The Bride of the Lamb of God: Eve, the Life-Giving Church

The Bride of the Lamb of God:  Eve, the Life-Giving Church

By Pastor Lonnie C. Crowe

First Published: June 8th, 2012, The Torrington Telegram, Page 4

                Again, several biblical symbols represent the church. Among them is the church's calling as the holy, radiant, spotless Bride of Christ, the Lamb of God. Many times women in Old Testament picture the attributes of the church in the New Testament. None is flawless, but each is beloved.

   Eve is one whom we readily recognize as being flawed, but tend to overlook as being beloved. In Genesis 3, the enemy, as a serpent, entered the garden to distort the plan of God. He came to the woman first because he knew she had been called as a helpmeet, the complement to the man. Together, Adam and the woman were to bring about God's fullness for mankind.

   The enemy's purpose was to attack the Creator through those whom He had created. He beguiled the woman, and she was deceived. Adam was not deceived. (1 Corthinians 2:14).  He ate the fruit willingly and blamed the woman and then God for having given him the woman. However, the woman discerned and confessed the deception, "The serpent deceived me and I ate" (Genesis 3:13). She was the first to discern the reality of evil.

   Blessing the woman's discernment, God spoke to the serpent: "Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." (Genesis 3:14-15).     The grace of God came to mankind through the seed of the woman who is Jesus Christ

  As picture of blood atonement, God sacrificed an animal and dressed the man and the woman in its skin. Adam then named the woman, Eve, meaning "life giver." When the woman moved out of deception and into truth, she became a giver of life. This is God's plan for His church, for the Bride of the Lamb.

   We are to move out of the deception of worldly philosophies and into the truth of the Word of God, and, thereby, become givers of life to those around us. One of the deceptions that the enemy is tempting us with today is the thought that Christianity provides only one of many ways to experience God and that we must view the only Bible as an allegorical and/or metaphorical view of history and determine within ourselves what is truth.

   That deception moves us out of grace and into the despairing concept that we must overcome evil in our own power. The ones who accept this deception become like those St. Paul described as "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Paul warned believers to turn away from such (2 Timothy 3:7).

   Holy Spirit power lifts us above our circumstances and allows God to bless us in spite of those circumstances. No other religion or philosophy brings the hope, the power, the authority, the victory, the eternal life we find in the seed of the woman.

   When we walk in the truth of the Word of God, we have hope, peace and joy. In worldly philosophies and powerless religions, we find only hopelessness and despair.

   When Eve, though once deceived, moved from deception and into Truth, she became a life giver.  Are we, the church, the Bride of the Lamb of God, life-givers? Do we walk in and speak forth the hope, power, grace and love that we find in our Savior?