What it means to be one

At the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 “the whole earth was of one language,” and as verse 6 reports, “And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”

“Man can accomplish and achieve anything he sets his mind to do unless God intervenes, as He did here. They had one world with one language and, in verse 4, they tried to create a one-world religion. It was globalism at its best.”

Biblically, No. 1 is associated with unity; it’s the number of God. No. 2 represents division and is the testimony of one divided. No. 3 brings one and two back together and gives completeness.

Paul writes in I Corinthians 12:20, “But now are they many members, yet but one body.”

“ ‘But one’ means ‘the united one; to unify or make one. It was because of the importance of the church’s unity that Christ prayed as He did for His followers just before His crucifixion. ‘I pray . . . that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, are in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; . . . the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as We are One (John 17:21,22).'

“ . . . The only unity spoken of in God’s Word is divine unity and many do not know how divine unity is perfected . . . There must be an abandonment to the control of God and a putting away of the flesh . . . Only as we have the mind of Christ can we be of the same mind one with the other. When every thought is brought into captivity unto the obedience of Christ, we shall be brought into perfect unity with one another; standing fast in one spirit, with one soul striving for the faith of the gospel (Phil 1:27).”

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“If you want to learn something about really believing, start in Genesis 1 and let your Bible prove itself,” says Richard Jordan. “The number one, the number of God and the number of unity, is the foundation for all other numbers, because every other number is a multiple of one.

“The number one is a fundamental, foundational number, which makes sense why it would be God’s number. It first occurs in the text of Scripture in Genesis 1:9: ‘And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.’

“The waters He scattered out and now they’re gathered to one place. The idea with one is a gathering together in one place. In Deuteronomy 6:4—the great confession of Israel—Moses writes, ‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.’ ”

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“In Genesis 2 you see that the number two is a number of division. It’s interesting that it’s in Genesis 2 that Adam is divided. Genesis 1 says, ‘He created man and in the image of God created he.’

“Well, when did Adam become a ‘them’? In Genesis 2, God put Adam asleep, opened up his side, took out a rib and out of that rib He formed a separate person, Eve. Now there’s two.

“I’ve often thought about what it would have been like when Adam woke up from that sleep. I’ve never been anesthetized but once in my life and when I woke up from that I looked down at my feet and there stood a nurse with a Geiger counter. I said, ‘What are you doing?!’

“Well, when Adam woke up there stood Eve. I don’t know what you think he might have said—‘Whoa, where have you been all my life?!’

“And verse 24 describes what God did: ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.’ We like to say, ‘Baby, I’m stuck on you.’ Do you see that word one there? It’s about uniting together.

“I Peter says they are to dwell together ‘according to knowledge,’ and when they do that, they’re one flesh. One complete humanity. One person.

“Marriage is the reconstruction of man; it’s the completion of man. Man has that part that was taken out of him and put back into him and they become one functioning unit.

"What Eve put back into Adam through marriage results in a reconstruction of the original item and an ability to function the way God created them to function. She’s there to complete him; to be his helpmeet, the one who mirrors him, the one who answers to him.  Adam is no longer sufficient and complete in himself; he needs this woman to come along and complete him.

“Neither the man nor the woman can be completely whole without the other because they’re interdependent, but since the Fall sin has so disrupted this divine order that the oneness is never completely achievable. You’re never going to completely, totally achieve it in this life, but you can get close, and the more compatible you are with walking in the Spirit the way God intends you to walk, the closer you get to it.”