MEDITATIONS
FROM ISAIAH
March 15,
2006
Reading
“For your Maker is your husband” Isa
54:5
Of the number of analogies the Holy Spirit draws from to explain the relationship between you and your God none is more satisfying than that before you this morning. My soul, your God is your Husband. He is also your Brother, Shepherd, Prophet, Priest and King, but none of these portray the intimacy, oneness, love and compassion as that of the marriage union. While it is true that the modern era has brought the marriage relationship into disrepute, it still remains at its very core and essence the relationship for which one will leave their mother and father and become one flesh as long as they shall live. That we have been made one with Jesus Christ by His death and resurrection is the core of the gospel message and the assurance that every born again believer is His for ever.
We are called Christians, after Christ’s name, because we are made partakers of Christ’s nature. Listen to the prayer of Jesus just before His immeasurable suffering,
“Father, I will
that … they may be one with thee; even as thou, O Father, and I are one, I in
them, and they in me” John 17:20-22
“For we are
members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. For this reason a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one
flesh." This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the
church” Eph
Greater yet than your oneness with your God is the wonder that He lives in you. This is something that the best of all marriages cannot claim. A spouse can say of her husband that “he speaks for me,” but not that “he lives in me and I in him.” Paul, however, referring to himself but speaking of all true believers in Jesus Christ, says, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”
Never
can there be a closer relationship imagined by man or created by God. “Christ
in you, the hope of glory” stands alone in its love, grace, comfort and
assurance. These are, concludes George Whitfield, “Words that deserve to be written in letters of gold.”
“And I heard, as it were, the
voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of
mighty thunderings, saying, ‘Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let
us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has
come, and His wife has made herself ready.’ And to her it was granted to be
arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous
acts of the saints. Then he said to me, ‘Write: 'Blessed are those who are
called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!'" Rev 19:6-9