A Glorious Church?

[votivesoul]

Ephesians 5:22-33 (ESV),

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.[a] 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

a. Ephesians 5:27 Or holy and blameless

The marriage metaphor of Christ and His Church is profound, and of a deeper quality and essence than we normally care to contemplate. We who are married, either male or female, get some hands-on experience with the concept, and hopefully, we find through the help of the Holy Spirit a way to live out in our marriages the commandments within the Holy Scriptures that speak to us regarding what it means to be married, and how to allow the truth of God's Word to resonate, even resound, in our covenant promises to the spouse of our choosing.

But that's not what I want to focus on; I only open with it, because it's the only way to impart an understanding of Christ's marriage to His Church. So, if you are married, there is something here I think you will understand. If you are not married, you might think to look to your parents, or grandparents, or of someone else quite close to you, who is married, and whose marriage offers you a shining example of what true Christian nuptials ought to be.

That being said, let me move on to the point:

Marriage is work. It is sacrifice. It is challenge. It is hard. But it's also wonderful, beautiful, life affirming, full of grace and power. Marriage is many things. Add children to the marriage and all of these things, and things not even yet mentioned, become multiplied almost beyond expression.

But when two saints covenant themselves to each other and to the Lord Jesus of Nazareth, promising to stick it out, no matter what, to work through every problem, to suffer together through every hardship, to make it past every pain, and remain faithful the whole time, for every up, and for every down, the truth is, there are going to be times of clashing, times of anger, and hurt. Times of frustration. The honeymoon wears off!

But do you quit? Do you say, "Ah, not worth it anymore. See ya!" (I know some who post here are divorced, and I don't write any of this to shame them, or put them down for the dissolution of their marriage, I promise. I am just speaking to the principle of how things ought to be, not how they sometimes turn out).

The correct response is, "No, we don't quit. We don't give up on each other. We stick it out, even if we can't see eye to eye, even if we struggle to feel any sense of affection or yearning. In patience, we possess our souls, and we wait on the Lord to renew us like eagles, and we come back together, stronger, and more in love than before" -- if we follow the process of the Lord in reconciliation.

Reconciliation! What an awesome word. We never reconcile with anyone, unless somewhere, someone agrees to compromise, or at least, set aside their own views and biases, their own instinctives and convictions, just for a moment, to listen and try to understand the why and the what of what's really going on with our wife, or our husband, as the case may be. If we want to come back together and find the oneness promised to us, to have true marital unity, we have to do it, or we'll never reconcile.

Again, this isn't about marriage. This is a great mystery concerning Christ and His Church.

Paul writes that Christ gave Himself for the Church, and in so doing, He then fully expects to return for a Bride that is glorious, something worthy of Him, in His glory. A Church that doesn't even have the faintest sign of stain or blemish, or even of wrinkle. I can only imagine this is the vision and desire of every saint: to be united with the Anointed One, knowing in us He sees the glory He expects. He examines and sees individually and corporately that we have purged ourselves of every spot or blemish, or anything that might even resemble such a thing. Indeed, He sees His own holiness reflected back at Him.

The question is: How? How does the Church go about making sure it is without blemish, without stain, blameless and holy? I know there are a lot of opinions out there, and frankly, I'm not overly interested in gathering opinions on the matter, though I do welcome them, in a general way.

My question, rather, is more pointed than a simple "how?'. What I want to know is, in light of the recent posts about doctrine, about standards, all the back and forth that constantly rages, not just here, but everywhere, how can anyone dare hope to point out a spot or blemish on the church, or say, "I see a wrinkle here. We'd best get the iron out and go to work" when it's clear that people don't want anyone doing that, not even for a moment. They don't want anyone pointing at their flaws, their lack of chapter and verse, their misunderstanding or misappropriation of a passage, and etc.

On either side! Appealing to the status quo of current churchianity cannot be a path to the glory Christ expects to see in us, right? Remaining mum and not saying anything can't be the right and proper way to fix any glaring or not so glaring problem, can it, if we want to be that holy and blameless bride? Should we not welcome any and all scrutiny and see if what we are dead set on defending really isn't something that is going to propel the Body into that particular glory the Son of God wants us to have?

Do we just throw our hands up and walk away and divorce the brethren of the Messiah and give up, that is, QUIT on each other? Husbands and wives aren't supposed to do that, are they? And that's the mystery. The Body is, collectively, in all parts of the world, that special treasure called the Bride of the Lamb, and since we are all, collectively in one place, we have to find it within ourselves to get in one accord, too. We are that wife, if you will, and Jesus is that husband, we with Him, but also with each other, we have to reconcile and make this marriage work.

As for me, there is no placating or backing down in the sense of just letting something go for the sake of someone else, when that something is a blemish on the church. IT NEEDS TO GO, or Ephesians 5:25-27 is never going to happen.

So, the question I am posing here, at the end, is, what kind of church do you want to be? Glorious? Without blemish? Without wrinkle, or any related thing? Or do you just want to hold tight and hope it'll be all right?

For me, I say, challenge me. Inspect, push, prod, test, examine, and stand up to me and see what I'm made of. Question everything. Demand evidence. Be even more noble than the Bereans. Show me all of my faults, my blemishes, my spots, and wrinkles, and help me be/become holy and blameless, just as glorious as the Savior wants me to be, as part of that glorious church.

But then, here's the catch: allow me to do the same with you. Because if you want to be just as glorious as I want to be, we need each other to make it happen. So tell me:

"How are we going to make this work?"