"Teaching the things concerning the kingdom of God..."
FROM THE CANDLESTICK TO THE
THRONE
Part 206
THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB
(continued)
“
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for
the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made
herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in
fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of
saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called
unto the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:7-9).
The next thing we need to understand
in order to grasp this great mystery of the Lamb and His wife is
that the bride of the Lamb is the virgin church, and the
virgin church is just that — a virgin. I do not mean that every
person who makes up this virgin church company is naturally and
physically a virgin, one who has never had sexual relations in the
flesh. The Spirit is not talking here about natural things, but He
is teaching us of spiritual realities. Can we not see by
this that the beautiful bride of the Lamb is spiritually a virgin,
that is, she is virgin in her relationship to the Lord, reserved for
Him and for Him alone. We have known what it is to be conformed to
the course of this world. Then we have known what it is to
trust Christ as Saviour and seek to serve Him while being entangled
in all the defilement of a corrupt Babylonish religious system.
But God is calling forth a glorious body of Christ who, because of
the word of the Lord and the quickening of the Holy Spirit, is
desiring to be VIRGIN — separated only unto her glorious
Bridegroom. How lightly we sometimes take the purposes of God in
us! It is one thing to be washed in the blood, freed from all our
past sins, and quite another thing to truly be virgin in our desires
to keep ourselves only unto the Lord — no other loves. Separation
is coming from everything of the flesh, the world, the devil, and
from every vestige of entanglement with the false church systems of
man which we have made our Head in place of the living Christ.
Though we may have previously been fornicators with this bawdy
religious harlot, the Lord is cleansing us, changing us,
transforming us, and bringing us forth as an entirely new
creation, and in this new creation He is causing us to be
virgin in our desires toward our Lord.
The next mystery that we need to
understand, in order to comprehend what the Holy Spirit is really
saying to us, is that not only does this virgin church company keep
itself wholly unto the Lord, but while she is truly espoused
unto the Lord the marriage of the Lamb has not yet been
consummated. She has not been joined in marriage union with the
Lord, else she would not be a virgin. When we speak
of the “virgin church” we must understand that we speak of the
bride of Christ who is espoused to Jesus Christ as His wife. We
often entertain very faulty ideas concerning this beautiful truth
because many of our Western customs are so different from the
Eastern customs. Many people think that the true church is not
yet the bride or wife of Christ and will only become the
bride or wife of Christ at the time of the “marriage of the Lamb” as
revealed in chapter nineteen of the Revelation. But such is not the
case! Let me explain the Eastern custom of betrothal and marriage,
the traditions from which the analogy of marriage in scripture is
drawn.
The Israelitish
marriage customs in Bible times involved three major steps. The
first step was betrothal, the establishment of the
marriage covenant that bound the man and woman together as husband
and wife (Mal. 2:14; Mat. 1:18-19). The apostle Paul referred to
this great mystery when he wrote, “I have espoused you to
one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ”
(II Cor. 11:2). The meaning put on “espousal” is vital. The
Basic Bible reads, “You have been married by me to one
husband…” Wuest says, “I gave you in marriage…”
Both show the marriage as a past event. In Bible days, prior to the
actual wedding and marriage consummation, there was what was known
as betrothal or espousal. This was somewhat like our
modern engagement, except that it was much more binding and
obligatory. It was more than a mere promise between two individuals
to eventually “get married,” for it was in fact the
marriage — at least the first step of the process. At the time
of the espousal the families of the man and woman were involved in
the negotiation of a contract between the two parties. It was a
notable occasion! The payment of a suitable dowry was usually a
feature of the contract. The groom or his father had to pay a price
to the girl’s father for the bride. When the contract was signed
and sealed in the presence of witnesses, the contract meant that the
couple were legally married — they were husband and wife. Matthew
makes this plain when he records, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ
was on this wise: When as His mother Mary was espoused to
Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child
of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just
man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put
her away (divorce her) privately” (Mat. 1:18-19).
This period of
engagement or betrothal was taken so seriously that any violation of
the engagement was considered adultery and any break-up of the
espousal required a legal procedure — a bill of divorcement. This
reveals the seriousness of the situation when Joseph learned that
Mary was with child. The news did more than stun him! It forced
him to make a decision; either to expose Mary publicly or divorce
her privately. In either case, Mary would have been dishonored by
her family and friends, and degraded by the Jewish community. Even
worse, her son would have been born an outcast with no rights of
citizenship, and prohibited from worship in the temple. Under these
circumstances, Joseph chose to be as gracious and kind as Jewish law
permitted; he decided to put her away privately. But then the angel
brought the message to Joseph and he took Mary home as his wife,
accepted her child as his own, and became legally the father of
Jesus. What explains his change of heart? Just this — his belief
in God’s message that Mary’s child was a special creation, conceived
of the Holy Spirit, to bring salvation into our world!
Now let us return to the marriage
customs. After the espousal, at a later time, usually about a year,
the second step in the wedding took place. During the interval, the
two were not joined physically in intimacy. The bride remained a
virgin. The girl continued to live in her own home, and the man in
his. The groom begins to prepare a home for them to live in. This
period also gave the bride a chance to “prepare herself” and “make
herself ready” for the coming union. She learns many needful things
and beautifies herself in every way. She wants to be perfect for
her lover. One of the most important parts of her beautification
was her gown. The white wedding dress was then chosen and knit
together into a beautiful garment for her to wear when the groom
comes for her. The wedding dress symbolized her pure and chaste
life.
The second step
in the marriage was when, on the appointed day, the groom came with
his friends to take the bride back to his home. This
“taking” of the bride was usually done at night approximately one
year after the betrothal. This led to the consummation of the
marriage through physical union of the bride and groom on the first
night at the groom’s house. Since this second step was the essence
of the marriage ceremony, it was regarded as the wedding or
marriage. Thus the actual “wedding” or “marriage” was not a
ceremony at all — it was union! We constantly read in
scripture of a man taking a wife unto himself. We get our
attention, in modern marriage customs, fixed on the ceremony:
forgetting that in the biblical pattern the real marriage is
“this man taking unto him this woman” to be his wife
in all that it means. The espousal only announces it; just
as the wedding feast only celebrates it! The perfect picture
of Christ taking His virgin church as His bride is seen in Genesis
chapter twenty-four, where Abraham would “make a marriage for his
son.” He sends Eliezar, his steward, to far away Mesopotamia, to
find and woo Rebekah by showing her the “things,” that is, a sample
of the wealth of Abraham and Isaac (as the Holy Spirit now shows us
“the things” of Christ, the firstfruits of the Spirit); and
eventually Rebekah says to Eliezar, “I will go.” And then, the
journey over, the record states that when upon their camels Eliezar
and Rebekah arrive in the land of Canaan, “Isaac took
Rebekah (into his tent); and she became his wife; and he
loved her.” The same scenario is repeated a number of times in the
Old Testament and this second step corresponds precisely to the
expression “marriage of the Lamb” in the book of Revelation. It
signifies the ultimate completeness and fullness of UNION WITH OUR
LORD!
The third step in the marriage was the
“marriage supper,” actually a seven-day wedding feast took
place to which guests had already been called and assembled. Once
the marriage had been consummated by the bride and groom, that same
night the wedding guests would begin to feast and make merry! They
often celebrated these feasts twice a day during those seven days.
The feast was the part of the “marriage” that Jesus attended in Cana
of Galilee when He turned water into wine. And this is also the
scene at the “marriage of the Lamb” in the Revelation! It is called
the “marriage supper” or marriage feast of the Lamb. This is not
espousal, but the time of union. “Let us be glad
and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage (union) of
the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready (for this
union). And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in
fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness
of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are
called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb!”
If we stand back and get a correct
perspective of the sweep of the entire picture I think we will
understand it. You go back to the very beginning — marriage was the
first institution that God made for man. And it was none other than
the Lord Jesus Christ Himself (the Word, the Voice of God) that
brought the first woman to the first man. He introduced them and
performed the marriage for them and made them one. In that far-off
beginning, at the dawn of human history, the Lord God said, “It is
not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet
for him” (Gen. 2:18). What fathomless and holy truth lies buried in
this remarkable statement! While God said, “It is not good that the
man should be alone,” I would like to give another rendition and it
goes like this: “It is not good that GOD should be alone.” You see,
my beloved, God’s creation is the mirror, the reflection, and
expression of God’s own personal character and state of being. How
can we know this? Because God said, “Let us make man in
our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). Would you like to
know what God is like? You can see it in man! God did not create
just a man! “Male and female created He them. And
God blessed them, and said unto them, Be fruitful and
multiply…” (Gen. 1:27-28). The message is just this: If it was not
good for man in the image of God to be in that image alone,
if the man needed a wife to complement him and reproduce their life
in the world, then it was likewise not good for GOD to be alone!
That is the mystery! It takes the mind of the Spirit to understand
that when God saw Adam in his loneliness and said, “It is not good
that the man should be alone,” God was expressing the great mystery
of His own Being within Himself. God had need for companionship.
God had need for a union of love! This divine need is
expressed by the apostle Paul in these words of revelation and
truth: “According as He hath chosen us in Himself before the
foundation of the world, that we should be…before Him in love:
having predestinated us…according to the good pleasure of His
will” (Eph. 1:4-6).
God’s ultimate desire and need was for
the companionship of beings like unto Himself, of His own kind, with
whom He could share His mind and heart, and through whom He could
expand Himself, incorporating them into the outworking of His own
eternal purposes. As we view from the Father’s heart it becomes
obvious that God in His social and paternal nature has “marked out
for Himself” a vast family which shares His own life, nature, mind,
spirit, purpose, and power. I do not believe that any creature or
entity that existed before man either in the heavens above or on the
earth beneath, even came close to providing what God needed. This
is the condition which prompted God in that long ago beginning to
issue the wonderful fiat, “Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness: and let them have dominion…” (Gen. 1:26).
Little wonder,
then, that we read from the literal translation of the Hebrew text
these remarkable words: “And Jehovah God saith, Not good for the man
to be alone, I do make him an helper — as his COUNTERPART” (Gen.
2:18, Young’s Literal). The Goodspeed translation reads, “It is not
good for the man to be alone; I must make a helper for him WHO IS
LIKE HIM.” Another interesting translation says, “…and God made for
Adam a COMPARABLE helper.” There we have the very first symbolism
of the bride of Christ! God made for Adam someone with whom he
should have complete and total correspondence and intimacy. This
only mirrored the desire within God Himself, so we find that He came
in the cool, or spirit of the day, as it reads in the
original, to fellowship with this man and woman made in His image
and likeness. The message is just this — if the Christ is to have a
bride then the bride must be COMPARABLE to Christ! She must be HIS
COUNTERPART! She must be one who is in every respect LIKE HIM! And
that’s awesome, isn’t it! But how could Christ become intimate, on
all the levels that intimacy implies, with anyone who is not
comparable to Him? A human would not marry a monkey, a horse, a
dog, or a chicken. There is no correspondence! There are no
grounds for union of mind, desire, emotion, knowledge,
understanding, body, or love. And even within the same species, not
everyone is suited for the marriage union. Would Christ become
intimate with a little girl who is not mature and cannot comprehend
the ways of love or responsibility? Would He share all that He is
and has with a child who is physically and emotionally incapable of
returning mature love, relating to His deepest thoughts and heart,
or participating in His divine activities and purposes?
God gives us patterns in the Bible.
All the patterns point to the central truth that God wants a people
for Himself — a special, purified, prepared, developed, matured,
loving, and capable people joined in union with Himself. All other
revelations and truths are secondary to that — just as all other
considerations in life should be secondary to a man’s relationship
with his wife. God’s desire for such a people is the thrust of the
entire message of the word of God! Everything must revolve around
that truth. It was not good for man to be alone, and it was not
good for GOD to be alone! He wanted offspring, and Paul tells us in
Acts 17:28-29 that WE are the OFFSPRING OF GOD! Nature itself
teaches us that pigs have little pigs and dogs have little dogs.
And I do not hesitate to tell you that God has little gods! That is
the great mystery of our sonship. “As many as received Him,
to them gave He power to become the children of God” (Jn.
1:12). “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of
incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever” (I Pet. 1:23). “Jesus answered them, Is it not written
in your law, I (God) said, Ye are gods? If He called
them gods unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture
cannot be broken; say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified,
and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I
am the Son of God” (Jn. 10:34-36). Oh, yes! As children
— offspring — of God, made in His image, after His likeness — we
are COMPARABLE! When once we learn this one grand truth we discover
our true identity and state of being and all the word of God begins
to fall into place. My beloved, it is therefore in keeping that as
the very first act of His sonship ministry our Lord should go yonder
to a wedding in Cana of Galilee! There He went and put His seal of
approval and His blessing upon it. He was there by His very
presence and power to proclaim that UNION between God and man is the
grand theme and purpose of God in creation and redemption!
Robert Browning poetically tells the
story of Andrea del Sarto, a famous painter in Florence, Italy. In
his youth, del Sarto married a woman of rare beauty. She was,
however, a shallow-minded, superficial creature. She was the woman,
who, with a careless swing of her skirt, smeared the noble picture
he had painted in hours of great spiritual ecstasy. She filled his
life with disappointment. Not because she robbed his hand of its
deftness, or his mind of its genius, or his soul of its inspiration
— the tragedy was this: she was heart blind; she never understood
the moral majesty of his mind; she never genuinely entered into the
great spiritual hunger and depth of his heart. Consequently, he
could not disclose to her his noblest and best self. In like
manner, the yearning of God is able to reveal Himself to us only in
proportion to our spiritual development, capacity, and maturity.
Methinks that many Christians have not reached the stage of growth
and development in Christ which prepares them for being a bride.
They have little understanding of the majesty of the mind of
Christ, or the loftiness of His great and eternal plan and purposes,
nor have they even begun to enter in to the deepest yearnings of
His heart. Multitudes are spiritually childish — heaven to them is
a vast celestial playground where they can frolic and dance
and shout throughout eternity without a care or any responsibility
beyond strumming a harp and polishing their crown!
Children are children. Children are
not sons in the scriptural sense, for sons (Greek:
huios, mature sons, placed ones) are those who have grown up
into the nature and authority of the Father. By way of example, if
you saw a hardware store with the sign over the door saying BROWN
AND SONS, you would not expect to go into the store and find the
“sons” playing in a crib. You would understand that these “sons”
are mature sons who share with their father the responsibilities of
the business. In like manner, a girl, as long as she is a child, is
neither prepared for nor capable of fulfilling the role of a
wife. In order to enter into marriage a young girl must
pass through years of physical, mental, and emotional development.
Finally, upon becoming mature in all these areas, she is fitted for
marriage and her role as a wife. And so it is in God’s family!
Both sonship and brideship are MATURE
RELATIONSHIPS — not the prerogative of children! The term “child”
describes the believer in his walk of immaturity in God. But as one
begins to grow up into spiritual maturity it is then
that the truly feminine and masculine aspects of his or her
relationship with God begin to form and become manifest. “Vive la
difference!” someone once said. And starting from early childhood
we all begin to notice
that
there is indeed a difference. We become increasingly aware of it as
we grow up. But it is only as fully developed adults that the true
power, potential, and purpose of the feminine and masculine
attributes find their function and fulfillment.
Any man can know something of the acts
and ways of God, but only those born from above, who also follow
on to know the Lord, can ever come to know Him in the
most wonderfully personal and intimate manner. The depth of
“knowing” Him is like the intimate relationship of a man with his
beloved wife, in which love he seeks to reproduce after his own
kind. In fact, this is precisely the way in which the scriptures in
a number of cases make use of the word “know” — to describe the
giving and receiving of seed in the act of love. For example, we
read in Genesis 4:1, “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she
conceived, and bare Cain.” This statement does not mean that Adam
was able to recognize his wife as he walked about the house!
“Knowing,” in the sense of recognition, does not beget children!
When Adam knew his wife he explored her emotional and
physical being beyond any external observation, and she knew
him in return in a personal and intimate way that words could never
communicate. Only by the experience of intense love and sexual
union does man know woman in this sense, and she him.
May the blessed spirit of truth from
God enable all who read these lines to understand that it is only in
that exquisite relationship where the believing heart completely
yields itself to the spirit, the presence, the mind, and the will of
God, where the believer proves by his wholehearted response that he
truly and totally loves the Lord, that he knows and is
known by God. This is the basis for Israel as a people under
the Old Covenant being given the name “wife of Yahweh,” and the
chosen ones of this age under the New Covenant the intimate title
“the bride of Christ.” As husband and wife, by means of the act of
“knowing” become one flesh, so Christ and the
believer, by the spiritual act of “knowing” become one
spirit. “He that is joined (in union) unto the Lord IS ONE
SPIRIT” (I Cor. 6:17). The intimate relation and ecstasy here
portrayed, are not found in any but those who are following the
Lamb whithersoever He goeth!
There is no higher, no holier, no more
blessed and joyous relation that can obtain between a man and a
woman than true marriage. The marriage relation means more than the
common possession of each other, more than the sharing on a basis of
equality all that either may possess, more than the mutual exchange
of admiration for personal charms, or of confidence and trust in the
integrity each of the other. True marriage means all of these
things, but in addition to all of these things, and above them, and
more than all else it means the union of hearts on a level
which results in profoundest love and unselfish devotion, such as
will cause each to live for the other, promote the welfare, comfort,
and happiness of the other rather than of SELF (I Cor. 13:4-8).
One who thinks chiefly of self, who
talks for the most part about those things that promote his own
self-interests, who takes opportunity to act with downright
selfishness, and therefore one who is self-centered,
self-opinionated, and self-willed, is incapable of entering into a
true marriage relationship with anyone. In the marriage relation,
to whatever degree SELF is made first and exalted, to that extent
the relation is doomed to failure. The love of self will destroy
true love and engender strife, bitterness, indifference, and even
hatred. Ah, Christ Himself, our Bridegroom, has given us the
example! Let us dwell on the words, “Christ also loved the church
and gave Himself up for it.” He values His bride as
Himself. And upon her, He lavishes His personal affection, without
limit, without reservation, constantly, and forevermore! He loved
the church with an infinite and eternal love and gave Himself up to
the death of the cross for her. He nourishes and cherishes the
church that He might sanctify it, and present it to Himself glorious
in beauty, holiness, and power, without blemish in the presence of
His glory. All that is required of the bride is simply to love
Him in the same way and measure as He has first loved us!
The late George Wylie shared some
penetrating and instructive words of admonition in this connection.
He wrote, “I have never known two people who were deeply in love
with each other who did not want to spend a lot of time alone
by themselves. When a young man and woman are truly in love, you
may see them walking hand in hand down the street, sitting in a
restaurant having a piece of pie and a cup of coffee, or strolling
through a department store looking at things together. They love to
be together and they get together as often as they can. But why is
it that being together on the street, or in the restaurant, or
window shopping, still does not satisfy the longing of their
hearts? Why is it that after being together around town they will
get in the car and drive out to Lover’s Lane or Sunset Point, or to
some deserted beach at night, where there is no one else around and
they can sit and talk, watch the sunset, or stroll together under
the light of the moon? What difference is this from walking hand in
hand down the street or sitting together in a restaurant? They are
alone — that’s the difference! It is being by themselves in
the solitude of their love.
“
A man and his
wife who are much in love with each other, may work together all day
in their business, go shopping together, or greatly enjoy going on a
picnic with the children. They may spend a lot of time together
during their busy daily lives. But even then they are looking
forward to the evenings when the children are asleep in bed and they
can spend a few quiet hours alone, sitting on the couch or retiring
to their bedroom and closing the door so they can be by themselves
in the intimacy of their love. Their togetherness during the day
cannot take the place of being alone and sharing the tenderness of
their love. In their aloneness they are able to communicate with
each other and share together things they could never share in the
company of others or in the course of their busy lives. This
reveals the wonderful mystery of the bridegroom and the bride! When
we love the Lord with all of our heart, when we truly are deeply and
passionately in love with the Lover of our soul, we cannot be
content to just have His company and think of Him, talk to Him, and
sing to Him during our busy times, or even in the congregation in
our times of gathering together unto Him. We will most assuredly
have an intense desire to BE ALONE WITH HIM! The more we love Him
the greater the desire and the more time we will want to spend alone
with Him in intimate fellowship and communion. Those who say they
deeply love the Lord, but who rarely get alone with Him to spend
quality time in the solitude of His presence, cannot possibly
be material for the company of the bride of Christ! The yearning of
the bride is expressed in the words of the beautiful chorus:
Shut in with God, in the secret
place,
There in the spirit beholding His
face;
Gaining new power to run in the race,
I love to be shut in with God!
“
The truth is,
many a man has lost the love of his wife and his marriage
relationship has been broken up because he was so busy attending to
his business and making money, that he didn’t have time to be with
his wife. I have known wives of many of these workaholics who,
suffering from lack of their husband’s love, looked in other places
for the attention and love the husband was too busy to give. They
would find another man to love them and who would supply the human
need that the busy husband didn’t give. Some of these wives turned
to drink and became alcoholics, and many of these marriages ended in
divorce. The business may be important, and making a living is
necessary, but neither of these are as important as the
marriage relationship! When the husband and wife get so busy that
they do not have quality time to spend alone with each other,
their relationship suffers; they draw apart and there is not that
oneness that should be there. How true this is also in our
relationship with our Lord! When we are so busy, and our time is
taken up with other things, perhaps even good things
including our work ‘for’ God, so that we haven’t time to be alone
with Christ, our relationship with Him suffers, and we draw apart.
There isn’t that oneness with Christ that we should have! Oh
yes, we may talk to Him for a few minutes a couple times a day,
maybe address Him a few times during the day, or perhaps even speak
of Him to someone as we try to share Him with others, but our
spiritual life and our union with Him suffers when we fail to find
the time to get alone with Christ in seasons of intimate
fellowship, communion, and love” — end quote.
When we come to the Lamb and His wife,
however, here is a marital love, a tenderness, an
appreciation, and a delight, that will grow forever and ever.
Oh, wonder of wonders, that such a record can be written!
Christ will never change in His affections! What must the ages
hold for the wife of the Lamb! And the love of the bride, the wife
of the Lamb, will correspond to that of her husband — unceasing,
increasing into infinity! Have you known a husband and wife
whose love deepened as the years went by, whose satisfaction with
and delight in each other was such as to keep them together
constantly, of their own mutual will; whom neither “society”
nor “business” nor “outside pleasures,” nor any “calamity” could
separate? Let such a happy marital existence be a whisper to you of
what Christ and His bride will enjoy more and more throughout
unending ages! The bliss of the marriage of the Lamb is without
limit. And this is not something to transpire some glad day after
while or in some far-off heaven somewhere! This bespeaks the union
of soul and spirit, a union within ourselves, in which we are MADE
ONE IN HIM. Oh, yes! It is the personal delight of THE INDWELLING
CHRIST, not of a Christ far away. It is the personal delight of our
very own soul — of our mind, will, emotions, and desires, finding
union with His glorious mind, His holy emotions, His wonderful will,
and His divine desires. It is an internal union of love. Parents
love their children because they are children. Brothers and sisters
alike have a love of natural relationship. Friendships are based on
common interests. But the love of bridegroom and bride is a delight
each in the person of the other. That is why marital love is so
wholly unexplainable! We say, “What did he see in her?” or, “Why
did she choose him?” There is no answer but one — LOVE!
While we write
much in these pages of the glorious truth of sonship to God, we want
to contemplate in our meditations at this time what it means to be
the bride of the Lamb. If you have never really fallen in love with
the Christ of God — and made HIM YOUR HEAD and ABSOLUTE LORD —
don’t ever expect to be a member of the bride company. If you are
not truly VIRGIN in your desires toward the Lord; if you are not
walking in His spirit, putting on His mind, learning to know His
heart; if you are not keeping yourself unto Him and Him alone; if
you have not utterly forsaken the company of the wanton harlot of
Babylon, the carnal church systems of man; if you have not renounced
the many schemes and plans and ambitions of your own carnal mind nor
abandoned your love of the world and the desires of the flesh —
don’t expect to stand in that glorious company which has made itself
“ready” for the marriage of the Lamb! If you have any other love
before Him, any other master that rules your life, any other lord
that dictates your actions, any “reserved” areas of your life you
are not ready to relinquish, then you have not yet learned HOW TO
BE A BRIDE TO CHRIST!
Only the wonderful spirit of truth can
teach us how to truly be a bride. As I have pointed out, the
key to being a wife is love and submission. We are prone to think
of submission in such a carnal way. The term conjures up images of
the husband ruling, bossing, lording it over, barking commands to
his wife while the little woman, intimidated, coweringly complies
with his every demand. But true, godly submission is the love
of a woman that is so pure and intense that she wants to yield
herself to the high desires of her husband — a woman so in love with
her man that it transcends infatuation — her submission becomes a
willing and loving laying down of her own life until she no longer
has a life because HER LIFE IS SURRENDERED AND JOINED IN UNION WITH
ANOTHER! Her cry becomes, “I don’t want my life…I want to SHARE
YOURS.” Oh! how few of us truly know HOW TO BE A BRIDE!
“
For I am jealous
over you with a godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one
husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to
Christ” (II Cor. 11:2). To be a virgin means to be pure, undefiled,
and separated unto our Lord. God is creating the desire in a called
and separated people in this hour to be truly virgin
in their desires toward Him. We have known what it is to be
conformed to this world. Then we have known what it is to
come into fellowship with Christ while remaining entangled in all
the defilement of a carnal and corrupt Babylonish church system.
But God is laying His mighty hand of dealing upon a people and
calling forth a glorious body of Christ who, in response to the
quickening of the Holy Spirit, is desiring to be virgin — separated only unto her Bridegroom, unto intimate and vital
union with Him! How lightly we sometimes take the purposes of God
in us! In this hour separation is coming from everything of the
flesh, the world, the devil, and from every vestige of entanglement
with the carnal church systems of man which we have made our HEAD
in place of the mighty indwelling Christ of God.
Let us suppose — Rhonda has a new
boyfriend. He’s funny, charming, and handsome. Her pulse races
when he calls, her temperature rises when they touch. It feels
wonderful to be with him. She gushes, “It’s like we’ve known each
other all our lives.” People who don’t know her are charmed by her
infatuation. Her friends are not. They’ve heard all this before.
Rhonda always has a new boyfriend. One goes, another comes in an
endless parade. Each is the true love of her life. And then they
disappear.
Multitudes of Christians are like
that! They are looking for the perfect love, the ultimate union,
and again and again they think they have found it as they flit about
from church to church, from preacher to preacher, from revival to
revival, from teaching to teaching, and from movement to movement.
Oh, how “turned on” they are with each one at first — they have
found the most exciting, fulfilling, loving, caring, perfect
church! And they gush all over everyone who will listen about
how wonderful it is! But then before long they begin to see
flaws, hear the gossip, catch the undercurrents, discern the
problems, and it soon wears off and they start looking for another.
The problem is just this — they have not found HIM! They are
spiritual adolescents, juvenile, immature, undeveloped,
inexperienced — not ready yet to become a bride. They
desire true love, but like the girls that get picked up in bars,
they are looking in all the wrong places. Their eyes are on the
boys — on men, and ministries, and movements —
and not yet have they truly SEEN THE LORD! Some day, hopefully,
they will hear the call, “Come out of her, my people,” and will
cease the spiritual “bar-hopping” and come apart to meet the one
and only lover of their soul!
I will close this
article by quoting from a message delivered some years ago by the
late brother Stacy Wood. This message contains some profound truths
that I believe will be an edification and blessing to all who read.
“
I was in New
Mexico a few years ago and while ministering to a group I made a
statement that I was corrected on. The statement I made was simply
this. I said, ‘There are some things in the earth, and also things
in God, that are certain, immutable, unchangeable, ever the same.
For instance — 1+ 1 = 2. If you have an apple plus an apple, you
have two apples — and no matter how you calculate it, how you count
it, one plus one always equals two.’ After the service a young man
came to me, a young man that has a doctorate degree, a young man
that speaks numerous languages, a young man that is in my opinion is
a genius, and he said, ‘Stacy, I want to share something with you —
one plus one does not always equal two.’ Well, he took me
back. I just stood there and looked at him as if to say, ‘Hey, wait
a minute! I’ve been taught all my life that one plus one equals two
— what are you trying to tell me?’ He sat down and with a formula
and a series of pages he expressed to me what he meant. The man is
a astrophysicist. Of course I didn’t understand the formulas too
well — but he convinced me after four pages that he had a valid
point which I wasn’t able fully to grasp — that one plus one doesn’t
always equal two! So I considered this and then in the scriptures I
began to see the pattern and the reality that one plus one, even in
God’s economy, does not always equal two.
“
Paul says it very
plainly in his first letter to the Corinthians. ‘Know ye not
that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the
members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God
forbid. What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is
one body? for two, saith He, shall be one flesh.
But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit’ (I
Cor. 6:15-17).
“
Here Paul tells
us that one man joined to one harlot equals one flesh.
Therefore Paul says that 1 + 1 = 1. So when two things are joined,
fused, knit together, they are no longer two things, but become one
thing. Another example of this is found in the book of Ephesians.
‘For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be
joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the
church’ (Eph. 5:30-32). This is indeed a great mystery, but
what Paul is declaring is the divine formula — 1 + 1 = 1. He shows
that we (Christ and us) are made one in the body of Christ.
We must lose that vision of our uniqueness, particularness, and
individuality and grasp hold of the concept that we are one,
not many.
“I was looking at
this principle here in Ephesians chapter five and it is the
principle of marriage. A man leaves his father and mother and he
cleaves to his wife, and joined to his wife, one man and one woman
become one flesh. Most of us that are married look at that
verse and try to make it so mystical — that we are one somewhere,
but we don’t understand the disagreements! We do our best to get
beyond the disagreements and dissatisfactions to truly become one so
that we always think alike, desire alike, enjoy alike, and act
alike. But that is not what Paul is saying. The reality is that
God took one individual, me, and one individual, my wife, and has
made an expression of one. I can tell you exactly where and when it
happened — it happened when our daughter was born, and again when
our son was born. For Jana and Stacy are simply Sheri and Stacy as one. When God joined Sheri and me He put us together
in such a way that we can never be separated. He took all of the
structure of my life and all of the structure of my wife’s life and
He joined them together between a sperm and an ovum and brought
forth one new creation that is neither Sheri nor Stacy — it
is the perfect joining of the complete whole of both of us into one
new whole.
“
When we traveled
with our children years ago we made note of people’s reactions when
they would see our children. Often people would look at our son and
say, ‘He’s the spitting image of your wife — and your daughter, man,
she’s so much like you!’ Then we would go to the next group and
someone would say, ‘Your son looks so much like you, he doesn’t look
like your wife at all, and your daughter looks just like your wife,
she doesn’t look anything like you!’ By the time several years
passed I was somewhat puzzled and thought and meditated on the
incongruity of this. Why is it, I wondered, that some people think
Jana looks like Sheri, whereas others think she looks like me? Then
it dawned on me — they are bound to look like Mama and they are
bound to look like Daddy because all that we are, all of our
genetics are brought together and combined in one new form. Both of
us are so joined, so fused together within them that
you really can’t distinguish or divide between what is Stacy and
what is Sheri. Different people with different perceptions pick up
on either the Sheri or the Stacy characteristics that shine through,
so that in the final analysis Jana and Stacy are each a new
creation, one flesh of us two!
“
Can you see the
mystery that is great in that? Christ and the church are also JOINED!
HE who is spirit, Christ, and SHE who is soulical, the church, when they
corporately are joined become one spirit. The spiritual
essence of humanity is the soul — the soulical life. The soul is simply
spirit that is at a lower vibration, at a lower frequency, or on a lower
dimension than the Spirit of God. That is, the mind, will, emotions,
and desires of the natural man are not flesh in a tangible way. The
soul pertains to a spiritual dimension. Few understand the truth
of this, but when God breathed into man’s flesh the breath or
spirit of life, man became a living soul.
The Lord, on the other hand, is spirit, and they who
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in reality. When you take
God who is spirit on the highest plane, and then you take soul which is
spirit on a lower plane, and join them together you get a BRAND NEW
SPIRITUAL DIMENSION that has not yet been and that dimension is called ‘the
Christ.’ As I meditated on this I saw that in the marriage of
Christ and the church, of the Lamb and His wife, there is a joining of
one plus one that would equal ONE!” — end quote.
