The Church

How Can The Church Be Considered Pure?

Q. I love your site, it gives me insight into the bible that I cannot get nearly anywhere else. Here is my question. I have been following where you are saying that the “church” is the “bride” of Yeshua. Here is a scripture from one of your entries:

Ephes. 5:25-27 says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

I know through and through that I need Christ’s salvation as much as any, and I am humbled to think that Yahweh would consider us without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish. In my experience the Church is anything but pure, and many don’t even seem to care. Are we not supposed to be working on ourselves? I am in a messianic bible study and they are saying that God could not bring a church like this to himself because of these things and mixing in the world, practice of pagan worship. Yahweh put out part of Israel for that very reason.

A. If you read Ephesians 5:25-27 carefully, you’ll see that Jesus gave His life to make the Church holy. It’s something He did, not something we do. If you are in Christ you already are a new creation. As far as God is concerned the old you has gone and the new you has come (2 Cor. 5:17). At the cross Jesus took upon Himself all your sins and in return gave you all of His righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21).

Many Messianic believers confuse the old and new covenants. In the old covenant people had to work to achieve and maintain their righteousness. In the new covenant righteousness is imputed to us by faith. The Church was made free of stain, wrinkle or any other blemish at the cross. Not because of what we do, but because of our faith in what the Lord did.

Teaching us to live holy lives is commendable, but making our inclusion in the Raptured Church dependent upon it is wrong and relegates the Lord’s death to the same status as the death of bulls and goats. For by His one sacrifice He has made us perfect forever. (Hebr. 10:14) Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning sin. But for the Church it’s not about how we behave, it’s about what we believe.

Website: www.gracethrufaith.com