Intimacy with Jesus Christ
What do I mean by Intimacy?
- closely acquainted; familiar, close:“intimate friends” · “they are on intimate terms”
- private and personal:
The Bible’s use of the language of marriage in regard to Jesus Christ and His Bride.
Focus on reasons why the Bible uses such language.
How does Solomon’s song of songs help us to a greater level of intimacy with Jesus Christ?
Four levels of intimacy.
Depths, heights, lengths, scope or width of intimacy.
Hindrances or waters that may temporarily quench the fire. (Foxes, waters, leopards, darkness etc.)
What the putting on of flesh (John 1:12-14) did for intimacy? Near and dear relationship. He could be our High Priest.

What do I mean by intimacy?
Closely acquainted, familiar., close. Private, personal.
Therefore, to be intimate with Jesus is to be closely acquainted with Him, familiar and close. To be intimate with Jesus is to know Him personally and spend and share private thoughts and feelings with Him.
Verses
“I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness. Yes, please put up with me! 2 I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ Jesus, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. 3 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ Jesus.” 2 Cor. 11:2-3.
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Ephesians 5:22-33
Mystery ” By this passage of Scripture it is evident that God hath ordered the state and constitution of the world of mankind as he has to that end, that spiritual things might be represented by them.” JE
“We are told that marriage is a great mystery , as representing the relation between Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:32). By “mystery” can be meant nothing but a type of what is spiritual.”
Mystical marriage of Jesus Christ and His Bride, the Church. (all believers after the death of Jesus). Yet, there is a Bride of Jesus Christ that includes all believers of all time who were “given” to Jesus before time began to die for them, thus proving his infinite love to God and the sinful bride that the Father gave to the Son, the Word of God
Mystical, referring to the union of Christ Jesus and believers.
Who are united?
What does this union consist of?
“The sufferings of Christ for believers also argue the greatness of intimacy with Christ and fullness of enjoyment of propriety they shall have in him or right that he has to them. Propriety in any person is just ground of boldness of access and freedom in enjoyment. The beloved disciple John would not have made so free with Jesus Christ as to lean on his bosom.
There is no relation that implies nearness and dearness but what is made use of in Scripture to represent our relation to Christ, and the nearest earthly relations are but shadows of it and fall vastly short of fully representing the intimacy and excellency of it.
The church’s being so often called the spouse of Christ, intimates an admittance to the greatest nearness, intimacy and communion of good. Christ will conform his people to himself: he’ll give them his glory, the glory of his person; their souls shall be made like his soul, their bodies like to his glorious body; they shall partake with him in his riches, as co-heirs in his pleasures. He will bring them into his banqueting house, and they shall drink new wine with him. They shall partake with [him] in the honor of judging the world at the last day, when Christ shall descend from heaven in the glory of his Father, in such awful and dreadful majesty, with all his holy angels with [him], and all nations shall be gathered before [him]. The saints at the same time shall be as familiar with Christ as his disciples were when he was upon earth.
So they are in their measure partakers of the Son’s enjoyment of his Father: they have his joy fulfilled in themselves, and by this means they come to a more familiar and intimate conversing with God the Father, than otherwise ever would have been. For there is doubtless an infinite intimacy between the Father and the Son; and the saints being in him shall partake with him in it, and of the blessedness of it.
they may partake with the head that they are so united to in his good; and so “our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). We have all reason to conclude that no degree of intimacy will be too much for the manhood of Christ, seeing that the divine Logos has been pleased to assume him into his very person; and therefore, we may conclude that no degree of intimacy will be too great for others to be admitted to, of whom Christ is the head or chief.
To do
1 Cultivate a broken and contrite heart by thinking upon God’s holiness and my sinfulness for “God is close to the broken hearted.” and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
2 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. James

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