Will you please turn to the Gospel according to John, chapter 17? John chapter 17, verse 11. This is the prayer of our Lord to His Father.
And I am no more in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, even as We are.
Verse 21:
That they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us: that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me.
And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as We are one;
I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and lovedst them, even as Thou lovedst Me.
Our Lord Jesus was going to leave His disciples. As we find in John 13, He did the last act for His own. How He got up, took off His garment, put on the towel, poured water into the basin, and there He was, washing the disciples’ feet. That was His last act for His own—an act of love.
After that, we find in John 14 through 16 His last words with His own: how He comforted them by promising them the Holy Spirit. That Holy Spirit would come and dwell not only with them, but in them, and would never leave them nor forsake them.
After His last words with His people, He turned His heart toward His Father. In John 17, we find recorded how He prayed to His Father. From verse 1 through verse 5, He was praying for Himself.
He prayed and said:
Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee.
His prayer for Himself is centered upon this matter of glory and glorification. He asked the Father to glorify the Son. Why did He ask His Father to glorify Him? Not because He wanted to get glory, but because, after He was glorified, the Father would be glorified.
When the Lord Jesus prayed and said, “Glorify Thy Son,” what did He mean? You know, when we think of glory or glorification, we always think in terms of getting something, gaining something for ourselves. But not so with our Lord Jesus.
When He said, “Glorify Thy Son,” all He meant was simply this: “That Thou wilt accept My sacrifice, Thou wilt accept My death, and Thou wilt demonstrate Thy acceptance by raising Me from the dead, to show that Thou art fully satisfied.” That is, “Glorify Thy Son.”
The Lord was not thinking of Himself. For Him to be glorified was not to have any personal gain. For Him to be glorified was to satisfy His Father, to do the will of His Father, and to finish the work that His Father had sent Him to do. When the Father is satisfied, the Son is glorified.
That is the reason why the Lord said, “Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee.” Glory means satisfaction. When the Father is fully satisfied, then the Father is glorified. And when the Son is satisfied, the Son is glorified.
Now, what is it that our Lord Jesus will be satisfied with? He is satisfied only with this: that the work the Father has sent Him to do is fully done, and He knows that the Father is happy about it. That is the glory that He sought for.
Even as Thou gavest Him authority over all flesh, that whatsoever Thou hast given Him, to them He should give eternal life.
The Son, who was equal with God, emptied Himself. He took upon Himself the form of a servant, even the likeness of a man. In other words, the Son laid aside all authority and power and honor and glory that were His rights, His due. He laid all these things aside to become a man.
And now the Father has given all authority back to Him over all flesh—not only over all flesh, but over all things. And what does He do with the authority that the Father has given to Him? He gives eternal life to all that the Father has given to Him.
The authority that the Father has given to the Son, the Son uses to give life—eternal life—to those whom the Father has given to Him. Authority is not to take away, but to give. Authority is not to destroy, but to give. With the authority that the Father has given to the Son, He has given to all who believe in Him eternal life.
I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do.
You remember, in John 12, some Greeks wanted to see the Lord. The Lord had a marvelous triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and now some Greeks wanted to see Him. The Lord said:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.
Then He said, “Father, glorify Thy Son.” To our Lord Jesus, to be glorified meant to lay down His life for us. To be glorified meant to finish the work that the Father had sent Him to do.
Because He had finished the work, therefore He said:
And now, Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.
In other words, our Lord Jesus left His glory, the glory of God, to come into this world. And now, after He had finished the work that He was sent to do, He asked the Father to glorify Him with the glory that He and the Father had before time began, in eternity. He was returning to His Father.
After He prayed for Himself, He turned to pray for those who were with Him that night. From verse 6 through verse 19, He prayed for those disciples, the eleven who were with Him that evening. From verse 20 through verse 26, He prayed for those who would believe in Him through the word of those who were with Him at that time.
You will discover that His prayer for the eleven who were with Him is the same as His prayer for those who would believe in Him through their word. In other words, the prayer of our Lord Jesus for His own people includes both those who were with Him at that moment and those who would believe in Him afterwards.
Even though some were with Him that night, and many, many more were not with Him; even though we came to the Lord at different times and in different places; yet when our Lord Jesus prays for His own people, He puts all of us together as one.
Whether they were those eleven who were with Him that night, or those who believe in Him through their words through the centuries, His prayer for us is one. He came to this world to seek one body, one bride, one family, one house. That is what He came to seek. In His prayer for His own, that includes us.
The one burden that He had in His heart at that time, which He poured out to His Father, was simply this: that they may be one. How He longed and desired that all who are His would be one.
Who are those for whom He prayed? They are those to whom He has manifested the name of the Father. They are those whom the Father has given to Him out of the world. They are those who belong to God, who have kept the word of God, and to whom the Lord Jesus has spoken.
They are those who have received Him, who have known Him, who are kept by Him, who are sanctified by His word, and who are not of the world. In other words, those for whom He prayed are all those through the centuries who have believed in Him.
The Father has given us to Him, and He has kept us and sanctified us by the word. He prays for all of us, and His prayer burden is just this: that we may be one.
Dear brothers and sisters, if this is the burden of our Lord—not only at the time when He was leaving His disciples, but throughout the centuries—even today our Lord Jesus is our great High Priest. He is by the Father’s side, interceding for us.
Brothers and sisters, do you know what His burden is at His Father’s side? Do you know what is the prayer, what is the intercession, that He intercedes for us on earth throughout the centuries?
It is no different from what He prayed that night. He is still praying that prayer for His people. He is praying that we who are His may be one. That is His one burden.
Are we one? I believe that, as we are drawing to the end of this age, more and more God’s people are beginning to feel the need of being one. That is the reason why you have, on this earth, the ecumenical movement.
But, of course, we know this is not what the Lord is praying for. He prays for something much more than just an outward union. Yet He has put into the heart of every believer a consciousness—a consciousness that we are one.
No matter how different we are, no matter what background we have, no matter how many distinctions we have in this world, we who are the Lord’s have a built-in consciousness within us that we are one. We know we are one. We know we should be one.
Not only do we have this inward consciousness, but we have the teaching of the word. The word teaches us that we are one body. Even though we are many, yet we are one body, and we are members one of another. This we know.
We cannot teach people that they can be divided. If people are divided, they know it is not right. They have to defend themselves with some reasons to justify their divisions. But within their hearts, they know that no matter what reason they give, it is not sufficient.
We all know deep down within our hearts that we are one, and we should be one.
But what is the oneness, the unity, that the Lord Jesus is looking for among His people? It is not an outward thing—not trying to join people together outwardly through compromise, through negotiation, through give-and-take.
The world will not be deceived by such union. Probably such union can deceive some of God’s people, but it cannot deceive the world. The world knows how God’s people are divided. They are not one.
What is the oneness, the unity, that the Lord is looking for in His people? In verse 11, our Lord Jesus says, “That they may be one, even as We are.” In verse 22: “That they may be one, even as We are one.”
The oneness of God’s people is patterned after the oneness of the Godhead: “That they may be one, even as We are one.” As the Father and the Son are one, so we are to be one.
We know that in the Godhead there are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There are three Persons and yet one—three in one and one in three. It is a mystery we do not understand. It has been revealed to us, and we believe. We cannot explain it, but we know that God is three in one and one in three.
The oneness in the Godhead is a perfect oneness. The Father and the Son are one in the Spirit. There is no need to have a committee, no need to have discussion, no need to negotiate, no need to compromise, and no need to argue.
In the Godhead there is perfect harmony, perfect agreement, and perfect oneness. There is no shadow, no shade, no darkness, no doubt. They are perfectly one.
The Lord said, “That they may be one, even as We are one.” Our oneness is to be like the oneness of the Godhead.
Now, what is the oneness of the Godhead? The Lord says, “Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee.” In other words, the oneness of the Godhead is based on this mutual indwelling.
It is not that the Father is alongside the Son, or that the Son is alongside the Father. The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father. Because there is such mutual indwelling, you find such oneness.
You remember, even toward the very last, Philip asked the Lord Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.” How grieved our Lord Jesus was. The Lord said, “Philip, hast thou been so long time with Me, and dost thou not know Me? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.”
The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father. Because there is this mutual indwelling, the oneness is perfect. It is not merely a matter of being alongside one another. No matter how united people may appear, the oneness is not perfect. But mutual indwelling makes the oneness perfect.
Dear brothers and sisters, how can we be one? What makes us truly one? Unless there is mutual indwelling, I cannot be in you, and you cannot be in me. How can that mutual indwelling become a reality?
Here the Lord Jesus says:
And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as We are one;
I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected into one;
that the world may know that Thou didst send Me.
This mutual indwelling is based upon the fact that we are in Him and He is in us.
In 1 Corinthians 1:30, it is said:
But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.
As we believe in the Lord Jesus, something happens: God puts us in Christ. I think this is the most glorious thing. This is a mystery of the gospel. When we believe in the Lord Jesus, God does something marvelous: He puts us in Christ.
If you read Ephesians 1, you will find that all this “in Christ” is such a mystery. Blessed be God, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In Christ, He has accepted us. In Christ, He has forgiven us. In Christ, He has adopted us. Everything is in Christ.
God has put us in Christ. So, brothers and sisters, we who believe in the Lord Jesus are in Him. We are in Christ. We are in God. Every one of us is in Him, and He is in us. He is in every one of us.
Because we are in Him and He is in us, therefore there is oneness among us. We are in Him; He is in us. Because of this mutual indwelling, it is possible for us to be truly one. Our oneness is based upon this mutual indwelling.
Whenever we act outside of Christ—now, of course, being in Christ is our position; it never changes. God has put us in Christ. Thank God for that. It is eternal. It never changes. No matter how you change, you are in Christ.
Once God has put you in, nobody can take you out—not yourself, not anybody else. That is our position, secured for us by the finished work of Christ. We are in Christ.
But, dear brothers and sisters, so far as our condition is concerned, our condition may change. Sometimes we may abide in Christ; sometimes we may be away somewhere else.
If we abide in Christ, the oneness is there. But when we are outside of Christ in our daily life, then you find this oneness is broken.
If we abide in Him and He in us—that is to say, He lives in us—as our brother mentioned last night, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me.” If Christ lives in us, then we are one.
If Christ lives in you and Christ lives in me, it is Christ who is living; then we are one. But if it is you who live and it is I who live, then we will finally clash. The oneness will seem to be broken.
Our oneness is in Christ and He in us. It is based upon this mutual indwelling that oneness is maintained.
How can we be one? In the prayer of our Lord Jesus, you find a very strange thing. We know that His burden for His people is that we may be one, and yet in His prayer He mentions a great deal about the world—the relationship of believers with the world. Why is it?
What is the world? The world is a cosmos. The world is a system. The world is an organization. Who organized it? The archenemy of God. He organized the world into a system to oppose God. He is the ruler of this world.
Outwardly, you find the world is one organization, one system. There is a oneness there, whether it is social, economical, political, educational, cultural, or religious. You find the world is one system, one organization—a united front against God.
Of course, we know even that unity is a heterogeneous unity. It is not a homogeneous unity. It is held together by force, not by love. But at least you find that the world appears to be a unity, a system.
As the Lord Jesus desires His people to be one, we have to have our relationship with the world corrected. What is our relationship with the world? This is the negative aspect of the positive unity among God’s people.
Unless our relationship with the world is proper, our unity with one another will not be correct. God has called us out of this world. He has given us to Christ. He has called us out of this world.
Brothers and sisters, we do not belong to this world. We do not belong to this system. We do not belong to this unity. We are out of this world.
But physically, we are still in the world. It is true that in this physical body we are still in the world. We still have to eat, drink, work, and do things. We are in the world.
The Father has called us out of the world. We are still in the world, and yet we are not of the world. Physically we are here; spiritually, we are somewhere else. We are in another world.
We are not of the world, as He is not of the world. Brothers and sisters, we are not of the world, as He is not of the world.
Just as He is not of the world—how was He not of the world? He was in the world. He came into this world. He lived upon this earth for thirty-three years. He was a normal person. He ate, He drank, He rested, He worked, He walked around, He met people, and He had relationships.
He was not a person who fled into the mountains to be a monk. He was in the world, and yet we know He was not of the world. Wherever He was, whatever He did, whatever He said, He brought with Him a heavenly atmosphere. He belonged to another world.
He was not of the world. That is the reason why people could not understand Him. He was so different, wholly uncommon, not like the rest of the world.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is what the Lord says: we are not of the world as He is not of the world. He does not take us out of the world right away. He leaves us in the world, but we are not of the world, just as He is not of the world.
Because of that, He has sent us into the world to be a witness and testimony for Him, just as He was sent by the Father into the world to bear witness to His Father.
One reason why the oneness among God’s people is not manifested is because our relationship with the world is not correct. If we still love the world, if we act like the people of the world, how can we manifest that oneness of the body of Christ?
All we can do, probably, is try outwardly to maintain a kind of organization, to institutionalize something, systematize something, and put up a kind of front as if we are one. Yet everyone knows that this is not true.
There is one verse in 2 Corinthians 6 that says, “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers.” Now, of course, it means do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. But I think the principle can be applied to believers.
If believers act like unbelievers, if believers live in the world like worldly people, if believers act like the men of the world, how can we be yoked together?
We can only be yoked together with Christ and work together with one another if our relationship with the world is what the Lord ordains it to be.
There is much of the world in us, and that is the reason why the oneness of believers cannot be manifested. Oh, how we need to ask the Lord to open our eyes, to see how much of the world is still in us, how much we still belong to this world.
This is something that stands in the way of the unity of believers. If the Lord can get the world out of you and you out of the world, then, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are one, and that oneness can be manifested gloriously.
Then the world may see what true unity really is. To come into the unity of believers, we have to deal with this matter of the world. The world has to be dealt with.
As Paul says, “So far as the world is concerned, I am crucified; and so far as I am concerned, the world is crucified.” It is only under that kind of attitude that you find it is possible for God’s people to be really one.
This is the negative side of it. Now we move to the positive side. How can we be one? In verse 11, the Lord Jesus said:
I am no more in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, even as We are.
“Keep them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, even as We are.” How can we be one? We can be one if we are kept by the name that God has given to Christ.
You notice the Lord Jesus does not say, “Keep them in My name.” He said, “Keep them in Thy name, which Thou hast given Me.” What is the name that God has given to Christ? I think it is very simple: it is the name of the Father.
Even though in Old Testament times you find such expressions as God saying to the children of Israel in Jeremiah 31, “I will be a Father to you,” or in Malachi, “If I be a father, where is Mine honor?” yet in Old Testament times, the fatherhood of God was known more in the sense that He was the Creator of mankind, or the Protector and Guardian of those who belong to Him.
He was never taken in a personal way. People in Old Testament times never knew God as a personal Father. Why? Because only our Lord Jesus is the only begotten Son of the Father.
In other words, Father, in the intimate and personal sense, is only real to our Lord Jesus and nobody else. He is the only begotten of the Father. This is a name that God has given to His Son. Only His Son has the right to call Him Father.
And this He has given to us. By this name we are kept. You remember, as our Lord Jesus was raised from the dead, He told the woman to tell His disciples, “Go to My brethren, and tell them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.”
Oh, brothers and sisters, the only begotten Son shares His Father with many sons. He is now the firstborn among many brethren. As we believe in Him, the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and we cry, “Abba, Father.”
You cry, “Abba, Father.” I cry, “Abba, Father.” It is this name that keeps us one. You have the same Father as I have. We belong to the same family.
One day, some children were playing, and suddenly a man walked by. When that man passed by, one of the children cried, “Father! Father!” You know children like to imitate, so all the children began to cry, “Father!” Then this child turned to the other children and said, “No, he is my father, not yours.”
Dear brothers and sisters, the world has no right to call God their Abba, Father. The fatherhood of God is only real with those who believe in the Lord Jesus. It is the name of the Father that joins us together into one.
Then secondly, you find in verse 22:
And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as We are one.
What is this glory that God has given to Him? Our Lord Jesus had a glory that He shared with His Father in eternity past—the glory of the Godhead. He had it with His Father; it was not something given to Him. He had it even before time began.
But our Lord Jesus had another glory, and that glory is a glory that the Father gave to Him. He had one glory that was His by right in eternity, because He is God; and He had another glory that was given to Him by the Father.
What is the glory that God has given to Him? We have already mentioned it. It is the glory that He fulfilled the will of the Father, finished the work, and satisfied the Father. That is the glory.
On the basis of that, He has authority to give life to those who believe in Him. So the glory here, we may say, is the life that He gives to us on the basis of His finished work on the cross.
Brothers and sisters, our unity is based on life. It is His life in you and His life in me. You have the same life as I have. We share the same life, and because we share the same life, we are one.
Not only can we call God our Father and belong to the same family, but we share the same life. Therefore, we are one.
Our oneness is not based upon any teaching, any doctrine, any creed, any thought, or any organization. Our oneness is based upon life.
If you have the life of Christ in you and I have the life of Christ in me, we are one in life, no matter how different we are otherwise. Oh, if only we can stand on this ground of life—the life of Christ that makes us one—and allow that life to live through us, then we will be perfected into one.
What will be the result of such oneness? First, “that the world may know that Thou didst send Me.” Oh, brothers and sisters, what a testimony that will be.
Even though the world seems to be a united front against God, we know it is a heterogeneous union. You find in the world all kinds of discrimination, all kinds of differences, all kinds of turmoil, and all kinds of conflicts.
Oneness is divine. It is heavenly. Oneness is something the world never knows and the world cannot have. You put two people together, and you will find they cannot be one, because no two flesh can really agree.
But when God’s people are really one, the world will know that God has sent Christ into this world. In other words, this is something that no one can accomplish.
People may try to put people together by force, but that is not oneness. Here you find God’s people all joined together as one in the Spirit. The world has never seen such a thing before.
Like in the first century, people were saying, “Look at these people, how they love one another.” Brothers and sisters, how can it be? God has sent His Son into this world. So it is a testimony.
How important it is that there should be such a testimony today. Oh, that we may be one, and the world may know that God has sent Christ into this world.
Secondly, “that Thou lovedst them, even as Thou lovedst Me.” Not only by being one can we give a good testimony to the world concerning Christ, but if we are one, we will be testified to by God that He has loved us as He has loved Christ.
The Lord Jesus, in John 15, said:
If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.
Oh, if we can be one, that shows the Father has loved us. And because the Father has loved us, we will be one. It is a cycle: we are one and the Father loves us; because the Father loves us, we are more one.
The love of the Father will be upon us as the love of the Father is upon our Lord Jesus. So, dear brothers and sisters, this is the prayer of our Lord Jesus. Oh, He prays that we may be one. He has made it possible for us to be one.
If we are not one, there is no reason, no excuse. May the Lord help us. Shall we pray?
Oh, our Father, how we praise and thank Thee that our Lord Jesus has accomplished the work that Thou hast sent Him to do. On the basis of the finished work of Christ, Thou hast given that oneness to us.
We praise and thank Thee that Thou hast given us the name, that we can call Thee Abba, Father. We praise and thank Thee that Thou hast given us glory, even Thy life in us.
And Lord, if we are not one, oh, how do we hurt Thee. How do we disgrace Thy name. We ask Thee, O Lord, forgive us. Take away everything in us that makes us divide and separate.
We pray that Thou wilt keep us one in Thee, that the Father may be glorified. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.