One of the best metaphors in the Bible, I think, is the metaphor that Christ and the church are married like a husband and a wife, respectively.
It’s found in Ephesians 5:22-25 and 32.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
Paul’s my homeboy. I want a t-shirt that says that. But that’s beyond the point. The Holy Spirit’s inspiration in this passage is incredible because we can take so much from this. And it’s something that I’ve been contemplating and meditating on a lot today. I’ll try to take this one at a time.
Christ is our husband, as the church. The imagery is incredible. You think about a perfect husband: he’s faithful, he’s loving, he’s serving, he’s sacrificial. That’s how I define a perfect husband because Christ is the perfect picture of a husband and Christ is all those things. The crazy thing is…
We are the most unfaithful of brides. This is put best in Derek Webb’s song “Wedding Dress,” which I posted about a week ago. He sings, “So could you love this bastard child? Though I don’t trust You to provide, with one hand in a pot of gold, and the other in your side. ‘Cause I am so easily satisfied by the call of lovers less wild, that I would take a little cash over Your very flesh and blood.” What a charge made against Christians, a charge that landed Webb in some hot water. But I stand behind it because it’s so true. The fact that we walk around as perpetual whores is convicting. We are constantly, through our sin in word, thought and deed, betraying the love that Christ has for us.
But He loves us anyways because HE IS JEALOUS. A couple lines in songs hit the nail on the head here. The popular worship song “How He Loves” starts, “He is jealous for me.” “Wedding Dress” has a line that goes: “Because money cannot buy a husband’s jealous eyes when you have knowingly deceived his wife.” That particular line has been hitting me upside the head today. God is SO JEALOUS for us that nothing Satan does can take away His love for us. Christ the ultimate jealous husband. And it’s beautiful.
It’s the most beautiful wedding. It’s the most beautiful wedding when a person becomes a Christian. There’s Jesus, the husband. He is loving and sacrificial. He gave His life so that us, the bride could have life in Him. And then there’s us, the bride, the selfish, self-seeking person that Christ loves unconditionally when we submit ourselves to Him. It’s such a beautiful picture because it’s forgiveness and love! Two of the greatest things in the history of the world!
Just some thoughts on what God’s been revealing to me. There’s so much more to this but blog posts need to be relatively short.
Dio ti protegga,
Zach
By A Ransomed Soul 