With wedding season well underway, you may have already found yourself scrambling for the perfect wedding gift. In an ever-changing world, it seems impossible to give a gift that has a significant impact not only on the couple but also on the legacy that couple is going to create.
For parents or grandparents of the bride or groom, giving the gift of legacy holds even more significance. After all, doesn’t God call us to pass on His truth to our children?
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”—Deuteronomy 6:4-7
What can be learned from God’s Word about the importance of marriage and how the family can play a lasting role in the couple's covenant by giving the gift of legacy?
All throughout His Word, God compares His relationship with Israel to a marriage.
“For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth.”—Isaiah 54:5
Then later, the Bible also compares Christ’s relationship with His church to the relationship between a bridegroom and his bride. Again, this reinforces the divine covenant of marriage between God and His people.
“Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.”—Revelation 19:7
Married to Jesus | God’s Proposal
In traditional Jewish weddings, there is a signed contract called the ketubah. The ketubah is a formal marriage contract, drawn up by the bridegroom—just as God drew up a formal covenant with His chosen people of Israel.
After receiving the ketubah, the father sees that the contract not only promises to provide for his daughter financially, but also lines up with who she is as a person. Then he will place the document before her with a glass of wine.
This is what God accomplished through the prophet of Abraham who was anointed by God to be the father of Israel. Abraham accepted God’s proposal, and by doing so, he created an everlasting legacy for all of his descendants.
“Now the Lord had said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”—Genesis 12:1-3
Those descendants (Israel) are still under the promises and blessings of that covenant.
“And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”—Genesis 17:7-8
The promises laid out in this land covenant are everlasting, and believe it or not, they have huge implications for Believers in Christ today.
Married to Jesus | The Wedding
Christ compared His love for His church to how a husband should love his wife.
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.”—Ephesians 5:25-28
Christ has presented His church holy and without blemish to God the Father. Because of that deliverance, Believers get to sit in front of God with the communion cup and accept the same conditions of the ketubah.
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.”—Hebrews 12:22-24
Through the cleansing of Christ’s blood, we get the gift of legacy. Believers will come to Mount Zion and gather with the general assembly and church of the firstborn (Israel), whose names are registered in heaven, with God, with the spirits of just men made perfect, and with Jesus.
This gathering only happens if we say, “I do” to Christ!
The Legacy of a Believer
Just as the bridegroom goes to prepare a place for his bride, Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us in His Father's house. There, through Jesus, we are adopted into His family as co-heirs of all the blessings the Father has to offer.
“In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”—John 14:2
Those blessings are sealed by the blood of Christ and are remembered each time a Believer takes communion.
“Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, ‘Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.’”—Luke 22:17-18
At the final Passover meal, Jesus did not partake of the wine. He decided to wait until the Kingdom of God comes to earth. This is yet another way He was demonstrating His intent to return for His Bride.
As the Bride of Jesus, we can take solace in knowing that the Kingdom of God is at hand. Although the Bridegroom has gone to prepare a place for us with His Father, He will return for us as promised. And when that day comes, we will rejoice as the Son drinks from the cup once again.
In the meantime, are we giving the gift of legacy and love?
Is It Possible to Give the Gift of Legacy?
Legacy is what God called us to leave to our children. God’s gift of legacy for His firstborn is Jerusalem. Christ’s church has an anointing to be a part of that legacy. After all, what could be more joyful than giving or receiving a gift that perpetuates your values and love for God?