The Bride

Ephesians 5:25-33

Intro

All that God has created good reflect His glory and goodness

Some of these are obvious: the trees, the moon, the stars

Some of these are less obvious, and one of these less obvious good creations of God that we don’t often think about coming from God are relationships

Not friendships, romantic relationships

Every part of a romantic relationship that is good was intentionally created by God to reflect a good aspect of His character

The book of Song of Songs is a great example of this. Have you ever read Song of Songs? If you haven’t, it’s a little crazier that what you might expect from a book of the Bible

But what do we do with this? What do we do with this book of the Bible that’s clearly been written by a man for his love interest. Like, why did they put that in there?

Because even the parts of a relationship that we might think as cringe, mysteriously reflect the love and the devotion that are bound up in the very character of God

For our last sermon in this series, I wanted to focus on my personal favorite expression of Christological typology: Christ is the Groom

Read Ephesians 5:25-33

Intro

This is probably the most cringe I’m ever going to be as a youth pastor, but I have to be faithful to the text - we as the church are depicted as a bride, and Christ is depicted as our groom

We can see this in our passage today

Go ahead and look at what Paul says in v31: (Ephesians 5:31–32) “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

Where does this verse come from? Genesis 2. From the very beginning of creation, God intended this marital relationship to be a reflection of His love for us

And I think this was intentional by him

He could have stuck with the Father-child imagery, or the Master-servant imagery, but He doesn’t. He makes the intentional choice to often depict himself as the husband and us as his wife

Why? Because there are certain things that are only inherent to romantic relationships that God wants us to be thinking about when we think about Him

And what are some of those things?

Well, the first thing that is inherent to romantic relationships is the dating stage

The Dating Stage

How does the dating stage reflect the love of God? Because the dating stage is where love is awakened and stirred

I was talking to Sam the other day, and he was talking about how he used to be an incredible athlete back in the day, but Olivia never saw him do any incredible athletic feats because they started dating after they had both already graduated

But even though Olivia didn’t fall in love with Sam because of his impressive athleticism, she did fall in love with him because she was impressed by other qualities he possessed

We as humans need to be impressed by something before we fall in love with a person

Maybe you’re impressed by their compassion, or their intelligence, or their attractiveness, or all of the above

We as humans need to be impressed by someone before love can be awakened

And that’s exactly what God has done with His people in the Bible

How did He introduce Himself to the Israelites? He freed them from the power of the Egyptians and their false gods. He led them out of Egypt with a mighty and outstretched arm

And that should have caused the Israelites’ love to be awakened towards Him

What else do you do in the dating stage? You go on dates where it is polite for the man to pay, to provide

When the Israelites were in the desert, and they didn’t have food or water, what did God do? He brought water from a rock and rained manna from heaven

Notice this Christian: before the Lord initiates a covenant promise with His people, He shows them His glory and He provides for them in love

He doesn’t automatically expect them to just love Him, even though He would have every right to expect that

No, He courts them. He does things for them so that their love for Him might be awakened and stirred

What humility and gentleness from our God who loves us

But then we move into what? The marriage ceremony

Marriage Ceremony

Because after God frees them from Egypt and provides for them in the desert, what does He then do? He enters into a covenant relationship with them

Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Exodus 19:3–8 “while Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.” So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. All the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord.”

Have you ever been to a wedding and the couple exchanges their vows?

“I, ___, take you, ___, to be my wedded wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.”

Before the couple enters into the covenant of marriage, they exchange promises with each other that bind the covenant together

This passage is God and Israel exchanging their covenant vows. This is God essentially saying: “I YHWH, take you, Israel, to be my lawfully wedded wife”

What are the promises that Israel agrees to: Obey his voice (present) and keep his covenant (past)

What are the promises that God agrees to: Treasured possession among all peoples, His presence (kingdom of priests), and that his presence will make them a holy nation

By the way, it should not be lost on us that God makes covenant promises with his people. The God of the universe freely chooses to legally bind himself to a group of people

So after the wedding ceremony, what comes next? Marriage

Marriage

And just like any marriage relationship, God’s relationship with His bride had its ups and downs

There were good times like the times of David, Josiah, and Hezekiah

But there was also a lot of bad

* They’re constantly worshipping false gods

* They’re not defending the cause of the oppressed or the weak

* They aren’t keeping the Sabbath or observing feasts or festivals

* And they’re not being a holy nation, they’re trying to blend in

In fact, Israel does such a bad job of keeping their end of the covenant, that God often is comparing them to a prostitute

There’s this crazy story about a prophet named Hosea. God comes to him and he tells him that his wife is going to cheat on him with other men. God isn’t making her do it, she’s doing it on her own. But God knows that she’s going to do it, and He tells Hosea that his unfaithful wife is a picture of how Israel has acted towards God

Hosea 2:5–9 “For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’ Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.’ And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness.”

By Israel acting in the way that they have, they have taken the blessings of God and have used it for their selfish purposes without recognizing that it was God who gave them those blessings in the first place

Like a husband who buys his wife a nice car, and then she tries to pick up guys using her nice car, Israel has taken what God has given them and forgotten about Him

Redemption

So what should God do to Israel? Divorce her

And He kind of does (He sends them into exile)

But ultimately, what does He do? Does He abandon her in exile? No. He redeems her

In the story of Hosea, God asks Hosea to do a crazy thing. After she cheats on him with unseemly men, she gets sold into slavery, and God asks Hosea to buy her back

Because even though Hosea’s wife Gomer is a type for Israel, Hosea is a type for God

Even though Israel, like Gomer, has prostituted herself to other nations and other gods — God, like Hosea, is going to redeem her and buy her back

Friends, if you hear the Hosea story and you’re more shocked by what Hosea did than what God has done, then I don’t think the Gospel has really landed on your heart, because that is exactly what He has done for us

We have also been drawn in by Jesus, our love for Him was awakened by something

We entered into a covenant with him when we confessed him as Lord over our lives

And yet we have wandered. We have strayed. We have been unfaithful. We have gone after the idols of this world and the desires of the flesh

But God, who is rich in mercy, has bought us back with a price — the price of His own blood

And just as the God of the universe freely chose to bind and restrict Himself to His people, He has done the same for you

But…never should we get it in our heads that God is reluctant to love us

Isaiah 62:5 “For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”

Zephaniah 3:17 “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

Luke 15:10 “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

It doesn’t say the angels are rejoicing, it says there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels

The prodigal son

Jeremiah 33:8–9 “I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me. And this city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them.”

Conclusion

And the eschatological promise is that He’s coming back for His bride

Revelation 19:7–9 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; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

The great hope that serves as an anchor to our souls is that Christ will return for His bride, and we will finally experience the fulness of His love for His bride

And let me say this as well. I think we sometimes think of Revelation as the end of the story, but it truly is just the beginning

Have you ever heard before that when you see God face to face, He’s going to say to you “well done good and faithful servant”

Did you know that there’s more to that verse? “Well done good and faithful servant” is not going to be the only thing Christ is going to say to us in that moment where we see Him face to face

Matthew 25:21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’

Rejoice in the promise that has been spoken over you, bride of Christ, that you have been bought with a price so that you may experience the fullness of the love of God