I wish to read three scriptures, one from Jesus and two from Paul. I want you to pay particular attention to the words “wisdom,” “perfect,” “glory,” “hidden” and “mystery.”
Paul says:
1 Corinthians 2:4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. 6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
It is only those who are “perfect” that can comprehend God’s “wisdom” which is a “hidden” “mystery” and for our “glory.”
Now the words of Jesus:
John 17:11-21 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. … That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
Then Paul again:
Colossians 1:26 Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: 27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: 28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: 29 Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
“Before the world” “God ordained” “unto our glory” “a mystery” which (in the letter to the Corinthians) Paul refers to as “the wisdom of God. . . even the hidden wisdom.” He is very careful to make sure we understand that it is not “the wisdom of men” that “comes to nought.”
In John 17, in what is referred to as the “high priestly prayer” of Jesus for us just before He was crucified, He says that He has given us His “glory” (that God ordained we should receive before the world) for a specific reason—so that we would know that we are one with Him as He is one with the Father: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us:”
And when we walk in this knowledge of our being one with God and with one another, we are “made perfect in one”—and that also for a specific reason: that the WORLD may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Note that this is the key to effective “evangelism”—not telling people that they must repent of their sins and accept God’s sacrifice of His Son, but rather walking in the revelation of being one with God and with each other, presenting to them a God who loves them and who “is not ashamed to call them brothers” because He is one with them:
Hebrews 2:11 For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren
Paul tells us that he “speaks wisdom” (that “hidden” wisdom of God which is a “mystery”) “among them that are PERFECT” while to the others he just demonstrates God’s power. Until they recognize and understand that they are one with God and with one another, they are incapable of comprehending what Paul, in the letter to the Colossians, identifies as the “mystery which hath been hid from ages and generations, but now is made manifest” “which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” We cannot comprehend our being one with God and with one another if we cannot see that Christ is in every man, and that is his “hope of glory”—the “glory” God “ordained” “before the world,” the “glory” Jesus said He had already given us that we might be “made PERFECT in one.” Paul confirms this when he revealed this “hidden mystery” and said that he taught it for this same reason: “that we may present every man PERFECT in Christ Jesus.”
Most biblical scholars translate the word “perfect” to mean “mature.” From both Jesus and Paul’s use of the term, it seems abundantly clear that there is no maturing or “growing up into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15) aside from coming into the knowledge of our being one with God and with one another (see From the Beginning, Assuring our Hearts before Him and Putting On Immortality), aside from our knowing that there is but one Spirit and one body, and that we are all individual members of that body, of whom Christ is the head:
(Colossians 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
Ephesians 4:4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
Romans 12:5 So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.
1Corinthians 12:12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. 13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. 14 For the body is not one member, but many.
1Corinthians 12:18 But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. 19 And if they were all one member, where were the body? 20 But now are they many members, yet but one body.)
We see in chapter 1 of Genesis and also in Ecclesiastes that man was created in God’s image, perfect and upright
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness
Ecclesiastes 7:29 Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.
Man’s first thought of himself as a separate being from God with a life of his own to protect and preserve was the thought (the “carnal mind” which is “death”) that “alienated” him “in his mind” (Colossians 1:21). And from that carnal mind came all the “inventions” that make up the visible universe of “matter” (not the universe created by God which is “very good”) wherein we experience all the “evil” coming from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which resulted in the belief in two powers (see Belief in Two Powers)—God (who is good and only good) and a power of evil opposed to God.
To be “made perfect in one” is to allow Jesus’ prayer in John 17 to be answered in our individual lives, to awaken to the realization that we are begotten of God, are one with Him and can never be separated from Him except in the carnal mind of man. We have to understand that we do indeed have the “mind of Christ” (1Corinthians 2:16), the mind that “thinks it not robbery to be equal with God” (Philippians 2:6), the mind that knows that “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), the mind that makes his human self “of no reputation” (Philippians 2:7)—the mind that distinguishes between the humanity (flesh; old man) and the “new creature”—the Spirit being that he is in reality, the being that is one with the Father and the Son—for he is the son (God in visible expression).
This was the goal of Jesus and of Paul: “to present every man PERFECT in Christ Jesus” (Colossians 1:28). God descended into “this world” of our own making and took that humanity to the death of the cross, thereby bringing to light that “hidden mystery” which Paul preached: this “gospel” of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Paul himself articulated this understanding better than anyone:
Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Paul has “spoken this truth in love” that we might “grow up into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15)—the truth that Christ is the life of every man because Christ is the only life that there is:
John 14:6 . . . I am the way, the truth, and the life
Colossians 3:4 . . . Christ. . . is our life . . .
Walking in this revelation of our being one with this Christ and with one another is what brings us into the maturity that both Jesus and Paul refers to as “perfect,” the maturity that enables us to fulfill the whole of scripture—to love God and one another (Matthew 22:40)—because we understand that we are all one.