Jesus, the Church's Husband

In Is. 54:5 we read, "For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called." As we have before shown Jesus is our Maker, our Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, and the God of the whole earth. Thus he is our husband. In Ephesians chapter 5 we are taught that the relationship between a husband and wife is to be patterned after the relationship between Jesus and his bride, the church: "Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it."

According to the scriptures, the Lord's ways are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts, but as the heavens are high above the earth so are his ways above our ways and his thoughts above our thoughts. According to man's ways, man seeks out the most beautiful and desirable woman he can find who will have him and selects her to be his bride. When the Lord selected his bride (church) he did not select one that was perfect, but rather as Israel of old when the Lord entered into the law covenant with her, she was polluted in her own blood, so also the church and her members are sinners which have no righteousness of their own.

According to Rom. 3:9 18 God describes the whole mass of humanity as having no righteousness, no understanding, no profitableness, no goodness, no fear of God, as none seeking after God and not knowing the way of peace. Out of this mass of humanity, the Lord chose his bride. Furthermore, we did not choose the Lord to enter into covenant with him, but rather he chose us.

According to Eph. 1:4 he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world and according to Rom. 9:11 this choice of a people is according to the "election of grace." In addition the Lord's people were under a curse as stated in Gal. 3:10, "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them."

Elder Vernon Johnson