Building up believers and the New Testament church

They Two Shall Be One

There is only one way Christ can bring us up into oneness with Himself as the only begotten Son, and that is as we submit to Him--truly submit out of understanding in our walk in His life. In God's plan, submission has a wonderful end result. Submitting to God's order of authority allows the fullness of the one we submit to to be ours, and we never have to be afraid of losing or receiving anything other than what God's plan and purpose calls for.

The Scriptures admonish us to submit ourselves one to another out of reverence for God. Being in a place of submission enables the body of Christ to partake of Christ's righteousness, because to submit means to see Christ, and then with the ability He gives, to allow all things to be done by Him and for His highest purpose, with no selfish end purpose in view. It is to give ourselves completely to His will, not because we have to but because we want to, asking nothing in return. It is choosing to put our wills into His purpose, by doing His will in the timing of the Holy Spirit with only one motive--love.

When we submit, we cause the one we submit to to work in the love relationship to bring us into oneness in that relationship. By submitting, we have become as the same body of that person, and as the scripture tells us, "no man has yet hated his own flesh." By submitting to Christ, we have become His body. Thus, Christ gave Himself for the church because it was a part of Him and He loved it. Christ nourishes and cherishes the church, and Christ and the church are one.

Paul likens this great mystery to the relationship of a man and his wife. He states in Ephesians 5:31,32, "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church."

"Husbands, love your wives," he says in verses 25-30, "even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones."