Glorious Church

Brief Descriptions of the Glorious Church

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish." Ephesians 5:25-27

The glorious church is the bride that Christ has prepared for Himself to wed, after He comes to take her out of the earth to His heavenly abode.

Today, many members of what shall become the glorious church are in waiting, but we are not yet glorious! Many of us are hurting, troubled, confused, scattered, bruised, undernourished, sick and broken. The reason for this is that for centuries we have been married to another - a Hagar, if you will - the Hagar of a religious ideology absent of the leadership of the life of God through Jesus Christ and His Spirit.

The word "glory," as it refers to God and godliness, means "to show" God. Thus, the glorious church will show God, all the time, everywhere.

The glorious church will be that one that walks in the "fullness of Christ," even as He walked in the fullness of His Father. Jesus Christ on earth was "the brightness of His [Father's] glory and the express image of His person..." (Heb. 1:1-3). He was God with us, Emmanuel. He was the Word of God (that is, the fullness of God's will, or the righteousness of God) made flesh. He was one with the Father and His Spirit and possessed the Spirit of His Father without measure. He always did what His Father told Him to do, and only that. He said what His Father told Him to say, and only that. In brief, Jesus was a perfect reflection of His Father, doing His perfect will, and only His will.

This is a fair description of the church that God is making glorious, as distinct from the one that we have made after our own understanding. We will be the "fullness of Christ," the "brightness of His (Father's) glory, and the express image of His person." We will be as Emmanuel to the world (God in the world). We will be as the Word made flesh and one with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We will do what the Father tells us to do and say what He tells us to say, and only that.

This is a picture of the glorious church!

It is simply the manifestation of what God has already made us to be by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. As born-again believers, citizens of the Kingdom of God and members of His family, we are the righteousness of God in Christ; and with that old man having been crucified with Christ and buried with Him in baptism, we CAN walk in newness of life. As the glorious church, we will do just that!

A GLORIOUS CHURCH
"But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." Ephesians 4:7-16