John 3:28-30; Matthew 9:14-15; John 14:1-3; 2 Corinthians 11:2-4; Revelation 19:4-9
This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 31, 2021.
Last week, we looked at the work of the Holy Spirit on unbelievers. Some are unmoved, some become hostile, but some believe.
Today, we are going to look at those who respond to the Holy Spirit by putting their faith in Jesus as their teacher, savior, and lord. By the way, notice that each of those three aspects are important. Putting our faith in Jesus is trusting him both to cover our sins with his righteousness and to lead us into true righteous acts. It is putting my judgment completely in his hands.
I pray that you are a part of this group. Let’s look closer.
A metaphor of a bride of God is found in the Old Testament in Isaiah 54 and in Jeremiah 3. This imagery continues into the New Testament. For our culture, the term “bride” is not generally used until the wedding. Thus, the New Testament pictures the believing Church as a fiancé, or engaged woman, of Christ.
Of course, for Israel, engagement and marriage were quite different than it is in America. In fact, our typical engagement to marriage has changed a lot in the last 100 years. Couples are more likely to live together, be sexually active, and even have children before marriage, if that even happens. This idea would have been taboo in Israel.
So, let’s look at several passages throughout the New Testament that begin to shed light on God’s purpose for the Church, and why things are happening the way they are.
John 3:28-30. John the Baptist spoke about this metaphor when his disciples complained that too many people were going to follow Jesus.
John pictures himself as the “friend of the groom.” Of course, John is both a friend of the groom and part of the bride. You could say that he is one of the first to believe, and on top of that, he is given a task to prepare the bride for the groom.
John knew that his ministry was meant to bring people to Jesus, and not to himself. His ministry was never about him, and always about Jesus. Thus, John was happy to see people leaving in order to go to Jesus. It is too easy for churches to see people as belonging to them. They actually belong to Jesus, and we must never forget this.
Matthew 9:14-15. Jesus was fully aware of this metaphor and used it himself. The disciples of John had come to Jesus asking why his disciples didn’t fast like everyone else. By this time, Israel had developed many different feast days, some commanded in the Law, and others added to remember sad dates, such as the temple’s destruction by the Babylonians. The disciples of Jesus didn’t appear to fast on all of these days.
Jesus pictures his time with his disciples as a betrothal period. When a groom wanted to propose a marriage, his father would help negotiate things with the bride’s father. If the proposal is accepted, then the groom goes home to prepare a place for his bride-to-be at his father’s home. It would be odd to fast during something as celebratory as a betrothal. This short period of time (3 ½ years) would end soon enough, and the disciples would fast then, as an engaged bride waiting for her groom to return. Here’s another passage in which Jesus uses this image.
John 14:1-3. Jesus doesn’t technically use any wedding terms, but in light of the earlier passages, no Israelite would have missed the analogous picture here. Jesus would go into heaven and make a place for his disciples. He would then come back to get them for the wedding, never to be separated again.
2 Corinthians 11:2-3. This is not an exhaustive list of passages, but it makes it clear that this is a big part of the Gospel. Paul too is part of the Church, the fiancé of Christ, but he has a secondary duty. He had been sent with the mission of sharing the Gospel with the Gentiles. Similar to John the Baptist, he sees himself as a spiritual father betrothing his daughter to Christ. A father guarded his daughter’s chastity against young corrupt men so that she would be acceptable to a future husband.
The spiritual seduction of Eve is represented as a picture of spiritual unfaithfulness, adultery against the intimate relationship they had with God. We should expect that the same devil will employ similar and more complex tactics of seduction against the bride of Christ.
Revelation 19:5-9. Lastly, the Apostle John is shown this picture in the Revelation of Jesus. It pictures a day when this waiting period will be over. The groom will come and call his bride to the wedding feast. Notice that this is depicted before the 2nd Coming.
Faithful believers are pictured as ready, and clothed in a clean, bright, white, fine linen clothing. They are ready when the call is given to come to the marriage supper of the Lamb. This is one of the reasons that I believe the rapture occurs before the end of the Great Tribulation, and perhaps even before it starts. Believers who are ready will be caught up into heaven in order to receive their rewards and celebrate the new “marriage” to Christ. Then, they will return with him to cast out the usurpers and join him in his inheritance as Lord of the earth.
Being ready employs terminology from the metaphor, but points to spiritual preparations that we must make. Let’s talk about that for a bit.
The first aspect of being ready is seen in Paul’s 2 Corinthians 11 passage. We must keep ourselves spiritually faithful to Christ, a chaste virgin bride. Being chaste involves restraining yourself from pursuing sin and the lusts of the flesh. Living for the flesh is acid to a marriage and dooms it.
It also involves not yielding to the lustful advances from other men who would represent the devil’s attempts to draw us away from being faithful to Christ. We fail in this by embracing false teachers, false prophets, and false Christs. Paul says that we can be deceived by their craftiness, and corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. There is far too much sophisticated, human reasoning in the Church today. The real question is this. Does Jesus truly have my heart? Or, have I been drawn away by those who present a Jesus, other than the true Jesus, and a gospel other than the true gospel?
In the book of Revelation passage, we are told that the righteous acts of the saints are pictured as the white dress that she wears. Now, it is true that our righteousness falls woefully short of Christ’s. We cannot save ourselves. However, once we have believed upon Jesus and his righteousness, we respond to the leading of his Spirit through the word of God and prayer. All of the things that we do for Christ become acceptably righteous before God because they are done in faith to Christ.
The forgiveness of our sins should not lead to us spiritually sitting on our butts, nor living for our flesh. This would be a bride who has not prepared her dress for the wedding; she isn’t ready.
Lastly, part of being ready is being watchful. Jesus said in Matthew 25:13, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.” This was at the conclusion of the parable of the 5 wise and ready virgins. Of course, there were 5 foolish virgins, but we will speak of that next week.
Too many Christians have become convinced that they will never see the coming of Christ. Their lives have ceased to be responding to the Holy Spirit and doing the righteousness of Christ. They will either be caught off guard and miss out on the wedding feast, or they will be caught off guard when they die and stand before Christ. If he says those dreaded words, “Depart from me; I never knew you,” then that person will miss out and be shut out. Friend, pay attention to the Holy Spirit today. He is even now warning us to be ready, to get ready!