Revelation 19:7-9 unveils that the Lord Jesus is the Lamb as the Bridegroom. Similarly, in the Gospel of John, Christ is presented both as the Lamb and as the Bridegroom. One day John the Baptist declared, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (1:29). This verse clearly reveals that Christ came as the Lamb to take away the sin of the world. Later, John the Baptist also indicated that Christ is the Bridegroom. John said, “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom’s voice” (3:29). Hence, in the Gospel of John, Christ is revealed both as the Lamb who came to take away sin and as the Bridegroom who came that He might have the bride. Although most Christians are familiar with the former aspect of Christ, only a few pay attention to the latter aspect. The Lamb is for redemption, and the Bridegroom is for the wedding. The redemption was accomplished by Christ as the Lamb of God, and the wedding will take place when Christ as the coming Bridegroom takes His bride.
Christ’s goal is not to remove sin—it is to have the bride. In the book of Revelation, which is also written by the apostle John, we see again that Christ our Redeemer is the Lamb and the coming Bridegroom. Therefore, as the Bridegroom, He must have a wedding. The wedding of the Lamb will be a universal wedding. It will be the marriage of the Redeemer and the redeemed. At the end of the Bible we see a city, the New Jerusalem. This city is the wife (21:2, 9-10), and the redeeming God is the Husband. Our position is that of the bride, and the position of the coming Christ is that of the Bridegroom. We are on the earth being prepared to become the bride to meet Him, and He is on the throne in the third heaven prepared to come as the Bridegroom to meet us. Thus, He is coming as the Bridegroom, and we are going as the bride (Matt. 25:1). The bride and the Bridegroom will meet, neither in heaven nor on the earth but in the air. When we meet Him in the air, we will have a wedding.
Revelation 19:1-6 is the praise of the great multitude of the saints, the angels, and all creatures. Revelation 19:7-8 continues, “Let us rejoice and exult, and let us give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” Here His wife refers to the church (Eph. 5:24-25, 31-32), the bride of Christ (John 3:29). However, according to Revelation 19:8-9, the wife, the bride of Christ, consists only of the overcoming believers during the millennium, whereas the bride in 21:2 is composed of all the saved saints after the millennium for eternity. The wife of the Lamb in Revelation 19 is the aggregate of all the overcoming saints from Abel until the Lord’s return. The aggregate of all the Old Testament and New Testament overcomers is the wife in Revelation 19:7 who will be ready for Christ’s wedding. The readiness of the bride depends on the maturity in life of the overcomers. Furthermore, the overcomers are not separate individuals but a corporate bride. For this aspect, building is needed. The overcomers are not only mature in life but also built together as one bride. Christ will not marry each believer individually; instead, He will marry His corporate bride composed of His overcoming believers. When we have been fully saturated with the Triune God so that He flows out of us, we will be completely built and fitted together to become the glorious church, the beloved bride of the Lord Jesus.
We also need to see that only the church as the golden lampstand can be the bride of Christ (1:20). This indicates that we need to live out the life of Christ. Although this goes against our human concept, we should not focus on caring for the goodness or wickedness that comes out of us. Instead, we need to care for the tree of life, the Triune God, and Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit. Whether we are at home with our family or in the church meetings with the brothers and sisters, we all need to live out Christ. If we live by Christ, what we live out is God, who is Spirit, signified by the pure gold that shines forth the light; then we will become the bride of Christ who satisfies His desire.
We must be the bride for Christ. When we are eager to be the bride, Christ will receive His satisfaction. Not only will Christ be satisfied, but we also will be satisfied. Revelation 19:7 says, “Let us rejoice and exult.” In principle, a bride is the most pleasant and happy person. Today as the church, Christ’s counterpart, we are suffering and undergoing many dealings. But the day is coming when there will be no more persecutions, sufferings, or dealings. When we have become the bride, all the difficult dealings will be over.
In Revelation 19:6 the voice of the great multitude proclaims, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.” The reign of God, the kingdom, is related to the marriage of the Lamb, and the marriage of the Lamb is the issue of the completion of God’s New Testament economy. God’s economy in the New Testament is that Christ would obtain the bride, the church, through His redemption and divine life. The subject of the New Testament is the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—working together to obtain the bride for the Son. The Father made the plan, the Spirit carries out the Father’s plan, and the Son enjoys what the Father has planned and what the Spirit carries out. The bride is a part of the human race who will marry the Son and become His counterpart. Matthew 28:19 speaks of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. In Acts and the Epistles we see how the Spirit works according to the Father’s plan to obtain the bride for the Son. The entire New Testament is simply a record of the Triune God working together to gain a part of the human race to be the bride, the counterpart, of the Son. At the end of the New Testament, in the book of Revelation, we see the bride. By the continual working of the Holy Spirit through all the centuries, the goal of the Triune God will be attained at the end of this age. Then the bride with the overcoming believers will be ready. Simultaneously, the kingdom of God will come. This corresponds to the Lord’s prophecy in Matthew 26:29, which speaks of the kingdom of God—the kingdom of Christ’s Father—in which Christ will drink with us after His coming back.
The wedding will bring in the reign of the Lord, the kingdom, because all the guests invited to the wedding will be both the corporate bride and the co-kings of the Bridegroom. The Bridegroom, who will take the whole earth as His kingdom, certainly needs many sub-kings to be His co-kings. All His co-kings will be His corporate bride.
The wedding, which will take place in the air, will last a short time. After the wedding, there will be the wedding feast. A wedding feast is always much longer than the wedding. Matthew 22 indicates that the wedding feast will be the millennial kingdom. To the overcomers, the thousand years of the millennial kingdom will be a wedding feast. To the Lord, a thousand years are like one day (2 Pet. 3:8). Everyone invited to the wedding feast will also participate in the thousand-year reign as kings. Our King will be the Bridegroom; we, His co-kings, will be His bride; and the thousand years will be our wedding feast and honeymoon with our Bridegroom, Christ.
Many Christians will not receive the reward of reigning with Christ in the coming kingdom. Although we may be saved, we must become an overcomer in order to receive the kingdom as our reward. For the overcomers, reigning with Christ in His kingdom will be the wedding feast.
The Bible is truly the divine book. Genesis 1:1 is necessary, but there was no Hallelujah when God created the heavens and the earth. The Hallelujah comes in Revelation 19:6-7 when the time has come for the marriage of the Lamb. A wedding is the happiest time in human life, yet a human wedding is only a shadow. The real wedding is the marriage of the Lamb, the wedding of Christ and the church. When we meet as the church today, we are joyful because we experience a foretaste of the wedding feast of Christ and the church. When the time has come for the marriage of the Lamb, the Hallelujah comes. The church life is a foretaste of that wedding day. In the church life we are happy because we are enjoying the foretaste of the wedding feast.