One in Christ

Call To Prayer

Title: One in Christ

Date: 07.12.2022

By: Daniel Peter

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  Galatians 3:28 NIV

At the creation of man, God’s idea was that man will be in His image and likeness (Gen. 1:26). According to scripture, God is Spirit (John 4:24), therefore, man was created to be a spirit. However, this creation called man was to live on earth as God’s representative and leader of the creation. For this reason, a body was given to man so he could function in the physical realm called earth. The breathing of Man’s spirit into the body formed from soil produced a third section of his being called the soul (Gen. 2:7 KJV)

At man’s manifestation in the physical realm, he could be wholly described as a Spirit, Soul, and body (1 Thess. 5:23). Though the identity of this man was derived from the state of the soul, for God called his whole being as a living soul (Gen.2:7 KJV). God calling man a living soul is indicative that man, before his fall, had not attained to God’s original intent for him. For God is Spirit, therefore, for man to be in His image and likeness of God, his fullness must be called a spirit. To further understand this, man had not attained to God’s likeness in the ability to live forever, and only attained to God’s likeness to know Good and Evil when he ate of the forbidden tree ( Gen. 3:22). To simply put it, Adam was not like God, in fullness, before his fall. He was a work in progress.

At His coming, Jesus manifested as the original idea God had for Adam. Despite having a physical body and a soul, Jesus was described as a “life giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). Jesus was everything Like the Father, which was what God intended man. In His communication with Nicodemus, he mentioned a second birth process that man needs to go through to attain this nature: “New Birth (John 3:6,7)”. Therefore, at New Birth, we Christians have transitioned from being described as living souls, or flesh, to us being spirits. However, despite this being true the moment we give our lives to Christ, we need knowledge of the finished works of Christ and understanding of the doctrine of love for us to be empowered to live as spirits ( 2 Peter 1:3, Eph. 3:8).

A spirit is neither male nor female, black or white. If we see people based on their skin colour, nationality or tribe etc, we are not seeing as spirits, but flesh. Therefore, we cannot love them as God would (Matt. 5:45). For this reason, we must see and relate with people based on the knowledge of that which Christ has accomplished in Himself. Again, we must speak based on the knowledge that we are spirits: spirits don’t die nor fall sick. Therefore, our words, about ourselves or others, should be filled with life and health that we have in Him.

Prayer Point:

Let’s thank God for His word today. Let’s ask Him to help us to speak and act in line with our in Christ identity.