The church Christ presents to Himself will be “holy and without blemish.” To be holy is to be saturated and transformed with Christ, and to be without blemish is to be spotless and without wrinkle, with nothing of the natural life of our old man. The church will be separated to the Lord from all common things and then saturated and permeated with the divine nature, with all that God is. The church that has become holy in this way will also be without blemish. The word “blemish” in Ephesians 5:27 may be compared to a defect in a precious stone. A defect comes from mixture within the stone. If we would be pure, we must be without mixture; that is, we must not have anything other than God in our being. One day, the church as Christ’s counterpart will be like this. The church will not only be clean and pure but also without blemish, without mixture. The church will be the expression of the processed Triune God Himself mingled with the resurrected, uplifted, and transformed humanity. This is the glorious church, the church that is holy and without blemish. In the future such a glorious church will be presented by Christ to Himself. Today, however, the church is undergoing the process of Christ’s sanctifying with His nourishing and cherishing.
As the Lord Jesus sanctifies and cleanses the church, He also nourishes and cherishes her. Paul refers to this in Ephesians 5:29. “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ also the church.” To nourish is to feed. For Christ to nourish us means that He supplies us with His riches.
When we are nourished, something enters into our being to meet our need. Nourishment, therefore, must come out of a supply. Without a supply, it is impossible to have nourishment. Christ has a marvelous supply with which He nourishes the church. Christ nourishes the church with all the riches of the Father. Christ is the embodiment of the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9). Hence, all the riches of God are in Him, and He enjoys these riches. Then He nourishes the church with the very riches of the Godhead that He Himself has enjoyed.
This nourishment causes transformation. Because we are what we eat, the more we eat Christ, receiving His nourishment, the more we are constituted of Christ. Then we shall be transformed by the element of Christ that has been dispensed into us. Therefore, through Christ’s work of nourishing the church we are transformed, becoming new persons with a new element and substance.
According to Ephesians 5:29, Christ’s care of the church has two aspects, an inner aspect and an outer aspect. The inner aspect is the nourishing, and the outer aspect is the cherishing. To be nourished is to have something imparted into us inwardly, whereas to be cherished is to be warmed and comforted outwardly. Therefore, along with Christ’s nourishing we have His cherishing.
To cherish is to nurture with tender love and foster with tender care. To cherish is also to soften by warming. As a mother cherishes a child by holding the child close to her breast, the Lord Jesus cherishes us by holding us close to Him. In this way we are warmed and softened. The Lord warms us and softens us as we enjoy His tenderness, sweetness, and lovingness. How tender, sweet, and warm the Lord Jesus is! In preparing the church to be presented to Himself as His counterpart, He surely is the nourishing and cherishing One.
We need to connect Ephesians 5 to Revelation 19, which speaks of the readiness of the bride. Apart from Ephesians 5, there is no way for the bride to be prepared, and hence no way for Revelation 19 to be fulfilled. It is crucial, therefore, that we experience Christ’s nourishing, cherishing, sanctifying, and cleansing to remove our defects and oldness. When all such things have been removed, we shall become a church that is holy, glorious, and without blemish. Then we shall be the bride in Revelation 19. When the bride has been prepared, Christ will come as the Bridegroom.
As the counterpart of Christ, the church will be joined to Christ. This is indicated by Paul’s word in Ephesians 5:31. “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh.” This indicates that the church, which comes out of Christ, will go back to Christ just as Eve, who came out of Adam, went back to Adam. As Eve became one flesh with Adam, so the church, which goes back to Christ, will be one spirit with Christ (1 Cor. 6:17).
The church, the counterpart of Christ, has Christ, the Savior, as her Head. This is indicated by Paul’s word in Ephesians 5:23. “For a husband is head of the wife as also Christ is Head of the church, being Himself the Savior of the Body.” As head of the wife, a husband typifies Christ as the Head of the church. In addition to being the Savior of the Body, Christ is also the Head of the church. The Savior is a matter of love, whereas the Head is a matter of authority. We love the Lord as our Savior, but we must also be subject to Him as our Head.
The church, the counterpart of Christ, is the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:23; Col. 1:18). As the Body of Christ, the church must surely hold Christ as the Head and honor Him as the Head.
Christ is the Head of the church, His Body and His counterpart. For this reason, the church must be subject to Christ the Head (Eph. 5:24a).
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