Because I am a pastor, I have officiated at a lot of weddings. One part
of the ceremony will never get old to me—watching the groom watch his bride
come down the aisle. That slow stroll almost always draws out of the
soon-to-be-husband a big smile. I imagine that he is usually thinking, “Wow!
She’s beautiful and she will be my wife!
How in the world did she agree to marry me!” That was certainly what I was thinking on my
wedding day!
Another reason I love these scenes is because they picture for us an
important and powerful part of the gospel, which announces to us there is
coming a time when another groom, Jesus Christ, will smile with great delight,
pleasure, and love as he sees his bride making her way toward him in the new
heaven and earth. Consider what we read in Revelation 21:1-2: “Then I saw a new
heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed
away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming
down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”
There are seven joy-producing truths that verse two moves us to think
about in relation to that future groom and bride.
1.
Verse 2 is not just talking about a place, but more to the point, it pictures
God’s people, his bride. We know this because in Revelation 3:12 it is promised
by Jesus Christ to the one who conquers in the midst of a hostile and
persecuting culture: “I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never
shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name
of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of
heaven, and my own new name.” Additionally, in Revelation 20:9 God’s people are
referred to as “the camp of the saints, even the beloved city” (which refers to
Jerusalem). You see, in the Old Testament
“Jerusalem” or “Mt. Zion” often referred to the place where God dwelt with his
people in a more realized and outward way to bless them. This terminology in
the New Testament is applied to God’s people with whom he is present (see Heb.
12:22; Rev. 14:1). Also, the fact that the “bride” refers to God’s people and
not just a place will also be seen below from the Old Testament background to
this passage.
2.
Unlike grooms and brides we see at a wedding today, this future groom (Jesus
Christ) will not be standing there looking at his beautiful bride in a passive
sense. You see, almost no merely human groom has anything to do with the beauty
of his bride. He simply gets to enjoy and delight in the gift given to him.
Yet, with our Savior, he has everything to do with the beauty of his bride. We
know this because the word translated “prepared” (the Greek word hetoimazō) conveys the
reality that ultimately the bride has been prepared by another in the past with
the result she continues to be prepared. It is true the same verb is used in
Revelation 19:7 to say that the bride prepared herself for the bridegroom. Yet,
there it also says she was able to do this because it had first been graciously
given to her to do by God (19:8). Christ’s bride, the Church, is able to be
transformed by the renewing of her mind (Rom. 12:1-2) because of God’s
transforming grace that is ours in and through Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:1-11:36).
3.
The preparation of this future bride, like most any bride we would see today, involves
being beautified for the big day. In Revelation 21:2 we read that this bride is
“adorned (from the Greek verb kosmeō)
for her husband. In other words, she is put in order, given a cosmetic makeover
so she is ready for her husband, most likely to bring him joy and, in this
case, to honor him. Like the preparation, this cosmetic makeover is not
something she merely does to herself, but can take place because the Savior has
been transforming her. This beautification of the bride is primarily ethical
(helping her conform to the will of God and to be conformed to the likeness of
Christ: cf. Rom. 8:29; 12:1-2; Eph. 4:22-24) and doxological (i.e. helping her
to worship God as she ought to: cf. Rev. 5:9-10; 14:1-5). More detailed meaning
behind this preparation and adornment is also found in the Old Testament
background to this verse. This lead us to the next point to ponder from Rev.
21:2.
4.
The Old Testament background for the thread of teaching in Rev. 3:12 and 21:2
is found in Isaiah 62:1-4, which reads: “For Zion's sake I will not keep
silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness
goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. 2The nations
shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be
called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. 3You shall be a
crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your
God. 4You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate,
but you shall be called My
Delight Is in Her, and your land Married;
for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married.”
The book of Isaiah
makes clear to Judah they are heading into captivity because of their rebellion
and sin (cf. 39:6-7), yet, God will save and restore them after this (ch’s.
40-66). He will do this by sending his suffering Servant to atone for them
(52:13-53:12; 61:1-2). Once this Redeemer comes, empowered by the Spirit, he
will not only save, but also transform God’s people so that the glory of the
Lord shines through them and draws the nations to God (59:19-62:12).
Specifically, here
in Is. 62:1-4, we discover that God is taking an unfaithful lewd bride (who had
been forsaken by her husband for her behavior) and he is restoring her, giving
her a new name, and transforming her ethically and doxologically so that
nations and kings will see this new glory. The new glory will draw nations and
kings to the true God, and this is why the nations and kings will be present in
the new heaven and new earth (Rev. 21:24-26). What we discover, then, in
Revelation 21:2 is the ultimate fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. Because the
Church has been saved and sanctified—and so she has lived on mission as a
transformed bride—nations and kings have been won! Here in Is. 62:1-4 the focus
is on initial and progressive sanctification (her initial and ongoing
preparation and adornment). The picture in Revelation 21:2 is the finished and
fully completed result! She, the Church, is beautiful, radiant with the very
glory of God, and redounding to his glory!
5.
An interesting background to Isaiah 62:1-4 and the fact that the new name for
God’s people is “My delight is in her” (Hephzibah), is this: By the time Isaiah
wrote this prophecy, Manasseh (Judah’s most horrific, evil, and idolatrous king)
was on the throne. He had certainly made the situation in Judah even more
grievous than it had previously been. In 2 Kings 21:2 we learn that the name of
Manasseh’s mother, the wife of the good king, Hezekiah, was “Hephzibah.” What
Isaiah is saying to Judah in Isaiah 62:1-4 (esp. to the genuine believers who
would either remember the reign of the good king and the name of his wife or
they would at least have heard about it) is that in the future God will save
and return them from their evil and idolatry to a place of fidelity to him and
to a state in which God’s delight truly is in them (his bride).
6.
If the content of Isaiah 62:1-4 that goes beyond the bride picture is also to be
read into Rev. 21:2 (which is often how Old Testament quotes in the New
Testament work, especially in Revelation), what we see here is God’s people
finally fulfilling the initial purpose of mankind, and that is to serve as
kings and queens, vice-regents, who serve and reign under God as those who are
created in God’s image and crowned with his glory and honor—which results in
their reflecting that glory and honor as God-glorifiers. This also shows that
the bride in Rev. 21:2 also reigns underneath the triune God (she is a royal bride!)
and redounds to his glory!
7.
Finally, we can say that most likely part of the reason God created marriage
(based on the line of thought in Eph. 5:32 and seen in light of what we have
just presented) is to help display this picture: All of us are part of the lewd
bride of Christ whom the Savior saves, transforms, sanctifies, and beautifies
and he does this for his glory and joy (see Rev. 21:2 [“for her husband”] in
light of the OT background). Whenever we see a bride walking down the aisle
toward her bridegroom and we see his joy and delight displayed, this reflects
that storyline. It reflects it whether she is a virgin (which is the kind of
purity to which God restores to his people [cf. Rev. 14:1-5]) or if she is not
a virgin, yet now has been taken into the love and into the holy matrimony she
is entering with her spouse.
Bottom-line, what we have, then, is the encouraging good news of how
God is graciously working in us to beautify us ethically and doxologically for
his joy and glory, as well as for our joy also!
I pray we will never again attend a wedding without thinking about this
glorious hope we have in Christ.
Joyfully Being Transformed With You In Christ!
Tom
