To God Be Glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus

“ONENESS” is a word that is seldom used to describe relationships in the world around us, but it is the perfect word to describe relationships in the Body of Christ.  Having urged believers to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling” to which we have been called by God, Paul explained that we who believe, who are united to Christ by faith, in whom the Spirit of God is at work, are to be “imitators of God, as beloved children” (5:1).  And what better way to imitate God than to experience and express the “oneness” of the Spirit in our relationships with each other?!!  All the way back in Genesis 2:24, before Adam and Eve sinned, as God instituted marriage, He declared that the man and the woman would become “one flesh.”  They would share a “oneness” that would be a reflection of the perfect “oneness” within God Himself.  Much later Jesus prayed, “that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:23).  It is now this spiritual oneness that Paul speaks of in the relationship of marriage.  Paul’s words must be seen in the context of the greater picture of Christ and His Church or we will miss the lesson God is teaching about the Church and our relationship with Christ.  Pray that our Father in heaven will give us wisdom to understand our calling as the Body of Christ, as “beloved children,” so that in all our relationships we may “be imitators of God!”