The writers of the New Testament, inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, used more than 50 metaphors to describe what it is like to be a Christian and to be the corporate Church. As a reminder, the Church is the collection of all the people who ever trusted Jesus Christ for forgiveness, extending from the resurrection to the return of Christ.
One of the most famous and important metaphors given to describe the Church is that of the Bride of Christ. The implications and applications of this metaphor are towering.
God designed the groom and bride relationship to be the most special of all human relationships. Marriage demonstrates to the world the beauty of Jesus Christ’s relationship with His Bride, the Church.
Because of this, one of the many towering tragedies of divorce is that the picture of God’s unconditional commitment to His Bride is smudged.
Here are a few of the most important elements of the metaphor of the corporate Church as The Bride of Christ.
The Bride of Christ is the Church
“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.” -Ephesians 5:22-23
As a husband is the head of his wife, Christ is declared the Head of the Church, His Bride.
As individual believers and as the Church we have an intimate relationship with Christ. This is a relationship that is closer than an earthly husband and wife relationship. Jesus is the Leader, Director, and Guide for us, the Bride of Christ. Jesus is the perfect Husband, and as such He nurtures, protects, and provides for us. He has a vision to see us perfected, having no spot, blemish, or wrinkle. He is the Husband who habitually and unswervingly acts for our well-being.
“Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” -Ephesians 5:24
The corporate Church, as the Bride of Christ, must be subject to Him.
To be subject means to voluntarily give the right to direct us and influence us. We can rebelliously refuse to be directed and influenced by Jesus. That is both sinful and foolish. It is clearly in our best interests to give Him full direction of our lives and give Him full influence over our lives. To submit to Him does not diminish us; it increases us. To submit to Him does not rob us; it enriches us.
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” -Ephesians 5:25-28
Jesus Created the Church for Us
Jesus is the Savior of the Bride.
We were all lost. Why else would we need a Savior? We were sinful, separated from the holy God of the universe, helpless to fix our state, and hopeless in every regard. However, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us—the just for the unjust! And because of that sacrificial death, He can now offer us salvation through simple faith in Him.
Jesus loved the Church and gave Himself up for her.
He gave His own life for the Church. He sacrificed willingly and greatly. He loved us unconditionally, voluntarily, and despite our utter lack of merit and total spiritual bankruptcy.
Jesus’ goal for us, His Bride, is our sanctification.
Jesus wants us to be holy as He is holy. He wants us to be mature as He is mature. He wants us to be perfect as He is perfect. He has a lofty vision for us and our perfecting. He is skillful, powerful, and tireless in His pursuit of this vision. We are not yet the people that God envisioned when He rescued us but He is not giving up. In fact, the time will come when we will be exactly like Jesus because we will see Him just as He is. We will be, because of His sanctifying work, holy, blameless, perfect, and without blemish! We are, individually and corporately, on a collision course with Christlikeness!
Cherish the Church
Jesus Christ cherishes the Church.
This is mind-boggling but true. Too often we view God as a cosmic killjoy who is itching for us to fail or sin so He can come down on us. We view Him as being against us. We view our relationship with Him as one of performance that leads to Him dribbling out a little grace on us. And this model of relationship with God could not be more inaccurate.
God is not against us; He is immeasurably for us. God is not itching for us to fail; He is aching for us to succeed and enabling us to succeed. God is not dribbling out grace; He is drowning us in grace. God is not dribbling out grace for our performance. Rather, we are making it our ambition to please Him because He has deluged us with grace.
Here is the great mystery: Jesus and His Bride have a relationship of immeasurable intimacy. This is His doing, and we are incapable of undoing it. It is a mystery but a joyous one!
“I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” -2 Corinthians 11:2-3
We are married to one Husband, and that Husband is Christ.
For us, as individual believers and as the corporate Bride of Christ, to seek life or love or meaning outside of Christ is idolatry. It is foolish, fruitless, and harmful. It is a bitter betrayal of our Groom, and it is a bitter forfeiture of our joy. He is the one source of life and joy.
The Glorious Future of the Bride of Christ
“One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.” -Revelation 21:9-11
Here, the Church is called “‘the bride, the wife of the Lamb.'”
Jesus is not only the Groom but He is also the Lamb who gave His life for our salvation. He was arrested, beaten, tried, and crucified. He refused to call legions of angels from His Father’s presence to rescue Him. He went silently as a powerless lamb to the slaughter. He was not powerless, but He went to death that way in order to rescue His Bride.
Once the Lamb sacrificed for His Bride and rescued her, she became a thing of glory and beauty and brilliance—like a very costly gemstone.
Jesus was clear about who His Bride could become if He was willing to be the sacrificial Lamb for her. He looked past the cross by faith to see Her perfected and glorious. It was all His doing and all at His expense. To make a massive understatement, we, His Bride, get the great benefit!
The truth is that all human brides and grooms deteriorate as they age. That is not to say that their value is in any way demised or that they should in any way be less loved. Truthfully, they should be more loved. It is only to say that our physical bodies do not have the youth, beauty, and vibrancy that they once had.
In contrast, the Bride of Christ is not deteriorating. She is on a collision course with beauty, glory, joy, and perfection. Jesus, the Groom, will see to that!