This 5G series has focused on who we can become, together as “one” people. We ought to aspire to be a people overflowing with grace, rich in generosity and kindness… a people leverage our spiritual gifts to build one another up—showcasing the kaleidoscopic array of God’s love. Now the only reason we’d ever aspire to such great things has everything to do with “who” God is. God is gracious and generous. God gave gifts to men. We love because God first loved us. It’s to God’s own nature we most aspire. We most want to be like Father!
To this list, we add Groups. Long before 5G digital human “connectivity,” was even a thing—God wired us up with a connectivity of an even higher order. We are spiritually hardwired (and I would say exclusively hardwired) for connection with God and with one another! To understand why, we have to look at two immediately observable facts about God’s nature in the Bible:
First, we observe the Relational Nature of God. From paragraph one, the Bible paints a picture of a God who is relational—a plurality, a Trinity, a perfect Communion. In the Hebrew, the name for God “Elohim” is plural. For centuries Jewish scholars debated what to make of this —but in Christ an even crisper picture of God’s nature emerges.
Consider the collaborative, Trinitarian feat of creation. Genesis 1:1-3. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light.” Here we see God the Father, the Spirit of God hovering, and “Word” of God who proceeding to create all things.
The Gospel Writer John tells us the “Word” is Jesus. John 1:1-4 introduces Jesus this way: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and that life was the light of men."
When it comes to creation, God’s self-revelation is not that of a lonely deity using “I” or “Me”, but an eternally communal plurality… Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.” We see this same communal language in Genesis 3:22 God says, “'Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.'" And Genesis 11:7 when all humankind rebels against God, “'Come, let us go down there and confuse their language so that they will not understand one another’s speech.'" **Christians didn’t invent the notion of a communal God. The relational nature of God is core to his very nature and being!
Second, we observe the Relational Oneness of God. Yes. God is a Trinity, a Community. Yet just as clearly, the Bible proclaims the Shema, (Deuteronomy 6:4) “The Lord our God, the Lord is “ONE.” He is a relational unity, a perfect union (communion) within Himself—within the Godhead. And Jesus, isn’t some rogue bandit. He operates in flawless unity with the Father. When challenged about his identity Jesus says, John 10:30, “I and the Father are one.” John 14:9-10 Jesus tells Philip, “. . .The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, "Show us the Father"? Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak to you I do not speak on my own authority. The Father who lives in me does his works.'"
Why do these two “Divine” facts matter? Because they are foundational to two identical truths about human nature. First, our Human Nature is fundamentally Relational. Surprisingly, just as the Hebrew name “Elohim” implies plural reality, so also the Hebrew name “Adam.” An example is Genesis 5:2, “He created them male and female. When they were created, he blessed them and called them mankind [Adam].” Here Adam is a collective noun. So then, neither male alone nor female alone fully encompasses what it means to be human. Humankind requires “Ish” (man) and Ishah (woman) together. As it is with the Divine essence, so the Human essence. To be human is to be with other humans. Thus, the first negative declaration we find in Scripture has nothing to do with “sin” but rather the prospect of man trying to flourish alone. In Genesis 2:18 God declares, “It’s not good for man to be alone...”
So herein lay a second fact of Human Nature. We are fundamentally wired for Oneness. When God created Eve and brought her to man, they were to be a cooperative community. Thus, in Genesis 2:18 God says, “It’s not good for man to be alone… I will make a helper corresponding to him.” Adam’s very survival, longevity, prosperity would forever necessitate togetherness, oneness, community. Yes, this is true in a marital sense, but not exclusively to marriage. So, allow me to share a couple of examples.
First, there is Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17:20-26. On the eve of his death Jesus prays to the Father, “I pray. . . for those who believe in me through their word. May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you.” He’s talking there to the disciples, about the Church, not a married couple. God wired us up to be one just as the Father, Son, and Spirit are one! But this is where it gets really profound. Jesus continues, “May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me. . .”
God is not a closed Trinity, he is an infinitely open circle. He infinitely open so as to accommodate any and all who should believe on Jesus! Likewise, as God’s people, the Church, with our arms out be held as infinitely open as that of Christ, so as to receive all who believe. It’s when we’re one with God, and one with one another, arms held wide open to all who would believe—that we most reflect the reality of all who God is! So, we’re relational… were in communion as one with one another and with our God… but we’re not exclusively in closed communion. No, our eternal fellowship is open to all who would believe. This is Jesus’ vision for the church. Community, Communion, grouping together is core.
We might also look at Ephesians 5:21-33—here Paul takes the oldest human institution (marriage)—and shows how marriage in Genesis 2 is more profoundly, a picture of the Church’s identity. “…submitting to one another in the fear of Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, 23 because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. 28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 since we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32 This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.”
I’ve been blessed to be married to Lara, for over 30 years of marriage (and four more of courtship). But even more, we’ve been blessed that in our marriage, we’ve been profoundly shaped by God’s Word, and our love of one another, into the image of God. In marriage husband and wife enable profound spiritual flourishing. But what if you are single? What if you are widowed? What if you are alone? Paul’s message is simply—you’ve not been left behind. Because just as profoundly, and even more so, there is the Church of Christ. And in the church you can become flesh with your brothers and sister in Christ. And equally so, one with Father, Son, and Spirit. You can leave the world and cleave to the most loving, transformative open circle of relationships available this side of Christ’s coming return.
There have been times I’ve gone it alone in life. Do you know, you can be alone just as much inside a marriage as outside? You can also be just as alone in a church building as outside it. You can be just as alone inside a crowd as outside alone. I think the teaching of Scripture is that God would never ever, not in all eternity subject himself to aloneness—and so why should we? His declaration, “It’s not good for man to be alone” is an invitation not just to come inside, not just to get married, to join a small group, or a church… It’s an invitation to participate in the very nature and image of Divinity. It’s an invitation to participate in essence of human nature.
We derive no deeper sense of hell then when we allow ourselves to drift and be cut off from God and one another. I believe so much of depression and anxiety is a red flag warning us, it’s not good to be alone! But likewise, there is no deeper sense of heaven then when we enter into oneness, true communion, and participating in love, loving one another as we’ve been loved… leaving no one behind. Not allowing anyone to drift, disconnect—but opening our arms to say, “come home… be one with us and our God… let’s be members of one another… members of Christ… one with God and each other.” Grace. Generosity. Gifts. Groups… JOY!