The Two Shall Become One

 The Two Shall Become One

Mark 10:6-8 (NASB)

6  "But from the beginning of creation, God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE.

7  "FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER,

8  AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH; (Genesis 2:24) so they are no longer two, but one flesh.

Before I get started I want to tell you that while I am going to talk about marriage a fair amount today, this message is not about marriage.

Marriage is not the same as long-time friendship. Marriage, is something much deeper and more profound than any other human relationship. Although intimate physical contact creates and strengthens a bond that connects two people in a profound way, the intimacy of marriage extends far beyond that. This is the reason divorce is so wrenching and the death of a spouse so harrowing. Something extraordinary and deeply profound happens in a marriage. Marriage is a sort of merger of two people into one.

In the passage from Mark I just read, Jesus quoted Genesis 2:24. As we know, the Old Testament provides many pictures or models that are designed to show us greater spiritual truths. Sometimes these pictures aren’t immediately obvious. This is the case, for me at least, with the statement that “the two shall become one flesh.”

Recently I’ve been re-reading a book by Dan Stone and David Gregory entitled “The Rest of the Gospel.”          This reading has opened the door for the Spirit to reveal yet another wonderful aspect of God’s amazing grace and I want to share that with you this morning.

I’ve struggled to clearly articulate the depth of our union with Christ. I’ve said we are in Him and He is in us. I’ve talked about the idea that we are fused with Him at the level of our spirit; the core of our being, who we actually are. But these metaphors are inadequate, and hard for us to picture clearly.

The way to explain our union with Christ has been sitting right there in the opening chapters of Scripture all along; “The two shall become one.” On its face, this statement refers to the marital relationship, and it’s profound in that context. As is often the case with Scripture however, there is another reason that God pointed this principle out more than once. To paraphrase the Apostle Paul, this is a great mystery, but it is speaking of Christ and you. “The two shall become one” is a big statement when it is made regarding our relationship to the God of the universe. Nonetheless, God teaches it in His word in no uncertain terms.

Does “the two shall become one” mean that we are all God, or that we somehow become God? Absolutely not. That is heresy and foreign to the Christian faith. Let’s examine what it does mean.

Paul discusses the topic in several places, but a good starting point is Ephesians 5:28-32 (NASB-italics mine).

“So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.’ This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.”

The first thing I take from this passage is that, as a husband I am instructed to love my wife in the same way as, and to the same extent that, I love my own body. How do I love my own body? Here’s one example.

I sometimes joke that I was built for comfort, not for speed. I like comfort. I don’t like pain, or even discomfort. My love for Joan, I am told, should be like this. I want to be comfortable and happy. I want Joan to have and do whatever results in her being comfortable and happy too. I realize that this is an oversimplification and maybe it’s a rather shallow example, but I think it makes my point.

Next comes a statement that I’ve generally just glossed right over in the past. We tend to do that with things we don’t understand or those that seem inconsequential. Paul says that “He who loves his own wife loves himself.” Then, so that we are sure not to miss his point, like I did for so long, he tells us the reason he made the statement. “Because no one ever hated his own flesh.”

Here’s how I’d rephrase Paul’s statement to better articulate what he said. “When a man loves his wife, he is actually loving himself because he and she are one.” So, in a very real sense, the husband who nurtures and cherishes his wife is nourishing and cherishing himself.

This is an important concept because the next thing the Holy Spirit, speaking to us through Paul, says is that such a husband loves, nourishes, and cherishes himself and his wife in exactly the same way as Christ does the Church—that’s us. The reason Jesus loves, nourishes, and cherishes us is because we are members of His body. To underscore this, the passage goes on to quote Genesis 2:24, the same passage we read that Jesus quoted in Mark 10.

Just in case we still didn’t get it, Paul clarifies himself by writing that “This mystery is great; but I am talking about Christ and the Church.”

In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul more graphically articulates this concept. Beginning with the fifteenth verse of chapter six, we read, “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, "THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH." But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” 1 Corinthians 6:15-17 (NASB)

There it is! This is the main point of everything I have to say today.

The model, being presented in Genesis 2:24 is designed to help us understand our union with Christ under the new covenant. “The one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” Think about that. Let it sink in a while. Father is telling you that you and He are one spirit. Just as in marriage, you and He remain individual persons, yet you are also profoundly one.

You and your spouse are two individuals, you nurture and cherish one another. Neither of you is absorbed into the other, but you act as a unit, you make decisions together, you are unified in your plans and goals; You are one flesh.

So it is with God Himself. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are separate persons, yet they are one God. Jesus said that He and the Father are one. He said that he did nothing except what He heard from the Father. He also said that the Holy Spirit would take from what is His and disclose it to us and that the Spirit would not speak on His own initiative, but would speak only whatever He hears. (See John 16:5ff)

You and God are separate persons, yet you and He are one spirit. The relationship you have with God is similar to marriage, and it’s similar to the relationship we see within the Trinity. You aren’t God, and you never will be. Even so, He lives within you and you are in Him. You are joined to Him and therefor, according to Scripture, you are one spirit with Him.

Colossians 3:3 (NASB) says, “…you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Anyone who has been married for a long time can identify with this. After decades of marriage, the life of one spouse is wrapped up in the life of the other very deeply. It is accurate to say that my life is hidden in Joan, and her life is hidden in me. Without even trying, we change one another over time. (And as a side note, when we try to change one another it invariably ends badly, just as trying to make ourselves righteous and holy invariably ends badly.). As we mature, we become more of one mind, we begin to think the same way. Each of us continues to be an individual, yet we function more and more as a unit. So it is with us and God.

In Galatians 2:20 (NASB) we read, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” This passage presents us with an apparent paradox in the assertion that we no longer live, and yet we do live.

Sometimes we hear comments like, “All of Him and none of me.” At first glance, that sounds spiritual and seems like it might be what Galatians 2:20 is teaching, but it’s not the truth. Paul says it is no longer we who live, but Christ lives in us. That’s important to understand because we have been born of the Spirit and now the Holy Spirit lives in us. We also know that our old self, our sinful Adamic nature, was crucified with Christ. However, Paul doesn’t stop with his statement that we no longer live and Christ lives in us.

He goes on to say that the life we now live in the flesh—that’s our temporal carnal life here on planet Earth—we live by faith in Jesus. We don’t cease to exist, yet His life is in us. We lose our life and get His. Our sinful nature is crucified, dead, and buried, and we are raised to new life, His life, and begin to participate in the divine nature. So a better statement would be “All of Him and all of me.”

In Second Corinthians chapter four, Paul says that we have this treasure in jars of clay. He’s referring to our fleshly bodies, which are made of dust. Later in the chapter he says, “…we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”—2 Corinthians 4:11 (NASB)

This is our purpose. This is the reason why it’s so important to understand that we are one spirit with God. It’s the reason why God gave us marriage and set up the reproductive process to work the way it does. In much the same way as the husband provides the seed and the wife manifests the child, God’s seed (the Holy Spirit) is within us, and we manifest the fruit of that life—love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

In chapter twelve of his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul uses spiritual gifts as an example. In the midst of his discussion he says, “to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” –1 Corinthians 12:7 (NASB) We are designed to manifest Christ. The Holy Spirit in us is the life of Christ in us. Our job is simply to manifest it and bear His fruit. Women don’t manifest children by working at it. It happens in the course of time as the natural result of the seed having been implanted. In the same way, we don’t manifest the fruit of the Spirit by working at it. It happens in the course of time as the natural result of the seed having been implanted in us. Just as pregnant moms desire to be careful to nurture the life they carry, so we desire to be careful to nurture the life of the Spirit. ,

God made you with your exact personality; with all your unique strengths and weaknesses, proclivities and aptitudes. Everything God made into you is His gift. Ephesians 2 tells us that we are His workmanship. The Greek word translated workmanship is “poema”, from which we get the word poem. Some translations render it “masterpiece.” He crafted each one of us individually and uniquely.

First Corinthians 12 goes on to say, “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills. For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.” A little farther down he says, “Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it.”

We are unified with Christ. One spirit with Him. The way this works in practical terms is simply that we live our daily lives and be ourselves, and the Life of Jesus is manifested through us. This is what I’m driving at when I talk about resting in the finished work of Christ. Because the Spirit of God is within us, we are left with nothing to prove—nothing to do to become acceptable. He has done everything needed and He continues to live His life and do whatever pleases Him. The great blessing is that now we get to participate in that by manifesting His life in the world.

Hearing this might make us nervous that we’ll mess it up. How can we properly manifest the life of God? We don’t have to worry. That would be like your dog worrying that he is going to hamper your ability to succeed in life.

We have a very big God. He is able to use all things in His plan. We are not big enough to mess things up for Him. He causes all things to work together for good. It is He who works in us both to will and to do according to His good pleasure.

By making us one spirit with Himself and allowing us to participate in the divine nature, Father graciously allows us to participate in what He’s doing. We get to help Him work His plan.

When we walk according to the Spirit, we are trusting that His life is in us. We’re trusting that He is working out His plan. Then, His life is manifested and we get the pleasure of knowing we are sharing in His work.

When we walk according to the flesh, we’re acting on our own. We’re acting like we don’t have the Life of Christ in us. Even then, however, we do not thwart God’s plans. Instead, we miss out on the blessing of sharing in God’s work.

We don’t need to ask to be closer to God. We are one spirit with Him, and we can’t get any closer. Our flesh may sometimes feel distant from Him, but that isn’t true. We can safely trust that when He says, “the two shall become one”, that we are “one spirit with Him”, and that we “participate in the divine nature”, it’s absolutely true.

God is working out His plan for humanity and we get to participate in what He’s doing. Relax and be yourself. You are one spirit with God and His Spirit within you will guide you into all truth.