The Glorious Church

Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to sanctify her by cleansing her with the washing of the water by the word, so that he may present the church to himself as glorious – not having a stain or wrinkle, or any such blemish, but holy and blameless. (Eph. 5:25-27)

This is just one of those neat tidbits too good not to share.

Last night at the worship service at the Hispanic church I attend with my husband on Friday nights, the pastor referenced Eph. 5:25-27. Since I was struggling to understand the message (in Spanish), I looked at my textual notes in the NET Bible that I use. I saw this incredible tidbit for verse 27:

"The use of the pronoun autos is intensive and focuses attention on Christ as the one who has made the church glorious."

Wow! In the midst of a passage that we in our man-centeredness like to think is about us (at least us as the church), we see the language pointing all back to Jesus. I immediately thought of Jude 24: "Now to the one who is able to keep you from falling, and to cause you to stand, rejoicing, without blemish before his glorious presence".

HE is able to keep us from falling and cause us to stand blameless before Him, without blemish. When the church is presented as gloriously pure before Him, it will be because of His work, His purity, His righteousness, His sanctification. In other words, even in a moment that looks like it might be about us - it's really about Him. We'll all be in total unity about the fact that all that is clean and pure within us is His work.

And that can be a great encouragement - in life and in ministry. Sure, we must do the hard work of the obedience of faith. But as I posted recently, He enables the fulfillment of our good resolves. To paraphrase Paul - we work hard - not us, but Him in us. And in ministry it is the same. We seek to advance the kingdom of God and we make our plans and have our visions and work as hard as possible. But the church that HE will cause to be pure before Him is the church we are working to build ... and so HE is the one who ultimately is going to bring about our success. We never know if it is this person or the next - but we do know that HE has taken the responsibility for the success of the church upon His shoulders.

In the great partnership that is ministry, we have our part. It is important and challenging and difficult and rewarding. But it's not ultimately on our shoulders. He is building His church. We are merely instruments in His very capable hands.

Now may the God of peace himself make you completely holy and may your spirit and soul and body be kept entirely blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is trustworthy, and he will in fact do this. (1 Thess. 5:23-24)