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and redeeming mankind.
He wants to marry us!
He wants us to be His lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward and forever more. And in the Upper Room, with a towel wrapped around Him and a basin of water in front of Him, God incarnate knelt down to propose marriage. And what God hath brought together, let no one put asunder!
Throughout the ages, many Christian leaders have understood from Genesis and Ephesians that there is both a corporate and individual "mystical marriage "between Christ and believers. In fact, many believers have claimed to have had a direct experience of just such a reality through dreams and visions.
And so we see why Satan is so intent in defacing and destroying human sexuality and marriage. He is trying to mock God. He is trying to mar the very image of God expressed on this earth through the marital bond, sexual and otherwise. He is trying to rob God of His deepest and most passionate intention—that of marital union with man—because if he can destroy the beauty of the earthly bond, he can destroy in us any desire for the heavenly bond.
You and I, and every believer, were created to live in marital union with God, both now and in the age to come. Everything about a healthy marital union on this earthly plane has been designed by God to be a reflection of the interaction that we are meant to have with God Himself:
-The covenant that is struck to bind us together eternally;
-The signs and symbols of that covenant that are a public declaration of that bond;
-The keeping pure of oneself for the other;
-The wedding party, with a host of invited guests looking on, rejoicing in the display of our mutual love and affection;
-Intimate moments of sharing our deepest self with the other, resulting in new life being born and a oneness of body, soul and spirit;
-Over time, the development of a oneness of heart that produces a unity of thinking, and even, appearance (cf Rom 8:29; 2 Cor 3:18; 1 Jn 3:2—"when He appears, we shall be like Him").
-The parallels are endless.