The consummation of the church as the counterpart of Christ will be the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and the new earth for eternity. Revelation 21:2 says, “And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” The New Jerusalem is a living composition of all the saints redeemed by God throughout all generations. It is the bride of Christ as His counterpart. As the bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem comes out of Christ and becomes His counterpart. She is prepared by participating in the riches of the life and nature of Christ.
Revelation 21:9b and 10 say, “Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And he carried me away in spirit onto a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.” Whereas the bride is mainly for the wedding day, the wife is for the entire life. The New Jerusalem will be the bride in the millennium for one thousand years as one day (2 Pet. 3:8) and then the wife in the new heaven and new earth for eternity. The bride in the millennium will include only the overcoming saints, but the wife in the new heaven and new earth will include all the redeemed and regenerated sons of God (Rev. 21:7).
Revelation 22:17a says, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come.” This verse reveals that Christ and the church as His counterpart will be a couple in eternity. The Spirit, who is the totality of the processed Triune God, becomes one with the believers, who are now fully matured to be the bride. Therefore, the Spirit is the ultimate expression of the processed Triune God, and the bride is the ultimate expression of the transformed tripartite man. By the time of Revelation 22:17, the processed Triune God-the Spirit-and the transformed tripartite man-the bride-will be one and speak as one.
In Revelation 22:17 the Spirit and the bride together as a couple say “Come.” It is significant that this verse does not say that the Bridegroom and the bride speak together but that the Spirit and the bride speak together. This means that the end of the New Testament eventually reveals to us that the One who has the bride is the Spirit. This Spirit is the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God who, in Revelation 22:17, has become one with the bride.
In Revelation 22:17 there are two consummations: the Spirit as the consummation of the processed and dispensed Triune God and the bride as the consummation and the aggregate of God’s regenerated and transformed tripartite people. First, the Triune God went through a process- incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension-to become the Spirit, the totality, the consummation, of the processed Triune God to be the Bridegroom. Second, the believers, who compose the bride, have gone through a process-redemption, regeneration, and transformation-to become the consummation of God’s chosen, redeemed, regenerated, and transformed people to be the bride. Therefore, the consummation of the processed Triune God and the consummation of God’s chosen, redeemed, regenerated, and transformed people will become one in a universal marriage and will be a couple in eternity.
This couple is the ultimate consummation of the divine romance revealed in the Bible. According to the entire Bible, there is a divine romance between God the Creator, the Redeemer, who is the male, and His redeemed people, who are the female. This is a basic matter revealed in the Scriptures. In the Old Testament God told His redeemed people Israel that He was their Husband and that they were His wife (Isa. 54:5; Jer. 3:14; 31:32; Hosea 2:19). In the New Testament Christ is revealed as the Bridegroom coming to take the bride, which is the church. In Ephesians 5 Paul tells us that the church is typified by the wife and Christ by the husband. Therefore, Christ is the Husband and the church is the wife. In Revelation 19:7 this wife is the aggregate of the overcoming saints. Ultimately, the New Jerusalem will be the consummation of God’s counterpart, the aggregate of all His redeemed and perfected people.
The Bible begins and ends with a marriage. The Bible begins with the marriage of Adam and Eve in Genesis and ends with the marriage of the Spirit and the bride in Revelation. This final marriage is the marriage of the processed, consummated, and dispensed Triune God as the Husband with His regenerated and transformed people as the bride. For eternity this universal couple will be the full manifestation of the Triune God expressed in all His glory. Therefore, the transformed tripartite man will match the processed Triune God forever for His full expression and satisfaction. This is the conclusion of the New Testament and also of the entire Bible.
At the conclusion of the Bible there is a couple-the Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God with the bride as the aggregate and consummation of the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite man. Here is an eternal, universal couple expressing the Triune God for eternity.
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