The following sermon was delivered
on Sunday morning, August 27, 2000, at the Trinity Baptist
Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now let us turn together to Paul's
letter to the Ephesian Church. And let me assure you, before
I read a passage in your hearing, that I am not going to bring
forward a warmed-over wedding message on husbands and wives. I'm reading a passage that we've
heard read several times this summer by me, by Pastor Lamar,
and I don't know if Pastor Jeff read it at all in conducting
a wedding here last week, but I'm reading, in your hearing,
Ephesians chapter 5, verses 22 to 33. Wives, be in subjection to 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, himself the
savior of the body. But as the church is subject
to 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 up for it or
for her that he might sanctify her having cleansed her 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. He that loves his
own wife loves himself. For no man ever hated his own
flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, 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 two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great,
but I speak in regard of Christ and of the Church. Nevertheless,
Do each one of you severally love his own wife, even as himself,
and let the wife see that she fear or reverence her husband. Now, one of the most striking
and obvious features of real biblical apostolic Christianity,
as it is set forth in the pages of the New Testament, is the
way in which doctrine and practice or truth and life relate to one
another. When we pick up our Bibles, particularly
the letters addressed to the various churches in the New Testament,
we find that the doctrines of the Christian faith interlock
with the practice of that faith and that the practice demanded
of Christians derives both its contours and its lifeblood from
the distinctive doctrines of the Christian faith. Even a quick
and surface reading of the epistles of the New Testament will confront
us again and again with this fact. Some of the most breathtakingly
glorious doctrinal passages are set before us in the context
of addressing the most nitty gritty practical duties and responsibilities
of the Christian faith. And some of the most practical
duties are the overflow of these breathtaking statements of its
profound doctrines so that doctrine and life constantly interlock. One spills over into the other. The other derives its shape,
its contours, and its life and breath from its counterpart. And nowhere are these things
more evident in the passage that I have read in your hearing.
One servant of God has wisely written that the book of Ephesians
is like a sermon on the greatest theme possible for a Christian
sermon. And what is it? It is a sermon
on the eternal purpose of God, which He is fulfilling through
His Son, Jesus Christ, and working out in and through the Church. Now, please don't write that
off as just a well-constructed sentence in an introduction.
The letter that we know as the Book of Ephesians is a marvelous
sermon which sets before us the eternal purpose of God, which
God is fulfilling through His Son, Jesus Christ, and working
out in and through the Church. And in the section read in your
hearing, the Apostle is setting before the Christians of that
day and before us the alternate lifestyle of the people of God
who comprise the Church. He began in verse 17 of chapter
4 to say, This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord that
you no longer walk as the Gentiles also walked. He is calling them
to a radically different and distinct alternate lifestyle. And one of the areas in which
he calls to that lifestyle is how the believer relates. to
structures of God ordained authority. And so he begins with the marriage
relationship. Then he moves on to the parent
child relationship and then to the servant master relationship. And in this particular section
read in your hearing, we find this penetration of doctrine
and life of life and of doctrine. And in the light of the fact
that we've had several weddings this summer, And I've gone back
to this passage in order to prepare fresh or reworked homilies for
each of those weddings, addressing husbands and wives and what I
have called God's design or the design for a God honoring marriage. I have been struck with the fact
that in this passage, where the great burden is intensely practical,
we have some of the richest statements on the relationship of Christ
to his church to be found anywhere in Holy Scripture. And so this
morning, and in terms of how far we get may possibly spill
over into the evening, I asked my fellow elders to pray for
me because If I pause to do what I want to do, I'm afraid I won't
get through all I intended to get through, then I have to break
a promise that I would bring the second and final message
of overview on 1 Peter. But I trust you will know that
that promise was not of the nature of a vow, but it was a serious
expression of intention, and now I'm stuck. with these things
that have been glorious to my own heart and I trust will prove
of benefit to you. So we're going to come to this
passage today not to see what it says about the duty of husbands
to love their wives or of wives to be in submission to their
husbands. But we're coming to the passage
to note what it says concerning the glory and the privilege of
the church as the bride of Christ. the glory and the privilege of
the Church as the Bride of Christ. Now, someone may ask, but Pastor,
is it right to do that? The burden of the passage is
divine directives for husbands and wives. And the relationship
of Christ to the Church as His Bride is simply brought in in
pursuit of that specific concern. Well, I answer, yes, it is perfectly
right to do this because The apostle himself was very, very
conscious that as he moved from husbands, wives, church, and
bride, between wives and husbands, the church and Christ, that he
was giving distinctive teaching concerning the church. Notice
what he says in verse 32, having spoken of the mystery of the
two, that is, husband and wife becoming one flesh, he says,
this mystery is great, but I speak in regard of Christ and of the
Church. In other words, as the Apostle
begins to work out these clear directives to husbands and wives,
and is bringing in the great paradigm for that relationship,
which is Christ and the Church, his own mind and heart get so
caught up that he says, yes, this matter of marriage is a
great mystery, but I am speaking of Christ and His Church. He's
very conscious that he is giving rich teaching on this very subject
of the relationship of Christ to his church. And so with a
good conscience, I do what I do this morning and possibly this
evening because the apostle has, as it were, set out the tracks
for us. Now, part of our problem when
we come to a passage like this is that we say, all right, the
substantial central issue is husbands and wives. That's the
concrete relationship. Now then, that draws some light
from this relationship of Christ to the church. But the substantial
entity is marriage, and the picture of marriage is Christ in the
church. But just the opposite is true.
The substantial reality is Christ and the Church, and the husband-wife
relationship is but a picture of that reality. Now let me try
to illustrate. Two years ago, before my wife
underwent her first chemotherapy, knowing that she would lose her
hair, we said it's time we get a portrait of us. So we had a
portrait, not a big fancy thing, a photograph, but by a photographer
in Caldwell. And then we went through the
proofs and we picked out the one that we thought was the best
representation of us. And we had a number of copies
made. They were made available to the church family and people
in various places have asked for them. Now, I have one of
them sitting on a bookcase in my study. Now, let me ask you,
what is the substantial reality? That piece of paper with various
colors imprinted on it that follows the contours and shape of my
face and my wife's face and her nose and my nose. What is the
substantial reality? This man and that woman or that
piece of paper sitting on the book stall? You see my point? That's the picture. We are the
reality in this passage. The reality is Christ and his
church. And the marriage relationship
is just a picture of that great reality. Paul says this mystery
is great, the two one flesh, but I speak of that which is
even a greater, more lofty, more substantial reality, namely the
relationship of Christ and His church. For according to the
scriptures, The unique and significant relationship of a man and a woman
in marriage does not go into the age to come, for in the resurrection
they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels
of God. But eternity will simply unfold
the glory of being part of Christ's bride and in union with Him. So I trust having persuaded your
judgment that it is right and proper for us to come to this
passage and seek to discover for some, perhaps the first time,
some of it has been new insight to my own heart and refreshing
to my own soul. Consider with me to the end that
we may have a greater comprehension of the glory and privileges of
the church as the bride of Christ. that as we stand on the threshold,
you know this, members and friends from our last congregational
meeting, there are going to be 15 messages deriving biblical
principles out of our agreed standard of life, our church
constitution. We'll be focusing on various
elements of the life and ministry of the church. May God help us
to approach those practical concerns with something of the light of
the glory of what is in this passage with respect to what
the church is and what the church experiences as she is identified
as Christ's bride. So we begin that heading number
one. Consider with me the church as
the object of Christ's special love and redemptive sacrifice. The church as the object of Christ's
special love and redemptive sacrifice. Paul begins in verse 25 to address
husbands. Husbands, love your wives even
as. Now we could take the next words
right to the end of verse 27, pick them up and set them down
anywhere in scripture and they would be true. They are statements
of reality which, though they are introduced in the context
of addressing husbands and wives, are not dependent in any sense
upon that context for their true significance and meaning. They
are facts that stand anywhere in the spectrum of God's revelation
of His heart and of His saving work. Listen to them. Christ
also loved the Church and gave Himself up for it. That is the statement of the
Church as the object of Christ's special love and redemptive sacrifice. And at the heart of this is the
affirmation, Christ loved and gave. Now, even in your English
translations, you see that this is a loving and a giving that
had a specific manifestation. It does not say Christ is loving
the Church and is giving Himself up for it. There is a sense in
which that would be true, but that's not what the Spirit of
God is saying through the pen of the apostle. He is speaking
of the church as the object of Christ's special love and redemptive
sacrifices. And the tenses of these two verbs,
he loved and he gave, they point to a loving and a giving that
had a specific and definitive expression in space, time history. Let's seek to unpack them. First,
Christ loved the Church. Christ loved the Church. Christ with Agapao. Christ loved with Agape. He did not love with Eros or
Erao. The love of passion, either physical
or non-physical, but often associated in the Greek-speaking world with
physical passion. Christ loved us with a passion. He loves his own with a passion. But eros, or the verb ero, is
not used. Nor is phileo, from which we
get Philadelphia, phile, phileo. That is fondness, the affection
that exists in familial relationships, father and mother, brother and
sister, siblings. Christ loves with that kind of
love. We are to love him with that
kind of love, according to 1 Corinthians 16, 22. And our Lord uses that
in one of his questions to Peter. Do you love me? Do you phileo
me as well as do you agapao or agape me? But we are told Christ
loves. Christ with agape love. Christ loved with that intelligent
love that is a commitment of will and of purpose to seek the
good of its object at any cost and with no reference to the
worthiness of its object. Agapao is to love an object with
no relationship to the worthiness or unworthiness of the object.
and it is to love that object with a love of intelligence that
sees the realities attached to that object and wills and purposes
and seeks the good of that object even at great personal cost. Christ loved. There was an intense
laser-like focus of His love in connection with something
Christ loved. It points to an expression, to
an aspect, to a manifestation of that love that can be identified. And what is it? Look at the text.
Christ loved, and impelled by that love, gave Himself up for
salvation. A feminine pronoun because church,
ecclesia, is a feminine noun and the church is a her. It is
the bride. Christ loved the church and gave
himself for her. Now we ask the question, to what
did he give himself? To whom did he give himself?
Well, the text is clear. that he loved the church and
gave himself up for her. But to what did he give himself
up for her? That's the question. And we don't
need to look far for the answer. Just go right back to the first
verses of Ephesians 5. Be therefore imitators of God
his beloved children and walk in love even as Christ also,
and here is the same construction, same tenses of the verb, Christ
also loved you and gave himself up for you, an offering and a
sacrifice to God for an odor of a sweet smell. You see, Paul
has already told these Ephesian saints, when the letter would
have been read, they would have heard these words, before they
heard the words of Ephesians 5.25. And they would have known
when he wrote, Christ loved the church and gave himself up for
her. It was not some nebulous, undefined
and undefinable, selfless act of giving himself up to something
or other in some way or another. Who knows for what end? No, he
had already said, Christ loved you, gave himself up for you,
And this is, for you linguists, exegetical. This now opens up
what he means for giving up himself. This is what he did, an offering
and a sacrifice to God for an odor of a sweet smell. An offering and a sacrifice to
God for an odor of a sweet smell. Now, what in the world does that
mean? When you turn to Exodus, we'll look at one passage. We
could turn to many, and we'll find a very clear answer from
Scripture. Exodus chapter 29, for remember,
biblical terms must be explained wherever possible with biblical
roots to those terms. And here is one of the main tap
roots to that terminology. Exodus chapter 29, verse 15,
giving directions to the priest and their functions in God's
tabernacle, we read, You shall take the one ram, and Aaron and
his son shall lay their hands upon the head of the ram. And
you shall slay the ram, and you shall take its blood and sprinkle
it round about upon the altar. And you shall cut the ram into
its pieces, wash its inwards and its legs, and put them with
its pieces and with its head. And you shall burn the whole
ram upon the altar. It is a burnt offering unto Jehovah. It is a sweet savor, an offering
made by fire unto Jehovah. You see the parallel language?
Christ loved us, gave himself for us as sacrifice unto God,
an odor of a sweet smell. Now put yourself back in the
situation at exodus. You're watching this priest do
what God told him to do. And though it's caused a little
bit of revulsion when you've seen it, he took the one ram,
laid hands upon the head, cut its throat, gathered its blood
in a basin. You say, gross. Yes, it is gross. God wants it to be gross. Sin
is gross. God's judgment is gross. It's
gross. He catches the blood. And then
what does he do? He sprinkles the blood round about the altar.
Then he cuts up the ram into pieces, takes its bowels, its
innards, and he watches them and puts it all together. And
then he puts the whole shooting match on an altar and burns it,
not roast it, burns it. You smell burnt roast? You guys
come home thinking your wife's having a nice meal. You come
in the front door and an acrid smell hits your nostrils. You
say, honey, what in the world's going on? She'd gone out and got delayed
and forgot to put the timer on the oven and the roast is burned.
Did you ever come in the house and say, oh, that smells wonderful,
burning roast. What happens when you've left
the pan on too long and something burns in it, a piece of meat?
You carry it outside and let it give off its smoke into the
open air. It stinks. The tabernacle had the continual
stench of burning flesh. And yet, it says when God smells
it, What does he call it? It is a sweet savor unto God. Are God's nostrils made of different
stuff, different olfactory nerves? No, God has no body like we do.
Why was it a sweet savor unto God? Because it symbolized that
God's wrath against the sins of those whose sins had been
ceremonially, pictorially transferred to that wrath. that God's wrath,
pictured as consuming fire, in consuming that sacrifice, that
substitute, God was pleased. His wrath is appeased. He can
now welcome the forgiven and the pardoned worshiper into His
presence. And so the acrid smell and the
curling smoke of burnt flesh is sweet to God's nostrils. because God is enabled to be
both just and the justifier of the one who trusts in the sacrifice
of His appointment. And every single ram that was
offered, and every single ram whose flesh was burnt, and all
of the smoke that curled upward, and the pungent, acrid smell
that God says is sweet to me, gather up the tens of thousands
of the rams and all of the burnt sacrifices, and they all terminate
in Jesus. And when He gives Himself up
to the death of the cross, He is God's ram and God's lamb. And there He is consumed in the
fire of God's just anger against the sins of those for whom He
dies. And when God looks upon His bloody,
beaten, bruised, God-forsaken Son, He says it smells sweet
to my nostrils because my obedient servant has turned away the fury,
the white-hot fury of my fiery but just indignation. And I can
now show mercy to the ill-deserving and to the guilty. Christ loved
the Church, and what did His love move Him to do? To give
Himself up for her. Give Himself up to what? To being
what Paul describes an offering and a sacrifice unto God, an
odor of a sweet The language of Hebrews is, for by one offering
he hath perfected forever those who are sanctified, who through
the eternal spirit offered himself without spot unto God. This tells us then that if he
did this for the church, which is his bride, what was the condition
of the church and the bride by nature? guilty, polluted, defiled,
condemned, deserving of the very fiery wrath that consumed the
sacrifice. The heavenly bridegroom becomes
the slain lamb. He becomes the consumed ram by
his own voluntary self-surrender. He loved the church. It wasn't
lovely. It was stained with sin. He loved
the church, not because it had no liabilities. It was laden
down with the deserved wrath of the Almighty. But he loved
the church and he gave himself for her. But since the church,
his bride, is comprised of the sum total of all his chosen ones,
you know what every one of those members of His Church can say. The language of Galatians chapter
2. Look at the parallel language. The Apostle can speak of being
crucified with Christ. Yet no longer I that live, but
Christ lives in me. Galatians 2.20. And the life
which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith. Now notice,
and what is the focus of that faith? the faith which is in
the Son of God, the One who came by way of Mary's womb, that holy
thing born of you, shall be called Son of God, Son of God. Now notice, same basic construction. Instead of irregular finite verbs,
you have participles. But the same construction, the
same tense, the Son of God who loved me, loved me, gave Himself
for me. You see what Paul has done? Christ
loved the Church, gave Himself for her. And what is the Church?
Some nebulous, undefined glob of humanity? No! It's made up
of individual sinners, guilty, defiled, polluted, hell-deserving. And as surely as the love is
personal, deep, distinguishing, and particular, He loved me.
So the giving of Himself as a sacrifice was personal, distinguishing,
and particular. He loved me, and He gave Himself
for me. It is the truth that the Church
is the object of Christ's special love and redemptive sacrifice,
which is the foundation of the life and the well-being of the
Church and of all the individuals who comprise it. Dear brothers
and sisters, we must constantly see ourselves as a company of
the loved and the purchased ones, and learn to say as men and women
of faith, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for
me, And if you are a fellow member of that church by profession
and by walk, I must view you as one whom He loved and for
whom He gave Himself. When we are a company that live
in the soil and in the atmosphere of being a company of the loved
and the ones for whom He gave Himself, the effects are nothing
short of radical. in every facet of life before
God individually and our life together corporately. Jesus said
in John 6.56, He who continually eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life and I will raise him up to the last day. Jesus
said, the life of my people is the truth that I loved them and
gave myself for them. That's eating his flesh and drinking
his blood. It's living, as Paul said, by
faith in the Son of God. Not the Son of God who made the
world, though He did. Hebrews 1, Colossians 1. Not
the Son of God who, and you can say the hundred things that are
true of Him, but it's the Son of God who loved me. Loved me.
Even me. Loved me. in all my guiltiness,
in all my defiled state. He loved me when there was nothing
lovable and everything damnable. He loved me and His love was
not a temporary motion of His heart or an emotion of His being. He loved me with an intelligent,
principled love that was willing to give itself up for me. He loved me. Gave Himself for
me. And when we live in the faith
of that reality, then we will find with Paul, 2 Corinthians
5.14, the love of Christ constrains me. Not restrains me. Constrains
me. It holds me in its grip. Wherever I turn, the love of
Christ is there constraining me. Constraining me to think
in every action. Will this please My heavenly
Bridegroom who loved Me and gave Himself for Me? Will this bring
praise to Him or shame to Him? Christ's love for Me is such.
What is there that I will not do for Him or bear for Him? Whatever I do, I am not asked
to even give up Myself for Myself. That offering would not be an
odor of a sweet smell. It would be a stench in the nostrils
of God. It would be a sinner dying for
a sinner. But when the sinless one dies just for the unjust,
dear people, we can't live in the faith of that and the consciousness
of that and not be constrained by the love of Christ. We who
are in leadership, we must view God's people in that light. Paul
says to the elders of Ephesus in Acts 20, 28, take heed to
yourselves and to all the flock of God, in the which the Holy
Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the flock of God,
which he purchased with his own blood. Christ loved you. Christ died
for you. We must carefully watch for you. and seek to bring you safely
to your heavenly bridegroom. Living in the faith of this will
affect what I do and don't do with my body. Remember 1 Corinthians
6. What? Know you not that your
body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which you have of God
and you are not your own? You were bought with a price. Glorify God therefore in your
body. And that's all some of you need
to break the back of your chronic problem with obesity and gluttony. Don't anyone say you're always
preaching about it? I've deliberately for months and months not mentioned
that sin. But the Bible does, and it puts
gluttons and drunkards in the same category. What you need
is a fresh baptism of realization. This body was purchased. My heavenly bridegroom didn't
just purchase my soul. He purchased me, all of me, including
this physical, psychical entity called me. He purchased me, all
of me. Glorify God in that body. Let
that body reflect what Christ has done to liberate us from
passions and appetites that lead to the abuse of that temple.
Delivering from excesses of sensual indulgence, sexual purity, My
dear friend, struggling with inordinate lust, pray that God
will let every fiber of your soul absorb this truth. He loved
me, gave himself for me. Shall I give myself to that momentary
erotic pleasure at the expense of incurring the frown of him
who loved me and gave himself for me? As we relate to one another,
when Paul is dealing with the subject of Christian liberty,
both in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8, and you've got those people
that say, oh, we know we're free in Christ. Meats are meats, and
drinks are drinks, and wine is wine, and movies are movies,
and nothing's evil in itself, and I can just do what I want
in my Christian liberty. But wait a minute. There's somebody
else involved here. You've got brethren whose consciences
are sensitive And they behold you, a so-called mature Christian,
indulging in that which for them would be sin. And they see your
careless, shameless indulgence in your liberty. They are emboldened
to do that which for them is sin. He said, when you sin against
your brother, you sin against Christ. And you sin against the
brother for whom Christ When I look at you and I say,
the heavenly Bridegroom thought so much of you that He loved
you and He gave Himself up for you, will I not give up the pleasure
of a liquid passing down my throat? Will I not give up what may be
an innocent pleasure of seeing or doing this or that? God have
mercy on you and me! when something means more than
the purchased property of Jesus Christ. God have mercy on us. When we look at one another as
the objects of His distinguishing love and His redemptive grace,
if He loved and gave Himself up for you, will I not give up
some liberty for your sake, that you might get to heaven with
a good conscience, that you might not be caused to stumble? Will
I give up some time and some personal interest to seek to
minister to your needs? You see the implications. You
see why I say that when the church lives and breathes the reality
of Christ's redemptive love and sacrifice, It touches us at every
point. And I was struck afresh as I
went back to that prayer at the end of chapter three, a prayer
that has baffled me for years. Several years ago, I took a whole
month and did nothing but read this prayer through alone with
God asking me to teach me what it meant. I took everything in
my library that commented upon not everything, but many things.
saying, Oh, God, teach me. And I turned away at the end
of a month saying, I don't know any more now than I knew then.
But look at the language for this cause. Verse 14 of Chapter
three, I bow my knees unto the father from whom every family
in heaven on earth is named, that he would grant you according
to the riches of his glory. that you may be strengthened
with power through His Spirit in the inward man, that Christ
may dwell in your heart through faith to the end, that you being
rooted and grounded in love. He's moving from one to another.
He wants Christ to dwell in the heart to the end, that there
be rooted and grounded in love and being rooted and grounded
in love may be strong to comprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth and the length and the height and the depth and to know
the love of Christ. which passes knowledge that you
may be filled unto all the fullness of God. He's praying that they
may know the unknowable. And that's the condition of being
filled unto all the fullness of God. I don't understand it,
but I stand off from it and say, Oh God, whatever it means, give
me to taste more of it. That I may know, experientially
know, the love of Christ that passes knowledge, the love that
was terminated upon me individually, personally, specifically, that
moved Him to give Himself up for me. You will never hear me
say that Christ would have done that were I the only sinner whom
He had chosen. That's pure speculation. But
I know among all those that are chosen who comprise this church,
He did it for me. He did it for me. You see why I say the great reality
in this passage is not a husband's love for his wife. And somehow
that's a picture of Christ's love to the church. No, the reality
is Christ loving the church, giving himself up for her. And now he says, husband, you
let your wife know and let everyone know who sees you relating to
your wife, that what you do as a husband is a little bit of
paper on the bookshelf. that at least has the outlines
and the contours and the shape of the nose and the ears and
the eyes of Jesus and his love and his giving of himself. Then
we move secondly to note in this passage, not only the fact that
the church is the object of Christ's special love and redemptive sacrifice,
but note with me secondly that the church is the recipient of
Christ purifying, perfecting and nurturing grace. And I've
used those three words in order to capture what is in the text.
The church is the recipient of Christ purifying, perfecting
and nurturing grace. Look at the text again. Husbands,
love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave
himself up for it. That And you Greek students,
you have a Hina clause of purpose, the little Greek word, I with
an H in front of it, a Hina, H-I-N-A. In order that, why did
he love and give himself up? In order that, he might sanctify
it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word.
Another clause of purpose, in order 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. You see, the church is not only
the object of Christ's special love and redemptive sacrifice. But according to this passage,
the church for which Christ died and for whom he gave himself
is the recipient of Christ's purifying, perfecting and nurturing
grace. According to this passage, to
what end or ends did Christ love and give? Well, there are two
parts to the answer, verses 26 and 27. One is the initial and
the other is the ultimate end. Or if you prefer, there is a
proximate and a remote end. There is a now purpose and a
then purpose. There is a present and there
is a future. You choose whatever contrasting
words you want and with which you feel most comfortable. I
couldn't, so I gave you all four. In order that there is a proximate,
a now manifestation of Christ's purifying grace. There is a then,
a remote, a consummate, for you theological students, an eschatological
fulfillment of that purifying grace. Let's look at them. Look
at the initial purifying work of grace. Two key words. Christ
loved and gave in order that, now look at the language, he
might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with
the Word. The two key words are sanctify
and having cleansed. And there are sermons in Greek
tenses. And though I do not load you
down with Greek grammar in the preaching, where necessary to
represent the mind of Christ, I must allude to it. Not to parade
my limited learning in Greek, but to help you to grasp what
God is saying. And the tenses point not to that
ongoing work of sanctification and that progressive work of
purifying. That's another biblical doctrine.
But here the tenses point to an initial definitive sanctification,
an initial definitive setting apart unto God when the guilty
and defiled sinner is actually brought within the orbit of the
work of Jesus Christ dying for him as it is applied by the Holy
Spirit. And here the apostle uses these
two words, that he might sanctify it, that is, set it apart unto
God, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the Word. Christ died that he might, on
behalf of all for whom he died, in their space-time history,
one by one, have a people who are sanctified, set apart from
the original state of guilt and defilement and pollution, having
been cleansed with the washing of water with or by the Word. Now, the first word, that's easy. When it says that He might sanctify
it, and uses a tense that speaks of a definitive crisis of sanctification. That's what God does when the
Holy Spirit regenerates us in the context of the preaching
of the Gospel, Faith and repentance are exercised in the heart. The
sinner is united to Christ, and in virtue of that union, he dies
to sin, he rises to newness of life, he is a new creature in
Christ. Not a perfect new creature, but
a new creature. He is not old man and new man.
Old man is dead and buried in Christ's tomb. He is a new man,
raised to walk in newness of life. That is being set apart
unto God from the state of pollution. But in so doing, there is an
actual cleansing and purifying. There is a washing. Titus speaks
of the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
Jesus said, being born of water and of the Spirit. Now, when
I would try to say to you now, the next phrase is just as clear
as the former when it says, that he might cleanse it by the washing
of water with the word. It means this. No question. I
can't do that. There's a great debate and discussion
among exegetes and Bible loving, Christ loving, believing men.
Is he referring here to baptism? Is the washing the external pledge
of God's internal cleansing declared in baptism when, as the Believing
sinners plunged into the water and raised up out of the water,
there is a bath of the whole body, symbolizing that being
set apart unto God, cleansed from initial defilement and pollution. Is he referring to baptism? If
so, then it is baptism as the external indication of being
set apart unto God and cleansed. But it's the internal faith in
the Word of the Gospel. It is the washing of water in
connection with chremati, the spoken Word. So the emphasis
then would be such as John Romans chapter 10. If you will confess
with my mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in my heart that God
is raised into the dead thou shalt be saved for with the mouth
confession is made for with the heart man believes under righteousness
with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. And I'm
not ready to say well I'm certain it means this it can only mean
this. I will give you one quote from one commentator that I found
very helpful. Two agencies are described as
making the cleansing possible. It is with the washing of water
and it is by the word. How does the washing of water,
the Christian sacrament of baptism, help to effect this sanctification
and the cleansing of heart from sin? The two are connected again
in Titus 3-5. Calvin, no doubt, gives the true
meaning when he says, quote, having mentioned the inward and
hidden sanctification, Paul now adds the outward symbol by which
it is visibly confirmed as if he had said that a pledge of
that sanctification is held out to us by baptism, end quote.
Any thought of the external right itself automatically conveying
the inward grace is excluded by the addition of the words,
by the word. It is probably the word of the
gospel that is referred to, rather than the word of confession of
faith, as others assert. Such is the means by which the
sanctification becomes effective in men's lives, and that only
as it is believed. Jesus said in John 15, 3, You
are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. John
17, 17, Sanctify them in the truth. Thy word is truth. The apostle is using great economy
of words, and it may be that in every expression he has the
analogy of marriage in mind. Here, there may be notice not
dogmatic. There may be an implied reference
to the ceremonial bath taken by a bride before marriage. There's
also a Jewish custom that may go back even to those days which
at the giving of the ring when there was the commitment and
pledge of betrothal, the bridegroom said, behold, you are sanctified
to me. You're set apart to me. You're
nobody else's anymore. You're mine. But whatever the
precise nuance may be, this much is clear, that the Christ who
loved this church and gave himself for his church secures to everyone
who is a part of that church in their space-time history an
application of His grace in which they are sanctified, definitively,
radically, fundamentally set apart from sin and the world
and the pursuit of self unto God and Christ and holiness. And in that being set apart,
they are cleansed symbolically in baptism, internally and truly
by belief of the truth, or it could be that the water is the
symbol of the cleansing and belief of the truth is the instrument
by which we lay hold of the word and promise of the cleansing.
And as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't make a big deal where
we come down on it. So please don't meet me at the
door and challenge me to come up with a definitive position.
All right. The important thing is this.
If you're one of those for whom Christ died and you say, he loved
me and gave himself for me, then the evidence will be that in
you, Christ has manifested his gracious work in that initial
purifying work of grace rooted in the love and giving of himself. And it will infallibly manifest
itself in every one who's part of his bride. in their own conversion. Well, our time is gone, and I
want to get to the consummate perfecting work of grace, and
then the continuing nourishing and cherishing work of grace.
So, brethren who prayed with me, I believe I have our answer
to our prayers. So now I've got to bring the
message to a close just halfway through. And let me just pick
up one of the strands that I had that I wanted to press at the
end, and it'll be a little ragged to press it here, but I don't
want us to leave. Not everyone will be back again
tonight. None of us has a telegram from heaven saying we'll live
to breathe the night air. Neither you nor I. If this is
true, and how can we say anything other than what is in the text?
I trust you sit there and say, yes, that's not forcing any meaning
on the words of the text. Letting Scripture interpret Scripture,
Christ does indeed. have this distinguishing deep
sacrificial love for his church that moves him to give himself
up for her. But he is not content simply
to give himself up for her. He wants her to be a pure bride
without spot or wrinkle. So what does he do? When he finds
each one who is part of that bride in his or her space, time,
native condition, guilty, defiled, polluted, what does he do? He
brings the word and truth of the gospel. by the Holy Spirit
works effectually in their hearts. So they see themselves as guilty
and polluted and hell deserving. And they see that in Christ there
is a sufficient and a sincere offer of life and salvation. And they are brought to embrace
Christ in the truth and word of the gospel. And they are sanctified,
set apart unto God, having been washed and internally cleansed. Now, this has a tremendous and
very vital doctrinal implication, and I want to focus on it briefly.
And what is the doctrinal implication? It is this, that the death of
Christ is inseparable from the application of the benefits of
that death. Now think for a minute. The death
of Christ is inseparable from the application of the benefits
of that death. Christ loved the Church, gave
Himself up for it, in order that hopefully some would in some
way or another see that in His death is their only hope of salvation
and hopefully He will have enough people to comprise His bride.
You see, if you have a specific, definite atonement with no specific,
certain application of its benefits, you have detached what God has
joined. Christ loved His church, gave Himself up for her in order
that Christ will have the purpose for which He died. And that is
to have a bride that divorces sin and uncleanness and self-centeredness
and is ready to be married to Christ in the pursuit of the
very end for which he set his love upon her, to present her
to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing. And he implants in the heart
of everyone who comprises his bride a passion to be what in
grace he's going to make her. You got that? What's he going
to make her? Jump ahead a little bit and don't expound it, but
you'll see it. That he might present her to himself a glorious
church, no spot, no moral imperfection, no wrinkles, no sags in the skin
of universal holiness and conformity to Christ. He died to have a
bride. And when she stands at the door
to come down, she is in spattered with mud and ketchup from her
hamburger and fries on the way to the wedding ceremony. She's
going to be all glorious, without a spot, without a wrinkle. And she gets that way by the
grace of Christ, yes, but by that grace working in her a desire
to be what Christ is going to make her. So as you sit here
this morning, the question you need to ask, is my heart set
upon that which Christ will make me? You see, to say, well, I
got in the door, I'm fireproof and no longer fear hell and judgment. Christ loved me, died for me. I'm home scot-free. Universal,
careful, spirit-empowered, Christ-absorbed, Christ-dependent holiness. That's
if you want to go all the way. That's if you want to be an upper-level
Christian. I'm content to get in inside
cabin, down in the fourth row in the hold. As long as I'm on
the luxury line or going to heaven, I don't care if I see the ocean.
Those of you who get these ads, you know, they promise you such
and such. I'm just alluding to that. I got one in the mail yesterday.
Is that your attitude? My Bible says everyone that has
this hope in him continually purifies himself even as he is
pure. If you're a part of his bride,
He's put in you a passionate yearning to be what the bride
is going to be. You aren't that yet but you ain't
happy about it and you're not content. Is that true. You ask yourself and answer with
judgment day on. Then I say for those of you who
say I never heard anything like this before. I've never heard
about Christ being anything other than He was for good and did
good and they treated Him badly and put Him on a cross. I've
heard people say He rose from the dead. My friend, He can't
do any of this if He's still dead on the cross. He presents
the bride to Himself because He's the living Lord who perfects
her. And you say, well, I don't know
if He loved me and gave Himself for me. Listen to me. Listen
to me. You don't need to settle the question. Did He love you
distinctively, personally, individually? You need to only know this much.
These love sinners is bad and is worse than you, worse than
you. And he stands before you in the
word and promise of the gospel and says, I'm the heavenly bridegroom
who has not yet completed my bride. You want to be part of
her? Come to me. I am a willing, I am an able
Savior. The virtue of my death and the
power of my grace can take any sinner and sanctify him, wash
him, cleanse him, make him acceptable in the sight of my Father. Come
to me, Jesus says. You don't get hung up with the
nature and extent of the atonement. You get hung up with the reality
that in all of your ugly, spotted defilement, Jesus comes to you
and says, I'm willing to be your heavenly bridegroom. Will you
have me? I want to use an extended illustration
tonight. I'd hoped to get to it this morning.
He says, come to me. Come to me. Come to me. Yes,
but I'm vile. Yes, he says, I know that. I
died for the vile. But Lord, you don't know. There's
internal filth. Yes, I know all about it. But
I bid you come to me. Come to me. Come to me. Come
to me. I love to receive sinners. Come to me, my friend. Go to Christ. Go to Christ. That's how we had to come. We
didn't come having resolved whether or not we were distinctly, individually,
particularly loved. That issue was not relevant to
us. The issue is the Savior comes to us in the gospel and invites
us to himself. And in him, we have all the virtue
of that which he has done and continues to do for sinners. So the question is the question
of intent. Right up here, several times
this summer, I've looked at a young man and said, Will you, Aaron,
have Jessica? Will you have? Will you have? This man's ready
to take you, Jessica. You want to be taken? I do. Christ stands before you as the
heavenly bridegroom. And as a minister of the gospel,
I say, will you have Jesus to be your lawfully wedded husband? He's ready to confer upon you
all that his grace provides for sinners. What a fool to go on
filthy and defiled and unclean and guilty and hell deserving. When the heavenly bridegroom
says, I'm ready to get married. Will you have me? Will you have
me? May God grant that you say yes,
Lord. I will. Let's pray. Our father, we confess that at
times we speak of things of which we know so little. And our consciences
affirm that did we see but the edges of the love that our Lord
Jesus has for sinners, it would swallow us up, render us paralyzed
in mind and spirit. But we pray that you would bless
our feeble efforts to set forth something of the glory and the
wonder of his relationship to his church, his bride. O God,
we pray for your praise and for your glory. Seal the word to
every heart, and may it bear abundant fruit to your praise
and to our good, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.