"Christ...
loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he
might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of
water with the word, that he might present the church to
himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing; but that it should be holy and without
blemish" (Eph. 5:25-27).
The Father appointed
all things for His Son. Those 'all things' were to be the
joint inheritance of His Son and His Son's bride, the
Church. That comes out very clearly in the New Testament.
That bride was in the race of mankind, created as we are
told in the book of Genesis. That bride would have to be
of a certain order, a certain character, a certain kind,
to be suitable to that Son. She would have to be a very
special bride, she would have to be made for Him most
suitable.
Then we have the story
of Adam and Eve, and we know what happened through their
surrender to Satan. Something spiritual happened in them,
a change took place in their very nature. God had made
them, firstly, for union with Himself; then for communion
with Himself; and then for likeness to Himself; and in
dependence upon Himself; leading to the last thing,
absolute and implicit faith in Him. Those are the five
things which characterise the Church according to God's
mind - (1) union with God, vital union, the union of one
life; (2) communion with God, intercourse, fellowship,
oneness of mind; (3) likeness to God, in His own image
and after His likeness, taking character from Him, He
giving His character and His nature to the Church; then
(4) dependence upon Him so complete that there is no life
apart from Him. (It is one of the great tests of marriage
union - and I should say, taking it from a man's
standpoint, a most difficult one - for a wife to be
absolutely dependent upon a man for every penny. There is
a revolt against that in our times: but God meant it to
be like that with His Church - just absolute dependence,
having nothing apart from Him, drawing everything from
Him.) And that means (5) perfect faith in Him. Those five
things must characterise the bride of Christ.
Now the thing that
happened when Satan carried the day with those two
changed all that. It broke the union; it brought an end
to the communion; it marred the likeness and made
impossible its full expression; independence came in -
for theirs was an independent act: Satan had tempted them
to act on their own, without any relationship to God at
all - and that all meant that faith in God was destroyed.
It was something that happened in the nature. It was not
just an act, but something that entered into their very
nature; and so that is how we find the race.
Now the Lord lays His
hand upon one and another of those who are to form that
bride. He brings them to the place where they have to
make this decision and take this position - 'I die to all
that which happened long, long ago; I die to broken
union, to interrupted communion, to spoiled likeness, to
all independence and unbelief. I repudiate it, I put it
all away; I say that belongs to a creation which I hate,
and I want that to be done with, dead and buried. In
Christ union is restored, communion begins again, the
likeness, conformity to the Son, is taken up by the Holy
Spirit; I am from this time utterly and wholly dependent
upon the Lord, not to live unto myself but henceforth
"unto him who for their sakes died and rose
again" (2 Cor. 5:15), and henceforth my faith is in
Him.'
"Christ loved the
church," and He gave Himself, for one thing, to
purchase her; for the other thing, to effect that death
of herself, on her behalf. We cannot kill ourselves, but
the Lord Jesus has done it for us. He has died to all
that other condition for us, and has risen to all this
thought of God for us. So that in His death we died to
all that happened in Eden, and in His resurrection we
rise to all that God ever intended that bride to be.
"Christ... loved the church, and gave himself up for
it... that he might present the church to himself a
glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such
thing."
That brings us to this
further stage, that we are together as the Church, as the
bride, on resurrection ground, and ours is no longer an
independent life, even as Christians. We are dependent
upon one another in Christ, because Christ has committed
Himself to the Church, and we come into a greater fulness
of Christ in a related way with one another than we
should if we were just isolated individuals; we get a
greater fulness of Christ in our fellowship together. So
we need the Church, because Christ comes to us in the
Church, and this dependence upon the Lord is shown by our
spiritual dependence upon one another, upon fellowship,
upon the communion of the people of God. In Christ we are
one, providing Him with what the Father ever intended Him
to have - a glorious Church.
First published in "A Witness and A
Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1949, Vol 27-1