In the beginning, when God made Adam and Eve he explained that they would bond together so tightly that they would become "one flesh." Another place he said that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.
And when Carla and I got married, the preacher said, "What God has joined together, let no man put assunder."
A marriage relationship is the closest possible relationship a man and woman can have on this earth. It is the highest realization of love that we can know. That is why God uses marriage to tell us how intimate he wants to be with us.
In Revelation 19:7-9 John writes, "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God."
You and I can become the spiritual wife of Jesus Christ. In Genesis you can read where a man "knew" his wife and she bore him a son....
That is the complete way that Jesus wants us to know each other. Completely and intimately. He wants us to understand that He is willing to send His Holy Spirit to actually dwell inside of us, to become a part of us, to control and direct us. To actually create a new life out of our old one.
You can see this in the verses above. The fine linen, clean and white that the "bride" wears is the righteousness of the saints. These saints are pure. That is what white worn by a bride signifies, that she is a pure virgin. She has saved herself for her husband on their wedding night. These saints are pure. They have not worshipped other gods. In fact, the marriage supper of the Lamb (Jesus) is a victory supper. It will take place in heaven after He has taken all the saints back with Him at His second coming. Just like a man sort of is the "victor" and has won the woman over all the other men who might have wooed her, the Lamb has married all these pure saints. And we together will have a victory supper.
David wrote about it in Psalm 23 "He preparest a table for me in the presence of my enemies." This is the table of the victory supper at the triumph of the Lamb. These saints have chosen HIM!! They are united in spiritual marriage to Him. They have become ONE with Him. They have His Spirit filling them completely. They have chosen to follow Him completely.
Thus the deepest love between a husband and wife is used by Jesus to begin to try to describe the incredible union that He wants to have with us. He loves us and wants us to become ONE with Him. And God sent Jesus to come and die for us, to enable us to reclaim the wonderful relation that Adam and Eve had before they sinned.
We will actually spend eternity being able to talk to our Maker face to face. And it will be a life of Joy, of fulfillment, of satisfaction. I want to "marry" Jesus, don't you?
Sincerely,
David A. Youngs
No comments:
Post a Comment