Life Ministries

The Bride   
Ephesians 5:22-33 and  Rev. 19:7 – 21:2-3 – 21:9-10

Let me start with what the Bride of Christ Is Not:
1. It is not Israel of Old Testament times.
2. It is not a part of the New Testament church.
3. It is not just the whole New Testament church.
4. It is not the 144,000 Jews.
5. It is not the tribulation saints.
6. It is not any single individual or any one special group of individuals.

7. It is not any one denomination or all the denominations combined.

    It is "that great city, the holy Jerusalem". This is what the angel pointed out to John when he promised to show him the bride, the Lamb’s wife—the Holy City, the heavenly Jerusalem. What a simple revelation! If the city, the New Jerusalem, is the bride, then all who go to live in the Holy City make up the bride…All redeemed will live in the city:
The early church was promised the city (John 14:1-3; Hebrews 13:14).
Every Christian is promised the city (Rev. 3:12; John 14:1-3; Hebrews 12:23).

The tribulation saints  (Rev. 6:9-11; Rev. 7:9-14; Rev. 15:2; Rev.20:4 
Note: In Rev.19:9 it says “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb”…The 144,000 Jews will be there (Rev. 7:1-8; Rev. 14:1-5) The Old Testament saints will be there. (Hebrews 11:10-16)  Therefore, we must conclude that all saints in the first resurrection (from Abel to the last one saved in the future tribulation) will go to live in the New Jerusalem and that all such saints will be at the wedding supper of the bride.
    In Isaiah 62:5 God speaks through the prophet, “as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.” In the book of Hosea, God commands the prophet to marry a woman who is an adulteress. Even though she is unfaithful and leaves her husband, God commands Hosea to purchase her back from the slave market as a parable of God’s love for His people. It is not an act of empty symbolism. In Hosea 2:19-20 God promises His people, “I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion. I will be faithful to you and make you mine.” (NLT)
    Max Lucado tells a story from ages past about a stately prince and a peasant girl who fall in love. This is really a difficult one to understand. On the one hand is a prince who literally had the world at His disposal. There has never been a more perfect specimen of a man that ever lived. Nothing about Him was common. You wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that He is a perfect catch.
    On the other hand there is a peasant girl. She is nothing more than average. At her best she is plain, but at her worst she can be just plain ugly. There are times when she is cranky and moody, and she rarely ever ach-ieves all she could. To look at her from anyone else’s eyes you would never believe she was worth much. But if you could see her through the eyes of the prince, you would believe that she is “to die for.”
    Because the prince determined that He couldn’t bear to live without her, he asked her to be His bride. The angels in heaven listened expectantly as she accepted his proposal. The prince promised his bride that He would come back for her soon, and the peasant turned princess pledged to faithfully await his return.
    To this point the story could be any of a number of fairy tales, but now the plot takes a bizarre twist. You would expect the bride to be always thinking about the coming wedding, but she rarely ever mentions it. You would think that her every waking moment would be lived out in anticipation and preparation for the coming of her prince. However, by the way she lives you wouldn’t even know she’s the bride of a perfect prince. More frequently than not, you can’t even tell the difference between the bride and any of the other peasant girls in the village. There are even times when she can be seen flirting with the other men of the village in broad daylight, and who knows what she is doing when nobody is around to see!
    Can you imagine a peasant girl fortunate enough to be the object of a perfect prince’s eternal love? You would expect her to be captivated by His love and filled with a sense of wonder that she was fortunate enough to be loved by Him. You would think that she would be careful to remain pure in anticipation of the return of her royal groom. Instead, to look at her you might wonder if she even remembers she is engaged at all. How could a peasant forget about her prince? Is it possible for a bride to forget her groom? (Lucado, When Christ Comes, p. 138)
    That’s a good question, but only we are able to answer it. You see, the story of the prince and His peasant bride is not a fairy tale, or some medieval fable. It isn’t a story about anyone else at all, but rather a story about us, you and me, the church. We are the ones the Bible calls “The Bride of Christ.” And to be quite honest, far too often observers might ask if we’ve forgotten about the bridegroom.
    One thing I’ve noticed about couples who are engaged to be married. They become obsessed with preparation. They want to make sure that everything is right, the dress and the tux, the weight, the hair, it all needs to be just right. Why? Is it so that their fiancé will want to marry them? No. Just the opposite. They want to look their best because their fiancé is marrying them. The same is true for us. We want to look our best for Christ. We want our hearts to be pure and our thoughts to be clean. We want our lives to be marked by grace and love. We want to be prepared for His coming. It’s not so that He will love us. He already has proven His love for us on the cross. We want to be that pure spotless bride because He loves us.
    The more we give ourselves over to Jesus in this life, the greater we will appreciate the privilege of living in heaven. I think our reward in heaven will directly correlate to our willingness to live by faith while we are here on earth. In John 14:2-3 Jesus said, ”In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”…It begs the question – “How are we preparing for His return?”