Truth for Life - December 2, 2015
December 2
A Beautiful Bride
The Lord's admiration for His Church is very wonderful, and His description of her beauty is very glowing. She is not merely beautiful, but "altogether beautiful." He views her in Himself, washed in His sin-atoning blood and clothed in His meritorious righteousness, and He considers her to be full of attraction and beauty. No wonder that this is the case, since it is simply His own perfect excellency that He admires; for the holiness, glory, and perfection of His Church are His own glorious garments worn by His well-beloved spouse.
She is not simply pure or well-proportioned; she is positively lovely and fair! She has actual merit! Her deformities of sin are removed; but more, she has through her Lord obtained a meritorious righteousness by which an actual beauty is conferred upon her.
Believers have a positive righteousness given to them when "he chose us in him" (Eph. 1:4). Nor is the church barely lovely-she is superlatively so. Her Lord styles her "most beautiful among women."1 She has a real worth and excellence that cannot be rivaled by all the nobility and royalty of the world.
If Jesus could exchange His elect bride for all the queens and empresses of earth, or even for the angels in heaven, He would not, for He puts her first and foremost! Like the moon she far outshines the stars. Nor is this an opinion that He is ashamed of, for He invites all men to hear it. He sets a "behold" before it, a special note of exclamation, inviting and arresting attention. "Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful!" (Song of Sol. 4:1). He publishes His opinion widely even now, and one day from the throne of His glory He will declare the truth of it before the assembled universe. "Come, you who are blessed by my Father" (Matt. 25:34) will be His solemn affirmation of the loveliness of His elect.
1 Song of Solomon 1:8
Family Bible reading plan
verse 1 2 Chronicles 1
verse 2 1 John 1
Honest Evangelism: How to Talk About Jesus Even When It’s Tough
The changes taking place in Western cultures are both discouraging to Christians and, ironically, encouraging. More precisely, most of the changes themselves are discouraging, but they are calling forth a different set of changes that are encouraging. The discouraging changes are easy to list. Rising biblical illiteracy means that there is less and less cultural consensus around things like the Ten Commandments. Honor is an old-fashioned word, easily mocked; truth is increasingly flexible; the lust for power, success, and money has become more and more transparent and unchecked; dignity is old-fashioned; cruelty and vengeance are sometimes depicted as virtues.
Short, clear, realistic and humorous, this book will challenge you to be honest in your conversations about Jesus, help you to know how to talk about him, and thrill you that God can and will use ordinary people to change eternal destinies.
Click here to learn more about Truth For Life
From Morning & Evening revised and edited by Alistair Begg copyright © 2003. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.
