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Love In Action
A
PREPARATION FOR CHRIST’S COMING
NOTES OF BIBLE TEACHING
GIVEN BY PASTOR O. STOCKMAYER, AT DOVER, APRIL, 1895.
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VII
The Nature of the Bride
“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 the man to see what he would call them: and whatsoever
the man called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And
the man gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to
every beast of the field; but for man there was not found an help
meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the
man, 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 the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. And the
man 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).
Paul writes in the New Testament: “Wives, be in
subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband
is the head of the wife, as Christ, also is the head of the Church,
being Himself the Savior of the body....Husbands, love your wives,
even as Christ also 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. Even so ought husbands
also to love their own wives as their own bodies,...even as Christ
also the Church; because we are members of His Body. For this cause
shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his
wife; and the twain shall become one flesh. This mystery is great:
but I speak in regard of Christ and of the Church” (Eph, 5:22-32).
I will read one more passage: “And a voice came forth from the
throne, saying, Give praise to our God, all ye His servants, ye that
fear Him, the small and the great. And I heard as it were the voice
of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the
voice of mighty thunders, saying, Hallelujah: for the Lord our God,
the Almighty, reigneth, Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and
let us give the glory unto Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is
come, and His wife hath made herself ready. And it was given unto
her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure;
for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. And he saith
unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are bidden to the marriage
supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are true words of
God” (Rev. 19:5-9).
You see the close connection between these three passages: they all
speak of one thing, that most holy relationship in human life which
binds together man and wife. If there be any type and antitype in
the Bible, then Adam and Eve are the type of Christ and His Church.
All human relationships are types, and so are all relationships in
nature, e.g. the vine and the branches. The parables of our
Lord Jesus Christ were not invented by Him, but were laid up for us
in nature by the Father and the Son. Thus things of earth speak to
those who have open ears, and show to open eyes God’s meaning behind
them all. The earthly will vanish away; all that can be shaken will
be shaken (Heb. 12:26-28), that the things behind them, which cannot
be shaken may appear. “The things which are seen are temporal,” they
shall pass away; “but the things which are not seen are eternal,”
they will never pass away (2 Cor. 4:18).
Looking closer into the first portion we read in Gen. 2, you will
see God had a double purpose in making the whole creation pass in
review before its king. First, the Lord God said, “It is not good
that the man should be alone.” But there was no companion meet for
Adam, able to respond to him. A human being needs one answering to
him, capable of fellowship with him in mind and heart, in views and
prospects; someone who can thoroughly understand him and share his
interests. A wife is neither a servant nor a slave, but a
companion. Adam himself must seek and choose the companion who is
to share his life.
One of the deepest needs of the human heart is to find in Christ the
only heart which can fully answer its longings for what is pure and
noble, and deliver it from what is impure and ignoble.
God’s second purpose in bringing all creation before Adam was that,
even if he should fail to find his meet companion, he should at
least take possession of his kingdom. When the Lord Jesus Christ met
Peter, he bore the name of Simon, which man had given him. Jesus,
with one look sounded the man, and took possession of him. A true
name can be given only by one who sees through and through. A name
which does not represent character is a false name. Jesus gave Simon
his true name: “Thou shalt be called Peter; however weak and
uncertain thy character may be, I will prove My Divine power to make
thee a man of rock; thou shalt be Peter.” Before the Fall,
Adam was confirmed in his position as king by the very fact that,
with one look, he was able to understand the deepest meaning of God
in the creation of everything. Fowl or beast or whatever it was, he
named it according to what it was, and thus took possession of it.
Therefore, his guilt and his fall were so deep, because he let
himself be induced by his own subject, of which he had taken
possession by naming it, to discuss God’s command. At that moment he
threw away his gift of ruling power, and became subject to the
serpent over which God had given him dominion.
Adam sought in vain; throughout his kingdom there was not found a
help meet for him. And if the first Adam turned away with horror
from the very thought of associating with himself any created being
of another order than himself, unable to share his life, do you
think the second Adam would be content to associate with Himself a
being who is not of His own order and nature?
If it was the Apostle Paul’s ambition to present the Church as “a
chaste virgin” to Christ, do you think the Holy Ghost would be
content to take the Church as she is, and offer her to
Christ? Paul’s ministry failed to bring out in the Church the full
divine character, do you think that death will do more than the Holy
Ghost was able to do through the blood of Christ and the Word of
God, ministered by such a man as Paul?
Never, brothers; but our God can wait. He could not Israel up as a
whole to the standard of His calling: “I am a husband unto you (Jer.
3:14); I have chosen you out of all the nations to enter into a
special covenant with you” [we see the Old Testament uses the term
“adultery” in speaking of His people’s sin]. Well, the Lord will
show, in coming ages, that His gifts and calling are without
repentance (Rom. 11:29). If the people of Israel as a whole, failed
Him, and He was still faithful to a remnant, do you think that if,
in this time of parenthesis, the Church also fails Him, He will
forsake the Church altogether? Never. But the Lord will not treat
her as a servant or a slave, He will always respect her freedom:
“Stir not up, nor awaken love, until it [or she] please” (SS. 2:7;
3:5; 8:4). He cannot wed a Bride who must be forced to follow Him.
Let us carefully follow Holy Scripture in all this. I am sure there
are already firstfruits, a cloud of witnesses in heaven, true
members of the Church and of the Bride, who have been waiting
through centuries and ages, till the last member is made ready, and
the Holy Ghost has succeeded—and He will succeed—in carrying some at
least straight to the throne, who may 'be the first sheaf of the
great harvest (Lev. 23:10).
Jesus Christ has been “made unto us Wisdom from God; both
Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30, marg.),
that our spirit, soul and body may be sanctified through and
through, in such a way that God may be justified before hell, the
devil, the fallen angels, and the universe, in carrying straight to
glory, without dying, those who have been made ready for the Coming
of Christ. Even the longing after sanctification becomes a
miserable thing when it leads to nothing further. It is like a
helmet without a spike, or like a soldier without a helmet. The
helmet is the hope of salvation; a salvation which is yet to come
[compare Eph. 6:17 and 1 Thess. 5:8]. Christ, will “appear a second
time...to them that wait for Him, unto salvation,” that salvation,
“the redemption of the body,” of which Rom. 8:23, speaks.
You think, perhaps, you may return to the same condition as man was
in before the Fall? The Lord never brings a Christian, through
restoration, to the point where he was before, but deeper down and
higher up; a ploughman does not turn always in the same furrow. The
problem of restoration is wonderfully deeper than we can understand
or conceive. In all your longings for purification and
sanctification, you turn in a circle, so long as you seek to find
satisfaction in your progress. Have you fully discerned the glorious
prospect that we are called, justified, sanctified and glorified,
not for ourselves, but because One is waiting for a companion made
meet for Him? For this He left the throne. No angel or archangel was
meet to be His companion; she must be taken out of Himself. He took
on Him our flesh, our human nature, that God might be glorified in
raising man out of the human into His divine nature. “He hath
granted unto us His precious and exceeding great promises; that
through these ye may become partakers of the Divine nature” (2 Pet.
1:4).
“His divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto
life and godliness,” that we, who are by our first nature a daughter
of earth, may become a daughter of heaven, in whom the King of kings
may recognize His help-meet.
I own that if the son of an emperor should cast his eyes upon a girl
of lower social rank, her first thought would be: “Do you deceive
me?” Afterwards she might be puzzled: “Why should he think of me?
But then she might consider his character, and if she came to the
conclusion that he was true, and in full possession of his senses,
after the first intoxication of the glory of such a position, the
consciousness would dawn upon her that such a man had chosen her,
and this would for ever purify her horizon, and separate her from
all which she had clung to hitherto. She would have but one
thought—to answer the expectations of him who called her. Believing
that he would raise her to his own level, the question of her
position would disappear before that other question: “Can I so love
him that he may not be disappointed in me; can I answer the
expectation of such a man?” “Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and
incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s
house; so shall the King desire thy beauty” (Ps. 45:10).
Has that vision, “The King claims me for Himself,” ever risen on
your horizon? And can you continue to pursue your own interests even
in God’s service? Can you still yield to murmuring, strife and
ambition? Can you have a thought which is not for Him, or which
unfits you to be a member of the Bride of the Lamb?
Jacob served seven years for a wife, “and they seemed to him but a
few days, for the love he had to her” (Gen. 29:20). The King of
heaven gave His life for His Bride: is it too much for Him to expect
of you that you should purify yourself for His sake? You do not
find it a ceaseless necessity to purify yourself from everything
which the Spirit shows you to be wrong or unnecessary that you may
become pure in your own eyes; it is simply because you have
understood the divine call to be a member of the Bride. Because
Christ cannot associate to Himself a Bride who does not fully bear
His own image, He will take you from crucible to crucible until He
sees Himself in you. “The woman is the glory of the man” (1 Cor.
11:7); the Bride is the glory of Christ. More fully, from day to day
the character of Jesus Christ comes out in her, and the human gives
way to the divine.
As the living creatures above cannot cease, night or day, saying,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty” (Rev. 4:8), so the
Bride by her whole life says uninterruptedly, in unison with the
Spirit, “Come” (Rev. 17:17).
Must the Lord Jesus be still kept waiting age after age; or, do you
think He will at last decide to come whatever may be the state of
His Church? No, my brethren, the Holy Ghost is faithful; He will
succeed in forming a Bride acceptable to Christ, to the glory of
God the Father.
And do you know that the whole universe is waiting for this? The
whole creation is groaning and travailing in pain together, waiting
for the revealing of the sons of God (Rom. 8:19-23). Many will come
from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south,
while children of the kingdom shall be shut out; “The last shall be
first and the first last.” If the Church should not awake, the
creation itself by its groaning would stand accuser against a Church
that will not rise to her high calling. The whole creation is in
earnest expectation, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of
God; and shall those sons of God continue to lead a miserable
Christian life, in which the human and divine are mingled, which can
never satisfy the Lord, and which hinders the Spirit’s ministry in
its highest and central object?
The whole universe is in suspense, but it shall not wait in vain. A
Bride shall be presented to Him, blameless even in His flaming eyes,
and shall enter the Father’s house, where she shall be with Him for
ever and ever in the most holy place, “in the midst of the throne.”
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