A Widow for Three Days

"Thus says the Lord:
“Where is your mother's certificate of divorce,
with which I sent her away?
Or which of my creditors is it
to whom I have sold you?
Behold, for your iniquities you were sold,
and for your transgressions your mother was sent away."
- Isaiah 50:1

"“If a man divorces his wife
and she goes from him
and becomes another man's wife,
will he return to her?
Would not that land be greatly polluted?
You have played the whore with many lovers;
and would you return to me?
declares the Lord.
- Jeremiah 3:1

"Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead..." - Romans 7:1-4

I saw more clearly today yet another reason for the death of Christ.
Israel was in spiritual adultery and had broken the covenant with God her Husband.
And could he take her back? Would not His righteousness be defiled? He held it not righteous for men He had created to take a divorced as a bride. How then, could the bride of Christ be a divorced woman? But the church stood as a divorced woman. She had broken the first covenant; she was an adulteress - ruined among her worthless lovers. And while her husband lived she could not remarry. Therefore, she must be made a widow.

And so her estranged Husband took on flesh, that he might die.
She had broken the old covenant, and so He did away with it...

"This cup is the new covenant in my blood"

And the church was three days a widow.

Then He arose. Israel's husband had died that she might belong to another - to Him who was raised from the dead. He was delivered to death for her sins and raised to life for her justification....and He entered into a new covenant with her.

The marriage awaits. It will be between two who died as one to a broken Old Covenant and live to be forever united under a better New Covenant.

And the rest is too precious for words...

...how shall I fight?

How shall I overcome weakness and sin and fleshly tendencies? How shall I be enabled to do what is truly good for my soul?

I saw the answer this afternoon as I readied for supper:

Not by willpower, but by superior satisfaction!

I realized that true victory over habits of the flesh does not come by reminding myself that I "ought not", but by reminding myself that I need not, because I have Christ, because I was a child of wrath and darkness, but am now am counted among the beloved of God, because I have been justified by faith and have peace with God through Jesus Christ, through whom I have obtained access by faith into the grace in which I stand. And I rejoice in hope of the glory of God (Rom. 5)... and do I need to go there, to gaze there, to say that?... Why should I?

And here is one example of that heavenly bread with which the soul can be satisfied. I have fed on it many times to day and been strengthened:

“I will give thanks to you, O Lord,
for though you were angry with me,
your anger turned away,
that you might comfort me."
- Isaiah 12:1 ESV

To be taken from under divine wrath to divine love...this is altogether enough.

Comfortable or Useful?

What would I ask? That I might be at ease, or that I might do good?

The place where I am most comfortable is not always the place where I am most useful.

And I shall not want comfort of soul, for Christ is mine.
I am comforted to be His loved by Him.
I am comforted to be placed here by Him.
I am comforted to be under His sanctifying work and to be a means of it to others.
I am comforted in hope of sharing His eternal rest after the tossing about has passed, knowing that all trials prepare all God's people for this great happy end.

"We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you....
We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." - 2 Corinthians 4, ESV