In the previous chapters we saw three things: first, man is the meaning of the universe; second, Christ is the meaning of human life; third, the church is the expression of Christ. Now in this chapter our burden is to see the real communal life.
Today not only in the United States but also in many countries on this earth, the young people are desiring to have some kind of communal life. This desire comes out of our natural makeup. In our natural makeup, in our natural life, there is a kind of desire to have a community where we may live together with others.
Suppose you have everything. You have education, money, the best house, and the best car. You have obtained the best of everything. Yet if you were told to go up to the top of a high mountain and live there by yourself, would you do it? None of us would do it because, even though we may have the best things, we would be too lonely by ourselves. We human beings need to be in a community. Hence, this desire to have a communal life is something in our makeup. God created man in this way.
In Genesis 1:26 God first said, "Let us make man," and then He said, "Let them have dominion." Man is singular, but them, the pronoun for man, is plural. Did God make one man or many men? People think it is easy to understand the Bible. Yes, on the one hand, the Bible is simple. But on the other hand, it is really hard for people to understand. Why did God use the singular noun man and then the plural pronoun them? Did He make one man or many men? The answer is: God made many men in one man. Or you can say that God made one man with many men. This simply means that in God's intention, man is corporate. God did not create an Adam, then an Abraham, then a David, etc. God created a corporate man—one man with all men. In God's intention, what He did was a corporate thing. So we all have to realize that the desire to have a communal life was something created in the human nature by God.
Every human being in his human nature has a desire to live with others. Consider the children in your neighborhood. If you try to confine each one of them in their houses, you will bring a great suffering to them. They like to go out to make friends. They like to be in a community. God created man with a nature and a desire to have a communal life as a preparation for the church life. The church life is a communal life, a corporate life. The church life is a life of a proper community.
Let me use a little illustration. Many times you feel thirsty. What is thirst? Thirst is a feeling caused by a desire for a drink. Suppose you do not have a desire for any drink, yet I ask you to drink; that would be a punishment to you. You will suffer a lot. But since God created in you a desire to drink so that you have such a thirst, you will be happy to drink without anyone forcing you.
Likewise, in God's creation God created us with a desire for a communal life. Due to the fall, however, this communal life was spoiled and damaged when the human race came to the time of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9). Babel means confusion. At Babel many different languages came in and caused the human race to be divided. Consequently, there came in the hatred, the enmity, between different peoples with different languages.
In the New Testament the Lord Jesus accomplished redemption to bring people back to God's original purpose. Acts 2 tells us that on the day of Pentecost all the different people of different languages became one (vv. 5-11). They were brought back to the original state of oneness. This was not just a recovery but a re-creation. Ephesians 2:15-16 tells us that Christ on the cross abolished all the ordinances and slew the enmity among people for the purpose of creating a new man.
The Bible tells us that first God created one man, and then Christ created a new man. In the Bible there are two creations: the old creation of God and the new creation of Christ. In His old creation God created a man; in His new creation Christ created a new man.
Brothers and sisters, we have to realize that in the new man created by Christ we have something in common. First, in the new man we have a common life. In Christ we all have the same life, and with this common life we have a common nature and a common desire. After we are saved, immediately within us there is a desire to contact some genuine Christians for fellowship. This is the desire for a community, a communal life. The church life is the real communal life.