Will you please turn to Ephesians chapter 4, the letter to the Ephesians chapter 4? We will begin with Ephesians 4:7-16.
But unto each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Wherefore He saith,
When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive,
And gave gifts unto men.
(Now this, He ascended, what is it but that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth?
He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)
And He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
For the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ:
Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
That we may be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error;
But speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him, Who is the head, even Christ;
From Whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.
May we look to the Lord in prayer.
Our heavenly Father, how we praise and thank Thee through the blood of our Lord Jesus, and through His body that is broken for us, that a new and living way is now open, that we may approach, that we may enter into the holiest of all, that we may be in Thy very presence, that we may lift up our eyes and behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled face.
Oh, how we praise and thank Thee for this privilege. And we do praise and thank Thee that, as we look into Thy face, the Spirit of God will transform us from glory to glory according to the image of our Lord. Oh, how our hearts do rejoice in Thy presence.
And this morning, as we study Thy Word together, we do pray that Thou wilt grant to us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of God. Lord, we confess that without the spirit of revelation, we will never be able to see; we will never be able to enter in. But we praise and thank Thee that it does please Thee to reveal Thy Son in us.
So, as we open our hearts to Thee, we do look to Thee to do the work of revelation in each one of us, that we may not only hear the Word, but we may hear Thy voice; that we may see Thee; that we may really be transformed by the working of Thy Holy Spirit.
Lord, we are here. We place ourselves in Thy own hands, and we invite Thee to do the work that Thou dost ordain to do this morning. And to Thee be all the praise and the glory, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
The burden that we have in the morning session is none other than the burden of our Lord Jesus. How He has been burdened with this burden for over twenty centuries. Not only was He burdened with this burden when He was on earth; even today, He is seated at the right hand of the Father as our High Priest, making intercession for us. Still, you will find He intercedes for us with the same burden: that we who believe in Him all may be one.
He prays that we may be one, as He and the Father are one. As the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father, so He is in us and we are in Him. It is through the fact of this oneness that the oneness of God’s people is a reality.
Yesterday morning, we began with Ephesians chapter 4. Now, we know that Ephesians chapter 4 and John chapter 17 are really parallel passages because they have the same subject: the oneness, the unity, of the body of Christ.
But in John 17, it is the prayer, the longing, the desire of our Lord Jesus that we may be one. In Ephesians 4, it is an exhortation. Since this is the burden, the desire, of our Lord our Head, then we are exhorted, being called to be the body of Christ, that we walk worthy of the calling wherewith we have been called.
This unity of God’s people is not something that we can create. It is not something that we can manufacture. It is not something that we can make work. This is something divine. It is something that is given to us.
The unity of the Spirit has been given to us, and it is for us to keep—and to keep diligently—lest we lose it.
Dear brothers and sisters, even though throughout these twenty centuries we see tragedies after tragedies in the church, we see divisions after divisions, we see strifes and schisms and parties, yet all these have not changed the fact that the unity of the Spirit has been given.
God has already given us the unity of the Spirit. The problem is not because we do not have that unity. The problem is that we have it, but we do not keep it diligently. Because of this, you will find that from time to time God’s people have lost that unity. God’s people have moved to some other ground than the ground of Christ, than the ground of the unity in the Godhead.
In God, we are one. In Christ, we are one. In the Holy Spirit, we are one. This unity of the Spirit has been given. It is our inheritance. It is our possession. It is our portion. It is ours.
But unfortunately, we do not listen to the exhortation of the Holy Spirit. We are exhorted to keep it, but we fail to keep it. We are exhorted to keep it diligently, but we do not exercise diligence. Because of this, you will find God’s people have lost this unity.
Through the centuries, in many generations, yet the Spirit of God is still calling His people to return: to maintain, to keep, diligently keep, the unity of the Spirit.
One body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling;
One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
One God and Father of all, Who is over all, and through all, and in all.
Dear brothers and sisters, we do thank the Lord that anyone who has believed in Him, anyone who is a child of God, in these seven things has been given oneness. We are one in God. We are one in Christ. We are one in the Holy Spirit.
This morning, we would like to move on, because you will find that in Ephesians 4:3 we are to use diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace. Then, in Ephesians 4:13, we are to arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
Here you find the word unity in verse 3, and then again you find the word unity in verse 13. In verse 3, it is the unity of the Spirit. In verse 13, it is the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
In verse 3, the unity of the Spirit is something that has already been given to us, and we are all exhorted to keep it diligently. But in verse 13, the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God is something that we have to attain to, to arrive at. In other words, it has not been given, but it is something that we should arrive at, should attain to.
Are there two unities? No. There is only one unity. But this one unity has two ends. On the one end, which is the beginning, it is the unity of the Spirit. That is where we must begin. Then, at the other end, toward the ultimate goal, we find the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. This is where we should arrive.
Dear brothers and sisters, there is only one unity. It is that unity in God. In God, we are one. There are not two unities. But this unity has to begin with what God has already given to us, which is the unity of the Spirit. If we begin at the beginning and continue on, then we will arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
The problem with God’s people throughout the centuries, and even in our own time, is this: we do not begin with the unity of the Spirit, but we try to begin with the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. Because we begin with the wrong end, therefore we get nowhere, and God’s people remain divided.
But if we begin at the right end according to the order that God has ordained for us, then, dear brothers and sisters, the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God is possible. We will arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
Now, before we go into this, probably we need to explain a little bit what is the unity of the faith. In Ephesians 4:5, we read, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Then again, in Ephesians 4:13, we read, “Arrive at the unity of the faith.”
In verse 5, we find one faith. In verse 13, we find the faith. Now, you see one faith and the faith. Is it that we have two different kinds of faith? One is called one faith, and the other is called the faith? No. The one faith is the faith. In other words, we have only one faith.
Yet this faith has a beginning and it has an end. What is one faith? Yesterday morning we explained and said that one faith is the basic, essential, justifying faith. It is that faith in the Lord Jesus by which we are saved. It is the revelation and confession of our Lord Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God.
This is the foundation of our faith. Without that foundation, no one can be saved. One faith—and this one faith has been given to you and to me and to every one of us.
In other words, we who are redeemed by the Lord are redeemed because we have that one faith. If a person does not have that one faith, he is not a child of God. He does not have eternal life. He is not redeemed. He cannot be saved. Unless we have that one faith, we are not saved.
Therefore, this one faith is in the unity of the Spirit. It is something that has already been given and something which we already have.
Now, what is the faith? The faith is the same faith, and yet it is from faith to faith. It is the development, the fullness, of our faith.
It is not only believing in the foundation of our salvation. The faith includes all the truth that God has revealed to us in His Son.
In Jude, we remember when the apostle Jude wrote this little letter. He said:
Beloved, while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints.
When Jude wrote this letter, he said we have to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. Now, that is the faith.
In the first century, God revealed this faith to the apostles and to the prophets through the revelation of the Holy Spirit. We find all the truth of God in Christ Jesus having been once delivered to the saints.
To put it in a more concrete way, this faith is embodied in the Word of God, in the Bible that we now have. All the truth of God concerning our faith has all been revealed and delivered once and for all to all the saints. All the truth is now in this book called the Holy Bible. That is the faith.
In other words, it includes all the truth, all the doctrines, all the teachings, all the facts—all that concern our faith and make our faith unique, different from any other faith in this world.
What makes our faith different? What makes Christianity different from all the other religions, from all the other so-called faiths? It is because we have this faith once delivered to the saints.
Then, in Jude 20, it says:
But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,
Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
Again, you find Jude mentioning this matter of building yourselves up on your most holy faith. One faith is something that we already have. This is the foundation of our faith. Then you find we have to build on that foundation.
We have to build on our faith in Christ Jesus. As we build on that faith, we come into the unity of the faith.
When we have one faith, we are like babes in Christ, because we are born by one faith. But we are just babes, and we need to grow up. We need to develop.
As we grow up in developing our faith, in our belief in the teachings, in the doctrines, in the facts, in whatever the Lord has done for us, whatever He is to us, then you will find we are building up in the most holy faith. We enter into the fullness of our faith, which is the faith.
You do not have the faith right away. You have one faith to start with, and then from there we develop into the faith. By the grace of God, by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, through the Word, we begin to know more of the teaching and doctrine of Christ. We begin to know more of the truth. This is how we are building up in the most holy faith.
As Christianity began to spread, other teachings and heresies began to creep into Christianity. To fight against the intrusion of other things—philosophy and other teachings—into Christianity, you will find in church history that the leaders of the church began to come together and try to define our faith.
In the beginning, when the church of God began to define our faith, it was for the reason of fighting against the intrusion of different teachings and heresies. In order to define our faith, they developed creeds: the Apostles’ Creed, and then, following the Apostles’ Creed, from time to time there would be councils of the church.
The leaders would come together, and because there was a certain heresy or certain teaching, they had to redefine the faith, and another creed was formed. Creed after creed was formed throughout the centuries in Christianity.
In one sense, these creeds are the result of trying to define our faith, to fight against heresies. But, dear brothers and sisters, the problem is that when our fathers tried to define the faith, to reduce the truth of God into a system, to put all the teaching into some order, a set of creed, the result was that they were never able to put all the truth in Christ into their creed.
It is true that they simplified our faith. It is true that they tried to define our faith. It is true that they seemed to be able to crystallize our faith into certain articles and make it more simple and clear in certain ways.
You know, when the Word of God was given, God never meant that His Word should be systematized. Because the Word is never systematized, it is a little bit confusing sometimes to believers. That is the reason why these famous creeds were formed: in order to declare to the world what we believe.
On the one hand, no matter how perfect a creed is, it is incomplete so far as the truth of God is concerned. It will leave out something. As a matter of fact, it may include something, but leave out more things, because it is humanly impossible.
Then the second thing is this: as people try to define their faith by forming creeds, you will find among God’s people that there are some who see some truth in a very prominent way. Some views of Christ seem to mean so much more to them than any other truth. So, in forming the creed, you will find the emphasis will be set upon certain truth and the other truth will be left out.
To be faithful, to be loyal, and to take an oath that you will be faithful to the creed that you believe—instead of joining God’s people together—these creeds began to divide God’s people and make the division permanent.
More than that, as Christianity began to grow and these creeds began to form, you find that there is not only the danger of emphasizing certain truths of Christ and leaving out or regretting other truth, but as Christianity develops, not only truth is included in the creed; even the traditions of the fathers begin to enter into the creed.
Something more than you have in the Word of God. Not only is it less than the Word of God, but there is something more than the Word of God. When this happens, you know, it divides God’s people.
Dear brothers and sisters, even though our forefathers, in forming these creeds, had the best of intentions, in a sense we understand why they did it, because they wanted to fight against heresies. But the result was that these creeds limit the faith.
These creeds begin to divide God’s people. Some people hold on to this creed, and other people hold on to that creed. Because they have a creed to hold on to, they cannot be one. They have to be faithful to their creed.
If there is a need of a creed to define our faith, then, brothers and sisters, we will say the Bible is our creed. We will not have any other creed but the Word itself. We believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and that is our creed.
Whatever is in the Bible is our faith. We cannot neglect anything in the Word of God. We cannot say, “This is insignificant.” It is the Word of God, and if it is the Word of God, even one word is powerful. We believe in the Word of God. This is our faith.
What is the faith? The faith is all the truth of God as we find it in the Word. Of course, we need illumination. We need revelation—not extra to the Word of God, but revelation on the Word of God—so that the Word of God may not be letter to us, but may be spirit and life to us.
We need to understand the Word of God. We need to understand the truth that is in Jesus. What is the faith? The faith is not the interpretation of the teaching of the truth. The faith is the truth, not the interpretation.
Brothers and sisters, you will find people, when they think about the unity of the faith, think it means the unity of the interpretation of the Bible. If you interpret it differently from their interpretation, then you are separated from them, and they will have nothing to do with you, because they say there is not the unity of the faith.
In 1965, I was in South America. I was in Peru, in the jungle. When I was there, there was a conference of the native believers. These dear brothers and sisters, native believers, traveled to this city.
Now, the way to get to that city was that you had to fly in. There was no road; you had to fly in. These people, dear brothers and sisters, who came to the conference, walked through the forest, and they gathered together to have a conference.
It happened that I was there, and I was leaving the next day. So they asked me if I could speak in that conference, just the first session, because I would be leaving the next day. Well, I promised I would do it.
The meeting began in the evening. But in the afternoon, a missionary came from a nearby village and arrived at the place where I was staying with another missionary couple. When this missionary saw me there, I was put under inquisition.
He began examining my faith. He began to ask questions, ask questions, ask questions. Now, I knew of his background. Even though I did not know him, I knew his background, so I knew what he would like to find out from me.
I evaded as long as I could. But after he had questioned me for a while, then came that issue. I knew it was coming. He asked me, “What is your belief in rapture?”
I tried to be wise. I said, “I believe all believers will be raptured.” Amen. But he was not satisfied. He said, “One rapture or more than one?”
I had to answer him. So I said, “Brother, my understanding of rapture may be different from yours. I can only say, so far as I understand now, this is the way I believe concerning rapture. If the Lord should show me otherwise, I am open to change.”
Then, of course, I told him what I believed concerning rapture. I will not tell you. Of course, it was different from his.
So you know what this brother said to me? He said, “You do not believe the Bible.”
I said, “Brother, I believe the Bible as much as you do. Maybe my interpretation is different from yours. My understanding is different from yours, but I do believe the Bible. I do believe the truth.”
He said, “No, you do not believe the Bible.”
After supper, we were walking to the conference. I was to speak. He went by me and he said, “If you speak, I will not speak. If you speak, I will not speak.”
What could I do? He was a missionary stationed in the next village. I was just passing by. So I told him, “Brother, I will not speak.” I told the brothers, “Sorry, I will not speak.” And he was happy about it.
This tells you how often we misunderstand what the faith is. We think the faith is our interpretation of the faith. But remember, our interpretation is just our understanding. No one understands the Bible one hundred percent.
Our understanding of the Word of God increases by the grace of God, but the truth is eternal. No matter what you believe concerning rapture—whether it is one, whether it is more than one, whether it is before or after tribulation—brothers and sisters, you believe in rapture.
No matter what your interpretation of prophecy may be, whether the ten kingdoms are the revived Roman Empire or the ten kingdoms are the Islamic League, you believe in prophecy.
Brothers and sisters, we may have different degrees of understanding of the Word, but we all believe in the Word. This is the unity of the faith.
Do not make the unity of the faith the unity of your understanding, your interpretation of the truth of God. If God permits—and He does—we will arrive at the unity of the faith. It is possible.
Now, what is the unity of the knowledge of the Son of God? Originally, it means the unity of the full knowledge of the Son of God. The full knowledge of the Son of God is not merely mental knowledge or book knowledge. It is experiential knowledge.
In other words, the unity of the knowledge of the Son of God is to experience the Son of God to the fullest.
All who believe in the Lord Jesus have experienced the Lord. If you have never experienced Jesus Christ, you are not His. You have experienced Him as your salvation. You have experienced Him as the forgiveness of your sins. You have experienced Him as eternal life.
Everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus has an experience of our Lord Jesus. Everyone has a knowledge of the Son of God, but this is just the beginning.
Do not think because you believe in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, and you have received the forgiveness of sins and eternal life, therefore you know Him fully. There is much more in Him that you need to know and to experience.
Like our brother said, the land flowing with milk and honey—the unsearchable riches of Christ—is all yours for you to experience and to possess.
Our whole Christian life, after we have first experienced Jesus Christ as our Savior, is just a continuous, progressive knowing and experiencing of Him. Even in eternity this will continue, because our Christ is infinite.
What is Christian experience? Christian experience is none other than experiencing Christ.
You are not experiencing an experience of holiness. You are not experiencing an experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You are not experiencing an experience of the victorious life. You are not even experiencing an experience of healing.
All these experiences, if they are Christian experiences, are experiencing Christ.
You experience Christ. I experience Christ. By the grace of God, we all are experiencing Christ. We all are knowing Him more and want to know Him, and the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.
This is the one passion of Paul. He considered all things as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. That is his passion—one passion: to know Christ. Dear brothers and sisters, may that passion be our passion.
We want to know Him, know Him and know Him more, experience Him—not just know Him in the mind, but know Him in the heart, knowing in our daily life, knowing in our experience, how precious Christ is to us.
It is true that we are in different degrees of growth. It is true that God is such a living God, Who deals with living people. Therefore, you will find that the ways we experience Christ are different.
You are experiencing Christ; I am experiencing Christ. But we experience Him in different degrees, in different ways. Yet we all experience Him.
Our problem is that we stereotype our experience. If this is the way that I experience Christ in a certain aspect of Him, then I try to make the way that I experience Him the type.
In other words, anybody else who is to experience Christ in this special area must experience Him in the way that I experience Him. Otherwise, you have not got it.
Take, for instance, the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Thank God for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
But when people began to experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, it happened that they spoke in tongues. Because they spoke in tongues, they said, “Unless you speak in tongues, you do not have the Holy Spirit.”
No, you are stereotyping an experience. It is true: on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the one hundred and twenty, tongues like fire fell upon these men, and they all spoke in tongues.
Once upon a time, God came down to confuse the tongues. But now He came down to give tongues that they might be one.
But even in the book of Acts, you will find people received the Holy Spirit without any mention of speaking in tongues. It is not the incidental; it is the essential.
Some may experience the coming down of the Holy Spirit like D. L. Moody or Charles G. Finney. Moody was walking on the streets of New York. That was the last place you would expect the Holy Spirit to come down upon a person.
There the Holy Spirit came upon him in such measure that he had to find a place to shut himself in.
Charles G. Finney, when he was saved, was an apprentice to a lawyer. He was going to be a lawyer. In studying law, he found that the law in the Western world often referred to the Bible, because the law was formed according to the Word of God. So he got a Bible and began to read it in order to study the law.
Yet the Holy Spirit began to convict him. When the Holy Spirit convicted him, he put the Bible under the shelf. He was still reading it, but he did not want anybody to notice it.
One day he was under such conviction that, when he was walking to the law office, he said, “Well, I have to settle this matter of salvation.” So he turned aside and went into a forest. He went deep into the forest because he did not want anybody to see him.
Finally, he found a place where a tree had fallen on the ground, and it was very secluded. So he climbed into that spot and knelt down to pray. He thought he had many things he wanted to pray. He wanted to pour out his heart to God, but he could not pray.
Why? Because he was always listening for any sound. When he heard a little sound, he stood up. He did not want people to know he was praying. How could he pray? He could not pray.
Yet, unfortunately, as he was walking into the forest, he made a vow. He said, “I am going to that forest either to be saved or to die there.” He could not go back.
He was there. He did not know what to do. He could not pray, and he could not leave. It was at that point that suddenly the Holy Spirit convicted him of his pride: a sinner pleading for mercy before the righteous God, yet afraid to be seen by people. Pride.
God can never save a proud person. Oh, how he humbled himself before God, cried unto God, and confessed his sins. Then the Word of God began to come; verse after verse came to him.
He was there for a long time and forgot the time. Finally, when he finished praying, he stood up. There was such peace upon him. He began to walk to his law office, and the office hours were already over.
But he felt he wanted to be with the Lord. So he put some logs in the fireplace, and he began to pray. As he prayed and prayed, the Holy Spirit came to him like waves of love. Oh, it was like waves of love going through him. How he prayed and rejoiced and wept before God.
He did not know it was the Holy Spirit. He had never heard of Him. As a matter of fact, the next day, when he met another believer and tried to tell the believer what happened, that believer could not understand him.
He told that believer the conviction of sin was gone and there was such peace in his heart. He was misinformed that God had left him. He thought that God had left him because there was no more conviction.
But once again he went to the Lord, and again the Holy Spirit came to him as waves of love and assured him that he was the Lord’s. That is the way Charles Finney experienced the Holy Spirit.
But, oh, brothers and sisters, will you say that if you experience the Holy Spirit, you must experience Him the way Moody and Finney experienced Him? If you do not experience Him as Moody and Finney did, then you do not have the Holy Spirit?
What about Andrew Murray? You read the life of Andrew Murray, and I think probably no one knew the Holy Spirit as an indwelling Person as he did. Yet he did not have that kind of spectacular experience.
How about A. B. Simpson? He did not even believe in such an experience. But who can say A. B. Simpson was not filled with the Holy Spirit?
Our experience of Christ may be in many ways and in many manners, so long as it is Christ.
Oh, brothers and sisters, if you experience Him and if I experience Him, even though our experiences may be different because we are different in our makeup and temperament, God’s work is wonderful.
I often say the way God works with you is according to your temperament. He knows exactly what kind of person you are, and that is the way He is going to let you experience Christ. If we all experienced Christ in the same way, how monotonous it would be.
Variety is the spice of life. That is what I learned as I came to this country.
The unity of the knowledge of the Son of God—now, what is it? Is this that we must experience Christ in certain aspects of Christ in a certain fixed, inflexible, stereotyped manner?
If that is the case, we will never arrive at the unity of the knowledge of the Son of God. It is uniformity; it is not unity. God is not after uniformity. God is after unity.
If it is creed, it is uniformity. If it is the Word of God, it is unity. If it is a stereotyped experience, it is uniformity. If it is Christ, it is unity.
Dear brothers and sisters, do not make that mistake. That is the reason why God’s people are so divided—not only divided, but at odds with each other. We literally devour each other, kill each other.
Thank God, no one person can experience Christ fully—not even the apostle Paul. Yet we can share Christ together, and that will enrich all of us, the body, so that we arrive at the unity of the knowledge of the Son of God.
As you share Christ with me, you enrich me with Christ. As I share Christ with you, I enrich you with Christ. There is difference, but it is Christ. Through the sharing, we begin to come into the unity of the knowledge of the Son of God.
Brothers and sisters, we begin with the unity of the Spirit, and then we arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. You cannot reverse the order.
You know, the unfortunate thing is, when you meet a believer, probably your first question is, “Now, do you believe in the Lord Jesus?” Fine. That is a question you should ask.
But after you ask that question, do not ask any more questions. If the answer is yes, oh, we have the unity of the Spirit. We are one. We are brothers and sisters. We embrace each other. We love one another. We share with one another. How glorious that would be.
But unfortunately, we all like to ask more questions. We are not satisfied if a person says, “Thank God, I am the Lord’s.” We think that is not enough. We will ask, “What denomination?”
“What is your experience of the Holy Spirit? Have you spoken in tongues? What do you believe concerning rapture? Are you premillennial, postmillennial, or amillennial?”
“If your interpretation of the faith is different from mine, nothing doing. If your experience of Christ is different from mine, how can I be one with you, unless you yield?”
Brothers and sisters, can we be one? We will never be one. Not only will we never be one; we will never grow. The unity of the Spirit makes us babes in Christ, but the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God makes us full-grown men.
It is interesting to see that it is called “a full-grown man.” That man there is singular in number.
When we arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man, then we become full-grown men and women, according to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
When we are babes, we are tossed about by every wind of teaching, which is in the sleight of men, in unprincipled cunning, with a view to systematized error.
When we are babes in Christ, we can easily be carried about and tossed around. When a wind of teaching comes, it blows us in that direction; then another wind of teaching comes, and we are blown in the other direction. There you find God’s people today.
You find all kinds of winds of teaching blowing in many different directions, and they confuse God’s people. Suddenly, you find some are blown to the east; after a while, they are blown to the west; then to the south; then to the north. They do not know where they are, and God’s people are blown apart. They are babes in Christ.
But when we arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God as a full-grown man, then we will not be blown away.
We will hold the truth in love. In the original, the best translation is “truthing in love”—truthing in love. In other words, we not only believe in the truth, but we live the truth, and we live it in love.
You know, the problem today is that if God by His grace should reveal a truth to me, and that truth becomes so important to me, I try to squeeze it into the mouth of every man I meet. I force it into them.
My intention may be good, because I received so much blessing and I want my brothers and sisters to be blessed. But you must truly be truthing in love.
In other words, if the Lord has revealed a truth to you and it has meant so much to you, live it out. Do not try to force it upon other people. Do not talk too much about it. Sometimes you talk too much.
If you live it out in love—truthing in love—oh, brothers and sisters, what will be the result?
The result will be that we will all grow up into Him, to the Head. We will grow up. Not only will you grow up, but your brothers and sisters will grow up.
You know what the Lord wants? A full-grown man. Now, what is a full-grown man? A perfect man.
Suppose in my body my right arm grows perfectly, grows so big, and yet the other arm is so withered and so thin. Suppose I grow in the upper part of my body, but the lower part of my body is just so lean, so small. Is that not ugly?
Remember, dear brothers and sisters, God today is not after spiritual giants. The days of spiritual giants are over. This is the day of small things, small people.
God is not after spiritual giants—someone who knows God, someone who has the truth, someone who has a knowledge of the Son of God all by himself and never shares with any people. He is a spiritual giant.
Brothers and sisters, if that arm is so developed and so huge in a normal body, that arm is abnormal. God is not after that. God wants a body that is balanced, perfectly growing up. Because of this, how we need to share with one another.
If the Lord should give you something, share it in love. Do not set yourself up and try to criticize or even to force. But live it out and share it with your brothers and sisters.
We do not have time to touch upon this matter of how we can be developed from one faith to the faith, from the unity of the Spirit to the unity of the knowledge of the Son of God. You will find it is developed through diversity.
Diversity develops unity, and that is the mystery of God.
God gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some shepherds and teachers for the perfecting of the saints. When the saints are being perfected—that is, matured and equipped—then they will exercise and function in the body. The body will grow up and be built up in love.
So may God help us, that we may keep diligently the unity of the Spirit and move on into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God through ministry and through fellowship.
Shall we pray?
Our heavenly Father, we do look to Thy Holy Spirit to speak to every heart, to seal what has been said, and to give what has not been said.
We pray that Thou wilt lead us into the truth, that we may truly be one as Thou and the Father are one. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.