Posted on 09/24/2015 5:44:15 AM PDT by Gamecock
The church is our mother, but it is Christ’s bride. In this role, we are the objects of Christ’s affection. We, corporately, are His beloved. Stained and wrinkled, in ourselves we are anything but holy. When we say that the church is holy or refer to her as “holy mother church,” we do so with the knowledge that her holiness is not intrinsic but derived and dependent upon the One who sanctifies her and covers her with the cloak of His righteousness.
As the sensitive husband shelters his wife and in a chivalrous manner lends her his coat when she is chilled, so we are clad from on high by a husband who stops at nothing to defend, protect, and care for His betrothed. His is the ultimate chivalry, a chivalry that no upheaval of earthly custom can eradicate or make passé. This chivalry is not dead because it cannot die.
The bride of Christ is soiled but will one day be presented spotless to the Father by the Son who bought her, who loves her, and who intercedes for her every day. If we love Christ, we must also love His bride. If we love Christ, we must love His church.
Coram Deo
Ask God to rekindle your love for members of the body of Christ, the true church.
Passages for Further Study
Revelation 3:5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.
Psalm 111:3 Full of splendor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever.
2 Peter 3:14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
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Blessed Thursday all!
“The church is our mother”
Where is that mentioned in the New Testament?
Mystery Babylon operates on deception. The whole thing is a ruse, a fantastic corruption or bastardization of the real thing.
“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”
It's not!
I think sometimes our Reformed brethren fail to recognize how much they brought with them when they separated themselves from the state sanctioned church they used to be a part of.
“The church is our mother”
Is that in the Bible?
Apparently no where.
To me, that statement pretty much shows that the writer’s whole theology may contain other deceptions.
Show me the word Trinity in the NT.
Apples and oranges.
Many passages in the Bible show that Jesus is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and God the Father is God.
None that I know of that say, show or affirm that the body of Christ is our mother.
If the author, and anyone else, wants to believe the author’s fist sentence I have no problem with that.
Believing that IMO doesn’t affect anyone’s salvation in a negative way. In my opinion.
I was just asking for Biblical confirmation.
Being as I can find none, I will believe otherwise.
The church, made up of every born again believer on Jesus, is the body of Christ.
Galatians 4:26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.
Many of us believe that the Heavenly Jerusalem is indeed the church, with Jesus the head of that church. The church is of course made up of all who believe. Not some earthly organization.
The metaphor that Paul uses is to distinguish between the child of the slave, and the child of the free.
However, the mother metaphor is taken to an extreme by some to include the earthly organizations, and that, as our mother, we must obey it without question.
Galatians 4:26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.
True.
The one true church and the false church.
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