We would like to use John 17 as the basis for our consideration.
At the beginning, I would like all of us to read this chapter. We thank the Lord that the Chinese translation is the same, so that we can read it together. If you use the English Bible, then just follow along.
Let us read it rather slowly. The purpose is for the Word of God to be carved into our hearts, sentence by sentence.
Let us read from John 17:1.
Our Lord, we have read Your Word. Now we ask Your Holy Spirit to interpret these words and bring them into our hearts, so that Your Word in us may become spirit and life, and so that You may be glorified.
Hearken to our prayer, in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.
The night before our Lord was betrayed, He and His disciples gathered in the upper room for the last Passover.
At that time, our Lord rose up. Because He loved those who belonged to Him, He loved them to the end. He rose up, took off His garment, girded Himself with a towel, poured water into a basin, and washed the feet of His disciples.
After He washed their feet, He told them why He did this. He wanted His disciples to love one another.
That night, He spoke many final words to His disciples. On one hand, He told them that He was going back to the Father. But on the other hand, He did not forsake them, because He was going to send the Holy Spirit to be their Comforter.
He also gave His own name to His disciples. As they prayed in His name, the Father would answer.
Although they would be persecuted on earth because they did not belong to this world, just as our Lord did not belong to this world, the Lord told them that He had overcome the world.
The Lord also told them that He is the vine and His disciples are the branches. He and His disciples are one. It was not the disciples who chose Him, but He chose His disciples and sent them forth to bear fruit, so that God might be glorified.
After He had spoken with them, He raised His eyes toward heaven and prayed. This was the last prayer our Lord prayed on earth, if we exclude His prayer on the cross.
He prayed for those disciples who had been with Him—not only for those eleven disciples, but also for those who would believe in Him through the word of His disciples. In other words, He was praying for the church.
He was praying for those throughout the generations who have accepted and believed in His name. He poured out the desire that was in the depth of His heart before the heavenly Father.
He desired that all the disciples who believed in Him might be one. We call this the prayer of our Lord as the High Priest. He carried all of us who believe in Him on His shoulders and in His heart. He brought all of us before the Father.
He asked the Father that those who belong to Him might be one, even as He and the Father are one.
In this prayer of the High Priest, the central burden is that we may be one, even as the Son and the Father are one.
He poured out His heart because He knew that, for God, for Him, and for us, this is the most important thing. This is the most important and most glorious matter.
He knew that this was the matter which the adversary, the enemy, would attack and hate. Therefore, concerning this matter, He especially offered prayer before God.
Do you remember that night when He showed His disciples that He was to be struck as the Shepherd and that the sheep would be scattered? Simon Peter said, “I will not desert You. I am willing to die with You.”
Our Lord told him, “Satan desires to sift you, but I have prayed for you. When you turn again, strengthen your brothers.”
Peter was still in the flesh, and in his flesh he desired to love his Lord. But our Lord foreknew this, and He had already prayed for Peter.
Because of our Lord’s prayer, although Peter was attacked by the enemy, what was sifted away was only that which should have been sifted away. What remained was the real thing.
The same principle applies to us, brothers and sisters. Our Lord knows that this matter of unity is the most precious thing in the heart of God. It is the matter that glorifies God most. But it is also the matter that Satan wants to attack.
Our Lord knows that among His children, because we still have this fallen part, His own church will be sifted many times. But we thank and praise our Lord: He has already prayed for us.
Those that are sifted away are simply those that should be sifted away. But what remains is the real thing that can glorify God.
Our Lord prayed for His church. This prayer not only expresses His heart; our Lord knows that whenever He prays, the heavenly Father answers.
Remember John 11. When our Lord came before the tomb of Lazarus, He asked the people to remove the stone. Then He raised His eyes toward heaven and prayed to the Father:
Father, I thank Thee that Thou heardest Me.
And I knew that Thou hearest Me always.
He prayed this for the sake of those standing by, so that God might be glorified. Then Lazarus came out from the tomb.
So, brothers and sisters, the prayer of our Lord is always answered by the Father.
Therefore, when we consider the prayer in John 17, perhaps in our thoughts we may say that this prayer which our Lord offered two thousand years ago has not yet been answered by the Father. Brothers and sisters, do not merely look around. We have to look at our Lord.
This prayer, the Father answers. Our Lord had faith that the Father had already heard His prayer.
So today we have to stand on the side of our Lord. We have to believe that the prayer our Lord offered for the unity of the church has already been heard by the heavenly Father.
We have to stand in this answer by the grace of God. This prayer of our Lord excludes none who belong to Him.
Because we know that the church is the body of Christ, all of us who have believed in Him are members of His body. Can you imagine that the body of Christ is divided?
We can believe that all the members of His body are fitted together properly. Therefore, we should stand in the face of our Lord, not being influenced by the environment or the circumstances around us.
So the first thing I ask of you, brothers and sisters, is this: you have to forget what you have seen. You have to forget what your ears have heard. You have to forget all the experiences you have had in the past of division.
You have to focus yourself before the Lord. You have to focus yourself in the prayer of the Lord. You have to focus yourself and believe that the prayer of the Lord has been answered by the Father.
Then you will see how you can become a member of this answer to the prayer.
Talking about the unity of the faith, we have to start from the source.
The difficulty today is that we look upon the unity of the faith, not from the origin. When we talk about the oneness of the faith, we immediately think, “How can you be one with me? How can I be one with you? How can you collectively be one with us? How can we be in unity with them?”
Therefore, we try to use various means to bring about this unity. But we know that over two thousand years, men have tried many times, and men have failed every time.
Why? Because when the saints came together to talk about unity, they had not started from the origin.
So this morning, we have to go back to the origin. We want to speak about the unity in the Godhead.
Keep them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, even as We are.
—John 17:11
Here you see that the oneness the Lord desires is the same as the oneness in the Godhead. Whatever is not like the oneness in the Godhead is not true oneness.
I hope, brothers and sisters, that you will plant this word deeply in your hearts: “That they may be one, even as We are one.”
The true oneness among the saints is like the oneness in the Godhead. Therefore, this morning we would like to consider the oneness in the Godhead.
Brothers and sisters, we are not talking about merely a little doctrine. This is a truth that we have to see.
We know that our God is the Triune God. Although He is three, He is actually one. Although He is one, He is three. This is a mystery.
No one can fully explain or interpret this mystery. Although in the church men have used various means to try to interpret or explain the mystery of the Godhead, no matter how they try, they cannot explain it clearly.
This is a mystery. It is something that God has revealed to us, and it is something we can only accept by faith.
There is only one God. In Deuteronomy 6:4 we read:
Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord.
We know that God is unique. There is only one God. That is why, in Exodus 20:3, one of the Ten Commandments says:
Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
In 1 Corinthians 8:4-6, Paul says that although in the world there are many gods and many lords, we know that there is only one God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and we unto Him.
In 1 Timothy 2:5, it says that there is only one God, and between God and men there is only one Mediator, the man Christ Jesus, Who gave Himself a ransom for all.
Brothers and sisters, when we read the Bible, we know that God has revealed Himself to us. What we know about God today has been revealed by God to us. If God had not revealed Himself to us, we would not be able to know Him at all.
But we thank God that He has revealed Himself to us. In His revelation, He has told us that there is only one God. This is our faith.
Yet this is a wonderful thing: in the Word of God, He has also revealed that, although there is only one God, within this one God there are three Persons. This is not contradictory; it is complementary.
For example, if we open Genesis 1, we read, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The word translated “God” in Hebrew is Elohim, and it is plural in form.
Even in His name we are told that, although He is the one supreme God, there is plurality in Him; He is not merely singular.
If we read the first three verses of Genesis, we see God, the Spirit of God hovering over the waters, and the Word of God: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
When God spoke, that was the Word of God. It is the same Word used in John 1:1:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
In the first three verses of Genesis, you see God, the Spirit, and the Word. At least three are revealed, yet they are one.
When we come to Genesis 1:26, when God wanted to create man, God said:
Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.
When He said, “Let Us,” it indicates more than one Person.
In Genesis 3, after man fell, God said that man had become as one of Us, knowing good and evil. Again we see that in the Godhead there is not only one Person.
In Psalm 110:1, we read:
The Lord saith unto my Lord,
Sit Thou at My right hand,
Until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.
Again we see that there is not only one Person. In Isaiah 6:8, the Lord says:
Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?
There we see again the plural expression.
When we come to the New Testament, we read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word was with God, meaning there are two; and then it says that the Word was God. Although there were two, they were also one.
In Matthew 3, when our Lord was baptized in the River Jordan and rose up from the water, heaven was opened. A voice from heaven said:
This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.
The Holy Spirit descended upon our Lord Jesus from heaven. Thus, we see our Lord on earth, the heavenly Father speaking from heaven, and the Holy Spirit descending upon our Lord.
In John 10:30, our Lord said:
I and the Father are one.
In John 14:9, He said:
He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.
This is because He is in the Father and the Father is in Him.
Then He went on to mention the Holy Spirit. In John 14:16-17, He said:
I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth.
Ye know Him; for He abideth with you, and shall be in you.
Now we know Who had been with them all the time: it was our Lord Jesus. But when He spoke of the Holy Spirit, He said, “He abideth with you, and shall be in you.” This shows that He and the Holy Spirit are one.
In Matthew 28, our Lord commanded His disciples to go to the nations and make disciples, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Here again we see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: three Persons, yet one.
In 2 Corinthians 13:14, Paul blessed the Corinthians:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
In Revelation 1, we see the Father, the seven Spirits before His throne, and the Lord Jesus, the firstborn of the dead. Here again we see three.
We also see the living creatures surrounding the throne and giving praise:
Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, Who was and Who is and Who is to come.
The threefold “holy” speaks again of the three Persons in one Godhead.
Brothers and sisters, in the Word of God, He has revealed to us what He desires to reveal. He has told us that He is one God, and He has also shown us that in the Godhead there are three Persons. The three Persons are completely one; therefore, God is one.
This is what the Bible has revealed to us. However much we try to explain it, we are not able to fully explain it.
Deuteronomy 29:29 says:
The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Brothers and sisters, there are many other mysteries in the Godhead that we cannot even attempt to know. But whatever He has revealed to us, we have to obey.
Therefore, although the word “Trinity” does not appear in the Bible, the fact of the Trinity—the three Persons in one God—can be seen from the beginning to the end of the Bible.
This Triune God is our faith. Because this is what He has revealed to us, we believe.
Now we want to see what kind of unity exists in the Godhead. Only when we see this unity can we know what unity should be among the saints.
The unity in the Godhead is wholly a unity within. We may use the expression “in-ness.” The unity in the Godhead is a unity of mutual indwelling.
In John 17:21, the Lord said:
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.
Here we see that the Lord says, “Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee.” This unity is a unity inside, a unity within.
This is not something external, where we simply gather together and talk about unity. We may come to a compromise and say that we agree, but this external oneness is easily broken because it is not true unity.
The unity in the Godhead is unity within. This “in-ness” is something that does not exist in the world. When we see two people who are very close, we can only say they stand side by side. We cannot say, “He is in me, and I am in him.”
This concept is not in this world; the world does not understand what it is. But we thank and praise our Lord: our God is Spirit, and His unity is wholly within.
In John 14:11, our Lord said:
Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.
There is a difference in the order of the wording between John 14:11 and John 17:21, but in both cases the two Persons are active. The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father. Nothing is forced upon Them.
The two of Them voluntarily and actively are in each other. In the Son, you see the Father; in the Father, you see the Son. They are wholly one within. They are wholly one in the Spirit.
Therefore, this unity cannot be broken. This is the unity in the Godhead.
The unity in the Godhead is unity in essence. In essence, They are the same.
In John 17, the Lord said:
All things that are Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine.
In other words, the essence of the Father and the essence of the Son are exactly the same.
We remember Colossians 1:19:
For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell.
Whatever is in the Father is in the Son, because the mystery of God is Christ. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Him. The fullness of God dwells in Christ bodily.
Therefore, between the Father and the Son, They are exactly the same in essence. It is not that the Father has more and the Son has less.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are totally equal. There is no higher and no lower, no ahead and no behind. In the Godhead, because They are all the same in essence, They are totally equal.
In the Godhead, the essence is one, but the functions are three. This is the second characteristic of the unity in the Godhead. Today our unity has to correspond to this unity.
The unity in the Godhead is the unity of the fellowship of life. Our God is Spirit, and He is life. God is the origin and source of life.
Psalm 36:9 says:
For with Thee is the fountain of life:
In Thy light shall we see light.
Our Lord is the resurrection and the life. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of life. Therefore, we see that the unity in the Godhead is the unity of the flow and fellowship of life.
What does fellowship mean? The word “fellowship” in the original Greek speaks of common sharing: equality, oneness, and the sharing of the same nature.
This is the fellowship in the Godhead. Therefore, this fellowship is a total and complete fellowship.
The unity in the Godhead is oneness in purpose. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all one in purpose. The purpose of the Father is the purpose of the Son and the purpose of the Holy Spirit. They have no disagreement; They are totally in one accord.
What is the purpose of the Father? In the letter to the Ephesians, we are told that God purposed in Himself from eternity that all things in heaven and on earth should be summed up in His Son, Jesus Christ.
He desires His Son to have supremacy in all things. Because He loves His Son, He desires to give His Son a bride, a helper suitable for Him—one who can enjoy with Him and also be responsible with Him.
This is the will of God. When we read the Bible, there is one purpose, one will of God, that is singular. Today we speak about purposes, as though there were many different purposes, but in the Bible there is one supreme purpose that governs everything: the will of God.
That will is that God desires His Son to have supremacy in all things, that all things in heaven and on earth may be summed up in Him, and that His Son may have a bride.
That is the eternal will of God. When God has this will, the Son says, “Amen.” The Son is willing to fulfill the will of the Father. The Holy Spirit says, “Amen,” and He works to fulfill this will.
Therefore, we see that in the will of God, the unity of the Godhead is complete.
Lastly, the unity of the Godhead is unity in work. Since God has His will, in order to achieve that purpose, God begins to work.
Brothers and sisters, here we begin to see order. Originally, in eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were totally equal. There is no forward or backward, no higher or lower, because in essence They are the same.
But in order to accomplish the work of God, we see that the Son of God voluntarily lowered Himself. He was willing for the Father to be His Head.
Therefore, especially in John’s Gospel, we read:
My Father worketh even until now, and I work.
—John 5:17
Throughout His life, our Lord showed that He was sent. The one who is sent is lower than the one who sends him, in terms of the work.
The Bible tells us that, although He was equal with God, He emptied Himself. He was willing to lower Himself. He took the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Our Lord said:
Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not,
But a body didst Thou prepare for Me;
Lo, I am come to do Thy will.
He always stood in a position of lowliness. Therefore, in 1 Corinthians 11:3, we are told that God is the head of Christ.
This refers to unity in work. In the unity of work, there is order. There is oneness in their different functions.
The Holy Spirit is the same. The Holy Spirit was sent to this earth by the Father and the Son. He does not speak from Himself; He proclaims to us what He hears. He comes to glorify the Lord Jesus. He never mentions Himself.
In the work, Their functions are different, but They do different things together. They do not argue over who should be first and who should be second. They do not argue that this is not equal.
They work together according to the spiritual order, willingly fulfilling the will of God. This is the unity in the Godhead.
Brothers and sisters, I have just mentioned several points. If we summarize these things together, what kind of unity is the unity in the Godhead?
First, the unity in the Godhead is truth, and this truth is our faith. Although we can know only a little, because He has revealed only a little to us, whatever He has revealed to us is truth. That truth becomes our faith.
Second, the unity in the Godhead is the principle, the basis, and our reference. If we want to achieve the unity of the faith, it has to be according to the principle of the unity in the Godhead.
Third, the unity of the Godhead is glory. This is the glory of God, and it is our worship.
We see those who are before the Lord, the four living creatures, worshiping God day and night. They say:
Holy, holy, holy,
Is the Lord God, the Almighty.
They have seen the glory of the Godhead, and therefore they worship. May we also see the glory of God. The glory of God is expressed in His unity, and this is so glorious. We can only respond in worship.
O God, You are the glorious mystery. We could never see You through completely. We thank You and praise You because You have so loved us that You have revealed a little of Yourself to us.
You know how little we can receive. Lord, we pray that whatever You have revealed to us, we may receive, so that we do not lose Your truth, fail to understand Your principle, or fail to see Your glory.
Lord, we ask that You will cover these incomplete and weak words. May Your Holy Spirit come and reveal these things to us, so that from the depth of our hearts we may see the glory of Your Godhead and be drawn to You.
Listen to our prayer, in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.