The Church’s One Foundation

We’ll be singing the song “The Church’s One Foundation” this Sunday, and it’s incredibly rich in imagery to depict God’s love for us. In Ephesians 5, Paul describes a wife and husband in a joyful marriage as a mystery, as something like a continual miracle. The married couples among us can relate. Paul also says that this miraculous mystery doesn’t exist for its own sake, rather it “refers to Christ and the Church.”  Something about you, as wife or husband, on your very best day being loving and sacrificial, is a reflection of the relationship between Christ and us, his church. Jesus loves the church like the best husband we know loves his wife. God sees us like a groom sees his bride for the first time on their wedding day. Our sing this week shows God’s husband-like love for His people:

From heaven He came and sought her, to be His holy bride With own blood He bought her, and for her life he died.

When we sing this on Sunday, do not let these words go by without feeling amazed. The Creator, Lord of the Universe, the Sustainer of all Life, loves and sees you as a perfect, beautiful bride. Praise Jesus for making this a reality! Sing loud!

The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord,

She is His new creation by water and the Word.

From heaven He came and sought her to be His holy bride;

With His own blood He bought her, and for her life He died.

Elect from every nation yet one over all the earth;

Her charter of salvation; one Lord, one faith, one birth;

One holy Name she blesses, partakes one holy food,

And to one hope she presses with every grace endued.

Mid toil and tribulation, and tumult of her war,

She waits the consummation of peace forevermore;

’Til, with the vision glorious, her longing eyes are blessed,

And the great church victorious shall be the church at rest.

Yet she one earth hath union with God the three in one

And mystic sweet communion with those whose race is won

O happy ones and holy, Lord give us grace that we

Like them the meek and lowly on high may dwell with Thee