Patterns in the Bible

   God gives us patterns in the Bible.  All the patterns point to the central truth that God wants a people for Himself — a special, purified, prepared, developed, matured, loving, and capable people joined in union with Himself.  All other revelations and truths are secondary to that — just as all other considerations in life should be secondary to a man’s relationship with his wife.  God’s desire for such a people is the thrust of the entire message of the word of God!  Everything must revolve around that truth.  It was not good for man to be alone, and it was not good for GOD to be alone!  He wanted offspring, and Paul tells us in Acts 17:28-29 that WE are the OFFSPRING OF GOD!  Nature itself teaches us that pigs have little pigs and dogs have little dogs.  And I do not hesitate to tell you that God has little gods!  That is the great mystery of our sonship.  “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the children of God” (Jn. 1:12).   “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever” (I Pet. 1:23).  “Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I (God) said, Ye are gods?  If He called them gods unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God” (Jn. 10:34-36).  Oh, yes!  As children — offspring — of God, made in His image, after His likeness — we are COMPARABLE!  When once we learn this one grand truth we discover our true identity and state of being and all the word of God begins to fall into place.  My beloved, it is therefore in keeping that as the very first act of His sonship ministry our Lord should go yonder to a wedding in Cana of Galilee!  There He went and put His seal of approval and His blessing upon it.  He was there by His very presence and power to proclaim that UNION between God and man is the grand theme and purpose of God in creation and redemption!



            Robert Browning poetically tells the story of Andrea del Sarto, a famous painter in Florence, Italy.  In his youth, del Sarto married a woman of rare beauty.  She was, however, a shallow-minded, superficial creature.  She was the woman, who, with a careless swing of her skirt, smeared the noble picture he had painted in hours of great spiritual ecstasy.  She filled his life with disappointment.  Not because she robbed his hand of its deftness, or his mind of its genius, or his soul of its inspiration — the tragedy was this: she was heart blind; she never understood the moral majesty of his mind; she never genuinely entered into the great spiritual hunger and depth of his heart.  Consequently, he could not disclose to her his noblest and best self.  In like manner, the yearning of God is able to reveal Himself to us only in proportion to our spiritual development, capacity, and maturity.  Methinks that many Christians have not reached the stage of growth and development in Christ which prepares them for being a bride. They have little understanding of the majesty of the mind of Christ, or the loftiness of His great and eternal plan and purposes, nor have they even begun to enter in to the deepest yearnings  of His heart.   Multitudes are spiritually childish — heaven to them is a vast celestial playground where they can frolic and dance and shout throughout eternity without a care or any responsibility beyond strumming a harp and polishing their crown!

- Preston Eby