This week's afterWORDs are not mine. Suggest you have a hanky ready though. I'm not going to lie to you, this may hurt a lot. But "He pierces with the Word that He might then apply the balm of the Word."
This week we founded our conversation on the principle of justice: starting in Joshua 19 (recall we're doing a weekly small group discussion from the Bible book Pastor Ray is preaching through). It was of sorts a running start through Ezra 1-8 in order to look squarely into the deep hurt, agony, and struggle by all accounts in Ezra 9 and 10. This is where the repatriated Israelites put their foreign wives and children away for the purity of the remnant's sake. Right? Wrong? I think in general what came through our conversation left a lot of loose ends about what in the world this means about holiness, sanctification, consecration, and purity in individuals, families, marriages, and what role faith should play now that we've not only heard OF God but seen Him face to face in the person of Christ...
And then last night, the other foot fell:
“The creation of the world seems to have been especially for this end: that the eternal Son of God might obtain a spouse, towards whom He might fully exercise the infinite benevolence of His nature and to whom He might, as it were, open and pour forth all that immense fountain of condescension, love and grace that was in His heart, and that in this way God might be glorified.”
–Jonathan Edwards, “The Church’s Marriage To Her Sons, And To Her God,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 25, Sermons and Discourses 1743-1758. Ed. Wilson H. Kimnach (WJE Online Vol. 25), 187.
What we learned through the words of Ephesians and 1 Peter, through the life example of Hosea, and through the shed blood of Christ on the cross--who "while we were yet sinners" ""for the joy set before Him" "gave Himself for [the church]" "endured the cross, despising the shame" "that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she should be holy and without blemish."
afterWORD? In the language of creation, God brought all of creation to His Son to show that there was not a mate for Him to be found of this world. And the bride He took was weak, deceivable, deceived, fallen, riddled throughout with unrighteousness and replete with selfish and self-corrupting unholiness. We were and are infused with our world, but we are redeemed and married to perfection. For what is man that You should be mindful of him? and what is man that he could be holy?
But Jesus didn't put us away as an act of holiness or justice...Instead, His justice is swallowed up in love. Through all His power in holiness, giving all of Himself even to the point of bloodshed, He "exercise[s] the infinite benevolence of His nature...and pour[s] forth all that immense fountain of condescension, love, and grace that [is] in His heart, and that in this way God might be glorified."
