I want you to turn with me in
your Bibles to the book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 5. And while you're turning, I want
to read to you a few verses from the book of Genesis. So Ephesians
5 and then listen while you're turning. It says in the second
chapter that God, that Adam rather, gave names to all the cattle
and to the fowl of the air, to every beast of the field. But
for Adam there was not found a help meet or suitable 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 he 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. They were both naked, the man
and his wife, and there was no shame in their eyes." Now, in
the book of Ephesians, I want you to look in the fifth chapter, in this passage, there is no
controversy for us, only instruction and help. But I want you to begin
with me in the 21st verse, where the Apostle Paul wrote, submitting
yourselves to one another in the fear of God. That submission
speaks of mutual respect and mutual responsiveness. Then he
said in verse 22, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands
as unto the Lord. For as the husband is the head
of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and He
is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject
unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even
as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it, that
He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of the water
by the word. that he might 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. So ought men
to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loves his
wife loves himself. For no man ever yet hated his
own flesh, he means if he is in his right mind, but nourishes
and cherishes it even as the Lord the Church. For we are members
of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause
shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall be
joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This
is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church."
In this passage we find the sweetest and most noble of subjects. The
passage from beginning to end concerns the marriage of Christ
to His Church. Here we discover light for many
other passages of Scripture. We find instruction for daily
living. We find comfort for our hearts. And we are privileged to look
into the soul of the Savior. For in verse 25, where we find
our text, it says, Christ loved the Church. Love is a favorable
disposition. Love is strong affection and
attachment. Love is seeking the best interest
of the one loved. Love is understanding and commitment. Love is both liking and longing
to be with a person. Love is being passionate in the
relationship of marriage. But whatever I might say, love
is better declared and demonstrated than defined. Love is not clinical
and cold, but warm, endearing, and enduring. Love is personal,
sacrificial, and preserving. As he loved the Church, So where
are we to love the spouse of our bosom? The love that is spoken
of here is the love that Christ has for His church. The church
is sweetly named in the book of Luke, The Little Flock. It
is named in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, The House of God.
And in chapter 12 and 22 of Hebrews, The City of the Living God, The
Heavenly Jerusalem, The General Assembly, The Church of the Firstborn. and the Apostle Paul referred
to the Church in the book of Ephesians as saints, faithful,
and beloved, in the book of Romans as the children of the living
God, and in the book of Titus as God's elect. John referred
to the Church in his letter as my little children, and in the
book of Revelation as the Holy City and the New Jerusalem. The study of the Scriptures reveals
that God did nothing in time but what He decreed to in eternity. He decreed to make a world, create
a people, permit them to fall into sin, impute the sin of the
first man to all of his posterity, which means the rest of us, then
to redeem a particular people out of that fall and from the
consequences, and do that all by a sovereign and almighty grace. In order to do that, He sent
His son, the second person of the Godhead, entered into the
human race as the sinless God-man. He lived a perfect life, and
he died a penalty-bearing death. He earned and established righteousness
which God accepted and imputed to the accounts of His chosen
ones, justifying them before His holy eyes. And that's what
justification is. It is the justification of them
before His eyes. What he does in the heart of
man is something different altogether than what he did in his eyes,
and he did it solely in conjunction with the obedience of that God-man
who entered the human race. In time he awakens them to that
truth that occurred in their behalf in eternity and at the
cross. They find themselves believing
this blessed word of truth. They confess faith. They are
baptized in his name. They joined the fellowship with
like-minded believers, and this body is called the Church. What might we say concerning
the love of Christ for His Church? Well, I ask you to consider with
me four truths concerning the love of Christ for His Church. First of all, turn with me to
the fifth book of the Old Testament, the fifth book of the Bible,
the book of Deuteronomy. And look with me in the seventh
chapter and we find a word of instruction concerning the love
of God and the love of Christ for His Church. The first thing
I would say to you is that He loved His Church enough to fix
His affections upon her. In Deuteronomy chapter 7 and
in verse 6, what a helpful statement this is. For thou art a holy
people unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen
thee to be a special people unto Himself, above all people that
are upon the face of the earth. The Lord God did not set His
love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number
than any people, for you were the fewest of all people. But
because the Lord loved you, and because He would keep the oath
which He hath sworn unto your fathers, has the Lord brought
you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house
of Bondman from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Know therefore
that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, that keeps
covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments
to a thousand generations." Consider with me many thoughts that are
here, but just one thought. Look back with me in verse 7
where he links two words together that describe his love, and it
is the word set, set his love. and the word choose. The word
set and the word choose, one speaks of his predestination
and the other speaks of his election. Because of what God determined
to do, marked off to do, he accomplished in his election. And his love
is a function of his will. It is a fundamental truth to
understand that what God does, he does because he determines
to do. How can we understand that? How
can we understand God? How can we understand eternity?
Brother Parker said it to us, well, yesterday. There is no
way for us to understand what went on in the mind of God or
in eternity. But what we do understand is
that His love is a function of what He determined to do and
those He elected to set His love upon. Now, the Bible describes
and declares that God is love. That means he cannot cease to
love. The love that God has for his
church was determined and it was fixed without regard to temporal
or time-oriented time decisions and deeds. The love of Christ
was limited to the church as God's love described in that
passage was limited to Israel. Listen to what he says in the
Psalms 103. The mercy of the Lord is from
everlasting to everlasting. And in the book of Jeremiah,
he said, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. So
God's love has no beginning and no end, and yet at the same time
it is a function of his own self-determination. Now, some ask this question.
Well, how could God love the church and yet impute sin to
her? That is one of the false ideas
that leads men to go back into eternity to try to place the
time of the Declaration of Righteousness. How could God love the Church
and yet impute sin to her? And that's not bad for a reasonable
man to think. Yet I answer that with three
questions of my own, and I'll just ask them and let you consider
them. How could He demonstrate grace if He did not demonstrate
justice? How could He redeem by a representative
if He didn't condemn? by a representative. And thirdly,
how could he love Christ, whom we know he loved infinitely,
and still impute sin to him? God is a God who does what is
right. He never does what is wrong. He always does what is best to
do. And we know that he imputed sin
to the church, yet we also know that he discharged that sin at
the appointed time to the body and the soul of Christ. in order
to impute righteousness to them. In addition to that, I can say
this to you, that he loved Jacob and he always loved Jacob. Esau, on the other hand, he never
loved. What about Judas Iscariot? Judas
Iscariot, he never loved. He was by predestination the
son that was determined to that end. The religious Pharisees,
he said of them, I never knew you. Therefore, he never loved
them. And those fellow reprobates that
went along with them, for them, He purposed justice for them
by executing the withholding of righteousness and justification
at the cross, and the gospel and irresistible grace in time,
and then rendering justice at the end of the age. Now, you
can argue with God if you please, but my friend, that is exactly
what the Bible teaches. But for His elect, the story
is altogether different. For them, He purposed mercy in
eternity. He displayed forbearing mercy
from the fall of Adam until the cross of Christ, and propitiating
mercy at the cross for his bride the Lord Jesus holds enduring,
abiding, fixed, immutable love for them. As John commented by
inspiration, he loved his own unto the end. Oh, I say to you
that he loved the church enough to fix his affections upon her. But not only did he love the
church enough to fix his affections upon her, But secondly, he loved
the church enough to become her surety. Look with me if you vote,
please, in the book of Hebrews. He loved the church enough to
become her surety. Pastor Bill said to us yesterday,
made a wonderful comment upon the passage in Galatians 4, which
in part says that God sent forth his son. And he was made a woman,
and he was made under the law. God had to become a man. It was
by man that sin came, and it was by man that sin was redeemed. He was the perfect God-man. Now, how do I understand that?
Only because that's the declaration of the Scripture. He was so much
God as if he were not man, so much man as if he were not God.
There was no limit to his humanity. There was no limit to his deity.
He didn't cease to be God when he became man. He was the perfect
God-man. And yet, as that God-man, he
became man and he became subject to the law. Now, listen to what
he says then in the book of Hebrews. Look with me in the seventh chapter
and in verse 22. What I'm talking with you about
is him becoming our surety. It says in verse 22 of chapter
7, By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. What it means when it says better,
it means an infinitely better testament. Now, why is it a better
testament? It's because the Old Testament
was a testament of conditions and requirements. You go back
and you study the law and God said, I will if you will. And
it was intended to show that I will, but you can't. And it
was intended, therefore, to drive us all the way to that New Covenant,
that New Testament that was established and brought about by the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, there was no testament established
until Christ came and He did a certain thing. If you'll look
with me in the ninth chapter, you'll see what that is. Look
with me at verse 16 of chapter 9. For where a testament is,
he's talking about this New Testament, for where a testament is, There
must also of necessity, not perhaps, not maybe, not might be, there
must of necessity be the death of the testator. In other words,
the one who has designed and set forth and declared the will
for those for whom it was intended, there must be the death of that
individual before the testament is brought into effect. There
was no blood to take away sin. It was all a picture and a type
until the Lord Jesus Christ gave His blood. It's His blood of
the New Testament that brought that into effect and brought
it to bear to the lives of His people. In eternity, Christ agreed
to undertake in behalf of those chosen. That's why He is a surety. He did so because they lacked
the ability to discharge their own obligations before the infinitely
holy God. At the same time, he acted as
their behalf as representative, opening to them all of the benefits
of this everlasting covenant of grace. God made a covenant
of works with Adam, but Adam fell into disobedience and disqualified
himself as surety. God made a covenant of law with
Moses and with Aaron, but you know their story, and they were
not even allowed to enter into the land of promise. As great
as a man as Abraham was, and David and the prophets They didn't
qualify to be a surety. John the Baptist came into the
world as a forerunner, and he said of Christ in great humility,
I'm not even worthy to unloose the shoes upon his feet. But
he was at best a forerunner, not worthy, not able to be the
surety. Only Christ was a suitable surety. He was born of a virgin, lived
a perfect life, and died a penalty bearing death. He assumed to
himself all the penalties that were due his people in his own
body and his own soul. He had the ability, he had the
will, he had the love in his soul and body to work out a redemption
and redeem his people from all their guilt and all their condemnation. If his death meant anything,
it was a surety of the covenant blessings for God's people. Not
only did the Lord Jesus Christ love His Church enough to fix
His love upon her, and not only enough to become her surety,
but I am brought to see that He loved the Church enough to
forgive her sins. I want you to look with me over
to the book of Matthew, chapter 26. We find a most interesting
word, a picture word, that has roots in the Old Testament and
then And easy for us to see what it says, and it's not hard for
us to understand this little word that is here, but often
we'll just rest in it. Jesus is meeting with his disciples
in Matthew 26, this passage, and he's having the first Lord's
Supper and the Passover pass away, and it became what we now
call the Lord's Supper. And Jesus said to them, he gave
them bread and he said, this is my body, meaning it pictures
my body. And then in verse 27, he took
the cup which had wine in it and he said to them, drink you
all of it. And then in verse 28, Matthew 26, for this is my
blood of the New Testament, still talking about that New Testament,
which is shed for. And then there's a word missing.
It should be the for the many four. And here's our word, the
remission. of sins. This word remission means to
send away, to send away. As the goat was sent out into
the wilderness, as the bird with blood upon the wing was sent
away never to be seen again. It's a word that means a dismissal.
It means a release. It means that in his body and
in his soul there was a release and a dismissal of God's from
all the charges of their sin. Forgiveness was so complete,
God looked upon them as though they had never sinned a sin. So complete was it that it says
in the book of Isaiah, in prophecy, with His stripes, we are healed. So complete in Ephesians 1 and
7, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
sins. And in Ephesians 4 and 32, God
for Christ's sake has Now, to know sin's past, sin's present,
sin's future, sins that are upon our soul are forgiven is the
rest of our souls. If I believe one thought, one
word, one deed could be held against me all day long, it would
be a rainy night in Georgia. I would have no word of comfort
for you. We would have no message for
our wayward generation. If imputed sin and actual sins
were not dismissed from our record at and by the death of Christ,
empty was his cry. Terrestia, it is finished. Thank God there is no truth to
that rumor and to that error. When he dismissed the sins in
his body and his soul, they were gone, never to be seen again. When the elect were forgiven,
they were redeemed. They were justified. They were
sanctified. They were reconciled. they were
adopted. Is it easier for him to redeem
or to justify? It wasn't hard for him to do
either because the blood had been shed. There had been a propitiation.
Satisfaction was there. What further requirement could
he hold against his people? As surety, he guaranteed the
benefits of the covenant of grace. But he did more than that. He
fully forgave and he fully justified his church. He loved the church
enough to fix his love upon her. He loved the church enough to
become her surety. He loved the church enough to
forgive her sins. And he loved the church enough
to pray for her. Look with me, if you would, please,
in the book of John, chapter 17. Most of you know where I'm
going already, but look with me in this passage of Scripture
and look what he says in verse nine, 17, nine of John. I pray
for them. And who is it that he's talking
about? Well, if you go back and look, it's the ones that had
been given to him. And he says that here in just
a second. He didn't have to say this, but of course, he did say
it. I pray not for the world. He refused to pray for the world.
He's praying for those the father gave him and only for those the
father gave him. He's not praying that everybody
in the world will come to know him. He's not praying that his
sins would be effectual for everybody in the world. He's not praying
that salvation will be possible. He's not even praying to guarantee
salvation. I pray for them. I pray not for
the world, but for them thou hast given me, for they are thine. In election, God took them to
himself. In redemption, God gave them
to the Lord Jesus Christ and they were his. Upon the ground
of his obedience and blood and righteousness, he finished the
work and he interceded for the church in the garden. And then
on the cross, when he cried on the cross, Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do. He prayed for the elect in their
ignorance and in their absence. Oh, we were there. We were there
in absence, but he prayed for us, knowing not what we do. Now
look with me to another place, over to the book of Romans and
the eighth chapter. What we're talking about is him
praying for the church and what he accomplished in this prayer. Paul asked a series of questions,
and I want you to look at the question that he asked here in
verse 33. It says, Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? Then look at verse 34 and you'll
see a second question. Who is he that condemns? Now, those two questions are
parallel questions. They go together. Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? This is a hypothetical
question, and a hypothetical question means that the answer
is implied. And the implication of this question
is that nobody can do that. Who is he that condemns? And
the hypothetical of this question is that there is no one who can
condemn. You can't condemn yourself. The
devil can't condemn you. The world can't condemn you.
And why is that? Look in verse 33. It's God that
justifies. Justification is the work of
God. And this justification here is spoken of in the present tense
because it is enduring. Nothing can can overcome it. It assumes this this this present
tense because that's the question. Who shall lay anything to their
charge? No, it is God that justifies, meaning that that justification
cannot be overcome. But then he goes on to answer
this question. Here's not only it is that God
that justifies, but it's Christ that died. Just as much as there
is a coupling between the charging of God's elect and the condemning
of God's elect, so is there a coupling between God justifying and Christ
dying. You see, all of the justification
rests upon the Lord Jesus Christ in His death right there in that
moment. God finished it all right there
in their behalf. And so here is the end of that
with great assurance. Tribulation, distress, persecution,
famine, nakedness, peril, sword. Thou to 37, Nay, in all these
things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For
I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor things
that are high, nor things that are low, nor any creation shall
be able to separate us from the love of God, there it is now,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. I say to you that the prayer
of Christ was an effectual prayer, a prayer that He completed, a
prayer that He brought to pass to be that something that could
not be completed in any other way. Now go back with me to our
text in Ephesians 5. I want to remind you that what
this text concerns is it concerns Adam and Eve. and their marriage being a picture
of the marriage of Christ and His Church. We are told in Romans
chapter 5 and verse 14 that Adam was a figure of Christ. Who could
foresee that the marriage of the first pair of human beings
would foreshadow the marriage between Christ and His Bride,
the Church? You don't see that when you read
in Genesis 2. But it is there. Who could foresee that the rib
taken from the side of the first Adam foretold of the church formed
from the opening of the side of the last Adam? Who could foresee
when the first Adam looked upon Eve and he cried, This is now
bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, that it is foretold
of Christ beholding His bride? Who could foresee the union between
the first Adam and His bride foretold? of the church being
members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. Who could foresee,
as it says here in verse 31, that a man would leave his father
and his mother and he would be joined to his wife and they would
be one flesh? That it speaks of Christ leaving
the heavenlies and coming down to earth. And it speaks of the
church departing all of her religious lovers and temptresses for the
Lord Jesus Christ. You ask how much did Adam love
Eve? Well, he loved Eve enough to join her in the fall. I ask
you to remember that it was she who first was tempted and it
was she who first partook of the fruit and disobedience. He
permitted himself. I'm talking about his love for
her. He permitted himself to become the federal head of the
fallen race that would come after him. Likewise, Christ loved the
church so much that he joined her. being born of flesh and
born under the law. He loved the church so much in
sacrificial love he permitted her sin to be imputed to him. He loved the church so much he
obeys God's holy law and he endured all the penalties that were due
to the church. In so doing, what the first Adam
rendered, the last Adam reversed. I ask you to remember that, as
Paul said here in verse 32, this is a great mystery, but I speak
concerning Christ and the Church. You and I, now that we've come
into a new century, seven years into this century, so much time
has passed, so many generations have come and gone, I ask you
to go from here and to behave yourself as the redeemed bride
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if you do, we don't have
to live by laws. We don't have to live under obligations. We don't have to be meeting certain
requirements and conditions. We don't need in our congregations
to have committees that look over people's lives, not if we
go forth and behave as the bride of Christ. I ask you to go forth
from here and remember one another with love, comfort, support,
assistance and prayer. May our congregation be a sister
to this congregation and to those of you who do not have fellow
believers to meet with. You're on our minds, you're in
our thoughts as we have people to meet with from time to time.
Do not depart from the gospel. Listen to the tapes, listen to
the CDs, view the DVDs. Let us remember there is one
Lord, there is one faith, there is one message, and may God in
His providence give a time for us to meet again, because I ask
you to remember this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning
Christ and the Church.