'There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all... until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ...from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love' (Eph 4)But if we are made in the image of God, how does the trinity fit in regard to separate persons?
'For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, 5so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another' (Romans 12:5)
'Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread. (1Cor 10:17)
'But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills. 12 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. 13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. 14 For the body is not one member, but many. (1Cor 12)
I did not plan that our bible discussions group topic last night on Genesis would open with a study of the Shemas foundational importance to Judaism and Christianity ( https://www.facebook.com/pages/THINK-Ab ... 9613374329 ), and continue with the question, what is the second most important revelation to our understanding of God, everyone agreed it is Jesus. The question that followed was simular to yours (cant remem exactly), but it resulted in our agreeing that the highest form of the self is not the self, but the the unity or oneness we become in Christ. The new man is the many, or all of humanity in Christ, made in the image of God, not what man is but what we will be: '... that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 "The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one (John 17:21-22)
We are greatest when we are all one together, not individuals, but one, knit together in love. We die to 'self' and become One with God and the Body, just as Christ died and went back to be One with the Father.