Search
Concerning the church as the counterpart of Christ, we have seen that Christ and the church are a great mystery, that the church is the bride and that Christ is the Bridegroom, that Christ and His counterpart will be married at His coming back, that the counterpart of Christ will be consummated in the New Jerusalem, and that Christ and His counterpart will be a couple in eternity. We have also seen that, as the counterpart of Christ, the church is typified by Eve as the counterpart of Adam, being a part of Adam, having come out of Adam, having returned to Adam, being one with Adam, possessing the life and nature of Adam, having the image and form of Adam, and becoming Adam’s counterpart as his complement. In this message we shall cover further aspects of the church as Christ’s counterpart.
In Ephesians 5:25b Paul says that Christ “loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” This reveals that Christ is a church-loving Christ. Galatians 2:20 says that Christ loved me and gave Himself for me. Although we may pay attention to this verse, we may not also pay attention to Ephesians 5:25, where we are told that Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for the church. Christ gave Himself on the cross not just for the believers individually but for the church. When we think about Christ’s death, we often consider ourselves individually. Yes, Christ loved us and died on the cross for each one of us. However, His death was mainly for the church.
Christ’s loving the church and giving Himself up for her was for redemption and for the impartation of life. According to John 19:34, blood and water came out of the Lord’s pierced side. The blood was for redemption, and the water was for the impartation of life so that the church might come into existence. In Ephesians 5:25 we have the church, the counterpart of Christ, coming into existence through Christ’s loving her and giving Himself up for her.
The purpose of Christ in giving Himself up for the church and in giving Himself to the church is to sanctify her (Eph. 5:26a). To be sanctified is not only to be separated from what is common but also to be saturated with the element of Christ. Hence, one aspect of sanctification is to be separated positionally, to undergo a change of position. Another aspect of sanctification is to become holy dispositionally by having Christ dispensed into us. Therefore, as Christ sanctifies the church, He not only separates her to Himself from anything common but also saturates her with Himself that she may be His counterpart. This is accomplished by His cleansing her with the washing of the water in the Word (v. 26b).
Ephesians 5:25-27 is actually one long sentence. In these verses Paul is saying that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. He did this that He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of water in the Word, in order that He might present the church to Himself glorious, without spot, wrinkle, or any such things. Christ’s purpose in loving the church and in giving Himself up for the church was to sanctify her by the washing of the water in the Word. Sanctifying is by cleansing, cleansing is by washing, washing is by water, and water is in the Word.
Having given Himself up for the church and to the church, Christ is now sanctifying the church, not only separating the church to Himself but also saturating the church with Himself.
After the church has come into existence, the church needs Christ’s sanctifying. The process of sanctification includes saturation, transformation, growth, and building up. Although sanctification includes separation, the main aspect of sanctification is saturation. The church needs to be saturated with all that Christ is. Saturation is accompanied by transformation, growth, and building. Through such a process of sanctification with all these aspects, the church becomes complete and perfect, the reality of what is typified by Eve in Genesis 2.
Without separation, saturation, transformation, growth, and building, the church cannot be perfected and grow into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). Only through an all-inclusive process of sanctification can the church become complete and attain to the measure of the stature of Christ’s fullness so that Christ can present a perfect church to Himself as His counterpart.
God’s intention in His economy is not to correct us or to improve us. Neither is it His intention to have good people in place of bad people. In the sight of God, it does not matter whether we are good or bad, for the only thing of value in His economy is Christ Himself. Therefore, God’s desire is to work Christ into us. Whether we are good or bad, we need the element of Christ added into us. This involves Christ’s work in sanctifying us, a work that involves the addition of the element of Christ to us. We need to be impressed that sanctification is not a matter of outward behavior or improvement. God desires daily to dispense the element of Christ into our being. It is this element alone that causes us to be sanctified so that we may be the counterpart of Christ for His satisfaction.
Christ’s work of sanctifying the church is accomplished by cleansing her with the washing of the water in the Word. According to the divine concept, the water in Ephesians 5:26 refers to the flowing life of God typified by flowing water (Exo. 17:6; 1 Cor. 10:4; John 7:38-39; Rev. 21:6; 22:1, 17). The washing of such water is different from the washing of the redeeming blood of Christ. The redeeming blood washes away our sins (1 John 1:7; Rev. 7:14), whereas the water of life washes away the blemishes of the natural life of our old man, such as “spot or wrinkle or any such things” (Eph. 5:27). In sanctifying the church, the Lord first washes away our sins with His blood and then washes away our natural blemishes with His life. Spots are something of the natural life, and wrinkles are signs of oldness. Only the water of life can metabolically wash away such defects. All the spots and wrinkles in the church will be washed away through the inner cleansing of the water in the Word. We all need such an organic, metabolic washing to take away our defects and the marks of our oldness. As the church is washed organically and metabolically in this way, the church is renewed and is without blemish. We are now in such a washing process in order that the church may be holy and without blemish.
With Eve in Genesis 2 there was no need of cleansing because in that chapter she had not fallen. Rather, she was pure and without mixture. But because we are fallen, contaminated, and defiled, we need to be cleansed. Many things in us need to be purged away: the flesh, the self, the old man, the natural life. Furthermore, we have many spots and wrinkles from which we need to be cleansed.
In the process of sanctification, something of Christ is added to us, but in cleansing something of us, especially our natural disposition, is subtracted. As we are cleansed by the washing of water in the Word, our natural disposition is washed away.
Disposition is the most inward aspect of our constitution; it is the root of our being. We were born with a certain disposition. Disposition, therefore, is altogether inward. As Christ is adding His element into us, He is also cleansing us and subtracting our natural disposition. His cleansing washes away the natural element from the depths of our being. The washing away of our natural disposition cannot be accomplished by teaching but only by the impartation of the element of Christ into our being.
While the element of Christ is being added to us, something of ourselves is being carried away. Therefore, on the one hand, we have the addition of Christ; on the other hand, we have the subtraction of the natural disposition. Gradually, Christ is being added into our being, and our natural disposition is being subtracted. The result of this process is transformation, a metabolic change in which the new element is constituted into us and the old element is carried away. The more we open to Christ as the life-giving Spirit within us and tell Him that we are willing to take Him as our life and our person, the more He will work within us as the life-giving Spirit to add Himself to us to carry away our oldness and our natural disposition. This is the work of the living Christ in sanctification and cleansing.
After Eve had been prepared for Adam by being built out of Adam’s rib, she was presented to Adam, the source from which she came. In like manner, the church as Christ’s counterpart will be presented to Christ, who is her source. This presentation will not be done by God but by Christ Himself. Ephesians 5:27 says, “That He might present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that she should be holy and without blemish.” Here we see that Christ will present the church to Himself. Hence, He will be both the presenter and the receiver.
In the past, Christ gave Himself up for the church. In the present, He is sanctifying the church. Eventually, in the future, He will present the church to Himself as His counterpart for His satisfaction.
The church Christ will present to Himself as His counterpart will be glorious. Glory is God expressed. Hence, to be glorious is to be God’s expression. Eventually the church presented by Christ to Himself will be a God-expressing one; it will be the expression, the manifestation, of God. Because Christ’s sanctifying of the church causes her to be saturated with the essence of God, the church will become the expression of God. The only way for us to become God’s expression is to be continually saturated with the divine essence. The more we are saturated in this way, the more we become the expression of God.
In His New Testament economy, God is working Christ into us. Eventually, Christ will present a glorious church to Himself not by coming merely in an objective way but by expanding within us and then coming out of us. Christ will glorify us not by descending upon us from the heavens but by coming forth from within us. The hope of glory is not the Christ in the heavens but the Christ who is in us (Col. 1:27). Hence, when God glorifies us, He will not need to send the glory from above; rather, He will cause Christ to shine forth from within us. This indicates that glorification is a subjective experience of the indwelling Christ. Even now Christ is in the process of presenting a glorious church to Himself. As this process takes place, He saturates our inner being with Himself.
In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul says, “We all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” Our need today is to behold and reflect the glory of the Lord. As we behold His glory, we are transformed from glory to glory, that is, from one degree of glory to another degree. The more we behold the Lord’s glory and are transformed by the Lord Spirit from glory to glory, the more the Lord will gain the glorious church He desires.
The glorious church Christ presents to Himself will be a church “not having spot or wrinkle or any such things” (Eph. 5:27). Spots are something out of the natural life, and wrinkles are signs of oldness. Humanly speaking, there is no way for us to remove such things. However, God has a way. The water of life in the Word can metabolically wash away these defects by the transformation of life. The more Christ sanctifies the church and cleanses her through the washing of the water in the Word, the fewer spots and wrinkles there will be. The spots and wrinkles will be removed metabolically. This means that every flaw, defect, and imperfection will be removed by Christ’s transforming life.
The spots and wrinkles must be removed in order for the bride, Christ’s counterpart, to be prepared for Christ. To be sure, the bride presented to Christ will not have any spots or wrinkles. Revelation 19:7 says, “Let us rejoice and exult, and let us give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife has made herself ready.” Certainly by this time the bride will have been purified from all spots and wrinkles.
The spots and wrinkles do not affect the function of the church. However, they very much detract from the beauty of the church. The church as Christ’s bride must be beautiful. For this reason, Paul goes on from the function and daily living of the church as the new man in Ephesians 4 to the presentation of the church as the bride without spot or wrinkle in Ephesians 5. In order to be the bride of Christ, the church must become beautiful and have all spots and wrinkles removed.
The church Christ presents to Himself will be “holy and without blemish.” To be holy is to be saturated and transformed with Christ, and to be without blemish is to be spotless and without wrinkle, with nothing of the natural life of our old man. The church will be separated to the Lord from all common things and then saturated and permeated with the divine nature, with all that God is. The church that has become holy in this way will also be without blemish. The word “blemish” in Ephesians 5:27 may be compared to a defect in a precious stone. A defect comes from mixture within the stone. If we would be pure, we must be without mixture; that is, we must not have anything other than God in our being. One day, the church as Christ’s counterpart will be like this. The church will not only be clean and pure but also without blemish, without mixture. The church will be the expression of the processed Triune God Himself mingled with the resurrected, uplifted, and transformed humanity. This is the glorious church, the church that is holy and without blemish. In the future such a glorious church will be presented by Christ to Himself. Today, however, the church is undergoing the process of Christ’s sanctifying with His nourishing and cherishing.
As the Lord Jesus sanctifies and cleanses the church, He also nourishes and cherishes her. Paul refers to this in Ephesians 5:29. “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ also the church.” To nourish is to feed. For Christ to nourish us means that He supplies us with His riches.
When we are nourished, something enters into our being to meet our need. Nourishment, therefore, must come out of a supply. Without a supply, it is impossible to have nourishment. Christ has a marvelous supply with which He nourishes the church. Christ nourishes the church with all the riches of the Father. Christ is the embodiment of the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9). Hence, all the riches of God are in Him, and He enjoys these riches. Then He nourishes the church with the very riches of the Godhead that He Himself has enjoyed.
This nourishment causes transformation. Because we are what we eat, the more we eat Christ, receiving His nourishment, the more we are constituted of Christ. Then we shall be transformed by the element of Christ that has been dispensed into us. Therefore, through Christ’s work of nourishing the church we are transformed, becoming new persons with a new element and substance.
According to Ephesians 5:29, Christ’s care of the church has two aspects, an inner aspect and an outer aspect. The inner aspect is the nourishing, and the outer aspect is the cherishing. To be nourished is to have something imparted into us inwardly, whereas to be cherished is to be warmed and comforted outwardly. Therefore, along with Christ’s nourishing we have His cherishing.
To cherish is to nurture with tender love and foster with tender care. To cherish is also to soften by warming. As a mother cherishes a child by holding the child close to her breast, the Lord Jesus cherishes us by holding us close to Him. In this way we are warmed and softened. The Lord warms us and softens us as we enjoy His tenderness, sweetness, and lovingness. How tender, sweet, and warm the Lord Jesus is! In preparing the church to be presented to Himself as His counterpart, He surely is the nourishing and cherishing One.
We need to connect Ephesians 5 to Revelation 19, which speaks of the readiness of the bride. Apart from Ephesians 5, there is no way for the bride to be prepared, and hence no way for Revelation 19 to be fulfilled. It is crucial, therefore, that we experience Christ’s nourishing, cherishing, sanctifying, and cleansing to remove our defects and oldness. When all such things have been removed, we shall become a church that is holy, glorious, and without blemish. Then we shall be the bride in Revelation 19. When the bride has been prepared, Christ will come as the Bridegroom.
As the counterpart of Christ, the church will be joined to Christ. This is indicated by Paul’s word in Ephesians 5:31. “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh.” This indicates that the church, which comes out of Christ, will go back to Christ just as Eve, who came out of Adam, went back to Adam. As Eve became one flesh with Adam, so the church, which goes back to Christ, will be one spirit with Christ (1 Cor. 6:17).
The church, the counterpart of Christ, has Christ, the Savior, as her Head. This is indicated by Paul’s word in Ephesians 5:23. “For a husband is head of the wife as also Christ is Head of the church, being Himself the Savior of the Body.” As head of the wife, a husband typifies Christ as the Head of the church. In addition to being the Savior of the Body, Christ is also the Head of the church. The Savior is a matter of love, whereas the Head is a matter of authority. We love the Lord as our Savior, but we must also be subject to Him as our Head.
The church, the counterpart of Christ, is the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:23; Col. 1:18). As the Body of Christ, the church must surely hold Christ as the Head and honor Him as the Head.
Christ is the Head of the church, His Body and His counterpart. For this reason, the church must be subject to Christ the Head (Eph. 5:24a).
