<p>17:23 <i>I in them and You in me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know You did send me and that You have loved them just as You loved me</i>- The unity envisaged was a process; the indwelling of the Father in the Son, and they in us, is by the Spirit (1 Jn. 4:13). But as noted earlier, we are progressively filled with the Spirit, it is not a one-time gift. And there is therefore this process of perfecting into one. It could be that once the believing community are truly filled with the Spirit and one with each other, that they will finally convince the Jewish world of the Father's love. John alludes here in later writing that love between believers is the sign of this perfecting process developing: &quot;If we love one another, God dwells in us &quot;I in them and you in me&quot;, and His love is perfected in us&quot; (1 Jn. 4:12). It is not God's love of itself must be perfected or matured; as we mature in love to each other, and thereby unity, His love is declared in an ongoing sense. The idea of our love being perfected and thereby the outcome of God's love being perfected is quite a theme (1 Jn. 2:5; 4:12,17,18).</p><p>We have suggested elsewhere that the great commission is repeated in John&rsquo;s Gospel but in more spiritual language. The whole world is to know the Gospel because of the unity of the believers (Jn. 17:18,21,23); and it follows that a situation will arise in which the extraordinary nature of true Christian solidarity over linguistic, ethnic, social and geographical lines will make a similar arresting, compelling witness as it did in the first century. The Lord had prophesied that His followers over time &ldquo;shall become one flock&rdquo; (Jn. 10:16 RV); they would be &ldquo;perfected into one, that the world may know&rdquo; (Jn. 17:23 RV). He surely hoped this would have become true in the first century. As the Gospel spreads world-wide in the last days, the unity of the believers will become all the more comprehensive, and this will of itself provoke yet more conversions. It could have been like this in the first century- for Eph. 3:9 speaks of how the unity of Jew and Gentile would &ldquo;make all men see&rdquo; the Gospel. This is the urgency of Paul&rsquo;s appeal for unity in Ephesians- he knew that their unity was the intended witness to the world which the Lord had spoken of as the means of the fulfilment of the great commission in Jn. 17:21-23. But sadly, Jew and Gentile went their separate ways in the early church, and the possibility of world-converting witness evaporated.</p><p>This almost uncanny sense of unity is referred to in Eph. 4:3 as &quot;<i>the</i> unity&quot;; although, as Paul shows, the <i>keeping</i> and experience of that unity is dependent upon our patience with each other and maintenance of &ldquo;the one faith&quot; (i.e. the unifying faith that gives rise to the one body). This unity is potentially powerful enough to convert the world. Through it, &quot;the world may know&quot;, &ldquo;the world may believe&quot; (Jn. 17:21,23). And yet, in Johannine thought, &quot;the world may know&quot; was a result of the Lord's death (Jn. 14:31), and yet also of the love that would be between His people (Jn. 13:35). The Lord's death would potentially inspire such a love between His people that their resultant unity would let the world know the love of the Father and Son. Paul alludes to all this when he says that because of the new unity and fellowship between Jew and Gentile, &quot;all men (would) see&rdquo;, and even to the great princes and powers of this world would be made known by the united church &quot;the manifold wisdom of God&quot; (Eph. 3:9-11). The miraculous Spirit gifts were given, Paul argues, to bring the Jewish and Gentile believers together, &ldquo;for the perfecting (uniting) of the saints&quot;, into &quot;a perfect man&quot;, a united body. And thus, once Jewish and Gentile differences were resolved within the ecclesia by the end of the first century, the gifts were withdrawn.&nbsp;</p><p>The Lord had prophesied that His followers over time &ldquo;shall become one flock&rdquo; (Jn. 10:16 RV); they would be &ldquo;perfected into one, that the world may know&rdquo; (Jn. 17:23 RV). He surely hoped this would have become true in the first century. And it could have been like this in the first century- for Eph. 3:9 speaks of how the unity of Jew and Gentile would &ldquo;make all men see&rdquo; the Gospel. This is the urgency of Paul&rsquo;s appeal for unity in Ephesians- he knew that their unity was the intended witness to the world which the Lord had spoken of as the means of the fulfilment of the great commission in Jn. 17:21-23. But sadly, Jew and Gentile went their separate ways in the early church, unity in the church broke up, and the possibility of world-converting witness evaporated. Seeing the great commission is to be powerfully obeyed in our last days, we simply <i>must </i>learn the lesson.&nbsp;</p>