Many people have a certain concept about oneness. They think that as long as a man is a Christian in name, they can be one with him, whether or not he belongs to God, has life, and is a member of the Body. But the oneness which the Bible speaks of is a oneness of the Body. The oneness which many people suggest today has gone beyond the boundary of the Body; it includes corpses and things which are foreign to the Body. God’s Word does not approve this kind of oneness.
Let me say emphatically that only the oneness of the Body can constitute the oneness of the church. The oneness of the church has the Body as its boundary; it cannot extend beyond the Body. Oneness does not mean that we have to be one with whoever bears the resemblance of Christianity or the name of a Christian. God’s Word does not sanction this or say anything about it.
Many people like to quote Matthew 13. They say that the Lord likens His departure from the world to a man sleeping in the second parable. His enemy came and sowed tares in the midst of the wheat and went away. When the blade sprouted and produced fruit, the tares also appeared. The slaves of the master of the house then came and said to the master, “Do you want us then to go and collect them?” (v. 28). The master replied, “Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Collect first the tares and bind them into bundles to burn them up, but the wheat gather into my barn” (v. 30). Many people have taken oneness to mean a oneness of wheat and tares. They think that oneness is not merely a oneness of the wheat but of the tares as well. But note that the Lord is not speaking about oneness here. He never said that believers and unbelievers should be mixed together. He said that believers should not kill unbelievers. The Roman Catholic Church has done just that; they are ready to uproot all tares, that is, all those whom they consider to be heretics. We know that they are wrong not only in principle but also in practice. They have uprooted not only the tares but also the wheat. They are wrong both in principle and in practice because they consider Protestants to be heretics.
The Lord did not tell us to uproot the tares from this world. He said that there should be a proper separation in the church. When the Word speaks of letting both grow together until the harvest, it does not mean to let both grow together in the church. It means to let both grow together in the field—the world. (In the interpretation of the first parable, the field is the world.) In other words, it is not necessary to remove all nominal Christians from the world. There is no need to kill them as the Roman Catholic Church has tried to do. We should leave them alone in this world. But this does not mean that oneness among Christians should include tares.
Within so-called Christian organizations, sects, and denominations, there are many unbelievers. They tolerate unbelievers, that is, they allow the tares to remain in the church. The Lord did not speak of allowing tares to remain in the church. He only said to allow them to remain in the world. The Lord charges us to keep our Christian oneness in the church, not in the world.
Today there are many people who, like the Roman Catholic Church, will not tolerate the tares in the world. They try to uproot all the tares from the earth. This is one extreme. Another extreme is to include unbelievers in the church. This is what some groups practice. In the state churches, as long as one is a citizen of that country or born of that country, he can be baptized and be a member of the church. Whoever is born in that country can be a Christian in that country. These churches have opened their doors to unbelievers. This is wrong.