So we're reading in 2nd Corinthians
chapter 11 and verse 1 The Apostle Paul is speaking.
He's speaking concerning false apostles and false teachers that
have been troubling the church in Corinth. And he's having to
enlarge and speak a little further than he wanted to or would have
been at ease to. And this is what he says in 2
Corinthians 11, verse 1. Would to God ye could bear with
me a little in my folly, and indeed bear with me, 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. I think we spent a few weeks
not so very long ago thinking about some of these lovely statements
concerning the Lord Jesus Christ and the simplicity of Christ
was one of the topics just drawn from this verse. And as I recall,
we looked at the simplicity of a few other things as well. But
amongst the many beautiful illustrations in the Bible of a believer's
relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and indeed Christ's relationship
with his church, perhaps one of the sweetest and most precious
that a believer can dwell and meditate upon is that of husband
and wife, or bride and bridegroom, where Christ is the bridegroom
and the church is presented as the bride. And these pictures,
so familiar in the world, are employed, they're used in scripture
to point us to the eternal union that exists between Christ and
his people. And I say this from time to time,
and I always struggle with it myself. So when I'm repeating
myself in this particular point, I'm really reminding myself firstly
and foremost. But it's important that we remember
that God describes heavenly truth in earthly terms so that we can
get a glimpse of the glory and the wonder of what God has in
store for us. The world's picture or the world's
reality as we know it isn't aspirational for the heavenly truth, but the
world's reality as we know it is simply indicative of something
far more glorious and far more wonderful that is laid up in
store for us. And the heavenly truth, again,
in this marriage union picture, is the greater reality because
it is the enduring state in which we partially have a knowledge
about now, but in which our eternal life will be experienced hereafter. And all, indeed, I'm sure of
this, if we just had wisdom and eyes to see it, all our earthly
experiences now in time are given to us and enjoyed by us now in
time to help portray our real eternal and spiritual condition. So that in this particular example,
the marriage bond on earth is a relationship in which many
of the highest and most honourable human qualities find expression. So the Lord God gave Adam and
Eve marriage. He gave them to one another. And marriage in the history and
experience of the world has been the place, the relationship where
love and loyalty and commitment and protection and faithfulness
and sacrifice and fulfillment and joy and consolation and comfort
and patience And these high qualities of human character have found
their greatest manifestation. However, of course, they're spoiled
by sin in so many ways, but at the highest level, there they
are found in marriage. However, even in their most beautiful
manifestations, In the best marriages there are but shadows and likenesses
of the glorious fullness yet to come for those who are united
to Christ and those who are betrothed to him and whose bridegroom he
is. And God has given us love and
marriage in this world to point us to the greater reality yet
to come. Someday all our marriages, our
earthly marriages, will end. but the greater consummation
of eternal union will be our everlasting experience and joy
with our Lord. Christ shall be our husband at
the marriage feast of the Lamb. And God is telling us in scripture
and here, just by the use of this metaphor, God is telling
us that there is more, so much more laid up for us in heaven.
The very best this world can give in the very highest of human
unions and relationships is just a shadowy pointer to the better
that awaits us in glory. In this little passage, we've
been reflecting on the fact that the apostle has been harshly
treated by the Corinthians. And perhaps the analogy, the
marriage analogy is appropriate here too. They've been, to an
extent, unfaithful to him. They've been courted and they've
become infatuated by false prophets and false apostles when they
ought to have been faithful to Paul and thankful and grateful
for his labours amongst them. They've listened to these false
teachers, bad-mouthing their pastor, And now, for the sake
of the gospel that Paul taught and the glory of Christ, Paul
must speak out in a way that he would rather not. It might appear in a sense that
he's almost bragging, but he's having to defend himself against
the allegations that these people are making because they have
grabbed the ear of the Corinthian church. And he has to remind
the Corinthians of his love and his commitment to them in the
face of the denials and allegations being circulated by the false
apostles. And he calls this his folly because
he would wish not to be talking like this of himself. But the Apostle tells the Corinthians
that his interest in them is a jealousy. But it's not for
any personal, self-centred or proud reason. This is not about
his personal prestige or his status as an apostle, as though
the Corinthian church was like a trophy that he had won or earned
or was in some way his possession above and beyond any others. And sometimes, pastors do get
jealous for their congregation in the wrong way. Maybe it's
due to a sense of pride that they have because they want a
big congregation because they think that that's a feather in
their cap or that it makes them look good or to boost their reputation
or their importance. And really they're being jealous
of other pastors when it comes down to it and that's not a good
place to be by any means because they're basically seeking their
own prominence and using their congregation as a footstool to
that end. But Paul's jealousy is not personal
like that, but it's a godly jealousy. And what he means by that is
that he wants the Corinthians to be safe and to be protected
from the false teachers that are undermining the gospel that
he has preached. He's concerned for the physical
well-being and the spiritual welfare, the real good of these
believers in Corinth. And he describes his role in
that as being like a friend of the bridegroom who had been concerned
in betrothing them to Christ. Continuing his analogy, It's
the apostles wish to secure and ensure and defend the bride's
purity as a chaste virgin to Christ. Paul wishes the Corinthians
to be faithful to the doctrine of Christ, dedicated to the person
of Christ, attentive to the words of Christ. He wishes for these
believers to be pure in their faith, sincere and upright in
their worship, holy in their lives, and to walk and to live
in that light. And that's the right kind of
jealousy for a pastor to have over his people, a godly jealousy. And it's a very precious insight,
I think, into the role of a gospel minister, because such a one
should have the spiritual well-being of the congregation at heart,
above all things, and to do all that he can in ministering and
directing and teaching. his conversation and his example
and lifestyle to hedge in and protect the flock of God. And I think we see that evidenced
in the life of Paul in the way in which he acted and the conscientiousness
with which he approached his tasks and responsibilities. He
leads the Lord's people, setting before all who have been committed
to his care and charge Christ's unsearchable riches and the glory
of Christ in his person and in the fullness of his grace. It's
a protecting role and a preserving role as it is delegated by Christ
in whose hands these spiritual things are ultimately vested. And in this, the apostle has
been faithful, and as I say, conscientious, in hope of setting
the Corinthian believers before Christ, their husband, pure and
incorrupted. And having described the role
that he had assumed as the bridegroom's friend, the apostle also reminds
the Corinthians as to the essence of the ministry that he had dispensed
amongst them. It was a ministry of simple truth,
a clear, straightforward declaring of all God had done for the salvation
of his people and all Christ had accomplished for the redemption
of their souls. However, Paul also knew that
just as Satan had deceived Eve in the garden, and just as a
little aside, that's a lovely apostolic support for the authority
and veracity and trustworthiness of the Genesis record. Some people tell us that the
Garden of Eden never existed. Well, the Apostle Paul believed
that it existed. He knew that there was a subtlety
and a deception employed by false teachers in the same way as the
serpent had deceived Eve. that their teaching was designed
to confuse and to obscure and to complicate the truth of Christ
in the gospel. I know that Nelson's son, Michel
and Edward's lad, he's a good chess player. And I'll maybe
get a chance to have a game of chess with him when I see him
next. But something you learn when you're playing chess, when
you're winning the game, you try to simplify the game by trading
off and removing pieces from the board as much as you can. And when you're getting beaten
in a game, you try to keep the pieces on the board and complicate
the game as much as possible, hoping that your opponent might
make a mistake. And that's what happens to a
lot of people. False teachers complicate Christianity. with corrupted principles, dishonest
practices, and people run into a thousand errors of soul damaging
mistakes. In such ways, men and women are
carried away with the error of the wicked one from off of the
pure and simple doctrine of the gospel, which respects the person
and grace of Christ. and lies principally in this
one plain, easy, and important truth that salvation is of the
Lord. And probably we shouldn't pass
this little verse here concerning the simplicity that is in Christ
without remembering and re-emphasizing that this is in Christ that the
simplicity is found. The serpent in Eden beguiled
Eve by his subtlety. How did he do that? What was
the subtle approach that the serpent took? Well, he seduced
and he convinced Eve to believe that the simple act of faith
The simple act of believing God and trusting God's word and depending
wholly on God was too simple to give credit to. And Eve had
her curiosity tweaked. She had her pride stirred. She had her self-conceit tempted
by the subtlety of Satan's tactics and devices. And Eve fell. Having successfully employed
that strategy therefore, once in the garden to great effect,
the devil works it still. He tempts men and women to swerve
from the simplicity that is in Christ by assuming Christ's person,
Christ's work, Christ's righteousness, his blood-shedding are means
that we use to gain salvation by exercising our faith, our
repentance, our sincerity, and whatever else might be required. so that in order to make grace
effective and successful, we have to do something to trigger
it. And in such a way, it's man and
not Christ who becomes the effectual cause of salvation. And false
teachers have a field day complicating up all the different things that
people need to do in order to make their salvation effectual. And in that way, the simplicity
that is in Christ and the beautiful perfectness of the divine purpose
that is fulfilled in Christ is hidden and obscured and stolen
away by the complicated theories invented, well I was going to
say in men's studies, but invented in hell and sold as God's truth
to fallen creatures. The blessed simplicity of salvation,
initiated by God, accomplished by Christ and applied by God
the Holy Spirit, wholly the work of Christ, in Christ, from Christ. Being mingled with man's involvement
is the complicating error that Satan and false teachers still
use. Instead of accepting Christ as
the one and only way of salvation, these deceitful ministers teach
their hearers that faith and their sincere endeavours, their
obedience, their repentance, their sorrow for occasional lapses
will all be accepted by God, who in turn, for their willing
involvement in this matter, will bestow grace on them and give
them mercy and give them blessing through Jesus Christ. But that's
not the gospel of Christ. That's Satan's pseudo gospel. And in reality, it is no gospel
at all. It's the free will works religion
of the world that has taken countless sincere but deceived followers
to a lost eternity. All our salvation comes by the
person, work and success of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the
plain, simple gospel of peace and truth for sinners like you
and me. It's received by grace, it's
enjoyed through faith, and it issues in glory. And wayfaring men, though fools,
shall not err therein. The gospel of free sovereign
grace is not complicated and confusing. It is the simplicity
that is in Christ. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us. Amen.