“I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”
Revelation 21:2 (NIV)
Our Creator God formed all that is visible out of nothing in order to reveal His invisible nature, and as He created, He formed mankind into 2 genders, male and female and instituted the marriage relationship as the base relationship on which all other human relationships come from. He did this so that He could use what we know- we know about marriage – in order to teach us spiritual truths about the spiritual relationship between our Lord Jesus Christ and those who have been saved through faith in His Name. Throughout the Old Testament God uses Words that come from our marriage experiences to describe His relationship with His people Israel, and in the New Testament God uses these Words to describe our relationship with His Son who is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. We see this in the gospels as Jesus calls Himself the bridegroom, and told parables about waiting for the bridegroom and about a wedding banquet. We see this in Ephesians 5 where Paul speaks to us about the characteristics of spouses who please God in marriage, and then tells us that he is actually speaking about Christ and His church. We see this in vivid pictorial form in the book of revelation where John sees the bride of Christ coming down out
of heaven.
of heaven.
We can’t say enough about our Bridegroom, for He is beautiful beyond description, and is too wonderful to describe.
But what about His bride? Well the church of Christ has been prepared and is beautifully dressed for her bridegroom.
A big part of the gospel is that our Lord takes away our shame, and this description of a beautiful bride is a wonderful way of getting this truth into our hearts. He is not ashamed of us, rather He is proud of us, just as a groom is filled with joy at the sight of his bride coming towards him. In our culture we had a tradition that the groom doesn’t see his bride in her dress until she comes down the aisle. I have stood beside young men as they see their bride for the first time in their beautiful dress and are overwhelmed. This description in Revelation is a description of THE wedding which all other weddings point towards. This groom is THE Groom and this bride is THE bride.
Friend I look forward to this Day when all of us who have been made righteous and beautiful through faith in Christ Jesus are presented to the Lover of our souls.
No comments:
Post a Comment