They Two Shall Be One

The Way to God's Highest Purpose

We know that the order of God's creation has meaning only in this life. But doing God's will causes us to abide forever. 1 John 2:17 says, "And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever."

There will always be an order for the expression of God's glory. Only submission to God's order now can bring us to God's order then. For male and female to be one, the wife must submit to the husband as her head. If any of us submits to any other person, our glory is the glory of that person, whether it is what God has designed or not. When the wife submits to her husband as unto the Lord, the same glory of the man, which is Christ, becomes hers. Thus we see man being brought from the place he has fallen, which is "short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), to a place of glory in Christ.

Trying to submit in our own power cannot give expression to His oneness. There must first be a complete denial of self. The cross must have done its work. If either husband or wife has not allowed the cross to do its work of death to self, the submitting of one to the other has no meaning. Only after the work of the cross can there be a giving and receiving of love, as expressed by God to us when He sent His Son.

Man was made to be loved of God, and to love God. Thus, when God created male and female in His own image, He made them with the ability to receive His love as well as to give love. For anyone to love without that love being received by another cannot bring glory to the one who loves. The Scripture reveals that we didn't love God first; He first loved us and gave Himself for us. Man could not know God in his sinful state; sin had made man incapable of receiving God's love or of loving God. To be able to receive expressions of love from God and to love others as God loves us, man had to be born again and receive God's life.

God has designed the husband and wife to express a part of His great drama, in the life of God. The husband, in submitting to Christ, has the power now to give. Likewise woman, in submitting to her head, is able to receive. In its simplest form, this was the intention of God's creation. He has also made the same principle applicable in the church. The principle is one of receiving and giving, and "You shall know them by their fruits." God's love-authority is the same wherever it is working, bringing us up into His highest purpose.