The Lord God said,
“It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
(Genesis 2:18, NIV)
Community as God
ordained it was not an incidental concern of his nor did it happen haphazardly
as the serendipitously creative result of a transcendental cosmic brainstorm.
Community is deeply grounded in the nature of God. It flows from who God is.
Because he is community, he creates community. It is his gift of himself to
humans.[1]
Before the beginning of time, there was God. A single God,
but not a lonely God. This idea has fascinated me for some time. It seems to
me, that if God existed as one Person, then either He would not have been love,
or He would have been less than self-sufficient. For while a non-loving Person
could exist on His own without any sense that something was missing, a loving
Person could not. Love requires an object, and is never fully satisfied when
that object is merely itself.
How can a loving God be self-sufficient? The Trinity gives
us the answer: by existing as three Persons. Father loving Son, Son loving
Spirit, Spirit loving Father, and so forth. A perfect, loving community has
existed for all eternity in the Trinity. Love is central to the nature of God.
Relationship is essential to the image of God.
The church is a messy entity. I am imperfect and will let
you down. You are imperfect and will let me down. But we need each other. It is
not good for us to be alone. Each of us have gifts that will help lead others
into richer lives and into a deeper walk with Christ.
[1] Bilezikian
as recorded in Julie Gorman, Community
that is Christian (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), p. 28.
