1. Importance of the Topic
This is of central importance: cf. time spent on buildings, budgets, details of services, keeping the people happy etc.
A Sign Of the Times: Jesus said in the end times “the love of many will grow cold” (Matt 24:12), and to the churches in Ephesus “you have abandoned the love you had at first”(Rev 2:4) and Laodicea “because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth” (Rev 3:16).
2. God Desires Intimacy
Rabbinical quotation: “Knowledge of God is to have God for a husband”
OT Background
16 On that day, says the Lord, you will call me, “My husband,” and no longer will you call me, “My Baal.” 19 And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. 20 I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord. (Hos 2:16, 19 – 20)
5 For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. (Isa 54:5)
[(32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. (Jer 31:32)]
To have God as a husband is to be taken analogically. In particular, God’s passion is not like human passion – lust, excitement, enthusiasm viz. deep emotion to have someone/thing for one- self. In the end, people tire of this. Human passion can infect and pollute the leadership of a church. We can be driven, stale, shallow about the ministry of Jesus, confusing our ministry for him with his ministry through us. God’s passion is a holy passion = he wants communion with our innermost depths and will go to any lengths to secure it. He desires us – cf. time, talents, gifts… – material security cf. immensity of the beauty and majesty of the work being done in her “angels long to look” “weight of glory” etc. They are incomparable. A holy passion for a person (cf. for a project or a projection) can never be legalistic. The heat of true love i.e. God- like love, is holiness. Desire to know another person’s deepest inner life (whatever the cost).
3. Losing the passion
Lack of passion is indicative of spiritual passivity; this is a symptom of spiritual impotency, or the inability to initiate intimacy. When we ask what cause this the answer is that the conscience f the person must be bound by guilt/sense of relational failure. “Guilt is absolute impotence with God” (Forsyth). This will show itself in neglect of spiritual disciplines e.g. Word and prayer (or at least the enjoyment of them). No amount of self – motivation or inspirational communication/preaching etc. can overcome this- only God can. Love for another is always reflexive “19 We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19). An absence of passion always reveals a lack of centering on the cross.
4. Returning to the Cross
Not to be living in this holy passion is to have forgotten where you started i.e. where GOD FIRST LOVED YOU /forgotten the cross cf. 2 Peter 1:4-9. 3 His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust/passion, and may become participants of the divine nature. 5 For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. 8 For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For anyone who lacks these things is short-sighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins.
The testimony of Jesus is that he overcame the powers of evil by not loving his life even unto death (cf.Rev 12:11). In bearing sin (Mark 15:34; Gal 3:13; 2 Cor 5:21) he endured a death to everything that is “true… honourable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellence …worthy of praise” (Phil 4:8) (to all possible foundations for idolatry = substituting good things for God) and took into himself the detestable, vile, abominable, filthy and disgusting. We have an aversion to the penetrating love of God’s holiness because we believe there are things deep inside us that are ugly….that the cross has not objectively dealt with. (Things that will attract the penalty of God.) The ongoing work of the cross is to cleanse us from this condition. “25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27 so as to present the church to himself in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.”(Eph 5:25- 27). v.26 deep inner cleansing from sin.
Ezekiel 36:25 – 27 25 I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. 9 Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, 10 thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
This is what happened to you when you first came to Jesus: Spirit-Word penetrated painfully into areas of your soul that were guilt stained and set you free so that you loved God in Christ spontaneously “46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.””(Luke 7:46-47).
5. A Marriage Application
The work of Christ in us is to be paralleled by the depth of the intimate sharing between husband and wife. 28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. (Eph 5:28- 32). v.32 This works itself out in a very special way in marriage- exposure of everything (death to all the illusions), acceptance by the other person, prayer, experience of deep cleansing, union, intimacy. Powerfully images Christ and church. When you cannot find a fundamental reason in yourself why this person should love you (but you know they do), and you cannot find a fundamental reason why not to love this person, the power of the cross is beginning to penetrate your marriage as “one flesh” in a way that signifies Christ’s union with the church. If this is not happening, we can be sure the power of the cross cleansing the bride is not being appropriated.
6. Concluding Application
“you have abandoned the love you had at first”(Rev 2:4). This is more than feeling passionate about Jesus, it is holding to the testimony of Jesus (Rev 1:2, 9; 12:17; 19:10) = allowing the cross to do its deep work of cleansing in us so that through us the Spirit might project the life of Jesus into the world. We need to allow the life of God to penetrate us at whatever cost and from there seek to enter the lives of others at whatever cost.