Standing in the presence of His disciples Jesus took a representative of His body and explained what it meant and to whom it would mean that!! As He had taken His word and shown Nicodemus that the new body of reproduction spiritually was water in John 3:5, the woman at the well that the new life which He would be giving would be represented by water, and a new marriage was to take place because He was going to divorce fleshly Israel, so He introduced water as the place where the union with Christ would begin!! He would keep those to whom He was wed, spiritually, faithful, by acts or worship including the remembrance of that consummation on the first day of the week. He introduced the Lord’s Supper. Often we have seen the unmarried practice marriage before marriage, but that type of immorality never involves a covenant!! Ask the women who have partaken of marriage before the covenant if that “piece of paper” means anything!! The married, have this invitation because of a union with Christ. With joy, we attend and remember!! It is no wonder the devil hates water baptism!!
As is our custom in society (among those of us who have followed the governmental law we live under), we did not enter into marriage before the marriage ceremony. All ceremonies have symbols. The symbol most recognizable in wedding ceremonies today, is the ring. We wed with the ring, we promise oaths and obligations by the use of the ring, and we, whether on purpose or by lack of understanding, use the ring as a covenant symbol. The man or woman who wears that one special ring is that one and only person to whom we have vested our lives and souls!! The unwed never have a special day to remember, why would they and if they did it would be the wrong day!!
We “come before” or share in the allowed intimacy with our Savior, to whom we have been wed, each first day of the week. When we partake of the representatives of His body which were explained on the night of His betrayal, we participate in the intimacy allowed only by marriage!! We have this right by the marriage which was consummated when we were “buried with Him by baptism into death and raised with Him to a new life.” Why, we get a new name, new family, and a new day to remember in the same event!! We are never the same after the ceremony and consummation. If the consummation does not take place then there is no marriage!! I have often talked with many who have not understood how the second after the ceremony, consummation of marriage is allowed. They often feel uncomfortable about praying, singing, giving, and assembling, and some even think it a violation of conscience, which it is not, for they have followed the laws and practices that make a covenant between two persons, binding! It is strange they do not feel that way after signing the papers for a new car. They jump in that new car and drive it off, don’t they? The bank or finance company request them to make monthly payments on a certain day, too!! No one thinks that wrong (they might think it too often!!) And you are correct, they are never the same after they drive off the new owner of a covenant called car payments!! I imagine all can tell me when they think themselves a part of the covenant, contract for payments, ownership of the car—and why we can loose the car IF they don’t make payments!! Denominationalism will not remember Christ. They, to Him, have never committed anything nor been buried with Him to enjoy marital bless, the act of consummation, baptism!!
All marriage ceremonies are remembered. The obligations, oaths, and promises which have been entered, are only participated in by the married couple. When we come to partake of the Lord’s Supper, we come as a part, member, participant of the covenant of spiritual marriage of which we have entered when we were baptized into Christ. It is no wonder that denominationalism does not partake of these emblems Jesus introduced that night before His crucifixion, to Him they have never entered a covenant, from Him they expect no promises, and to Him they owe no obligations!! There has been no marriage begun with Christ, therefore, there is nothing to remember!! We who have covenanted, committed, and wed Christ come before Him as we partake. For the Lord God Almighty in whom we professed our vows with our lips before men when we secured His oaths and obligations consummated this marriage in water baptism, the spiritual means of marital intimacy. “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,” are not words of the ignorant, they are words of the those who are in love, who anxiously await baptism!! One does not remember what has never been!!
