The Marriage Supper of the Lamb
Jesus and the Bride of Christ
Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a king giving a wedding feast for his son (Matt. 22:2-14). He also told His disciples at the Last Supper before His crucifixion, "I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom" (Matt. 26:29). These all point directly to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, which is the wedding feast of the Lord Jesus and the Bride of Christ, a cosmic marriage between the Redeemer and those who have been saved by grace and have overcome sin and the world (Rev. 3:21; 19:7-8).
The parable of the wedding feast reveals that the Kingdom of God is open to everyone. By now, the bride price has been paid and the wedding invitations have been sent out. All believers who have accepted the blood covenant of Jesus are betrothed to Him. They are being clothed by the Holy Spirit in anticipation of the glorious wedding day.
In this age of darkness over the earth and all nations (Isa. 60:2), God will execute the final judgment and punish the great harlot (Antichrist, false prophet, false teacher, etc.) who has ruined the world with her whoredom throughout the earth (Rev. 19:1-2). Then the Lord Jesus will return to take His Bride, and all heavens and earth will celebrate God’s reign and the “Marriage of the Lamb” (Rev. 5:10; 19:6-8). By then, God the Father's ultimate purpose of redeeming the fallen humanity and restoring the original state of creation will be fully accomplished. As foretold in the Book of Revelation, God will dwell with His children forever - "the tabernacle of God on earth" (Rev. 21:1-4).
The Rapture
Meeting the Lord in the clouds
The Lord Jesus told us that He had gone back to the Father to prepare a place for us and that He would come again to take us to Himself (John 14:2-3). The Apostle Paul also tells us emphatically: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” (1 Thess. 4:16-17)
The rapture is a supernatural event of God's grace and power. At the sound of the last trumpet, the 7th trumpet, all the children of God who believe in Jesus will be physically transformed into incorruptible glorified eternal bodies and caught up into the air to meet the Lord together with the resurrected believers in Christ (1 Cor. 15:51-53), and be with Him forever (John 14:1- 3). “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.” (Phil. 3:20-21) Just as Jesus Himself told His disciples that at the end of the Great Tribulation, the Lord Jesus will come on the clouds of heaven and gather His elect from the four corners of the earth with a great sound of a trumpet call (Matt. 24:29-31). This is the glorious moment that all believers are looking forward to. It is the wonderful moment when the Lord comes to take His Bride of Christ.
“Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!’” (Rev. 11:15)
The Bride of Christ
Overcomers of the world
The Bride of Christ is not one person, but a group of people called out of the world and sanctified by God to be united with the Lord Jesus. They are the overcomers in the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27), the Temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16), the Family of God (Eph. 2:19), and are joint heirs with the Lord Jesus in the glory of the Kingdom of God (Rom. 8:16-17).
God so loved the world that He sent His Son Jesus to redeem the world and to recall His children from the sinful and corrupted world (John 17:16-17). All those who "make a covenant with God" through the Lord Jesus, united with Jesus Christ through the "baptism of the Holy Spirit", are members of One Body (1 Cor. 1:1-2; Eph. 4:4-7). This includes all children of God who have accepted Jesus as their Saviour, as well as the "people of Israel" who have made a covenant with God (Jer. 31:31-34), all of whom are One Body and fellow heirs of God (Eph. 1:13-14; 2:15-20; 1 Cor. 12:12-13,27).
The original meaning of church is the Greek word Ekklesia, which means “a called-out assembly”. All those who are called out of the world and sanctified in Christ (1 Cor. 1:2) are fully united and built into the One Body (Bride) of Christ by God the Father. We are fully united with the Head (Bridegroom) (John 17:22-23) to the fullness of Him (Eph. 4:16). With the Lord Jesus as the chief cornerstone, we become the temple of God in which God dwells through the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16; Eph. 2:21-22). We are the glorious "Bride of Christ”, the spiritual temple that God is building on earth (1 Pet. 2:5), which foreshadows the heavenly New Jerusalem (Rev. 3:12; 21:2, 9-11). As overcomers and Bride of Christ, we are promised to sit with the Lord Jesus on His throne, judging and ruling over the earth (Rev. 3:21).
Marriage Supper of the Lamb
Blessed are those who are called
“Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.” (Rev. 19:7-9)
More than 1,000 years before the birth of Jesus, as described in Psalm 45, King David foresaw the glorious marriage of the King after He had punished the wicked, and the blessings of his descendants who would "reign over all the earth" (Ps. 45:3-16). King David depicts the honour of the Bride of Christ, “The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace; Her clothing is woven with gold. She shall be brought to the King in robes of many colours; The virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to You. With gladness and rejoicing they shall be brought; They shall enter the King’s palace.” (Ps. 45:13-15).
The two garments that the queen wore when she came before the King were prefigurative. The first was embroidered with gold, representing God's divinity and glory. The second was embroidered with brocade, representing the work of the Holy Spirit's in the life of believers. Likewise, two garments are required to attend the wedding of the Lamb. One is the “redemption of Christ", with which we are clothed by the grace of God to be "justified by faith" and accepted as righteous before God. The second is the wedding dress, which is the "righteousness of the saints”. This is the “righteous work through the Holy Spirit", which is to live a faithful discipleship of Christ that makes us worthy to be present at the marriage supper of the Son of God. Isaiah also describes God's two glorious garments: salvation and righteousness: "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." (Isa. 61:10)
As described in Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast, all are invited (Matt. 22:9-10), but not all who are willing to attend (Matt. 22:5-6), and not all who will ultimately be able to attend (Matt. 22:12-14). Only those who accept Jesus as their Saviour are entitled to attend the wedding feast of the Son of God, but only those who overcome the temptations of the world and live victoriously through the Holy Spirit are worthy to be the glorious "Bride of Christ" and to reign with the Lord Jesus on earth forever (Rev. 3:21). Let’s be encouraged, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” (Rom. 8:29-30)
