Exo. 20:6 Yet showing lovingkindness to thousands of generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments. Eph. 5:25, 27 ...Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her...that He might present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that she would be holy and without blemish. The entire Bible is a divine romance, a record of how God courts His chosen people and eventually marries them (Gen. 2:21-24; S.S. 1:2-4; Isa. 54:5; 62:5; Jer. 2:2; 3:1, 14; 31:32; Ezek. 16:8; 23:5; Hosea 2:7, 19; Matt. 9:15; John 3:29; 2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:25-32; Rev. 19:7; 21:2, 9-10; 22:17). When we as God’s people enter into a love relationship with God, we receive His life, just as Eve received the life of Adam (Gen. 2:21-22). It is this life that enables us to become one with God and makes Him one with us. We keep the law not by exercising our mind and will (cf. Rom. 7:18-25) but by loving the Lord as our Husband and thereby partaking of His life and nature to become one with Him as His enlargement and expression. In the past, Christ as the Redeemer gave Himself up for the church (Eph. 5:25) for redemption and the impartation of life (John 19:34); in the present, He as the life-giving Spirit is sanctifying the church through separation, saturation, transformation, growth, and building up; and in the future, He as the Bridegroom will present the church to Himself as His counterpart for His satisfaction. Therefore, Christ’s loving the church is to separate and sanctify her, and His separating and sanctifying the church are to present her to Himself. Another aspect of the church...[is] the bride. This aspect reveals that the church comes out of Christ, as Eve came out of Adam (Gen. 2:21-22), that it has the same life and nature as Christ, and that it becomes one with Him as His counterpart, as Eve became one flesh with Adam (Gen. 2:24). Humanly speaking, the end of Genesis 2 is easy to understand because it relates the story of a marriage. Adam was created, but he had no wife. Thus, God provided a wife for him....If we read through the whole Bible, we will realize that the marriage found in Genesis 2 is...an allegory....Later in the Old Testament God told His people, “For your Maker is your Husband” (Isa. 54:5). Man’s Creator is his Husband, meaning that in the universe the unique man is God Himself. The man created by God actually is not a man, but a woman....Firstly, God was my Creator. Secondly, He became my Redeemer. Now He is my Husband.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 06:10:40 +0000
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