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For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38–39

Few hymns paint such a vivid picture of God’s love as this one by Samuel Trevor Francis: . . . vast, unmeasured, boundless free; / rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me. / Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love . . . . It helps us visualize the immensity of Christ’s liquid-love, overwhelming and submerging us in the depths of His tender, triumphant heart.

Samuel was born on November 19, 1834, in a village north of London, but his parents soon moved to the city of Hull midway up the English coast. His father was an artist. As a child, Samuel enjoyed poetry and even compiled a little hand-written volume of his own poetry. He also developed a passion for music, joining the church choir at age nine. But as a teenager, he struggled spiritually, and when he moved to London to work, he knew things weren’t right in his heart.

One day, as he later wrote, “I was on my way home from work and had to cross Hungerford Bridge to the south of the Thames. During the winter’s night of wind and rain and in the loneliness of that walk, I cried to God to have mercy on me. I stayed for a moment to look at the dark waters flowing under the bridge, and the temptation was whispered to me: ‘Make an end of all this misery.’ I drew back from the evil thought, and suddenly a message was borne into my very soul: ‘You do believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?’ I at once answered, ‘I do believe,’ and I put my whole trust in Him as my Savior.”

Francis went on to become a London merchant, but his real passion was Kingdom work—especially hymn writing and open-air preaching—which occupied his remaining seventy-three years. He traveled widely and preached around the world for the Plymouth Brethren. He died on December 28, 1925, at age ninety-two.

Communion service

The words “IN the beginning God” establishes the Focus of the whole book of the bible.

In the beginning God.

When it comes to the bible We think about and focus upon the man such as it is with the Parable of the protocol son. Read carefully the passage. who is really the most notable character in the story? You have two brothers the one who leaves home and the one who stays and both there was the question about their relationship to the father.

It is the Father and the Love for the son.

Thus, the bible is not a book about how man sinned and how he is to return to His creator. It is not a book about how man is to redeem himself and the how to’s in living a righteous life.

The bible is the book about God.

It is the greatest love story ever recorded, written by the hands of man who the spirit of God who is intimate with God and who is God inspired man to write it.

If it was otherwise the bible might have read the following.

In the beginning Man was created.

God is love and therefore the bible becomes a love story.

1 John 4:8 (ESV) — 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:16 (ESV) — 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

Man was created in perfection.

Genesis 2:25 (ESV) — 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

The nakedness of their bodies reflects the condition of their souls. Man and woman could previously stand before a righteous God unashamed for they had no sin.

That would change when man violated the ordinance of God and by taking from the tree which they were not to eat from.

How often we think of a wrathful and vengeful God coming down upon man who had sinned against him when the Lord approached them in the garden. And how in each thought we only prove ourselves to not know God at all or the story.

Could it be that the protocol son is man himself who sought from his father his full inheritance now and received it leaving home away from the father’s estate venturing out into he world?

After the fall, man’s conscience was awakened and He knew that he was naked swamped with a new feeling of guilt he covered his loins with fig leaves in a self-effort to deal with it.

Note that God came looking for man not man looking for God.

“Where are you,” was God’s call to man.

To Adam it was a call to assess the situation. Where are you in the right relationship with me?

But could it have been also an expression of the Father of the protocol son looking and concern of his son. Whose son left hating his father and wanting him dead none the less grieves at the absence of sin and asks even in the absence of his son

“Son. Where are you. You should be here with me but you’re not.”

No, I tend to not think of the garden confrontation was not man standing before an angry God, but Man standing before a grieving God. A hurt Father who misses his son.

The Flood is a Type of the final Judgment when in that day the earth and all of its deeds will melt away.

Was that because of a vengeful and wrathful God who is Angry to the point where he is going to wipe out man off the face of the earth?

No, his vengeance will be fierce and when his wrath is poured out it will be the great and terrible day of the Lord.

He does so not to sooth his anger but to satisfy his perfect justice.

In the time of Noah while the wrath did come, we are permitted to look into the heart of God and what do we see? Wrath? Anger?

Genesis 6:5–7 (ESV) —. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.

The greatest love story of all time is when the most perfect righteous Holy God pure to the infinite degree, A God who the very sense of sin is vile to his divine being rather than shut man out of his presence to be condemned far away and forever, as his justice dictates, God calls man to be joined to him through marriage.

Yes, folks God’s plan is not just to save man from his sin and restore him back to where he was, but it is to bring him even closer than man was before.

What God had purposed from the beginning he will see to its conclusion. God would send his son into the world, the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam to complete what the first Adam failed to do.

And as the first Adam had a bride so will the Son of Man be given a bride.

Where was God to find the perfect bride among men. Who was without sin? Who could be found worthy to stand as the bride of Christ? Who could be so impeccable?

How could any one of us laden with sin be presented to Christ as a bride and receive such a praise for a bride as the first Adam had for His?

Psalm 14:3 (ESV) — 3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.

Romans 3:23 (ESV) — 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Let’s go back to the garden.

Genesis 2:18 (ESV) — 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Genesis 2:21–24 (ESV) — 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Note first that Man is out of the picture as God does his work in crafting a woman. the man is asleep as God does his fashionable work,

Second point is that man had to receive a wound and from the wound would come his bride.

And thirdly man is wowed by the presence of the woman. as Christ is wowed by those who is his bride.

The son of Man, Jesus is Pierced.

Isaiah 53:5 (ESV) — 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed

Ephesians 5:25 (ESV) — 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

No, Isha did not just show up, no she was built and delivered to the man as a gift.

It took the wounding of the son of man to bring about the perfect bride in all of her glory.

And it was the God brought her to and presented her to his son.

John 17:6–7 (ESV) — 6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.

Revelation 19:7–8 (ESV) — 7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; 8 it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

Prior to delivering her to the son there had to be a bride price that would have to be paid.

When the bride is taken and leaves her family it is not just emotional separation that would grieve the family. but that woman served as functional part of the family. She had family responsibilities within that family and that loss will be felt. Thus it was customary for that a bride price would be paid to compensate the family for the loss.

And the bigger the bride price the greater honor given to the bride who is valued and the love of the one who will be paying the price.

You get what you paid for. A Woman that is given away for free is close to being a prostitute. A man who is not willing to pay much will get what he paid for.

Lets look at Jacob for a moment in Genesis

Jacob came to the land with nothing.

Genesis 29:15–20 (ESV) — 15 Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?” 16 Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. 17 Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. 18 Jacob loved Rachel. And he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” 19 Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me.” 20 So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.

Jacob had nothing to offer but the labor to marry that one whom he loved.

7 Years he worked for her by the sweat of his brow and then when the time was up Jacob expected to receive His bride.

In like matter Jesus enters this world with nothing to offer. He was born on the other side of the tracks. He was man of many sorrows. He owned nothing but yet held as did Jacob a promise of an inheritance.

As Jacob gave himself up to receive his bride

So did Jesus give himself up for his bride.

How much did Jesus pay for his bride?

All, everything, there is nothing more to give than your life.

Did his bride come cheaply?

NO!

1 Peter 1:18–19 (ESV) — 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

Never could we come to know the full price for the price that was paid by the son was insurmountable.

You and I were brought with a price. A great price and thus we have value.

When still alive on the Cross Jesus said

Tetilesti it is in regards to a contractual terms it means paid in full.

Jacob’s work was complete and it expected then to receive his bride.

Jesus had completed his work, but rather than working for a scoundrel as Jacob did Jesus worked for a Righteous God in Heaven who now bestows to his son a bride with no spot or blemish.

But thanks be to God that he does not immediately unit us to his son with all of our rags and attitudes.

While we are positionally in Him marriage and we are new creature in Him we have time.

Time is a grace community by which we as a bride can be made ready to the pleasure of our Bridegroom.

Ephesians 5:22–28 (ESV) — 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

Ephesians 1:7 (ESV) — 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,

1 Peter 2:24 (ESV) — 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

1 Corinthians 6:20 (ESV) — 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV) — 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The narrative is this.

Man was created in perfection and had a harmonious relationship with God as noted by his nakedness and was not ashamed.

Man sinned and attempted to cover his body with fig leaves

God gave man a temporary covering to cover his sinful body in order that there sinful man may approach the throne of grace.

Christ died to redeem those who will believe and those who believe will not just be redeemed but be redeemed to become his bride.

Those who will believe will not just be restored but will be clothed in a His righteousness as a royal robe as the bride of Christ will be co heirs with Him forever.

You and I were bought with a great price in order to be the bride of the Son of God and to live as royalty with Him forever.

When we are united with our bridegroom whom we will see for the first time, we will be awed beyond imagination.

But as Adam was wowed by his bride in the garden, I believe our Bridegroom will be so much more wowed in receiving his bride.

You and I are loved beyond any imagination by the one who gave his life for us. Shall our lives be lived in reciprocal fashion as a bride who says back to her love

I love you to.

When I survey the wondrous Cross

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