The Love of God (Part 5) – Jesus Christ and His Bride

(continued from Part 4)

What stood there that night? There’s something else. Brothers and sisters, you must mark that day as the termination of God. I want you to know something. There stood on the banks of the Jordan River a new species…utterly. Was He a man? Was He? Was He a man? No, He was not a man. No, He was not a man. Could He go and find a woman on this earth like Him? No. He was not God. Was all of God there? Yes…But He was no longer God. Well, Gene, yes, He was all God, but I didn’t say He wasn’t all God. I am saying He is no longer God. There’s a difference. Can you catch it? He was no longer God…and He wasn’t man.

For 30 long years, He had walked this earth, and He never once saw anything like Him. He had all the internal drive of God -God’s love. He had all in Spirit. He had all the temporal, reflective drives of man, the need of man in Him, but He was neither God nor man. Was it good for man to be alone? Not good that man be alone. Was Jesus alone? Literally the only kind of His species in the whole universe.

Now I ask you, is it good for God to be alone? According to all that we know of the word of God, God Himself decided one day that it wasn’t good for God to be alone. Here was a creature, a defined species that was not God nor man – that was man and God. He was alone as God, and He was alone as man, but He was more than man, and He was more than God…and both of His natures were alone. The double power of love beat within Him.

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, you can mark me down that from this day on, I am a madman and a heretic. I’m preaching the Gospel, and it’s never been heard. You have to make up your mind really quick. Today I just tingled with this feeling of this One who stood there, fire burning in His eyes, a determination within His being. I am God, and this eternal aloneness is going to end. I am man, and this aloneness is going to end. It’s going to stop. I’m going to have my counterpart. Love is going to begin. There will finally be a place for the echo. And God came and started looking for His bride.

God was looking for His bride. Whom did He love? He loved those whom His Father had chosen. I should have read that out of John. I love those whom God has chosen…where? Out of the world. When God was spirit and not man, I don’t know, brothers and sisters, if He had a long chart or if He was looking down the corridors of eternity and looking into time…didn’t He love Esau? Did He care for Esau?

You’ve got a dog. His name is Dick. Brother Gene, I’m going to tell you the honest truth, and I hope you won’t be offended. I do not love your dog. I’m not saying anything negative other than that, but I just don’t love your dog. Your dog…I pet him, watch him, talk to him, and speak kindly to him, but I don’t love him. Why do I not love him? Why do I not love that dog? Because it is the wrong life form. He can’t love me, and I can’t love him. Forgive me, but Esau belonged to the wrong species. Who was it, this other species?  God loved Jacob. Whom did Jesus Christ love? He loved those who would one day be according to His own kind. Would He love man? Who did He love? We’ll have to name this other species now that we have discovered it. What shall we call this species?

You’ve all heard of homo sapiens. This is the holy sapiens group (laughter). The biologists will have us in jail by the morning. Well, I’m off on this for a reason. Okay, listen. I know we have used the term “the new man.” What is the new man? Is He God? Is he man? What is he? Is God after the new man? Yes? I want to tell you something. The word “new man” does not appear anywhere in the New Testament. Nowhere. Doesn’t it appear twice in Ephesians? No. If you will get the concordant translation, you will find it says, “the new human.” The new human. It is not a masculine noun.

Now I want to tell you something. I have been pressing so much about the humanity of the Lord Jesus that I’ve got to switch to the divine power of love now. Try to keep up with me, would you? Did you know that Jesus Christ was here on earth having one continual experience of falling in love? One continual experience of falling in love. He can look and see those who would be the “holy sapiens.” He could look and see those who would one day be the divine and redeemed humanity. He could, and He knew that one would be part of His counterpart.

Now, here’s what I wanted to tell you about God’s divinity, and you better be grateful. Whom did God fall in love with? I said one here, not another, because they were two different species. He fell in love with a higher species. Okay, but not very practical. Who did the Lord fall in love with? With who? Okay. The Lord fell in love with us. Iris, did He fall in love with just you? He fell in love with…just her.

The love of the God-man…the new species…turned utterly, totally, singularly…on her. The passion of the ages broke through on her. Is Iris the bride of Christ? If you say yes, I’ll say no. If you say no, I’ll say yes. I don’t want you to be too corporate when you consider the Lord’s love, because I want you to know something. He has the infinite power to discern the individual and the corporate with the same eyes. When He looks at me, when He looks at you…He sees His bride. You’ll find out He sees what you don’t see. Brothers, you forget about you. You get the eyes of the God-man, and let Him look upon you, and see what He sees. He sees each of you as His bride.