Now we come to the third factor of genuine oneness: in the divine glory for the expression of the Triune God (vv. 22-24). As we have seen, the first ground of oneness is regeneration, receiving the life of the Father, and the second ground is sanctification, being separated from everything other than God. The world is simply everything outside of God. When we have been separated from everything outside of God to God Himself, then we are on the ground of sanctification, being separated from all worldly places and worldly things unto one center. This one center is the Triune God, the Father in the Son as the Spirit. We have been sanctified unto this very center, and herein is oneness. The third ground of this oneness is even deeper and higher than this. It is the oneness in the manifestation of the divine glory. After we have been regenerated, we must be sanctified by giving up the world, and after being separated from the world, we must live, through the denying of ourselves, by Christ as our life who is the hope of glory within us (Col. 1:27).
Verse 22 says, “And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one.” What is the glory given to the Son by the Father? It 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 the life and nature of God, making Him the Son of God and the manifestation of God. Hence, the glory which God gave to the Son is the life and nature of God which make the Son the expression and manifestation of God. The Father’s life and nature were given to the Son that the Son might express the Father in His fullness. Suppose the President of the United States appoints his son to visit us as his representative. When the President’s son arrives, he will have with him a certain amount of glory, the glory of representing his father, the President of the United States.
The Son has given to His believers the very glory which the Father has given to Him, that they also might have the sonship with the Father’s life and divine nature (John 17:2; 2 Pet. 1:4) to express the Father in the Son in His fullness (John 1:16). The glory which was first given to the Son has now been conferred upon the corporate sonship. As the many sons, we have the divine sonship with the divine life and nature to express the Father in the Son with all of His fullness. What glory this is!
Many Christians have a vain, fanciful concept of glory, thinking that it is merely an objective shining or radiance in the air into which we shall enter some day. According to this concept, when we are brought into that radiant shining, we are brought into glory. This is just a dream. What is glory? Glory is the sonship with the divine life and nature to express the Father in all His fullness. Often when we are in a good meeting we have the sense that we are in this glory.
If we would be one in the divine glory, we must forsake and forget ourselves. It must be no longer I, but Christ who lives in me (Gal. 2:20). The “I” has been crucified, and the self must be denied that Christ may live in us. We must not only renounce the world but also ourselves. On the one hand, we have been sanctified from so many worldly places and worldly things and have come home to the Father’s house. On the other hand, each of us has his opinions, thoughts, or ideas. If this is the situation, how can we be one? Once we were separated into various worldly places, but now, having come home, we may still have trouble with the self. For this reason, we must not live by our own life but by the life of glory, the divine life. After we have been regenerated, we must be sanctified, and after we have been sanctified, we must be glorified. In other words, after we have the life of God, we must give up the world, and after we give up the world, we must forsake ourselves and live by the divine life. Then, in the glory of this life, we shall be one. Hence, there are three grounds or steps of the oneness of the believers: regeneration, sanctification, and glorification. Having God as our Father by regeneration is the first step; coming to the Triune God by separation from the world through the holy word is the second step; and living by the divine life of glory through denying ourselves is the third step. It is in the very application and realization of the divine life of glory that we shall all be one.