Man Created in God’s Image to Express God (2)
Genesis 1:26 records that God created man in His image, so that man could express God in His many attributes. This expression underlies the creation of man but it also requires man to receive God as life so that man can express God in reality and not with a mere outward performance.
The expression of God’s righteousness is one example of this. Another is oneness. Although God is triune, He is one God and His expression through Christ is in one Body, one new man, and 
ultimately one city, New Jerusalem.
The Lord Jesus prayed for this oneness in John 17. First, we are one in the divine life (v. 6-13). Second, this oneness is strength-ened by our being sanctified in the Father’s word of the truth (v. 14-21).
The goal of the sanctifying is “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me” (v. 21). The result is the expression of oneness in all the believers causes the world to believe that the Father sent the Son. This is a corporate expression of God, and it is for today, not waiting for New Jerusalem.
Third, the oneness is perfected by the glory of the Father. “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me” (v. 22-23).
The perfected oneness not only expresses the oneness of God; it also expresses God’s love. This is for this age with the expectation of a great increase in New Jerusalem.
Photo courtesy of NASA.
Bible verses quoted in these posts are from The Holy Bible, Recovery Version, published and © by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim CA, 2003. The New Testament of this Bible, with its outlines, is at online.recoveryversion.org; this too is © by LSM.
Posted by Don on December 1, 2021
