When you think or talk about your faith do you focus on your union of love with God or do you focus on lesser matters? How do you speak to yourself about what your faith is about? Do you understand that God is the author of ultimate relationship or do you focus on the right doctrine?
I believe our union of love with God in Christ is the grand unifying theme of biblical theology and spirituality. Every element of the gospel is best understood in the context of His desire to be in a strong and loving relationship with us and His desire for us to live in a community of love with fellow believers. He wants to be our Father, our teacher, our lover, and our friend.
Jesus summed this up in Matthew 22:37 by saying that the greatest commandment was to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Then He said that the second greatest commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself. If God loves us and we love him, then we are united in love with him.
Paul teaches that love is the greatest, even greater than faith: I Corinthians 13:9-13 “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” I Corinthians 13:13 (NIV). Paul also stated: “For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (NLT) Gal 5:14.
The bible often uses the idea of marriage to describe our relationship with God in Christ. Paul states:
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. (NIV)
Ephesians 5:31-32
I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. (ESV)
2 Corinthians 11:2
We also find the theme of marriage featuring prominently in Revelation. Several times it refers to the marriage of the Lamb to his church (Rev. 19:6-9; 21:2, 9-27; 22:17). So Scripture teaches that our highest end is the union of love with God in Christ, and this union is like a marriage, which is an intimate relationship.
These statements by Jesus, Paul and John about what is most important and our union with God do not include language such as hold fast to truth, increase in knowledge, glorify God, keep the Lord’s Supper, worship God, do evangelism, or walk in the Spirit. These things are all important and essential but they are not the phrases most used in the New Testament to describe the most important thing.
Love even surpasses faith (which saves us)! Perhaps this is because in the next age we will walk by sight and love, not faith. So when we talk with believers, unbelievers or ourselves, hopefully we can focus on our union of love before anything else.
