And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man (Genesis 2:21-22). That is the creation of the first bride. Jesus came into the earth as a better Adam (the last being first) and from the second Adam God also took His bride from Him. The bride of Christ (as a parable) has been taken from the Christ, as we are the Church and the body of Christ. Jesus suffered for the sake of His body, which is the church (Colossians 1:24b). In that He both prepares a place and comes again to receive – if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also (John 14:3) – we are, as Eve was with Adam, part of Him and uniquely individually a living body, with Jesus as our head.

Adam was taken from the earth and then wounded in his side (rib) so that Eve could be taken from him. Jesus was wounded, one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out (John 19:34), in His side – then placed into the earth and three days later taken from the earth so His bride could be joined back to Him. What was separated in the flesh was joined eternally in the Spirit. When Adam did not cover his wife Eve with the word of God, there was a separation between the head (God) and the body (mankind). God knew already what mankind would do, and prophesied the separation in the creation – separating the head Adam from the body Eve by taking Eve from out of Adam.

The marriage covenant is the joining of man and woman as one flesh and one spirit until death. The covenant with God through Jesus is one beginning with death (Jesus died to bring His bride back to Himself as one). The death of the Word was required (to satisfy the law) so we could be joined in a covenant of grace (Jesus covering the sin that the first husband did not cover). The resurrected Jesus now has chosen again His own body, taken from Him by sin, to be united with Him in grace. With the death of Jesus the Word died – we are no longer married to our first husband through the law, but engaged to our betrothed through grace. Jesus has redeemed us by paying the debt of death that the law required – that debt has no hold on us. Jesus, being understood as slain before the creation, redeemed us before the sin – giving in advance (forgiving) the first sin before the sin separated us from Him.

So what is separating us if it is not the first sin? The preparation of the bride is separating us. Jesus is preparing a place for us, while we are preparing to be the bride. The bride is not yet prepared – we have not yet obeyed the commandment of God to love one another as He has loved us. To say it with simplicity, we have not extended the grace we have been give to others. We have not forgiven and received what was taken from the body by sin. We continually try to go back to the first husband (who is dead), and try to uncover the sins (already forgiven) with law, when it comes to those we do not want to accept into the kingdom. The body was made of rejected stones, and then we started acting like we were the builder and started rejecting stones. Jesus said He would rebuild the temple; we need to let Jesus be the builder.

Our part is to love one another and help one another be prepared; preparing the body to be the bride. That we, “speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head —Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:15-16). Love someone (a rejected stone) today.

    © 2011, Tim D. Coulter Sr.