Concerning the Bride of Christ continued...

In our last post, we began talking about the Bride of Christ. We based our remarks on Deuteronomy    21: 10 - 13. We saw that Christ invaded fallen earth, which had rebelled against God. He totally defeated the "god of this world" and took captive the entirety of the human race. From among humanity, He began to look for those who would readily submit to Him that He might cause them to be His Bride.
 
When He found that bridal candidate, He took her from among the captives and raised her status to that of a covenant child of God. He caused her to be put into legal covenant with Him, but she had to learn what it meant to become His Bride. So he required her to "shave her head." By this act she denounced all her self-glory that she might share in His glory. To do that, she had to be one with Him. In Isaiah 42: 8, God said, "I will not give my glory to another (to another class, species, or type other than Myself). This means that only those who have partaken of His divine nature will be able to share in His glory.
 
So the first thing we see about this bridal company is that they denounce all self glory that they might partake of His glory and manifest it to the nations. In this writing we will focus on the next requirement that was incumbent on her being His Bride: The latter part of verse three states "...and pare her nails."  This seems like a simple and easy thing to do until we see the underlying spiritual significance of this action.
 
For the average female of that day living among a basically an agricultural and pastoral people, nails were important for two primary purposes: First, they were used for work. Secondly, they were used for defense. The new bridegroom was to teach her that she no longer had to work to attain her status as a covenant person. That he would now become the means of providing for her welfare. He illustrated that by having her to cut her nails off very short...almost to the "quick."  Such nails were of very little use in work. Try to pick up a dime off a smooth table top without any nails.
 
Paul ratifies this complete dependence on the Bridegroom of the Church in Ephesians 2: 8 and 9, "For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. In his letter to the Romans in chapter 3 and verse 20, Paul supports this by adding, "For by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight. Later in chapter 5 and verse 1, Paul writes, "Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
 
In Titus 3: 5, Paul ices the cake of our acceptance with God in Christ: Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. We are saved only by virtue of the grace that flows out of the redemptive work of our Heavenly Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ.
 
And the second aspect of these nails being pared to the quick was to show her that she no longer had to fight and claw her way into His good graces or to fight to stay in them. From the moment of her submitting to His proposal to be His Bride, she began to depend solely on the victory that He had already won. 2 Chronicles 16: 9 says, "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong on behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him."
 
David wrote in Psalm 34: 7, "The angel of the Lord encamps around about those who fear him, and delivers them." In Psalm 91: 4, the writer said of the Lord, "He shall cover you with his feathers and under His wings shall you trust: His truth shall be your shield and your buckler."
 
Zechariah 2: 5 stated clearly, "For I, says the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire around about and I will be her glory in the midst of her." Then in Deuteronomy 20: 14, Moses penned these encouraging words, "For the Lord, your God, is He that goes before you to fight for you against your enemies and to save you."
 
We could go on multiplying scriptures in both testaments, but I feel that it is clear: the Bridegroom commits Himself to providing the fullness of our salvation by our faith in Him, and He provides the fullness of our protection and we trust in Him steadfastly.
 
We will see the end of this bridal arrangement in our next installment.