Higher Obedience

Once upon a time, I went to university almost everyday, now that the professors are on strike and my student association too, I don’t get to go as often. Only once a week to vote against the strike and continue to work on a team assignment on the same day. When I went to school, I usually listened to a John MacArthur sermon in the metro. His podcast sermons are only about 25 minutes so it fits perfectly with the time it takes me to leave my place and enter my classroom.

I remember that a few weeks ago I listened to one of his sermons in his series  on the doctrine of Election. The last one gave me some food for thought. You can read/download/listen to it here. I had never heard anybody speak of election in that way (obviously there is much more he said before and after in all the sermons, this is not the only thing he said). But in a nutshell here it is:

Drawing from the ancient world’s way of doing marriage, MacArthur makes links between God’s relationship to His Son and the Son to the Church. He says that God in His love for His Son chose a bride for Him which was a redeemed humanity, namely the Church. The bride would then spend eternity loving, praising, worshiping, serving Christ. As it was in the ancient world, the bridegroom had to pay a price for the bride, in the same way Jesus had to come down, become fully human and die on the cross to redeem His bride.

I’m not sure what I think about this. It makes a lot of sense to me since it’s obvious from the Bible that God has a remnant that Christ willfully redeemed by His death on the cross and that the Church is the bride of Christ and that one day Christ will be united to His bride at the wedding supper of the Lamb, etc. all those things are true. I just had never thought of them in that perspective, but again I don’t know what I think of it.

This perspective really puts the emphasis on the love of God for His Son, not on the bride’s goodness. Jesus didn’t come redeem His bride because she was lovable or better than the rest. She was a gift from His Father, and He died for her sins.

I don’t want to give a wrong idea if I am, so I’d encourage you to check out the sermon for yourself.