Reimar A.C. Schultze

Past Issues of the Call To Obedience

"The Mystery of Oneness"

by Pastor Reimar A. C. Schultze

 It took the Church 300 years to come up with a universally acceptable doctrine of the Trinity.  But the evidence of plurality within the oneness of God is strongly suggested in the first chapter of the Bible where God says, “ Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness.” Genesis 1:26

     So then, what does this ‘us’ and ‘our’ mean?  It means that if you bear the image of God the Father then you bear the image of God the Son, and if you bear the image of God the Holy Spirit you bear the image of the Father and the Son. The image, the likeness of the one is the same as the likeness of the others.  Therefore God, being in three persons, is of one substance, and all three members are equal in glory, majesty, and are co-eternal. Therefore Genesis 6:4 says, “Hear O Israel : the LORD our God is one God.” Now this mystery of divine oneness extends to man.  Man came out of the triune God: he was made in God’s likeness, in His image. 

      First, God created a disposable, throw-away universe (2 Peter 3:10). Then out of Himself He created eternal man to live with Him and be one with Him, having fellowship with the Trinity forever!  God said, “Let us make man in our own image.” In other words God made man to be part of Himself.  Thus man was created immortal, co-eternal, one with God.

    Adam and Eve, being in the likeness of God, walked with God in the Garden.  They fellowshipped with Him and they were clothed in light.  Their oneness with God and their conjugal oneness with each other were to be extended from generation to generation.  “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh” (Gen. 2:24).  Hence we can say that oneness is a vital life principle, it is a real entity that was placed in both the physical and the spiritual DNA of bi-partite man (having soul and body). So in its deepest meaning, the scholars tell us, this ‘one flesh’ oneness suggests spiritual oneness, oneness of heart and physical oneness. (Eph. 5:29-32).

     Since the beginning our deepest yearning has been to come to physical and spiritual oneness.  We are hooked on oneness, addicted to it, amazed at it, fascinated by it.  Oneness has a mysterious attraction to us.  Oh, how we are drawn to a marching band or marching soldiers.  We run out of our shops and homes, open our windows, stop our cars and behold this spectacle of one-accordness with pleasure.  We see a flock of geese flying in tight formation and all eyes are heaven-ward.  We see the Blue Angels (a special arrangement of fighter jets) performing as one, doing stunning maneuvers, and we are thrilled.  Man is created of oneness but through sin, man has been alienated from God, and the only way he can come back to God and this lost oneness is through Jesus Christ.

     In the meantime man, in his lost condition, tries to satisfy his yearning for oneness through temporary and fleeting events.  Someone rightly said that man is restless until he finds his rest in God.  Perhaps better yet, man will not be totally satisfied until he is one with his Maker.

     In this vein, Solomon, in a contemplative moment, came up with a proverb about the most wonderful things in the world.  He lists the three top contenders, then, in an explosion of insight he added another wonder that is even more wonderful than he could fathom. Read very carefully,  “There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid” (Prov. 30:18,19). 

     Are you getting it? ‘The way of a man with a maid!’ Does this remind you of Genesis 2:24, of this ‘one flesh’ thing? Man is not only designed to be one with God, but also to be one with his spouse in the oneness of God.  What youth does not dream of such oneness with a woman or man?  Oh, how such dreams intensify in the later years of adolescence, and we never really lose it.  This is a greater yearning in all mortals than to be an engineer, a computer programmer, or a millionaire. “Give me a little old cottage in some remote place, give me a lover with whom I am wholly one and I shall be satisfied.”  Have you ever felt that way? But alas, our hunger for oneness is never satisfied as long as it is only for a horizontal oneness – a man with a woman – it must also be vertical and immersed in God.

     Hollywood and the entertainment industry are built on man’s search for oneness. But it only stays on the horizontal level.  This ‘love affair,’ the total oneness of two beings, is what keeps people glued to their TV’s and draws them back again and again to movie theaters.  Hollywood love affairs fall apart because they are not based on nor connected to the Trinity.  They depict man seeking oneness without seeking God.  Young man, young lady, your oneness with your partner will never reach its potential without Jesus.  It will be disappointing if He is not in the center of it.  Hollywood love relationships are born of an uncontrolled, intense, selfish lust that knows little about giving, and much about taking.

     To get this ’one flesh’ experience, we need to get back to Paradise, the new one that God created for us which is the kingdom of God .  Love was the abiding reality that governed all behavior and relationships in the Garden. Adam and Eve found oneness in their conjugal love through “Love divine, all loves excelling.” They found horizontal and vertical oneness.  Where there is love there is no need for Law, for love is the fulfilling of the law.  Where there is love and oneness with God there is no need for a marital hierarchy, for one partner to lord it over the other.  There is no need for a ‘his and hers’ list.  It was, and is God’s will still today, that we live by love rather than by law. This is why God cries out in Deuteronomy, “Hear O Israel : The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deut. 6:4, 5).

     If you read between the lines you may hear God saying with a heavy heart, “All these laws are only necessary because you have lost your oneness with Me and you have lost your first love. The laws are necessary because of the transgressions, but I would rather have you go back to how it was in the Garden of Love .” Well, my friend, there is a way back to the Garden.  Again, I mean the new garden called the Kingdom of God .  It is here where love governs all things, but you must go through the cross to get there. There only one will can exist and that is His will.

     Husband, you want a chain saw to cut your firewood.  Wife, you want a dishwasher.  There’s only enough money for one of the two.  If you, husband and wife, live outside the Paradise of the Kingdom of God , each of you will insist on getting his/her way.  I call that a jungle mentality, marital relationship based on animal instincts.  But if you both are in the Kingdom, you live in sacrificial Love and you want to prefer the other above yourself.  What is the big deal anyhow, husband? Your grandfather didn’t have a chain saw, neither did his grandfather, neither did Noah when he built an ocean liner.  Isn’t it time that we put our correct theology: “All I need is God,” into human behavior?  Vice-versa, wife, “All you need is God.”  Your grandmother, and her grandmother, and billions of women in the world wash their dishes by hand.  Remember, “All you need is God.”  So, do you have a jungle marriage, or a Kingdom marriage?  Doesn’t it say “He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16)?  ONENESS!!!  Oh, the marvel and the mystery of it!

     Again, do you have a Kingdom relationship with God, or do you have a jungle relationship with Him which consists of ‘give me, give me, give me?’  Oh, that you may become one with Him!  If not, you are not Bride material.  May you become one with your spouse.  May you come to the holy oneness that Adam and Eve experienced in that first Garden.  God is one; man was born out of Oneness with Him.  That is why, thousands of years after the Creation, we still marvel over, ‘the way of a man with a maid.’ This is a type of Christ and the church which when realized will satisfy the prayer of Jesus:  “That they all may be one: as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:21).  The Lord our God is one Lord. We were created out of oneness to be one with Him. Let us return to this oneness for without it we shall be banished from His presence forever.