Unity is Our Strength

The world proclaims that, “diversity is our strength.” The Bible teaches otherwise. God’s purpose is to unite all people into one family, by one means of salvation and for all people to live under His authority on earth and in His presence in eternity.

Deuteronomy 6:4 proclaims, “Hear, O Israel! YEHOVAH is our God, YEHOVAH is one.” Echad is the Hebrew word for “one.” It also means “unity.” There is one God made up of the unity of Father, San and Spirit. The strength of God is not the “diversity” of the Trinity but rather the strength that comes from their unity. Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30).

God shows His desire for unity in His design for marriage. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one [echad] flesh” (Genesis2:24). The strength of a marriage is found in the two persons becoming united as one.

All people benefit from unity. “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). The greatest strength comes when human efforts are fulfilling God’s will because then God is united with them “A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.”

All the diverse people of the world are unified as they are descendants of one man – Adam. “God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 10:26). More importantly, we all have one Father, “Do we not all have one father? Has not one God created us?” (Malachi 2:10) And “How great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God” (I John 3:1).

We become His children through Jesus – there are no diverse pathways to God. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6). “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” (1 Timothy 2:5)

The diversity of believers finds unity and strength in Jesus. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:8). “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12). May we be unified.