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A little over a month ago, a story that was national news was the sudden and tragic passing of singer Whitney Houston. About a week after her passing, many of the news networks aired a memorial service for her that took place at her childhood church in Newark, NJ. I was able to catch most of the program, and one of the things that really caught my attention was the song that everyone in attendance sang at the end of the service. I wasn’t familiar with it at the time, but it was clearly an old gospel song and it had the following lyrics: “God has spoken, so let the church say ‘Amen’”. While these are some very basic words of the Christian faith, they really struck me that day as I thought about the reality of their meaning.

What is the main purpose of the Church (I use a capital “C” to signify the worldwide assembly of Christians and not just a local congregation)? To that question, my answer would be “to agree with God”. We say “amen” at the end of our prayers because it demonstrates that we are in agreement with what was prayed. We are literally saying “so be it” concerning the preceding words. With that understanding, imagine God speaking truth (we can’t say “praying” because God would have no one to pray to) and the entire worldwide group of past, present, and future Christians declaring, “Amen!” The purpose of the Church is to not only speak it with our lips, but to also “agree with God” in the way we live our lives. That’s why we are referred to as “the body of Christ”. We are the physical representation of his Holy Spirit that dwells in the hearts of all believers. Therefore, it’s critical that the world sees us express outwardly that which is in agreement with truth spoken by the One we worship.

While our finite minds cannot logically picture hundreds of millions of people in one place at one time saying one thing, it is the ultimate symbolism of what is described in the Book of Revelation. “Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: ‘Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear’” (Revelation 19:6-8 [NIV]). The “great multitude” is praising God because their complete union with Christ, finally unimpeded by sin and evil, is finally here. The Church is Christ’s bride, and while impurities have existed in the Church ever since it started, she is given “fine linen, bright and clean” to wear because Christ’s blood has made her pure. Her past sins are not held against her because the One she is marrying sees her as pure and that’s all that matters! Hopefully, you are getting a clearer picture of how our earthly marriages are supposed to be examples of Christ’s marriage with the Church!

The reality of Christ being our future “bridegroom” and purifying us once and for all does not mean that we can “use our freedom to indulge the flesh” (Galatians 5:13) and not have any consequences. Think once again about an earthly marriage. If we all kept our future unions in mind during our single years and sought to honor those unions, we’d be less likely to act in a way that defiles those unions. The same is true with the marriage between Christ and the Church. We know that he is still going to love us even when we don’t honor him, but that is the very truth that should spur us on to wanting to honor him more. To not honor him causes both he and his bride great pain. The Church needs to wake up to this reality. Men and women have been given great authority within the Church, but Christ is still our head and he is still our future bridegroom. If we are ever saying, doing, or supporting anything that does not honor our relationship with him and is not in “agreement with God”, there must be repentance. This is true both corporately and individually, as all believers are part of this one great assembly!