Our Oneness in Christ

 

“…and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 1: 19-20 ESV

What is the immeasurable greatness of the Father’s power? And why is the Father turning that power toward us who believe in Christ Jesus?" These are the questions we must ponder from the above verse. The answer to the first question is that God is a loving Father. His greatness stems from His ability to create not only the earth but everything in it. The book of Genesis tells us that there is power in the Word of God to create, and the Gospel of John teaches us that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became embodied and lived among us. We cannot even begin to fathom what God can do or create, but we can be confident that at the heart of everything He does is love.

The greatness of the Father is immeasurable, and it stems from His boundless love for us. His intention was never to create us out of an egocentric or narcissistic fascination with seeing Himself in creation. If that were God's goal, we would have been presented with a prideful image of God as the supreme ruler, and we would have been expected to bow down to this image out of fear, rather than love. However, that is not what God wanted. Instead, He desired participants, family, and friends who would come to Him out of love, mercy, and grace, to experience the fullness of His love. As Psalm 103:8-10 ESV states, "The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us." That is a loving God.

In my previous post, I talked about God's immense love and affection for us. God desires to unite with us, just like a husband and wife relationship, except without the sexual aspect. His ultimate goal has always been to achieve this oneness with humankind. When God approached Adam in Genesis 2, His council stated that it was not good for man to be alone. So, God created animals of every kind and had them pass before Adam so that he could name them. However, none of them proved to be a suitable match for Adam among the animal kingdom. Therefore, God took one of Adam's sides and created a new being out of it. Adam declared that this new created being is "bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh," and she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Even from the beginning of time, there were indications of Christ and the Church becoming evident in how God would make a way to unite with His creation. However, to achieve this properly without violating the boundaries of the human and the divine or interfering with man's free will, God had to become a human being Himself.

God chose to become embodied in the form of a Son, who was naturally and spiritually born into this world to a lowly girl named Mary. She was recently betrothed to a young man named Joseph, and they were considered working-class peasants, not royalty. It was the greatest honor in the world for Mary to give birth to God's son. According to 1 John 4:9-10 ESV, "In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." Jesus became the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins, so that we could be restored to right relationship with God, as it was in the beginning.

God made an immeasurable sacrifice by showing His greatness through the embodiment of Jesus. It wasn't only Jesus' birth that was truly amazing, but also His death and resurrection that declared the greatest statement of God's love to the world. Jesus has the power over hell and death, which is a testament to God’s power. The above verse says that Jesus is now seated next to the Father at His  right hand in the heavenlies. There has never been anything like it displayed on earth since creation itself. It is through this demonstration showing mankind through God’s mercy that He is once again reaching out to humanity through Jesus to restore oneness with Him.

We are all called to unite with God through Christ, our Bridegroom, who gave everything to us through His sacrificial love. It's not salvation that Jesus died to bring us, but something much greater, He died to become our salvation. In Christ, we possess everything mentioned in this post and so much more. Christ's power is revealed to us continuously, and our inheritance in Him and through the Saints is boundless. Let us embrace this invitation and experience the fullness of God's love for us and everyone, for there is much more to come.

Stephen Barnett