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“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones” (Eph 5:25-30).
What a wondrous unfolding of the tender love of the Lord Jesus for the Church! What a blessed revelation of the nearness and sacredness of the union subsisting between them. Here we see enacted in the Last Adam that which is so beautifully typified in the first. The first Adam was head of creation, but he was alone, with no help meet (fit) for him.
“And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Gen 2:18-24).
The Last Adam has gone through all that is here divinely prefigured in the first. He, too, was alone; the Head, by God’s anointing, of everything; but as long as He lived, He abode alone. The deep, deep sleep of death passed by God’s ordinance upon Him; and now, having fallen into the ground (buried - Jhn 12:24) and died, He can “bring forth much fruit.” But what was the first-fruit of this deep sleep? God has formed out of His very self, bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh, the Bride, the object to which His heart can cleave, which He can take to be one with Himself. Can He hate it? Surely not, it is “His own flesh,” and as such He “nouriseth and cherisheth it” (Eph 5:29 – the Lord Jesus made the saints to be His bones and flesh—NC).
Truly He is the Head, but does He class His Bride with the subjects over whom He reigns by God’s anointing? Was Eve in the same relationship with Adam as the creation over which he ruled (yes, she was “mother of all living” - Gen 3:20—NC)? No less is the Church in the same relationship with Christ as the other subjects of His dominion. He is Head to the Church, and Head over all things. But to the Church He is Head as the husband is head of the wife; to all things else He is Head as a king is head over his subjects (Christ reigns over everyone except the Church, who reigns with Him, as the Head does not reign here but guides and directs - 2Ti 2:12; Rev 20:6—NC). Adam was head to Eve, but Eve was the partner of Adam in his leadership over creation. In like manner Christ is Head to the Body, but the Bride is the consort (associate—NC) of Christ in His headship over all things.
This shows us the difference between millennial and Church blessings. The millennial saint (Jews who believe in God the Father - Jn 14:1—NC) will enjoy every advantage that a redeemed earth can yield under Christ’s government. The believer now is set in a groaning creation (Rom 8:22), in a world “lying in the wicked one” (1Jo 5:19), and is called to be a partaker of Christ’s sufferings. But the millennial saint will only know Christ as a gracious sovereign, as the Anointed of God carrying our His thoughts of blessing to the earth. The believer now knows the Lord Jesus as his Life—he is at present the sharer of His sufferings, and when He comes in His glory, he will be the sharer of His throne. Such is the faithful Word. “If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him” (2Tim 2:12). “To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne” (Rev 3:21).
Where is anything like this stated of the millennial saints (who will only have the new earth and will be only a “people of God,” but no sonship in Christ—NC)? Take the most favored people during that blessed epoch (God’s dealings of blessings with Israel—NC), and mark what is said about them (Israel—NC). “And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever” (Luk 1:33). Christ will reign, then, over Israel as King. The Church, on the other hand, reigns with Christ (being “Head” of the Church is not ruling but guiding and teaching—NC). He is never called King of the Church, but of Israel. Reigning with Him, on the contrary, is never ascribed to Israel, but to the Bride.
The Bride of Christ, then, occupies a higher place than either the Old Testament or the millennial saints. The “just men made perfect” (Heb 12:23 – not “perfect” as in Christ but complete in the “shadows” and types that represented His Blood through animal sacrifices; “just men” were OT believers in God—NC), however blessed their lot, are not brought into that nearness of relationship which is accorded to the “Church of the firstborn,” the first-fruits if His redemption toil. The millennial saint, too, surrounded with all that ministers to delight here below, with the law written in his heart, and rejoicing in all the blessings of the new covenant (Jer 31:31; Eze 36:27 – Israel’s new and final covenant with God—NC), will never be in the same sacred intimacy, the same hallowed oneness with the Lord Jesus, into which the feeblest of His Body is now brought.
In heavenly glory we see the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, in all the perfect beauty she will possess when He shall “present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:27). “And to her was granted she should be arrayed in fine linen, white and clean, for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints” (we have Christ’s righteousness – Rev 19:8).
But now while still in the world, liable to contract defilement, or to be led away into false paths by the subtle craft of Satan (from which God always bring us back—NC), the Bride requires the constant, tender watchfulness of her risen Head, to cleanse and guard her (2Th 3:3; Jde 1:24—NC). And how does He meet this daily want? Should she contract defilement by the way, He comes in to sanctify and cleanse with the “washing of water by the Word” (cleansing speaks only of the Blood of Christ, for nothing else can wash away sins - Psa 51:2)—NC). Should she be in danger of wandering through the false suggestions of Satan, He sends His faithful apostle to lift up the voice of earnest and affectionate expostulation, recalling her to her blessed place of privilege and warning her against the snares of the deceiver.
“For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2Co 11:2, 3). How exquisitely tender the love of Christ for His Bride as brought out in this passage!
Not less beautiful is the figure in which Scripture describes His mode of nourishing and cherishing her, exhorting believers to “grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love” (Eph 4:15, 16). Love is what builds it up, love flowing from the Head, and causing it to grow up “into Him.”
With the living Word of God as our authoritative source, with the Spirit of God to unfold its wisdom to our hearts, and with a single eye to walk in obedience to His divine guidance, the path through this tangled labyrinth will be found. We have long since exhausted our own resources; but we have not, and we never shall have, exhausted our Father’s.
— Thomas Blackburn Baines (1832-1891)
MJS daily devotional excerpt for May 11
“Some say, ‘I want to feel that I am strong.’ What we need is to feel that we are weak; this brings in Omnipotence. We shall have a life of feeling by-and-by in the glory; now we are called upon to lead a life of faith. What believer but knows from the experience of the deceitfulness of his own heart, that, had we power in ourselves instead of in Christ, we should be something. This is what God does not intend.”
“The very essence of the condition of a soul in a right state is conscious dependence. Now one may use the fact of completeness in Christ to make one independent. Two things are implied in dependence: first, the sense that we cannot do without God in a single instance; and, secondly, that He is ‘for us.’ In other words, there is confidence in His love and power on our behalf, as well as the consciousness that without Him we can do nothing.” -J.N.D.
What a wondrous unfolding of the tender love of the Lord Jesus for the Church! What a blessed revelation of the nearness and sacredness of the union subsisting between them. Here we see enacted in the Last Adam that which is so beautifully typified in the first. The first Adam was head of creation, but he was alone, with no help meet (fit) for him.
“And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Gen 2:18-24).
The Last Adam has gone through all that is here divinely prefigured in the first. He, too, was alone; the Head, by God’s anointing, of everything; but as long as He lived, He abode alone. The deep, deep sleep of death passed by God’s ordinance upon Him; and now, having fallen into the ground (buried - Jhn 12:24) and died, He can “bring forth much fruit.” But what was the first-fruit of this deep sleep? God has formed out of His very self, bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh, the Bride, the object to which His heart can cleave, which He can take to be one with Himself. Can He hate it? Surely not, it is “His own flesh,” and as such He “nouriseth and cherisheth it” (Eph 5:29 – the Lord Jesus made the saints to be His bones and flesh—NC).
Truly He is the Head, but does He class His Bride with the subjects over whom He reigns by God’s anointing? Was Eve in the same relationship with Adam as the creation over which he ruled (yes, she was “mother of all living” - Gen 3:20—NC)? No less is the Church in the same relationship with Christ as the other subjects of His dominion. He is Head to the Church, and Head over all things. But to the Church He is Head as the husband is head of the wife; to all things else He is Head as a king is head over his subjects (Christ reigns over everyone except the Church, who reigns with Him, as the Head does not reign here but guides and directs - 2Ti 2:12; Rev 20:6—NC). Adam was head to Eve, but Eve was the partner of Adam in his leadership over creation. In like manner Christ is Head to the Body, but the Bride is the consort (associate—NC) of Christ in His headship over all things.
This shows us the difference between millennial and Church blessings. The millennial saint (Jews who believe in God the Father - Jn 14:1—NC) will enjoy every advantage that a redeemed earth can yield under Christ’s government. The believer now is set in a groaning creation (Rom 8:22), in a world “lying in the wicked one” (1Jo 5:19), and is called to be a partaker of Christ’s sufferings. But the millennial saint will only know Christ as a gracious sovereign, as the Anointed of God carrying our His thoughts of blessing to the earth. The believer now knows the Lord Jesus as his Life—he is at present the sharer of His sufferings, and when He comes in His glory, he will be the sharer of His throne. Such is the faithful Word. “If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him” (2Tim 2:12). “To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne” (Rev 3:21).
Where is anything like this stated of the millennial saints (who will only have the new earth and will be only a “people of God,” but no sonship in Christ—NC)? Take the most favored people during that blessed epoch (God’s dealings of blessings with Israel—NC), and mark what is said about them (Israel—NC). “And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever” (Luk 1:33). Christ will reign, then, over Israel as King. The Church, on the other hand, reigns with Christ (being “Head” of the Church is not ruling but guiding and teaching—NC). He is never called King of the Church, but of Israel. Reigning with Him, on the contrary, is never ascribed to Israel, but to the Bride.
The Bride of Christ, then, occupies a higher place than either the Old Testament or the millennial saints. The “just men made perfect” (Heb 12:23 – not “perfect” as in Christ but complete in the “shadows” and types that represented His Blood through animal sacrifices; “just men” were OT believers in God—NC), however blessed their lot, are not brought into that nearness of relationship which is accorded to the “Church of the firstborn,” the first-fruits if His redemption toil. The millennial saint, too, surrounded with all that ministers to delight here below, with the law written in his heart, and rejoicing in all the blessings of the new covenant (Jer 31:31; Eze 36:27 – Israel’s new and final covenant with God—NC), will never be in the same sacred intimacy, the same hallowed oneness with the Lord Jesus, into which the feeblest of His Body is now brought.
In heavenly glory we see the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, in all the perfect beauty she will possess when He shall “present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:27). “And to her was granted she should be arrayed in fine linen, white and clean, for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints” (we have Christ’s righteousness – Rev 19:8).
But now while still in the world, liable to contract defilement, or to be led away into false paths by the subtle craft of Satan (from which God always bring us back—NC), the Bride requires the constant, tender watchfulness of her risen Head, to cleanse and guard her (2Th 3:3; Jde 1:24—NC). And how does He meet this daily want? Should she contract defilement by the way, He comes in to sanctify and cleanse with the “washing of water by the Word” (cleansing speaks only of the Blood of Christ, for nothing else can wash away sins - Psa 51:2)—NC). Should she be in danger of wandering through the false suggestions of Satan, He sends His faithful apostle to lift up the voice of earnest and affectionate expostulation, recalling her to her blessed place of privilege and warning her against the snares of the deceiver.
“For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2Co 11:2, 3). How exquisitely tender the love of Christ for His Bride as brought out in this passage!
Not less beautiful is the figure in which Scripture describes His mode of nourishing and cherishing her, exhorting believers to “grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love” (Eph 4:15, 16). Love is what builds it up, love flowing from the Head, and causing it to grow up “into Him.”
With the living Word of God as our authoritative source, with the Spirit of God to unfold its wisdom to our hearts, and with a single eye to walk in obedience to His divine guidance, the path through this tangled labyrinth will be found. We have long since exhausted our own resources; but we have not, and we never shall have, exhausted our Father’s.
— Thomas Blackburn Baines (1832-1891)
MJS daily devotional excerpt for May 11
“Some say, ‘I want to feel that I am strong.’ What we need is to feel that we are weak; this brings in Omnipotence. We shall have a life of feeling by-and-by in the glory; now we are called upon to lead a life of faith. What believer but knows from the experience of the deceitfulness of his own heart, that, had we power in ourselves instead of in Christ, we should be something. This is what God does not intend.”
“The very essence of the condition of a soul in a right state is conscious dependence. Now one may use the fact of completeness in Christ to make one independent. Two things are implied in dependence: first, the sense that we cannot do without God in a single instance; and, secondly, that He is ‘for us.’ In other words, there is confidence in His love and power on our behalf, as well as the consciousness that without Him we can do nothing.” -J.N.D.
