Mystery of Christ’s Unity & Oneness With Us No.2

Ephesians 5:32

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

I hope we’ll finish together, but at least let’s start together with the verse that we’re studying
today. It is Ephesians 5:32. Verse 31 runs, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife. And the two shall become one flesh.” And then today’s verse, “This
mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.“ And the easy
exposition of that is found, if you remember, the saying that the two shall become one flesh comes
from Genesis 2:24. You remember that it was away at the beginning of the creation in verse 21. “So
the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and
closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made a
woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was
taken out of Man.’

Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh.”

It’s kind of a full circle. It is interesting isn’t it that man was used by God to make woman. And
then in marriage that is the prophecy that in marriage they come back together. And of course, I
think part of what Paul mans when he says, “This is a profound mystery and I take it to mean Christ
and his church.” You go back to Ephesians 2:10 and you get parallel there. Of course you know it
well. It corresponds to the creation of woman out of man. “For we are his workmanship created in
Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Just as the
presentation is that woman was made out of man, so we were made first in Christ. And then you can
see the completeness of the circle. Woman was made out of man, and then he comes back and they
cleave together and are one flesh in marriage. And Paul is saying, “See it’s the same in a sense as
Christ. We were all made in Christ.” And then of course from Ephesians 2:10, you go forward to
Ephesians 5:30. “…because we are members of his body.” And so in the church we return to Christ
in whom we were originally created. So that is what Paul is saying, “As woman was made out of man,
and, as it were, comes back to be one with him in marriage, so we were made in Christ and we come
back to him in the church and become one with him.

And so Paul is emphasizing the oneness of us with Christ. And it may help you to see it more if you
think of it in those terms, because obviously it is much more definite than what we normally think
of as our ‘union with Christ’. And actually most of the commentators, about the best they can do is
to say, “Paul is emphasizing here the closeness of the union between Christ and his church.” But,
of course, there is nothing that emphasizes it so clearly as that parallel that Paul is drawing. He
is saying, “You are one flesh.” He is saying, “The body of Christ is one with Christ.” And I think
there we are badly missing it. We are badly missing it. I don’t know; I can’t get into your heads,
but I’ve been with people long enough to know that many of us have a kind of corporate attitude
towards it, “Oh yeah, Christ is the managing director and we’re kind of the workers. We’re the
worker bees.” We tend to think in those terms. “Well Christ is up there at the right hand of God.
And we’re down here of course doing his work.” And I would submit to you that often we do not get
beyond that in our thinking.

And of course, this is presenting something entirely different. This is presenting us as actual
limbs of Jesus, as actually one with him, one with him, as actually part of him. I think often we
have a strange kind of… well we call it humility, but it is a false humility. “O, yes, yes. I
couldn’t be part of Christ!” But isn’t that how he bears your sins? But it is a kind of comfort to
us. “At least he doesn’t have to put up with all the things that I do.” Yes, he does. If you’re one
with him, then everything you do he feels and experiences.

And you are absolutely part of him. And it seems that is what Paul is emphasizing here, when he
goes to the experience of man and woman as one flesh. And the best that I can do is what I have
tried to mention before. I was always unhappy with the idea that because you are married to a person
you love that person more than you love other people. I thought there is something not right about
that.

And I think while Peggy and Irene were away last Sunday, I shared this with Colleen and Marty, that
Irene, of course, felt the same. And yet I think that — dare I say it? I think she suffered,
actually because of both our emphasis on it. And I think that there were 20 years of life — I
hesitate to say, she didn’t have a husband, but getting towards that. And I understood so little of
it that I thought, well that’s normal. That’s a minister’s wife’s job. The church comes first. But
of course, the church coming first for me in those 20 years, meant home was, as you say in America,
“Zilch.” I mean I didn’t think it was. But she knew the dog well, because he kept her company.

But the church was my life, night and day. And you know it [indicating one of the listeners] as the
church secretary. I mean it was not a normal business day even, because it went on at night when I
was teaching class or was doing other things. So in a way, yes, it emphasized… And people wondered,
“Have you a wife?” because Irene was only seen on Sundays. But of course I might have well asked,
“Had she a husband?” And so, looking back, I thought, “Dreadful, just dreadful.” But it did, it
emphasized that, that of course I loved everyone else it seemed, but my wife. Of course we were
very anxious that that would be true, that you would not feel, Peg, that I loved you less because I
was married to Irene. And that was true enough.

Of course one person suffered a lot in order to bring that about. Now, what do I know? Well, thank
you to our dear Father and to you all, too, most of all to this lady, here [reference to Irene]. Of
course that during these twenty-five years we’ve tried to be more normal. And I can say to that,
quite apart from the penis-vagina thing in marriage, yes, yes of course it is not a matter of love
and how much love you give to a person. Of course you can love a person as much as you love your
wife, and a wife can love another person as much as she loves her husband.

But, yes, there is a real sense in which the ‘two become one flesh’. I would have to say, “Yeah,
yeah I often say to Irene, ‘Well, we’ll go in together.’” And actually in a strange way that is
true. And it is almost impossible to explain it. But certainly if Paul was saying, “There is a
closeness that we have with Christ that we have with no one else,” and it seems to me that is what
he is saying to each of us. He’s saying, “Each one of you is part of Christ in a way that you’re
not part of anyone else.” I think that it is right in marriage, in a real marriage there is a sense
in which you’re not just Mr. and Mrs. O’Neill, symbolizing that you are one person. But you
actually are one person. And there is a unique way you are actually no longer single. And I think
that that is true, that in some miraculous way, there is the creation of another person. So that
you are – not concerned with how much love or how much care you give each other, but in a deeper
way, there is a sense in which you are part of one another.

That’s the trouble of course we would both have with the whole divorce thing. Because it seems to
me you are breaking asunder what God hath joined. And there is a break that is not natural, because
the other thing has become natural, the oneness of the two people. And so I can see – I wouldn’t
always have been able to explain this really. And I don’t know, and Irene may have felt it, but I
have certainly felt it in an intense way in these years, that there is way in which we are no longer
kind of separate individuals. There is some strange sense in which you are part of each and you’re
part of each other for life and for hereafter. And though there will be no marriage or giving in
marriage in heaven, yet I think you’ll go in as one person. And there is a uniqueness in the unity.

And I think that is what Paul is saying to us about our oneness with Christ. There is a deep way in
which we are one with Christ that words cannot explain. And I think that is what we are just
missing. We are not grasping. You two [indicating one of the couples present] are not grasping,
none of us are grasping the uniqueness of the oneness that you have with Christ, and that you have
indeed a oneness with him that no other person has. And for me, so far it is beyond words to
explain what that is. But I do think we are making – I hesitate to use the word, “mockery”, but it
is almost mockery. But it is certainly a parody. We are making a parody of reality, by the way we
tend to think of our unity with Christ, and the way you think of your unity with Christ. I think
it’s a gross undervaluing of our Savior. I think it is a dreadful misconception of how much he has
given himself to you, to you personally, and how much he thinks of you as a unique part of himself,
almost as if there was no one else part of him than you. And it seems to me that is what Paul is
saying to us. There is a uniqueness of our being in Christ and of being part of his body that no
one else has.

All I can say is, it is a shame. It is a shame how we have undervalued it, devalued it, depreciated
it. How we have ignored our Savior, how we have fobbed him off.

And I understand, if anybody here in this room says, “Well you know, I find it very hard to think
that I’m his…” And then your words almost fail you, because the next word is, “How far I have
misunderstood him; how far I have fobbed him off; how much I have missed and ignored the fact that I
am unique to him, and that I am special to him.” But I think that that is it. I think we all think
the same way, “O well, I am just a humble little thing. Well now there is a limit. There is limit
to how far you can go with that. O well I’m just a little finger. You wouldn’t miss me if I was cut
off.”

“Oh wouldn’t I?”

“Yes, well I’m a little finger, you know, more or less like the next finger.”

“Oh, to Me you’re very different from the next finger.”

“Well, I’m just the same as the finger on the other han…”

“No. No you’re not.”

I think that is what we are facing. “Well now, Lord, I’m just one of a couple billion.”

“No, no. You’re special and unique to me.”

And I think we are missing it if we don’t see it that way. And if I was unfair to my lady in those

25 years, you’re taking a whole life away from him. You’re taking a whole life away. So it seems
to me that is what he is saying, “This is a profound mystery. But I apply it to Christ and the
church.” And that means, “To you and me.”

Let us pray.