The Church

Looking at Adam and Eve as a type of Christ and the church, as scripture fully warrants us to do , we see how the death  of Christ needed to be an accomplished fact, before the church could be set up, though , in the purpose of God , she was looked at and chosen in Christ , before the foundation of the world . There is , however a vast difference between the secret purpose of God and the revelation and accomplishment thereof . Before the divine purpose could be actualised in reference to the constituent parts of the church, it was necessary that the Son should be rejected and crucified - that He should take his seat on high -that He should send down the Holy Ghost to baptise believers into one body.  It is not that souls were not quickened and saved previous to the death of Christ . They assuredly were . Adam was saved , and thousands of others , from age to age , in virtue of the sacrifice of Christ , though the sacrifice was not yet accomplished . But the salvation of individual souls is one thing , and the formation of the Church ,as a distinctive thing , by the Holy Ghost , is quite another .
                  This distinction is not sufficiently attended to , and even where it is in theory maintained , it is accompanied with but little of those practical results which might naturally be expected to flow from a truth so stupendous . The Church's un ique place her special relationship to the "Second Man, the Lord from heaven"her distinctive privilegesand dignities -all these things would , if entered into by the power of the Holy Ghost , produce the richest , the rarest , and the most fragrant fruits .   (Ephesians 5: 23-32)    C H M

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