”And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.” | Isaiah 4: 1

The proposal of these seven women represents the backwardness of the sin-depraved heart. This is the way all sinner’s think they can be accepted of God prior to Christ dethroning sin in the heart.

First, they are backwards in that it is the woman proposing to the man. Christ the Husband of his bride takes hold of her and not the other way around.

Secondly, their proposal of eating their own bread and wearing their own apparel has to do with the law concerning the responsibility of a husband to his first bride. “If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.” (Exodus 21: 10) (This is regarding his first wife.)

These seven women propose that the husband does not have to fulfill the law on their behalf but that they will fulfill it themselves. Christ the Husband is the end of the law for all who believe for he has fully honored the law’s requirement in providing for his bride. He is her Life-Food; he is her Righteousness; and he has united himself to her in Spirit fulfilling the whole duty of marriage so that she delights to be his.

Thirdly, when these seven women say, “Only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach”, they are saying what multitudes think. Multitudes think that all they need to remove the reproach of sin is to be called by Christ’s name.

Unless Christ is our Husband — unless Christ has taken hold of us – then the sinner will go on in this polluted idea that they are married to Christ when they are married to one who is anything but the GodMan – Christ Jesus the Lord – the husband of the Church.

Unless Christ is the perfect fulfillment of God’s holy law on the sinner’s behalf then the husband to whom we say we are married is no husband at all.

Unless Christ is our Bread (our life) we have no life.

Unless Christ is our garment of Righteousness we are naked in our sin.

Unless Christ has united himself in the duty of marriage with our spirit, we may call ourselves by his name yet it is nothing more than taking his name in vain. We still have the maiden-name of our father Adam and the reproach of sin remains.

These seven women illustrate the most popular idol of man’s imagination.

So how does the Lord declare he shall bring his bride into this marriage union? Listen and find out.

~ Pastor Clay Curtis

Click here to listen to the message “God’s Rejoicing Over His Bride”

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Sovereign Grace Baptist Church Bulletin Article date: 10 October, 2008 | Previous post date: n/a | Ewing, New Jersey