All through the New Testament, Jesus, the outpouring of whose blood is
“our passover” welcome from the Father, is spoken of as the Bridegroom,
and his church as the Bride. His coming to earth is referred to as the
coming of the Bridegroom–as was the coming of Jehovah to the Virgin of
Israel in Egypt. He likened himself to a bridegroom. And his coming
again to his church is foretold as the meeting of the Bridegroom and the
Bride.
John the Baptist, forerunner of Jesus, speaking of his mission as
closing, and that of Jesus as opening out gloriously, says: “Ye
yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but, that
I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the
friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth
greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is
fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.”[588]
Jesus, referring to the charge against his disciples, that they did not
fast, as did the disciples of John, said: “Can the sons of the
bride-chamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the
days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and
then will they fast.”[589]
Paul repeatedly refers to this relation between Christ and his church:
“The head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man;
and the head of Christ is God.”[590] “The husband is the head of the
wife, as Christ also is the head of the church.... Husbands, love your
wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for
it.... He that loveth his own wife loveth himself: for no man ever hated
his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the
church; because we are members of his body. For this cause shall a man
leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the twain
shall become one flesh. This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of
Christ and of the church.”[591]
In the Apocalypse, the inspired seer looking into the future, at the
consummation of the present age, tells of the glorious vision before
him, when Christ shall come to claim his own: “I heard as it were the
voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the
voice of mighty thunders, saying, Hallelujah: for the Lord our God, the
Almighty, reigneth. Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us
give the glory unto him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his
wife hath made herself ready. And it was given unto her that she should
array herself in fine linen, bright and pure: for the fine linen is the
righteous acts of the saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are
they which are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”[592]
And again he says: “I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out
of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband....
And there came one of the seven angels; ... and he spake with me,
saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and
shewed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
having the glory of God: ... having a wall great and high; having twelve
gates. And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty, and
the Lamb, are the temple thereof.... And the gates thereof shall in no
wise be shut by day (for there shall be no night there): and they shall
bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it: and there shall in
no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination
and a lie: but only they which are written in the Lamb’s book of
life.”[593]
A closing declaration of the seer is, that the church as the Bride, with
the representative of the Bridegroom until his coming, waits and calls
for his return: “The Spirit and the bride say, Come.... Come, Lord
Jesus.”[594] And so, from the Pentateuch to the Apocalypse, the
Scriptures, Hebrew and Christian, recognize and emphasize the primitive
Threshold Covenant as the beginning of religious rites, and as symbolic
of the spirit of all true covenant worship.