What or who is the Bride of Christ?
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CGL1023
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What or Who is the Bride of Christ?
Most people know that the scripture speaks of the Bride of Christ. But who or what is the Bride of Christ. How do we know that Christ has a Bride?
First we know that Christ has a bride because Christ is a bridegroom or a groom. How can you be a groom if you dont have a bride?
All of these scriptures call Christ the groom or the bridegroom. Mark 2:19, Matt. 9:15, Luke 5:34, Matt. 25:1-13.
Also the book of Revelation says that the Lamb of God has a wife. If you have a wife then you had to be a groom and your wife was your bride. So we know that Christ is a groom and he has a bride.
In Matthew 25 we are told that before Jesus returns that He will be a bridegroom and that there will be a wedding and that He is returning for the wise virgins.
So we learn three things in this passage. 1. Jesus is the groom. 2. There is going to be a wedding. 3. He is not going to marry a thing, He is going to marry humans. (referred to as virgins)
In the Parable, Jesus is teaching us what the Kingdom of Heaven will be like at His second coming. He says
then the kingdom of heaven will be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom
Now in the parable it turns out that 5 of those who wanted to be with the bridegroom in the wedding were not actually bride material and could not be in the wedding. But 5 were. 5 were truly able to be in the wedding. Notice that the Kingdom is the virgins. It is the Kingdom that is said to be likened to virgins. The bridegroom is Christ, the Kingdom is the virgins and there will be a wedding.
So it is clear that Christ is marrying people. He is marrying the Kingdom the Church . The new Jerusalem. The kingdom is people. The Church is people. The new Jerusalem is a city which isnt only a building but is what a city mainly is people. Paris is beautiful but Paris isnt just concrete and buildings it is people. Paris is made up of French people. The New Jerusalem is peopled with the Church. Christ isnt going to marry golden streets that is absurd and is how a child would interpret scripture He is marrying the Bride which is those who inhabit those golden streets.
Look at 2nd Corinthians 11:2 Here the Apostle Paul calls the Church at Corinth the virgins who are going to marry Christ. For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy, For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ
This proves that the Church is the Bride of Christ. The Apostle Paul says the the Corinthian Church is betrothed (engaged) to Christ. Also notice that he refers to the Corinthian Church as a virgin. Paul remembered Jesus parable about Him being a bridegroom and the Kingdom of Heaven being virgins who are getting ready for the Bridegroom to come and take them to their wedding. So Paul says the Corinthian Church is among those virgins who are engaged to Christ and that Christ will be their husband.
So if the Kingdom of heaven is virgins, and if Paul called the Corinthian church virgins who are going to marry Jesus, and if He called Jesus the Husband, then it is obvious that the Church is the bride of Christ. Also notice that the Corinthian Christians lived a long time ago so the bride of Christ isnt just made up of some future millennial kingdom but included Christians as far back as the first century.
In Romans 7 Paul teaches that Christians are Christs bride . He says this Therefore my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another - to Him who was raised from the dead
In Ephesians 5:23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also, Christ is head of the church v.32 This is a great mystery BUT I SPEAK CONCERNING CHRIST AND THE CHURCH.
So here we see that Paul is telling husbands how to love their wives and at the end of the passage he says that he is truly speaking of Christ and the Church.
Now in Revelation 19:7 we are told first that, the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready
Now we learn from this verse that the wife of the Lamb is human she has made herself ready.
The wife or Bride is persons . She is called virgins and she is said to be made up of even the Corinthian Christians who make up the Corinthian Church. Even a small group of Christians meeting at a house is considered a church. Paul says in Romans 16:5, Likewise greet the church that meets at their house.
So you cannot say that the church that meets at Corinth wasnt a church or part of the church.
We are told in Revelation that the New Jerusalem is the bride, the Lambs wife. It is a beautiful city. However, we have already been told that Jesus wife is virgins (People) and that it is Corinthians (People) and that the bride is getting herself (a herself is a person) ready. So the New Jerusalem is a city that is like any city . Not just streets and rooms but persons. The idea the Christ is all excited about marrying a big building is ridiculous even if it is 1500 miles wide and high and long and is made out of valuable materials.
Finally in Revelation 22:17 we read And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come!
Cities dont talk. Unless it is made up of people the New Jerusalem cant say Come! So the Bride is People. It is the Church.
Also the New Jerusalem of the future doesnt engage in evangelism it doesnt encourage sinners to come to Christ . Because the New Jerusalem comes down in the future after the great white throne Judgment. It is people now, people in the church who are the Bride who say to the lost, come! Get it? Got it? Good!
Have a nice day everyone.
I have not have seen the following scripture quoted regarding the bride. Rev 21:7 -- 9 Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb. 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God...
It probably seems too preposterous for people to accept -- that a city could be the bride of Christ.
One thing to note is that at the rapture, Christ is coming for his body. The church is definitely called the body of Christ in Paul's writings. Based on this, a believer may not want to be the bride of Christ as they may not leave in the rapture. Christ has a male body and of course the body of Christ is male -- we believers are sons of the Father (Rom 8:14). If we were to be the bride of Christ, we would have God as our father-in-law-to-be instead of Father, a situation one has to reject immediately.
This concept, when explored fully, leads to Mary worship and Queen of Heaven which also must be rejected.
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BryanW92
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Are we going to play this game? Heaven is not in east or the west or the north or the south. It is where it is and a compass does not point to it.
God is the Trinity. He is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Three-in-One, yet three distinct persons.
Mark 16:19 says "So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God."
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In my humble opinion:
Bridegroom: Jesus
Bride: Body of Christ (those that have been born again of the Holy Spirit).
Bridegroom: Jesus
Bride: Body of Christ (those that have been born again of the Holy Spirit).
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stevenfrancis
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His mystical body. His Church. We, His people and the members of His body on Earth are His bride at the wedding feast of the Lamb.
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Anna the Seeker
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In my understanding, Heaven as well as Hell are other dimensions, and thus it's not in this dimension, in the physical North, South, East, West... We know who are the gates to both places. Jesus will help you to get into Heaven - no one else - so Lucifer won't snatch your soul (he wants everyone). There's a reason why it's said that He wants to save you. He wants to save you from Lucifer.
But even if He loves us all and also wants everyone (rather for pure love than personal desires and ulterior motives), I understand that He does not want the anarchy and lies of Lucifer into Heaven. But as long as the gospel is preached and people heed it and change their heart, the number of the people who He saves may grow.
As for the Bride, I prefer not to debate over the subject. But it's an interesting read.
It's also a curious thing that in the Bible the concept we think as the Christian Church is alternately called as the Bride, and then again also the wedding guests (the guests cannot fast when the groom is still with them). Surely a bride is not a guest in her own wedding?
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Brandonspapa
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There is no Mother in Heaven. Catholics believe the Mary, the mother of Jesus, has been deified and pray to her to intercede for them (an idol). There is only one GOD, and HE is three. The Bride of Christ is the Church. Each person of the Trinity is always referred to as He. Not even the Angels that are mentioned by name in the Scriptures are female. They all have male names. There will be no sex in Heaven, but there will definitely be males and females in our glorified bodies.
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Alithis
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add to that .. a spiritual wedding is a union .two unifying to become one .. it is only in the flesh sense, the carnal sense, that you need a man and a woman . it is symbolic of two becoming one .. the marriage of the lamb to all he has redeemed is picturesque of the reestablishing of the union between God and his creation which was estranged by sin .
heavenly mother? -good grief .unorthodox to say the least
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Alithis
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World_Mission_Society_Church_of_God
its a cult =-i feel this should be clarified .
you can Google it folks .
essentially they believe in god the father and god the mother ..dangerous territory in regard to heresy as you say.
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In Rev 21:9-10 It says that the bride is the New Jerusalem and it says in verse 24 the nations that are saved walk in it.
So the New Jerusalem isn't just a empty bunch of buildings... it is the city of the saved. The city of the saved is the bride, the Lamb's wife. Why would we think that Jesus is going to be spiritually married to just a bunch of streets and empty buildings? That makes no sense whatsoever. Besides I already proved from Corinthians that it is believers who are going to be married to Jesus
Look at 2nd Corinthians 11:2 Here the Apostle Paul calls the Church at Corinth the virgins who are going to marry Christ. For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy, For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ
So Christians are going to be married to Christ.... we are his bride... and the New Jerusalem is a city of believers and Christ is married to that city of believers... not to empty buildings and streets... that makes no sense.
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Alithis
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we are indeed his bride (though in need of some purification) and the city ... ?well i think we must allow for the nature of things in heaven which is a spiritual place and that all things there are ..in a sense ..living
(im speaking loosely)
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stevenfrancis
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Brandonspapa
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If Mary believed that her son was the Redeemer, than she is in Heaven, just as every born again believer and Old Testament Saint is. But, Scripture does not tell us that Mary every believed. We can only assume. Those who believed after Christ rose from the dead that He is the Christ is in Heaven as absent from the body, present with the Lord.
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dragongunner
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Actually Mary did believe and we know it by the scriptures. Mary was the first to come to the scared disciples hiding out and said "He has risen." Mary was there on the day of Pentecost with the disciples and with them filled with the Holy Ghost ..there is no need to only assume. Other than that you are correct. Did you also know that no where in the scripture did Jesus ever call his mother, his mother. He always called her or referred to her as "woman." The closest he ever came was when they told him his mother was looking for him .like she was somehow perhaps more "special" .? Jesus said.."Who is my mother? All who follow me are my mother, my brothers and my sisters." Seems to be no more special place for Mary in the eyes of Jesus anymore than anyone else. Yet some seem to hold her up so much higher, when he did not.
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Brandonspapa
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You are right. Mary, the mother of James - Jesus' brother - was there. My error.
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I believe that the bride of Christ is the Church of Christ and each member of it. The Bridal paradigm opens up the whole new way of experiencing Christ and a relationship with Him- the experience of being a cherished bride, as the 2nd Psam says: "Kiss the Son..." (of course I don't mean literal kissing). Not only do we have our inheritance in God, but He also has His in us.
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