I don’t think we fully realize the depth of blessing our Lord wants for us. Our salvation in Christ Jesus is marvelous. It is what we are reliving in these Lenten days, and will celebrate with great joy on Easter Sunday. All of this is essential but only the beginning of our eternal life with our Lord.
Look at Genesis 3:8. They heard the sound of God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day. This was after the first couple had sinned, but it shows the former relationship that they had had. God walked with man in the Garden in the cool of the day. I don’t believe their rebellion came on the 7th day. Scripture doesn’t say that. It seems that there was a time between creation and fall. It was a time when Adam walked with God in a personal fellowship for some period of time before the rebellion and the first couple tried to hide themselves from God. One of our Seminary professors remarked that every time Adam walked past the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in obedience to God’s command, he was worshipping God. This too indicated that there was a time when Adam and Eve walked with God personally and in purity. Intimate Fellowship.
It is this intimate fellowship which God desired with His new created beings. It is this relationship that is being restored through the Second Adam, Jesus, the Christ. It is also the depth of this relationship that caused Satan’s determination to destroy mankind. This is the blessing he felt he deserved being the highest of the created archangels. And here it was being given to this weakling of a human creature. This is the spiritual battle we face daily, and see displayed in the world. Especially in the area of sexuality. Even so, God will complete His original purpose through His Son. But let’s not dwell on this. Instead I want us to think about the relationship God desires with His creation. It is magnificent and should bring us to our knees in awe and worship.
This is a relationship depicted by St. Paul in Ephesians 5:32 and confirmed elsewhere as the great mystery of Christ and the Church. The Church is called the Bride of Christ. There is a parallel to the human marriage relationship of one man and one woman being in a one flesh union for life. The older I get in my 60 year marriage with my wife Audrey the more I realize the beauty of this bond. Pope John Paul II was bold enough to say, in his Theology of the Body, that God wants to marry us. This is not sexual, for Jesus said that they neither marry nor are given in marriage in heaven. God desires to bring His creation into a personal bond with the Holy Trinity to share the love bond that already exists among the three Persons. This is the perfect blend of eros and agape. It is intended to include His redeemed.
This is why the physical body is important. We are spirit, soul, and body. We will not just be some wispy spirits in eternity. We will have a recreated body when the Lord restores the Kingdom. This is also why gnostic theology is wrong in saying that the spirit is good and the flesh is evil. The body does matter. God created us with marvelous bodies that are complex beyond our full knowledge. More recently, science has shown that the entire universe is so minutely fine tuned that if any of hundreds of parameters were off by a small fraction human life could not exist. God created the universe and all that exists. God, our maker, has ordained human life for His eternal purpose.
Evangelism, the preaching of the Gospel, being baptism, and being committed to the Lord Jesus Christ is essential, but this is just the beginning of all that God desires for His people. Growth in maturing in Christ is a lifelong process, and I think will be completed in His presence. It should be our desire to understand this, and begin now. This is all in the content of the First Commandment to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the Second, to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is beginning to understand and come into that deep bond of God-love.
If we consider our life in Christ in this way it touches every aspect of what we do regardless of chosen occupation or extra activities. It is marvelous and begins to make sense of many of the difficult sayings of our Lord. We ask God’s Spirit to help us grow more into the humble and meek nature of Jesus. In that nature that we begin to walk with Him each day.
God’s richest blessings as you grow in Christ Jesus,
Pastor Irv