How Christ Relates to the Church: Bridegroom
CHURCH ARTICLE | Shawn Chancellor | Amarillo, Texas
The Book of Revelation is filled with awesome images of suffering, judgment, and triumph. These images, in turn, frighten and inspire as we read of fierce beasts that seek to destroy the faithful and various depictions of Jesus, always victorious and always with the faithful. One such view of Jesus is in Revelation 19, tucked between the judgment of the Great Harlot who had become “drunk with the blood of the saints” (Revelation 17:6; 18:1-24), and His victory over the armies of the beast (Revelation 19:11-19). In Revelation 19:7, the voice of a great multitude (Revelation 19:6) cries out, “Let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready.” If this image were not so jarring in its context, it would be easy to overlook because of the enormity of the scenes surrounding it. A wedding announcement just before the most critical battle in the entire book? Yes, and this simple statement may help us to understand the point of the whole book.
We see Jesus referred to as a bridegroom or a husband in several passages. John the Baptist referred to Jesus as the bridegroom in John 3:29. Jesus spoke of Himself as the bridegroom when He was asked why His disciples did not fast as the disciples of John did (Matthew 9:15; Mark 2:19-20; Luke 5:34-35). Paul uses this concept in Ephesians 5:22-33 as he lays out certain principles essential to the marriage relationship. These passages seem to draw from rich Old Testament imagery in which God is portrayed as the husband of Israel.
Perhaps the most well-known Old Testament instance of this image is Hosea 1-3. God commanded the prophet to marry a woman he knew would be unfaithful to him and then to take her back after she had played the harlot. Chapter 2 is an extended complaint against Israel for her unfaithfulness to her husband. In Hosea 3:5, the whole image is made clear as Israel returns and seeks the Lord again. Jeremiah 3, Isaiah 54, and Ezekiel 16 also use this imagery. In Exodus 19:3-9, Jehovah and Israel enter into a covenant, and this passage is often referred to as the wedding between God and Israel.
Interestingly, Exodus 21:10-11 has been seen by Jews for centuries as a description of the responsibilities of the marriage covenant. The passage actually deals with how a female slave is to be treated by her master. The Jews reasoned that if these things were to be provided for a slave, surely they should be provided for a wife, and if the wife was to receive these provisions, her husband should as well. The provisions of the passage are food, clothing, and conjugal rights (or love).
Ezekiel 16 uses this same language to describe God’s care for Israel. In verse 8, God shared His love with Israel and entered into a covenant relationship (marriage) with her. Verses 10-13 describe the rich and luxuriant clothing He provided for her. In verse 13, He gave her fine flour, honey, and oil. The chapter paints the picture of an unloved, abandoned Israel who was cared for by one who became her husband. This husband loved her and provided for her richly, far beyond His obligations.
We should also note that the bride is an adulterer in each of the primary Old Testament uses of this concept. Hosea 1-3 is the heartrending story of a prophet the Lord commands to marry a woman he knows will be unfaithful (Hosea 12). He does, and she is. She goes so far from her husband that she becomes a harlot and ultimately is to be sold as a slave. God then tells Hosea, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulteress” (Hosea 3:1). Hosea’s response is both heartbreaking and encouraging, “So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley” (Hosea 3:2). Hosea 3:4-5 make it clear that this was exactly how God would treat Israel. She committed adultery through idolatry, but God would take her back when she repented. Ezekiel 16:60-63 and Isaiah 54:5-8 express the same concept. The generosity of God as a husband to His people is best understood in His willingness to forgive them repeatedly and ultimately provide a way for their full and final redemption.
These ideas are also at the heart of the New Testament usage. When we look at Christ and what He has done for the church, His love, provision, and protection are evident and exceedingly generous. It is this very generosity that leads Paul to compare Jesus’s care for the church to the relationship of a husband and wife in Ephesians 5:22-33. Much attention has been given to verse 22 and the command for the wife to submit to the husband. This admonition has led to many today viewing Paul as a misogynist. While there is no scriptural basis for ignoring the command for women to submit to their husbands, we would do well to note the rest of the chapter. This submission is not intended to deliver a woman to a life of enslavement to her husband. Instead, Paul commands husbands to be self-sacrificing and loving toward the wife. If anything, the passage describes a mutual submission in which each party in the relationship seeks the good of the other in a loving and mutually respectful manner (Ephesians 5:21).
It is just this sort of self-giving love that Jesus models in His relationship to the church. We should notice Ephesians 5:25, where husbands are commanded to “love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her….” While He is our head, His self-sacrifice on our behalf creates a dynamic in which there can be absolute trust on our part. Jesus is not a brutal dictator but a loving king who partakes in our suffering and provides for our cleansing. Paul emphasizes just this in verses 28-29, where he admonishes husbands to “love their wives as their own bodies…for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body.”
This passage touches on another metaphor for the church – the body of Christ. While this is not our subject in this article, the passage presents us with a powerful view of the relationship between Christ and the church. Jesus is connected to the church as the head is to the body. With this metaphor, Paul offers another reason for the church to submit to Jesus in complete trust. His leadership is always and absolutely for the good of His body.
While Jesus is God, and as God He is transcendent, He chose to come and commune with us. He does not send us to suffer and endure the pressures of temptation alone. Instead, He has endured those same trials to lead us to the safety of His salvation (Hebrews 2:9-18). Like a protective husband who leads the way through danger, Jesus has paved the path for our redemption through His suffering.
With these things in mind, let us return to that powerful scene in Revelation 19. In the preceding chapters, we read of a great dragon who makes war with those “who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus (Revelation 12:17). While a fearsome beast rises from the sea who would also “make war with the saints” (Revelation 13:7), another beast that arises from the earth to persecute those that refuse to bow to the first beast (Revelation 13:16-17), and a great harlot, who leads men into all sorts of immorality, becomes drunk on the blood of the saints (Revelation 17:1-6). For our purposes, we do not need to identify each of these figures precisely. What we can do is understand the frightening nature of this situation. Each of these figures represents a power greater than our own, and all of them are drawn together to make war against the saints (Revelation 16:13-16). Just when it seems that there is no hope for the faithful, we see Jesus, “the Lamb,” “the Lord of lords and King of kings” (Revelation 17:14). The harlot falls immediately because she was a pretender seeking to rule over the kings of the earth (Revelation 17:18; 18:1-8). The warrior king goes to battle against the beasts and their followers in chapter 19. His victory is absolute (Revelation 19:11-21). In between these two victories, we see the wedding announcement. Why here? There may be better questions we can ask, such as “What will the Lamb’s victory look like?” “Will He stand victorious but alone?” “How can the saints endure all of the suffering seen in the Revelation?” The answers we begin to see in Revelation 19 should fill us with hope. Jesus will not stand alone in His victory. He will stand with His bride. The saints will overcome their suffering and hardship through the protection and provision of the Lamb, their bridegroom. We often hear that the theme of Revelation is Jesus wins. This is only partly true. John shows us through this grand vision that Jesus wins — and shares the victory with His bride.
The blessings and provisions of a relationship with Jesus are reserved for those in His body, His bride, the church. He has provided us with more than we can “ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). He asks only that we submit to Him as a loving wife to her faithful husband, that we live a life of fidelity to Him, and that we repent and turn back to Him if ever we stray from our covenant with Him.
The metaphor of Christ as the bridegroom, with the Church as the bride, offers a powerful image of the love and intimacy that God desires with each of us. Through Christ, we are invited into a deep and transformative relationship with God, one that encompasses both our individual salvation and our communal life as members of the Church. As we reflect on these truths, may we be inspired to renew our commitment to following Christ and to sharing his love with others. Let us remember that we are all part of the bride of Christ, called to live in unity and service to one another as we seek to glorify God in all we do.
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October 2023 | GROW magazine
