As Christ Loves the Church – First Things

If a fellow is going to try to love his wife as Christ loved the church, he first needs to orient himself to who he is in the universe and who he is with God in the universe. Without this proper orientation, he will be making things up and flying by the seat of his pants. This isn’t really helpful when the Bible tells him to do and be things he knows nothing or very little about.

So, we start with what the Gospel is and how we should respond to the Gospel.

1 Corinthians 15:3-8 is clearest and distilled down proclamation of the Gospel in the Bible. It says,

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. (1 Corinthians 15:3–8

In this text, we see, a couple of times the phrase, “according to the Scriptures.” “According to the Scriptures” means that the Bible had a lot to say about what people should expect when the Messiah/Christ finally came. This was not something new on the planet. God had been planning this grand event for a long long time. God was preparing, through historical events, natural events, individual people and whole nations, to bring one person to be the savior of the world. And Jesus fit every one of those prophetic texts. He came to the right people, in the right way. He lived the right life, in the right way. He died and rose just like the Scriptures said he would. And he came to a world that was sinful in all the right ways such that what he did was highlighted by world events. He died for our sins, and God raised him from the dead.

In every proclamation of this good news, these last two items are always prominently featured. Jesus died for our sins and God raised him from the dead to prove it. And that’s the Good News, the Gospel. God sent Jesus to fix things so that we could have a vibrant and living relationship with God. Earlier in 1 Corinthians Paul said we were called into the fellowship (relationship) of His Son Jesus Christ (1:9). And John said, “that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 Jn. 1:3). The goal or purpose of the Gospel is that we can join in the fellowship the Father has with the Son along with a million attendant blessings.

Notice that there is no mention that the point of all this is so that we can go to heaven when we die. We do get to go to heaven when we die, that is true, but that wasn’t the major objective of the Gospel. I mention this because there are many people out there who believe they will not be spending eternity in Hell, but rather in some wonderfully other place. But they don’t want to live with God now, they ignore what he says, they don’t even care. God is only helpful in avoiding Hell when they die. The funny thing is that they don’t want God now, but somehow don’t remember that that is what they will get when they die. For a rebel, that seems to me to be what Hell would be all about; living with a supreme being who won’t let me be myself…for all eternity. But I digress.

1 Corinthians 15 is a statement of what the Gospel entails. It assumes that we are sinners in need of saving. It proclaims what God has done for us so that we can be saved. We’ve also seen that this Gospel provides a way to have fellowship with the Father and the Son. But these are simply facts. We sin, Jesus died and rose. Now what? What does the Bible say about what we do with this good news? How do we take advantage of this good news? What does it look like practically speaking? Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek” (Rom. 1:16). So, we believe. So far, so good. Pretty simple, right?

What does believing the Gospel look like? In the church I grew up in, believing the Gospel meant “going forward” after the sermon on Sunday. I did this when I was eight years old. We all sang the hymn of invitation and during one of the verses, the pastor invited anyone who wanted to be become a Christian to come forward. So, I went. I got there, and the pastor held out his hand, leaned forward, and said something to me, which I don’t remember. I know there were times when, after the hymn, the pastor would ask everyone who had come forward (and anyone in the pews who hadn’t come but wanted to become a Christian anyway) to repeat after him. And he would lead us in asking Jesus to come into our hearts and make us Christians. I don’t remember praying, but I must have because I had to accept Jesus into my heart and I could only do that if I prayed.

But is this what the Bible means by becoming a Christian? Now that I am older, I don’t think so. In Ephesians, Paul said, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (2:8–9). From this, we know that salvation comes through our faith, that we can’t earn or deserve it, and it is totally a gift from God.

To mix things up a bit we take a look at James 2:26 we see, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” On the surface, it appears that Paul and James disagree with one another, but do they? Nope. They are saying the same things from two different perspectives. One says what we get by believing, the other tells us what faith looks like from the outside.

Here’s my explanation for how it works. I heard a story about a famous tightrope walker who used to travel around letting the crowds ooh and aah at his magical feats of daring. One time he gathered a crowd at Niagara Falls and stretched his wire across the falls. He walked across and back and everyone cheered. Then he took a wheelbarrow out and asked who thought he could take the wheelbarrow across and back. They all cheered and hoorayed. So, off he went and came back to loud ovations. Then he asked how many of the people thought he could put a person in the wheelbarrow and take them across and back. They all cheered and shouted their support of this great stunt. But everything changed when he asked, who wanted to go first.

They all believed the wire walker could do it, but none of them believed it enough to get into the wheelbarrow. That’s how the Bible talks about faith. We hear the Gospel and believe it with the kind of belief that gets us into the wheelbarrow.

There are a few contextual things we need to know when talking about this topic. First, God takes sin very seriously. He sent his only son to die for us to pay the penalty for our sin. He repeatedly killed people because of their sin. Sin is very important and evil in God’s sight. Second, as we’ve pointed out, salvation is all about relationship with God. Third, it is all about humble, relationship with the God who created the universe. There is no room for my ego, or self, or autonomy, or control. It is all about knowing God and being known by God. That’s why Jesus said, “if you want to be my disciple, you’ve got to take up your cross and follow me” (Mk. 8:34).

What is a disciple? Luke answered that question when he explained that the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch (Acts 11:26). A Christian is a disciple, someone who follows Jesus. Jesus said the requirement for being his disciple is to leave all you have, hate all you love, take up your cross (die), and follow him. That is what becoming a Christian entails.

Hey, wait a minute, didn’t you just point out that Paul said we are saved by grace through faith with no works? (Eph. 2:8, 9). Yes, I did and he did, that’s true. Becoming a Christian is really easy, all you have to do is believe that Jesus is the risen Lord of Glory. Yes, he is the risen Lord. The Lord. That’s why Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments (Jn. 14:15). And John said, if you claim to know him you will do what he says to do (1 Jn. 2:3). And James says, if you have faith, you will have deeds in keeping with that faith (Jas. 2:26). Belief is simple, works free, action-less, but belief will produce action, attitudes, obedience, etc. If the faith doesn’t cause you to get into the wheelbarrow, you have no reason to think you have saving faith. You may not have been saved through your faith.

This requirement of death thing is very important to understand and “get” as we move forward to talk about how husbands are to live with their wives. Unless you have died to yourself, taken up your cross and are daily taking up your cross (Lk. 9:23), you cannot be a good or successful husband.