(tm) Day 23

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: (John 17:21)

The above statement may be the most significant of all of the inspired Scriptures. It is a promise so stunning, so surpassingly Divine in origin and intent, that we have to take hold of our spirit so we do not stagger at the promise of God through unbelief.

If Christ had prayed that we all become one in mind and heart we could grasp that. Unity is the aim of all organizations—that the membership will be united in motive and action. What is being prayed here is as far above the idea of membership in a group as the heavens are far above the earth.

What Christ is asking here is not unity but union—the union of the saint with the Godhead. Can you grasp that? We are being invited to become an eternally inseparable part of God Himself.

It is not unusual for Christian people to speak of unity among themselves or unity with Christians of other affiliations. Their motives may be of Christ or of Antichrist. When Christian people join together the same danger is present that the Lord perceived in the building of the Tower of Babel.

It is not that the Christians become one that is supremely desirable. It is that we become one in Christ in God. This is a specific kind of oneness. When Christians join together, people among them seek positions of prominence. But when we become one in Christ in God, the Lord alone is exalted. That is the difference between oneness in Christ and human unity.

When the Church becomes one in Christ in God we shall have the purity of the eternal Person and purpose of God. All else in Christianity pales beside the sublime prospect of the Lord’s people being enfolded by the God of Heaven. Compared with union in God, going to Heaven merely as to a place is insignificant.

The man-centered churches will become unified in the days immediately preceding the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. They will merge by means of doctrinal compromise. The leading men and women will strive for the high positions. The true saints also will become unified but, unlike the man-centered, the oneness of the saints will be brought about by the Father and the Son entering them in fulfillment of the Levitical feast of Tabernacles.

The oneness coming to the Church in the near future is the oneness in God for which the Lord prayed. The way will be made straight for the coming of the Lord: the wicked will mature fully in wickedness and the righteous will mature fully in righteousness.