First I think of the place in John's letter to the Laodicean church early in the book of Revelation where Jesus says he must spew(vomit) those out of his mouth who are lukewarm. Think of what happened in your body for a moment the last time you vomited.(Forgive the unpleasantness of this image) You probably made no conscious decision to do it, you most likely couldn't help it, your body's involuntary faculties took over, rejecting what was harmful and foreign to your body's well-being. So it is that Jesus must reject, is compelled to reject, that lukewarm attitude and condition from his presence and from the healthy functioning of his body the church lest it spread to other parts or members. Similarly in Psalm 17 the psalmist asks to be kept as the apple(pupil) of God's eye and Israel is elsewhere referred to as the apple of God's eye. If someone pokes you in the eye your instinct is to recoil immediately. That is one of the most invasive things that can happen to a person. (I speak also with the authority of one who has had multiple eye surgeries.) And when it happens the victim doesn't need to think about how to respond, the initial response is instinctive and involuntary. What happens after that then begins to be deliberate and measured. So God in that sense has no choice but to intervene in behalf of the individual or nation that He keeps as the apple or pupil(also corresponds with pupil in sense of student or disciple) of His eye. That pupil is part of Himself, let's "face" it, God is intimately identified with the pupil of His own eye.
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