Article written by guest author, Stephen Scaggs

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “We live in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.” In the beginning God said about humans that, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). While this, in context, refers to the creation of the woman as helper, Paul looks back on this chapter retrospectively and writes, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:32).

It is still a staggering number of Christians who claim they can be spiritual without the church. Even though many want “Jesus, but not church,” the inherent tragedy is the misunderstood Jesus. For people who make such statements, if you were to ask them, “What was Jesus’ mission?” or “What did Jesus teach about more than any other subject?”, the likely response would be his mission was about individual salvation and his subject was about love, grace, and forgiveness.

What is clear from people who say such things is that they do not actually read the gospels, to see what the Jesus of history actually was about. Nor do they seem to know anything about the Hebrew Bible, divorcing the gospel from its story. If we picked up Return of the King or Return of the Jedi without having read/watched the saga so far, we would not have a clue what was going on, who the characters were, what was the tension needing to be resolved, etc.

The purpose of this series of articles is to magnify the church as the bride of Christ, and to help persuade my fallen brothers and sisters that, in the words of one person, “[Church is] more than an obligation, it’s our foundation: the family of God. I know it’s hard, but we need each other. We’re brothers and sisters!”

The Ever-Present God

Ever since man was expelled from Eden, God has never gave up his pursuit to reclaim what was lost. From the calling of Abraham to the formation of Israel at Sinai, God has been committed to restoring “blessing to all families of the earth” (Genesis 12:1-3) and frequently expresses his desire to “live among his people” (Exodus 25:8).

Back in the beginning of Exodus when Moses encounters God in the Burning Bush, it is the first time where God seems to reveal the divine name. But before that he states community: he says, “I am the God of your father: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob” (3:6). We’re not ethnically Jewish (at least most of us aren’t!) so those names may not mean the same to all of us: however, not only does this communicate God’s promises to bless, but as Jesus points out (Matthew 22:32), this implies that they were present with God even though they have been dead for 400+ years.

And God confesses that “he has not forgotten about his promises.” He says,

Then the LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land…. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

This may be somewhat humorous: “I am going to deliver them… I will send you to bring my people out of Egypt!” I think Moses was on board for the first part, but not for that last part! Moses? A deliverer? Moses asks, “What makes you think anyone will listen to me?” To which God replies, “I will be with you.” That would be enough, wouldn’t it? But then Moses asks, “What name should I give them?” And then God replies, “I AM WHO I AM” (EHYEH) and then in the next verse he says, “YAHWEH (this is the 3^rd person of EHYEH), the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob sent me to you.” This is usually translated in our English translations as LORD in all capital letters, or Jehovah.

The very name of our God communicates that God is both immutable and ever present, from generation to generation. Time, space, and matter cannot deter our God. Even if the church has been in exile in Egypt for centuries, God has not forgotten his people. He will dwell once again with his people: this is his promise, this is his blessing. This is the mystery of Christ and the church, and what this starving world needs.