Nuggets from An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith—The Bride of Christ

If we take the Bible seriously, then we will long for our Lord to catch us away from this earth into His eternal presence. Among the many reasons why we ought to be eagerly looking for the rapture, the most compelling is neither theological nor eschatological, but is our love for Christ. If the church is indeed His bride, then surely we ought to be eagerly anticipating His return to take us to His Father’s house for our marriage to Him. Here we have the most basic and yet most neglected aspect of heaven—that it is to be the scene of a great wedding that our Savior has long anticipated. How can His bride not share that joyful hope?

There can be little doubt that the church is likened in Scripture to the bride of Christ and finally is called His “wife.” In expressing his concern that the Corinthian believers not be deceived by Satan, Paul said, “I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians:11:2For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
See All...). Israel had already been called God’s wife in the Old Testament, an adulterous wife to whom He will yet be reconciled. Thus she could scarcely be the virgin referred to above. To the Ephesians, Paul used the relationship between Christ and the church to express how husbands and wives were to relate in love to each other:

For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church…Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it…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. (Ephesians:5:22-33 [22] Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. [23] For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. [24] Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. [25] Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; [26] That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, [27] That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. [28] So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. [29] For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: [30] For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. [31] 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. [32] This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. [33] Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
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