Christ is now preparing us to be His Bride. The time is coming when He will present the Bride to Himself. Surely at the time of her presentation to Christ, the Bride will not have any wrinkles or spots. In His Bride Christ will behold nothing but beauty. This beauty will be the reflection of what He is. Do you know where the beauty of the Bride comes from? It comes from the very Christ who is wrought into the church and who is then expressed through the church. Our beauty is not our behavior. Our only beauty is the reflection of Christ, the shining out of Christ from within us. What Christ appreciates in us is the expression of Himself in us. Nothing less than this will meet His standard or win His appreciation.
Firstly, Christ must come into us and then be assimilated by us. Then He will be able to shine out of us. This shining is the glory of the Bride, the manifestation of divinity through humanity. Real beauty is the expression of the divine attributes through humanity. Nothing in the universe is as beautiful as this expression. Therefore, the beauty of the Bride is Christ shining out of us. It is a matter of divinity expressed through humanity. Through our humanity there is an expression of the divine color, the divine appearance, the divine flavor, the divine nature, and the divine character. Hallelujah for such a beauty!
On the day of his wedding, a bridegroom cares much more for the beauty of his bride than for her ability. In like manner, in the church life our beauty will eventually be much more important to the Lord than our function. At the beginning of the church life, we may emphasize ability and function. But eventually we shall place more emphasis on beauty. The Lord Jesus cares much more for our beauty than for our function. Do not pay that much attention to becoming capable, qualified, and gifted in function. At first, this may count for something in the church life. But eventually the Lord will show us that what He cares for is not our ability; He cares for the beauty of Himself expressed through our humanity. Christ does not intend to present a capable church to Himself. The church that will be presented to Him will be glorious and beautiful, a church without spot, wrinkle, or any such thing. If our blemishes and imperfections are to be removed, we need to take in more and more of Christ. He should not simply energize us for our function, but also beautify us that we may be His Bride.
We need to go on from the function in Ephesians 4 to the beauty in Ephesians 5. In caring for their children, mothers may value strength in a boy, but they appreciate beauty in a girl. Likewise, in the church as the one new man there is strength and ability, but with the church as the Bride there is beauty and glory. We should learn somewhat to depreciate our ability and strength, for as part of the Bride, we shall be not male, but female. At the time of the wedding, what the church will need is beauty, not strength. Oh, the church is being beautified by partaking of Christ, by digesting Christ, and by assimilating Christ! The more we experience the indwelling Christ in this way, the more He will replace our spots and wrinkles with His element, and the more His riches with the divine attributes will become our beauty. Then we shall be prepared to be presented to Christ as His lovely Bride.
We have pointed out that the experience of Ephesians 5 is necessary for the fulfillment of Revelation 19. Ephesians shows how Christ prepares the Bride by sanctifying, cleansing, nourishing, and cherishing us with Himself. In this way we are metabolically transformed and we become beautiful and glorious, ready to be presented to Christ according to Revelation 19.
Speaking of the wife, the Bride of Christ, Revelation 19:8 says, “And it was given to her that she should be clothed in fine linen, bright and pure; for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints.” Because the Bride is clothed in this way, the declaration can be made that she “has made herself ready” (v. 7). This indicates that by the time of Revelation 19 the Bride will have been prepared. For the Bride to be prepared means that she has the “fine linen, bright and pure.” Pure refers to nature, whereas bright refers to expression. This fine linen is “the righteousness of the saints.” No doubt, these righteousnesses are related to the righteousness in Ephesians 4:24, where we are told that the new man was created in righteousness. The fact that the clothing of the Bride is pure means not only that it is without dirt, but also that it is without mixture. The fine linen which is the righteousness of the saints does not refer to the righteousness (which is Christ) for our salvation (Phil. 3:9; 1 Cor. 1:30). The righteousness we received for our salvation is objective, that we might meet the requirement of the righteous God. However, the righteousnesses of the Bride here denote the subjective righteousness, Christ as the righteousness which has been constituted into our being. The more this subjective righteousness is wrought into the church, the more she is prepared to become the Bride. Those who compose the Bride have been redeemed and regenerated. But they need to have the subjective righteousness interwoven into their very being in order to have the fine linen, bright and pure. Actually, it is this linen that is the beauty of the Bride.
There is no doubt that Revelation 19 will be completely fulfilled. Furthermore, we believe that the process of fulfillment is taking place today. Since Jerusalem has been restored to the nation of Israel, the coming back of the Lord Jesus should not be far off. The Bride, however, cannot be prepared quickly. This preparation is a gradual work that takes place over a period of time. Certainly the Lord must be doing a work on earth to prepare His Bride. Where is this work being carried out? With whom is it taking place? Some may say that the work of preparing the Bride is among the spiritual ones in Catholicism, the denominations, and the independent groups. According to this view, Christ will gather together all these spiritual ones and form them into His Bride at the time of His coming. However, this is not the Lord’s way. He is not coming to collect those who will constitute the Bride; He is coming to present to Himself the Bride who has already been prepared. This preparation, I believe, involves the work of building corporately. Those who make up the Bride must not only be mature in life; they must also be built together as the one Bride. Therefore, I firmly believe that the Lord is preparing His Bride among those in His recovery.
I am burdened that we would all realize that the Lord’s recovery is not another Christian movement or an ordinary Christian work. The work in the recovery is the Lord’s genuine work to prepare His Bride. I believe that in the years to come, more of those who seek the Lord faithfully will turn to the way of His recovery. They will realize that nowhere else do they have the inward confirmation. When we turned to the way of the Lord’s recovery, we had the sense deep within that the Lord had put His seal on the way we are taking. The primary work of the Lord in His recovery is not to preach the gospel throughout the earth; it is to prepare His Bride.
The Lord’s intention is not to revive Christianity as a whole. In His recovery, He is calling out a remnant of those who love Him and who are faithful to Him. He is sending out the call to overcome the degradation of Christianity so that a number of those who seek Him may be prepared as His Bride. In this matter, the Lord is moving on, and we are going on with Him. What a privilege to be alive in this age!