Cleaving

I finished reading a book entitled Cleaving, with chapters written alternately by a husband-wife team: Dennis and Vicky Covington (North Point Press, 1999). It's a strange book because it is so painfully truthful.


I had never thought about the fact that the word "cleave" has opposite meanings. To "cleave" can mean to cling to. It can also mean to split. In Genesis two it says, "A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." As any marriage counselor will tell you, "You have to leave before you can cleave." Yet the 'leaving' itself is a 'cleaving' (splitting apart).


I wonder if there are other words in the English language that have opposite meanings at once?


Anyway, the whole story of the Bible can be summed up in that one word: Cleaving. Genesis one shows us the cleaving of God and humanity (communion…oneness). In Genesis 3 a cleavage takes place—a split in the communion because of the sin of humans. The gospels tell the story of the re-union made possible through Jesus the Messiah—the restoration of the original cleaving.


We are now living in that ambiguous period of overlap between the old Age and the new Age. The Kingdom has come in Jesus; but it will not be complete until he comes again. Our communion with God through Christ is real, but not complete. We live in the midst of cleaving (clinging) and cleaving (separateness). This is the 'amazing gray' of life. As Paul said: "To live is Christ; to die is gain."


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