Why does a man love a woman? The LORD God created him to do so: she is "an help meet for him" (Gen. 2:18, KJV), a person perfectly complementary to him, but female as he is male. The fact that he loves her has opened the secret of her heart-response in return; now she understands him and appreciates him for what he is. Heaven forbid that it is merely sexual lust on either side, for that is not "agape" and it always "fails" (cf. 1 Cor. 13:8).
And the woman whom the man loves is intellectually challenging to him in her way. He desperately needs her; and he appreciates her. Her judgment is what he needs throughout life. Their love is very deep and lasting.
Any church that Jesus loves as the Bridegroom-to-be is a corporate body of people who "believe in Jesus" in a non-superficial way. That means that their "faith" is not egocentric; they have outgrown their infantile search for a reward for themselves. They have come to the place where they have little time or inclination to dream of their "mansion" in the New Jerusalem. What prompts their thinking now? Is it what Jesus can do for them, or what they can do for Him? Some would say it's a paradigm shift in heart dynamics; they have "come to ... the knowledge of the Son of God, … to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, ... no longer children, ... but ... grow[n] up in all things into Him" (Eph. 4:13-15).
This means that as a church body they have outgrown the pagan-papal doctrine of natural immortality, and they are now capable of appreciating the sacrifice of Christ on His cross. The death He died is not our "sleep," nor merely a foray into enduring our human physical pain (which of course He did endure!), but He endured "the curse of God," the darkness of an eternal death, the pangs of hell in His great love for us (cf. Gal. 3:13).
Appreciating that stretches our little human hearts outsize (cf. Psalm 119:32).
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: June 22, 2006.
Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
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