Before the Beginning

Being simple, God is the qualities that He possesses (because it is customary, I will refer to God as He, as Christ related Him to us, even though “He” is Spirit and has no gender). God is Truth. God is Holy. Because God is Love, His very existence is Relational, therefore the Trinity is an absolute necessity. Father and Son, because a lover needs a beloved, and the Holy Spirit, the Gift and Reality of that Love.  He, also, created other lesser spiritual beings, the angels, in which to have a relationship. He didn’t need to. God it totally sufficient in Himself. He wasn’t bored. It pleased the Almighty to do so and, because He is the Creator, He did.  The Lord then went further on to create this material universe and our world in it. He populated the Earth with plants and animals.  In a very special act He created man, breathed His life into him, and Adam became a living soul made in the Divine Image and likeness; a being with connections to the physical and spiritual dimensions. If I now may speculate…

“Seeing” through the corridors of time, before “time”, as we know it, even began, God determined that it would take extraordinary measures to maintain His relationship with mankind.  He introduced something strange, exciting, and totally unheard of in the angelic conscience: the Law of Marriage. By it, two can “fuse” to become one and yet not lose themselves in the process, in a way, a shadow of the Trinity. God Almighty would use this Law to incorporate His inevitably wayward creation, Man, into His Own Divine Nature and so save him from the eternal separation from Himself that sin will demand. This concept shook the spiritual universe to the core! It allowed these soon to be created, “dirt creatures”, a means to obtain an infinitely more intimate “sonship” with the Lord than they, as angels, would ever have.  Angels were created complete in themselves as individuals and in their intelligence. Marriage was neither needed nor offered in their case.

Controversy rippled through the unseen world. To some, “It wasn’t right! It wasn’t fair! It was insulting!” and they were not going to stand for it. The light bearer, Lucifer, the greatest of them all, gave voice to their rage and led them in a rebellion. With the war cry of, “Our Wills as the Divine’s”, they assaulted the Throne of the Almighty. Micheal and his angels repulsed the attack and expelled one third of their brothers from heaven. Angelology in the Bible and other writings is a very confusing discipline. I could be totally wrong in my version of the facts but, in my opinion, there had to be something traumatic, a catalyst if you will, for the angels to fall. It had to be more than just Lupher’s appeal to their pride.  I offer this as food for thought. None the less, there was now a Serpent for the Garden.

It was not ever intended for Man to be alone. The Creator fashioned a woman from his rib and presented her to him.  Adam named her Eve. She was bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, and the mother of all the living. Thus, the Lord God Almighty presided over the first wedding. They were married in the truest sense of the word. They cared for each other as they would for themselves. They worked together as stewards of the Garden of Eden to the glory of God. Their bodies belonged to one another as one flesh. In their love, in cooperation with the Divine, they would physically create others like themselves, who would also share in the image of God. Sex would be a shadowed similarity of the Godhead, where the love of the Father and the Son creates a gift of life of the same kind, the Holy Spirit. So close was the relationship of our first parents that nakedness was not even in their vocabulary; that is until the Serpent, the tree, the fruit, and the fall…

The fall brought the obscenity of separation into the world. They saw their nakedness and fashioned garments to protect their vulnerability from each other. In fear, Adam placed the blame of their sin on Eve (and God). She passed the buck to the Serpent. The Serpent, in his silence, assumed the responsibility for the Fall and obtained the conquest of mankind. God expelled them from His Garden dwelling out into the cursed wilderness, where the animals were now wild and the reluctant Earth produced thorns and thistles. Between this event and the first murder, which was soon to follow, the Lord gave a promise of victory through the Woman’s seed (Jesus) over the Serpent (Satan). This battle between them continues even to this day.

As a side thought, if there was no temptation for Adam and Eve to sin, then they would most likely have stayed blissfully innocent as they were and the world would be a Paradise without conflict, disease or death. Man would be as he always was in a blissful but, stagnant state. Ironically, it was this “Blessed Fall” brought about by Satan, himself, in his rebellion that put the “Divine Marriage” that he hated so much into effect. Because sin had entered the world and death through sin, Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom, became the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world!

Also of note, after Cain, Abel, and other children were born, God did not take them back to the Garden to be tested. Suggesting that, the Lord did not make a mistake with our first parents. Adam and Eve did not “blow it”. The Fall is universal because anyone of us would certainly have succumbed to temptations as they did. In my opinion, God did not unfairly saddle us with a sin nature. It is ours by choice.

The Flood and Babel

Struggling mankind became fruitful and multiplied. Sin multiplied along with them to the point where every thought was constantly evil. The Holy Creator could not tolerate their perverse rebellion any longer. They were unredeemable.  The Almighty acted with a great global flood to cleanse the earth; saving only Noah’s family and a sampling of animals. Afterwards, a rainbow and a promise along with it to never flood the world again. They left the ark. The Lord repeated His command to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth! They didn’t. Despite the Fall in the Garden and a worldwide extinction event, rebellious mankind remained unchanged.

I was much easier to stay where they were and join together in one community, rather than go pioneering across the globe. They built a city, Babel, and apparently became prideful.  In an effort to glorify and make a name for themselves they constructed a tower, a Ziggurat, to reach the heavens and bring the Almighty down to them on their terms. The Lord came down, alright. He judged them for their disobedience, confused their speech and scattered them across the globe. They clustered around each other according their own new languages and formed the nations. Having rejected these defiant people, the Holy One, in this divorce, placed angels of His Divine Counsel to oversee their development to come back to Him…someday. If they would not listen to Him, the One true God, He would give them lesser “gods” to rule them (Deuteronomy 32:7-9, Psalm 82, Psalm 89:5-8). The scenario was set.  Not to be denied, the Almighty, Himself, started a new covenant nation of His very own.

God Takes a Spouse

“Abram, leave your father’s house to go to a land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and the whole world will be blessed through you…” and so it began. Through triumphs and tragedies, miracles and mayhem, Abram, now Abraham, and his barren wife Sarai prospered. A miracle baby, Isaac, and two generations later, there are seventy souls in this family that enters Egypt, under the protection of Joseph. God incubates them for four hundred years in the area of Goshen until they become a nation in their own right.

Through Moses, with plagues and miracles, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, delivers the Hebrews out of slavery to freedom.  In the wilderness, they are led with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night until they reach Mt Sinai. Here they purified themselves for three days. They gathered at the foot of the mountain. The Holy smoke of His presence was their wedding canopy; the Ten Commandments their marriage contract. The Lord God, Creator of the universe, Sustainer of all life, Judge of the world, proposed to this ragtag, stiff-necked and rebellious people to be His own wedded spouse. They accepted. Their sacred Covenant was sealed in sacrificial blood. It was settled. Forsaking all others, He was to be their one and only God. They were to be His people; a holy nation shining on a hill to draw all the world back to Him.

With manna in the morning and water from the rock, along with mighty acts of power, God led His people through the wilderness into the Promised Land. But it was a strained relationship. The nation of Israel suffered through cycles of sin, slavery, and rescue during the chaotic times of the Judges. King David brought them into a “Golden Age” of worship. His son, Solomon, started off well and built the Temple in Jerusalem; only, to later stray and lead the people into sin and idolatry. After his death, God split the country as judgement, leaving ten tribes of Israel in the north and Judah (Benjamin) in the south. Things only deteriorated from there as both nations, despite continual pleading from the Lord’s prophets, drifted further and further away from Jehovah, their spouse. Israel was the first to be taken away by the Assyrians, never to be seen again. Judah followed about a hundred years later, being exiled into Babylon. Mercifully, after seventy years, God allowed the return of a remnant of these to rebuild Jerusalem. It was a time of renewal, restoration and a prophesy from Jeremiah, where the Lord promised a New Covenant more glorious and everlasting than the Old Covenant made at Mt. Sinai.

The New Covenant

³¹ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, ³² not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. ³³ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴ And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jerimiah 31:31-34)

A Voice in the Wilderness

It’s been four hundred years since, Malachi, predicted that Elijah would come to turn the hearts of fathers and sons back together. A voice crying in the wilderness echoes down the Jordan Valley and John the Baptist, the Old Testament’s greatest prophet, breaks Heaven’s silence. The Baptist might be the only one who sees it. THE BRIDEGROOM is here! The WEDDING will be soon and he, the miracle son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, was the best man. It was his duty to make sure everything would be ready, most importantly, that the Bride would be prepared to receive her Husband.  With all seriousness and urgency, he calls for everyone to repent of their sins and be baptized.  Many come. He gives guidance to those who want to change their lives and hammers the hypocrites for putting on their pious shows. He tells the crowds about the BRIDEGROOM; a person so magnificent, that even a godly man as himself, was not fit to untie His sandal. Then, one day, He comes.

The Master wants John to baptize Him. He protests. He is not worthy. But Jesus assures John that this is in order to fulfill all righteousness. The perplexed Baptizer accommodates his Lord.  Coming up out of the water, the air shatters with the booming voice of God, the Father, “This is My Son in whom I am well pleased!”. The Holy Spirit, as a dove, descends upon the newly baptized God-man.  It has started! He has been announced! The next step is to send out the invitations for all to join the BRIDEGROOM in the WEDDING and enter the Kingdom of God.

It is clear that there is going to be a wedding. Jesus, in three of the gospels, even refers to Himself as the BRIDEGROOM. But how will this wedding take place? Here is the intriguing part.  John the Baptist, in an almost cryptic manner, tells us.

  ¹⁶ John answered them all, “I baptize you with^[a] water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with^[b] the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹⁷ His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Luke 3:16-17).

Superficial readings of these verses conclude that John the Baptist is either referring to the Holy Spirit at Pentecost or the effect of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life and, to be fair, Jesus told the Apostles before Pentecost (Act 1:5) that they would soon be baptized by the Holy Spirit. But it is plain to see that John is speaking about judgement to a crowd that, for all intents and purposes, will have very little to do with the fiery tongues on the Apostles at Pentecost. It has to mean something else. How this all ties together with the marriage message of the Baptist and the Christ comes in an almost incidental account in Mark 10:35-40.

The Baptism of Fire

³⁵ Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”

³⁶ “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.

³⁷ They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”

³⁸ “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

³⁹ “We can,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, ⁴⁰ but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”

Curious. Wasn’t Jesus already baptized by John in the Jordan? What is this other yet to happen Baptism and how will James and John participate in it? Many will say that this is the cross that we carry in our Christian walk. While Christ has called us to deny ourselves and take up our crosses, it is only superficially true to this case. There is something deeper and more profound here. There is a fire baptism of judgement that our Lord and we must go through. All sin! All must die! Jesus Christ died for our sins, the just for the unjust. Just the mere acknowledgement and agreement with this fact cannot be the sum total of “saving” faith. Somehow, we must participate in the very crucifixion itself at Calvery.

⁸ and the two will become one flesh.’^[a] So they are no longer two, but one flesh. (Mark 10:8)

“On the Night He was Betrayed, He Took the (Marriage) Cup“

During Biblical times a young man would go with his father to the chosen woman’s house. Her father and his would negotiate the bride price. It was the compensation that the girl’s father would accept in order to give his daughter over to the son to be wed.  Once agreed, the young man would offer a cup of wine to the woman and say, “This cup I offer to you.” If she drank it the engagement was set. In all practical aspects they were now “married”. He would then go prepare a place for them to live and, when he finished, come back to take her as his bride and consummate their union.

During the Last Supper, Jesus offered his disciples the third cup, the Cup of Salvation.

²⁷ Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. ²⁸ This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:27-28)

The New Covenant spoken of in Jerimiah was accepted by the disciples and, by extension, all the elect of God throughout time, from Adam and Eve to the end of the world. All that the Father has given to the Son are the bride of Christ and He will lose none of them. Now, the bride price must be paid.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, after much anguish, Christ submitted to the will of His Father and drank the cup of our sins, hence becoming sin for us. We also, as being newly married and united with the Lord, drank this cup along with Him, as Jesus said in Mark 10:39. Jesus physically in history and we spiritually outside of time are now led to the cross to bear the wages of our sin…death.

Christ was physically crucified on Good Friday and we spiritually along with Him. Here Jesus was forsaken by His Father, judged for our sins and died. We also were crucified with Christ spiritually. This is the Baptism of Fire; the “hell” that is the punishment for our sins and Jesus paid it all!  

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Christ, through His sacrifice, became sin for us that we may become the righteousness of God through Him. This could only have happened if Jesus was truly God and we were married to Him. He was laid in His tomb and on the third day raised from the dead and we, along with Him, crossed from death into eternal life, from the darkness into the light. This is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, where the Father did not leave His Son in the grave (Psalm 16:10) …and neither did He leave us:

⁹ You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. ¹¹ And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of^[b] his Spirit who lives in you. (Romans 8:9-11)

The Holy Spirit, that raised Jesus from the dead bodily, now lives spiritually in the believer, giving him a new born again from above eternal resurrected life.

What Now?

The good news of the gospel of salvation by faith in Christ’s sacrifice began to be spread in earnest at Pentecost. Here the promise of the New Covenant was extended beyond the Lord’s bride, the Jews, to reach out to the whole world. God was reversing His divorce of mankind at Babel and will be the husband of all that will come to Him, by faith, in Jesus Christ. Since that time, the gospel has gone out to the ends of the earth, spreading like a daisy chain from person to person with it’s one message, “Be reconciled to God!”.

So, dear friend, by faith, see yourself at the Last Supper accepting His marriage cup of Salvation. Be one with Jesus and go to Gethsemane to drink the cup of God’s wrath along with Him. Go through His crucifixion and, as judgement for all of your sins (past, present and future), die in the Baptism of Fire.  Rise with Christ on the third day, knowing that your bride price has been paid and that, through Him, with Him and in Him, you have passed through death to eternal life. Then, in obedience to our Lord and Husband, be baptized by water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as a testimony of your Baptism by Fire unto death and rising again by the Baptism of the Holy Spirit unto life.

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ² By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? ³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶ For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,^] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— ⁷ because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰ The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. (Romans 6:1-10)

Understand now that faith is not only the acceptance of gospel facts but, more importantly, the realization that some monumental has happened to you beyond this space and time in Jesus.

Live your new born-again life, empowered and testified to you by the Holy Spirit in your inner self. Your old person will fade away and be replaced by a new life that will want to live for and please Jesus, our Spouse.  Sin will lose its appeal to you and virtue will take its place as you seek God’s power and presence. When you do sin, confess, repent, be forgiven, and walk again with the Lover of your soul. Share in Holy Communion with your new family of other “believer brides” (His body the Church) and by faith enter the Last Supper again, where through the bread and wine, meet your Husband to renew your wedding vows…until He comes.

So, leave your unbelief behind. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most attested to fact in history. Go beyond the dead redundant rituals of religion and embrace the Christ, who longs to embrace you. Don’t wait! Today is the day of Salvation! Don’t be the one who will one day appear before Jesus, the Judge, and recite all of your good works and virtues as justification to enter His heaven. It’s insulting! Jesus will say. “I came into the world to offer you life. I sacrificed for you but, the best you gave in return was lip service. Don’t lie! I can see your heart! You preferred the darkness of your sin over Me and now you may have it! Go! Depart from Me into your outer darkness! (We were never married! We never shared in the Baptism of Fire!) I never knew you!”

Live for Christ. Don’t just love Him, but be in love with Him! Spread the Gospel. Watch and wait! Jesus our Lord, Savior, and Spouse is preparing a place and He will return to take us home to be with Him, forever. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!

“Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.” – Revelation 19:7