A World Apart
Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”Genesis 1:6 NASB
Separate– When did the alienation between God and world begin? Are you likely to answer, “At the Fall”? Certainly sin entered the world at that point, as Paul reminds us, but alienation began on Day 2. Consider Zornberg’s comment:
“The essential act of this second day is this act of division: ‘He divided His works into different groups and reigned over them.’ From now on, the notion of the sovereignty of God will depend on the differences and many-ness of His subjects. But the idea of separation and difference has a tragic resonance: gone is the primal unity of ‘God alone in His world.’ New possibilities, new hazards, open up. The primary image of such separation, the division of the waters and their weeping expresses the yearning of the split-off of the cosmos for a primordial condition of unitary being. With division begins alienation, conflict, and yet, paradoxically, a new notion of divine sovereignty. In this new perspective, God is recognized as King only by that being who is most radically separated from Him.”[1]
The great goal of Buddhism is absorption into unity. The pathway of karma leads to the elimination of all desire and freedom from suffering, not simply physical suffering but also the mental anguish of separation from the One. In fact, several of the major world religions seek to put aside any separation between God and His creation in order to find total harmony, not as individuals but as undifferentiated expression of complete unity. Since man is essentially homo religiosus, we might ask, “When did this desire to lose self-identity begin?” The Genesis answer is, “at the point of Creation.” Creation itself is a form of alienation from God. Alienation is built into existence. But from the Genesis perspective, this is not a detriment. The fact that the creation is other than God is not sin. It is an essential element of God’s love. He desired relationship with other self-willed beings, and in the process of bringing that about, separation was mandatory. Undifferentiated identity is not relationship. To have relationship, there must be the other. And, of course, that means risk. It means things can go wrong. It means there will be differences in thought, action and emotion. It means that there will be separation.
The biblical answer to the question of unity is not absorption. It is harmony of differences. You might think about that when you consider your response to those who are not the same as you. Maybe it’s a good thing they aren’t.
Topical Index: separation, unity, Genesis 1:6
[1]Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, pp. 5-6.
Skip, You state: “The biblical answer to the question of unity is not absorption. It is harmony of differences.”
What? Wait. I thought that union with the Father ( YHWH) through Messiah was the whole point of Yeshua’s coming. Did I get it wrong or do I not understand your point?
In John14:23 “Yeshua answered him, “If someone loves me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”
And in John 17:21 He says: “Just as you, Father, are united with me and I with you, I pray that they may be united with us, … Verse 23 “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one…”
Paul’s theology seems to agree with Yeshua:
“That is, God raised us up with the Messiah Yeshua and seated us with him in heaven.” Ephesians 2:6
“But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.”1 Corinthians 6:17
Why does Yeshua go to great lengths to discuss our oneness and union with him and with the Father in John 15:1-11 if seperation, alienation and harmony of differences is the goal? What am I not understanding? I am not trying to be contentious, but I am also trying hard not to be confused.
Michael, I think it is going to depend upon whose definition of “unity” you use. In the flesh, we have NO WAY to ‘naturally’ harmonize with anything else: it is us against creation all the way because we are fractured from it already: dead already from the flow of life. This is why I think we want, more than anything, to have things ‘my way’: to feel the flow of the harmony of life without the opposition: but, because the flesh believes reality is out to ‘get it’ (trust issues), the only conceivable way to live is to succeed in taking what we need from that reality. As I have said (probably not very well!), I think covetousness is about the belief that none of what we need is going to happen unless we ‘control’ the situation with our will. To us, alienation is all we know of differentiation. It just never seems to cross the mind of the flesh that all that ‘other’ (the still-obedient creation) still understands that their best interests are tied up in ours, and that all of creation still wants to serve us, who are the image of their Creator to them. To us who were fractured from the outset from that Creator, as well as from the other disobedient children; and now trapped (because of the Tree) by that previous experience, too, we have no basis of understanding how reality really works, or why. It just is not in the lexicon of the flesh at all. Because death is all we know of separation in that flesh, I think we (naturally, as per experience) hate and loathe anything that is not self: we find ourselves in opposition, but believe that opposition is endemic to creation: that that is just how things are.
I think sin is where we set out to ‘give’ ourselves the love we need without allowing (trusting) anyone or anything else to show up with their part of the love equation. To us, “one” means “me”. To creation proper, however, it means obedience (which re-weaves creation back into God). Define “unity”. To the flesh, I think it MUST MEAN either absorption of or into another, which is the ultimate loss of identity on both ends. Covetousness is the essential competition that ‘understands’ that only one can end up with a need met: that life is about ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, and that identity is about the denial of the same to another in the process. No wonder we hate and fear the notion of identity: to achieve it, somebody is going to have to either lose or die! To us, differentiation is about the essential trespass of either one or the other of those differ-ers by the other one. All ‘one’ is at the expense of all other ‘ones’. Because my ego tells me (correctly) that I need everything everybody and everything else in the universe has, my conclusion is that my identity is only going to be realized at the expense of all other identity; therefore the flesh concludes that we can’t both be different and also be fully realized (satisfied) at the same time.
Differentiation, then, to the flesh, anyway, is about the essential action of covetousness: about further fracturing of the whole (through the “trespassing”, or, taking from another) to be ‘myself’. To the flesh, I think “unity” must mean the ultimate loss of all that makes us ‘different’ from each other in the process of somebody ‘getting’ what they need (which is, of course, identity) at the expense of all that is ‘not’ them. To the pagan mind, God is in essential competition with humans: He desires to take our identity to enhance His: He covets our differences. To the pagan god(s), their ‘need’ to be differentiated properly from us, essentially means their absorption of all our difference into themselves. To every New Age person, then (that I have quizzed anyway, as this is a huge curiosity of mine) they understand that their identity is going to disappear in that “oneness”. And they seem to think that is a good thing! The only thing I can figure is that, to the flesh, differentiation is so painful, the loss of it must look like the only real relief. My private take on people attracted to the New Age is that these are people who have been hurt in their identity to the point that they have given up on it, whether they know it or not, and so this (narcissistic) ‘answer’ to the pain that represents identity to them appears to be the only relief? It’s a head scratcher!
The New Age “oneness”, that I have been around, anyway, seems to achieve “unity” only at the expense of all differentiation: all identity. Everybody ‘loses’ their identity in the process of unity. This is not a benign belief! Based on this belief, laws of all lands have been and are being crafted that would deny identity (in the name of identity, no less!) in the action of ‘conformity’ to the mob mentality that is all we know of love without God. I think this is the real reason the flesh hates religious liberty, because it simply cannot conceive that any ‘other’ would possibly be able to provide for or be able to protect identity of the different. To the flesh, there is no such thing as everybody ‘getting’ what they need, for everybody else just represents what we need but haven’t ‘gotten’ yet.
I think the idea that life is like the loaves and fishes: that things MULTIPLY instead of ‘divide’ when they are given, violates every ‘law’ us lawless rebels ‘live’ (um, well, die) by. The idea that love multiplies instead of divides: the flesh has no experience that could have ever learned such a thing. The idea that I become more me when I give you what you need from me to be you – that I become more realized in my identity when (and because) you get to be more you – that unity is about the full realization of the identities (plural) of all other; well, I don’t think that thought has yet crossed the mind of anybody who has not enjoyed the mind of Christ. Guaranteed.
“The idea that love multiplies instead of divides: the flesh has no experience that could have ever learned such a thing.”
Thanks for this, Laurita. The New Age group-think has become a deadly virus, which seems to be fueled by the emotions (or thoughts) of both fear and covetousness. The necessary ‘immunity’ from it is not to be found in our culture, and that phrase, to “be in the world, but not of the world,” is not as simple as it sounds.
Hmmm…(yet once again). Some significant perspectives here, Laurita. Most significant to me is the reality that we remain in the ‘flesh’, which is comitted to ‘self’; yet in faith we are provided union by and with His spirit – “that unity is about the full realization of the identities (plural) of all ‘other’.
“For who has understood the mind of the Lord; who has advised him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Hello Michael, As per Skip, “It is harmony of differences”…
I think of “distinction in unity”. “In peace I will both lie down and sleep…” (Here distinct, yet unified actions…[יָחַד (root) ‘yahad’; ‘be united, be joined’]. Or, “…unite my heart to fear your name…(same root); [here the idea is ‘give singleness of heart’].
The ‘object lesson” with which I am personally most familiar is that of husband and wife (perhaps also applicable to humans in general); distinct, yet “one flesh’, and ideally, also of united purpose. Hope this is something helpful to you.
Hello Michael your post triggered a few thoughts for me … unity and harmony have the spirit of assistance and peace in common rather than resistance and hostility. The example of the body being many parts but working toward the same purpose comes to mind. However each part does not lose its identity in the importance of unity.
“Now I mean this, that each one of you says, “I am [a disciple] of Paul,” or “I am [a disciple] of Apollos,” or “I am [a disciple] of Cephas (Peter),” or “I am [a disciple] of Christ.” Has Christ been divided [into different parts]? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul? [Certainly not!]
1 Corinthians 1:12-13”
“He who plants and he who waters are one [in importance and esteem, working toward the same purpose]; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. 1 Corinthians 3:8”