Jesus is coming for His Bride – the Church

(…continues from part 1…)

2)            The first thing of note is that marriage is expected to be contract of legality between two children of Jesus. I have always made the firm reiteration of the fact that marriage is truly an act between only Christians. It is God’s institution to propagate the earth with His covenantal people. The first marriage between the two Adams never experienced termination. Why? God will not involve two people who will destroy His institution. What did God do when the first humans committed the sin of death? He brought forth the lamb of propitiation, which is an adumbration of the Golgotha substitutionary death. The Golgotha phenomenon reestablished the marriage to the Lamb – a marriage that will never suffer termination. Are we ever going to have idiosyncratic differences with the Lord Jesus when we meet in heaven? It will never occur! The two marriage stabilizing verses, being God’s injunctions, have eternal consequence.

                It instructs, “Husbands, love your wives,” because among virtues of: love, hope, prophecies, faith, tongues and knowledge, love is not only the greatest, it can never die. Existing in the stead of Jesus Christ, the husband, love fortified, will always get it right. Amen! Love, indubitably, is one of the best definitions of God. His love for us, so unconditionally, ergo, is Divine commitment. The act of ‘love’ God instructs the husband to show for his wife is ağapaō (a-ğ a-paō’) meaning: ‘1. to love (in a social or moral sense). 2. (perfect passive participle) having been loved; {chiefly of the heart (wholehearted, unconditional, devoted).’ Ağapaō is the verbal form of agapē (a-ğa’-pay): ‘1. love (i.e. affection or benevolence). 2. (specially, plural) love feasts.’ Love of the Divinity, as applicable to the husband, as we can understand, is not a feeling. If the husband will see himself in the stead of Jesus in the marriage to his wife, loving her will never be herculean task. For being God’s child, his whole heart is full of commitment towards the welfare of his wife.

                Colossians 3:18 “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.” The divine role for the wife here is ‘submit’ which is hupotasso (hï-po-tas’-sō): ‘1. to subordinate. 2. (reflexively) to obey.’ We need to do an exegesis of this word hupotasso. It comes from two words: hupo (hï-po’): ‘1. under. 2. (of place, genitive) beneath;’ and tasso (tas’-sō): ‘1. to arrange in an orderly manner. 2. (generally) to assign or dispose (to a certain position or lot).’ Put the two componential Greek words together hupotasso or ‘submit’ has the Divine instructiveness of: “package yourself in an orderly manner and place it under the subjection of your husband.” It truly takes two to perform the tango.

                Will two true Christians marry, the husband ready to shower the commitment of agapē, and the lady is duly, with all willingness, eager to hupotasso to the husband in all things as Ephesians 5:24 “Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing” reads, and all other things will not fall in beautiful places? The word ‘subject’ of Ephesians 5:24 is also the Greek hupotasso. What are we to understand from this is that the wife’s submission is not intended to glorify or pamper the proclivity of the man’s idiosyncratic ego. I did not write the Bible, so I cannot be seen as being biased or chauvinistic. The husband, the man of the house, must bring the woman under his submission only according to the word of Christ so that his headship of the family will truly resemble the will of Jesus Christ for the Church.

The marriage of Jesus to the Church (Hosea 2:19)

                With the divine love of the LORD God well ingrained in the soul of the husband, where dwells his ego: for his understanding of God’s protocol makes any lesson on man’s ego quite supererogatory. Will he ever want to beat his wife? He would never dare raise his hand against his erring wife, not because of the fear of the law or what people may say; he is totally committed to the woman’s welfare; he would never want to incur the anger of Jesus: that is the reason why he would never even dream of hurting his wife. As a teenager, I had often said to all ears, “If you see me beat my wife when I marry, know that I’ve gone crazy. Should I ever beat my wife, for does it not say, ‘…and they shall be one flesh,’ (therefore for this reason) am I not beating myself?” Only a lunatic beats himself! That commitment is all a child of God needs to come to terms with, and as far as he is concerned, it is “Hallelujah!”

                Where is feminine complexity that tends to make her disobedient to her husband? Does she not see in her husband the Lord of glory, Jesus Christ? Knowing fully well that their home is the dwelling place of the Trinity, and that the Holy Spirit has taken an eternal residence in her own spirit, she has the understanding that the only way to make God happy in her marriage is to please her husband. Rather than raise her voice against her husband for not being responsible, she has learnt to take the matter to the throne of God in prayer. She understands the facticity of Proverbs 21:1, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.” Christianity has successfully turned her into the virtuous woman who has fully digested the exhortatory 1Peter 3:1 “Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;” and is convinced that rather than unproductive nagging, her attitudinal Christian silence is the best way to make her husband see her own reasons.

                Spiritual acquittal and discharge takes place only when one is born again. To be born again, say, with all your heart, this simple prayer:

“Dear heavenly Father, I come to You now in the name of Jesus Christ. I believe in my heart that Jesus is the Son of God. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sin. I believe that You raised Him from the dead. I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and I receive Him now as my Lord and my Saviour. I give God all the glory. Amen!”      

(…to be continued…)

Read part 1 here

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