41.What does human marriage illustrate to us?

The relationship that exists eternally between the Lamb and His Wife.

Christ is One, being the Incarnation of God. The Church is one, having been created so by the grace of God.

Christ "leaves" His Father, so to speak, and becomes One with His Wife. Now there are no longer two but One. Christ no longer can be viewed alone. He has chosen to become One with His Church. The image of God now has become male and female—Christ and His Church.

It no longer is possible to divide between Christ and the Church. They are One, having been joined together by the almighty God.

Christ cannot be fruitful or have dominion apart from the Church just as Adam could not be fruitful or have dominion apart from Eve.

There is one new Man—Christ and His Wife. This is God’s eternal purpose.

Through eating His body and blood we have become flesh of Christ’s flesh, bone of Christ’s bone. He will not work apart from His Church because His Church has become part of Him.

The Wife of the Lamb means more to Him than all the universe. Heaven and earth are as nothing in the sight of Christ when compared with His Wife.

The Song of Solomon gives us some small idea of the love of Christ for His Bride.

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned (Song of Solomon 8:6,7).

We are not our own. We are not religious people who try to get something from God in return for our service. We are being created an eternally indivisible part of God Himself through His Son.

This is the love story of which all other love stories are a shadow. The heavenly romance is the reason for the creation. It is the source of all life and joy. The church in Ephesus had lost its first love. It had converted the eternal love story into endless rounds of religious drudgery.

Christ is not seeking slaves to do His bidding, He is seeking a Bride. Eliezer was not sent by Abraham to obtain another servant. Abraham had enough servants to form an army. Eliezer was seeking a wife for Isaac.

The Holy Spirit today is seeking a bride for the Lamb. The Bride is made to labor arduously in the Lord’s vineyard, not because the Lord does not have enough angels to do His work but in order to prove the love of the Bride and to prepare her for the eternal romance.

All aspects of the spiritual life are helps, are scaffolding, with the exception of one: our eternal union with Christ as His Bride. For the Bride, this is the central truth, the central purpose of all God’s working.