We have already seen how Eve typifies the church in God's plan. In God's plan all that is of the church is completely out of Christ. It contains nothing of man and has no relationship with sin. Our God is determined to have such a church. Anything less than this can never satisfy His heart. He not only planned this kind of church, but He is going to obtain it. Hallelujah! It is a fact! We must realize that our God can never be hindered or frustrated. When He purposes something, even though Hades and all of creation's forces would rise to oppose Him, He cannot be resisted. Even though we are fallen and full of failure, even though we are fleshly and soulish, departing far from God and disobeying Him, God will still attain His purpose. No matter what man does, he cannot ruin God's plan; the most he can do is delay it. Therefore, we must not only realize God's purpose, but also be clear that God will fully attain what He has purposed. From eternity God purposed to obtain a church completely out of Christ, a church containing no impurity of man, no element of earth, nor any savor of sin. Every part of her is something out of Christ, and Christ is her very life.
Beginning with Genesis 3, however, man fell. Now we not only have the fact of God's purpose in creation, but also the fact of man's fall. Therefore, let us see the way that God devised to amend the situation.
Ephesians 5:25-30 says, "Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her that He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of the water in the word, that He might present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that she would be holy and without blemish. In the same way the husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ also the church, because we are members of His Body."
These six verses of Scripture may be divided into two sections: verses 25-27 tell us the first reason husbands should love their wives; verses 28-30 tell us the second reason husbands should love their wives. In these two sections we see two commands to love the wife and we see two reasons. But there is a difference between these two sections. The first section says that Christ "loved" the church and "gave" Himself up for her—these verbs are in the past tense. Beginning with verse 28, the verbs are in the present tense, such as "nourishes" and "cherishes." These two portions of Scripture, therefore, involve different elements of time—one section refers to something in the past and the other to the present.
The subjects of these two sections are also different. The first section refers to the church as the bride of Christ; the second section speaks of the church as the Body of Christ. In the first section, the past tense is used when the church is referred to as the bride of Christ. This is because the whole purpose of Christ, as revealed to us, is to have a bride. Even His death was for the purpose of obtaining a bride. Although He will obtain His bride in the future, the work was finished in the past. Concerning the present, the church is the Body of Christ, and the Lord is presently nourishing and cherishing His church.