The church, as the bride, is the object of Christ’s love. This love was proved even unto death, when He, the eternal Son of God, bore the wrath and the judgment of God, exhausting all of it, that we might know nothing of those waves and billows. By this He revealed the depth of the divine bosom, while, at the same time, making atonement for sin according to the holiness of God. Language itself is exhausted in telling the suffering of those three hours of darkness when the wrath of God fell upon Him—He, the very One upon whom the heavens opened to declare that He was, and is, the delight of the Father’s heart.
Every moral glory shone out in noonday radiancy at the cross. God was there made known in His holiness. He who dwells “in the light which no man can approach unto” (1 Tim. 6:16) was judging sin according to the true nature of God. At the same time He revealed Himself in love in its fullest measure.
Christ suffered all this so that we might know the divine bosom in all its blessedness as the source from which we have received grace and been made heirs together with Him. Christ in resurrection is the beginning of new creation. The church, His bride, shares His headship over all things.
While we rejoice in the truth that “the Son of God . . . loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20), as an individual, let us never forget what the church is to Christ collectively. Everyone that is indwelt of the Spirit now forms part of the body of Christ. How rich the revelation of this blessedness! Paul received it by revelation from Christ in glory (Eph. 3:1-10).
He tells us of the precious expression of it in the breaking of bread, when the unbroken loaf on the table speaks to our hearts of our place as members of His body (1 Cor. 10:17). The broken loaf tells us of His death (1 Cor. 11:24), for “Christ . . . loved the church, and gave Himself for it” (Eph. 5:25).
How precious to “come together,” as gathered in His name, not as a sect or party, but as members of His body, gathered by His Spirit to give expression to the truth of the “one body” in the breaking of the bread, till He comes to receive His bride.
The church, united to Christ in glory, is absolutely heavenly in calling and hope. We are now gathered to a rejected Christ (John 12:32). At His coming we shall be gathered to a glorified Christ (Eph. 1:10). The life we have received is heavenly in its source (1 John 1:13). The Object of that life is Christ in glory (Phil. 3). The hope of that life is our being “glorified together” with Him (Rom. 8:17).
The church will be the Eve in His paradise, the Queen on His throne, the richest and brightest glory of the inheritance He has won.
When God calls any out of the world, He betroths them to His Son to be one with Him in thought, desire and hope now and eventually to be glorified together with Him in His glory! Oh! Let us not lose in our souls the preciousness of what the church is to Him!
H. E. Hayhoe (excerpted)