physically on the cross and shed His physical blood for our sins. He was buried for three days and He resurrected physically, psychologically, and spiritually to be the Spirit indwelling us. We believe in Him as such a person, and we believe in His redemptive work in dying for us and being resurrected.
The modernists do not believe this. They say that Christ died on the cross as a martyr and that His death has nothing to do with our sins. They also do not believe that Christ resurrected. They are not genuine believers, because they do not believe in the person of Christ or in the work of Christ as the One who died for us to accomplish redemption. We, however, are genuine believers, genuine Christians, and this is our faith.
We should not contend for anything other than this unique faith. This faith is common to all believers (Titus 1:4). We should not be distracted from this unique faith to anything else. The doctrine of the presbytery with the Presbyterians, the practice of baptism with the Southern Baptists, the methods of the Methodists, and the teachings and practices of Catholicism are examples of distractions from the unique faith issuing in divisions. Once we are distracted, we lose the peace of the oneness in reality. However, if we are diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit, avoiding every distraction, we will be on our way to arriving at the oneness of the faith, the oneness in practicality. The more we grow in life, the more we will cleave to the faith, and the more we will drop the minor and meaner doctrinal concepts that cause division.
We need to reject every voice that distracts us from the oneness of the Body. Sometimes these voices are big, and other times they are small. A sister may tell someone, "I trusted in the church for twenty-five years, but I recently found out that some of the elders are not trustworthy. They lie." This short speaking is enough to distract and to poison others. The distracting voices can cause us to depart from the oneness in reality. Then we surely do not have the oneness in practicality. We need to reject any kind of distracting voice. We should not want to hear any distracting thing. Then we will have the peace and the joy. We will enjoy the oneness in reality so that we can arrive at the oneness in practicality.
There are many divisions surrounding us. Many gospel contacts wonder why there are so many different kinds of so-called churches since we all believe in one Jesus. In the midst of so much division and confusion, we must learn how to see the invisible things from the Word. The Word will show us the right way; the Word will assure us of the right thing; and the Word will keep us in the oneness in reality. Then we will have the proper practice of the oneness. I believe that what is practiced in the Lord's recovery is the proper oneness. We are both in the oneness in reality and in the oneness in practicality.