One of the most important things related to a bride is the wedding dress; our wedding garment as the bride of Christ is of fine linen, bright and clean, for it is the righteousnesses of the saints.
As believers in Christ, our aspiration and inner yearning is not only to enjoy and experience Christ in our spirit and have Him spread in our soul, but we want to be part of the bride of Christ, part of the overcoming bride for whom the Lord will return.
Our desire is for the Lord to return, and for this we need to prepare ourselves!
On one hand we look at the current situation in the world and we do want the Lord to end the current crisis, the pandemic, and all the wars and diseases.
On the other hand, we realize that there’s a divine history being written and lived out within the human history, and we want to be one with the Lord in the divine history within the human history.
We seek the Lord beyond what is physical, beyond what we can see with our eyes, so that we may gain and grasp many opportunities given by Him to enjoy Him and experience Him.
God wants to work Himself into us, grow in us, and build us up to be His Body and prepare the bride, so that He may return.
Christ’s longing is to gain the bride of Christ; He as the Bridegroom desires to get married, and the bride is in the process of being prepared.
Christ is the mystery of God and the church is the mystery of Christ; all that God is and has is embodied in Christ, and all that Christ is, has, and has obtained and attained, is embodied and expressed through the church.
In particular, the overcomers in the church will be part of the bride of Christ; it is not the whole church that will be part of the bride, but only the overcoming saints, those who answer the Lord’s call today and fulfill the function of the church in the church and on behalf of the church.
There are many aspects of the bride of Christ, and we need to prepare ourselves and go through a certain process in order to become part of the bride.
The marriage of the Lamb is the issue of the completion of the New Testament economy of God, and the Lord’s recovery is for the preparation of the bride of Christ.
So we need to grow in life unto maturity, for the readiness of the bride is dependant upon the maturity in life of the overcomers.
Also, we need to be built up together both with God and with one another, so that we may be a corporate built-up entity, the bride of Christ!
The Wedding Garment of the Bride is of Fine Linen, Bright and Clean, the Righteousnesses of the Saints
In Rev. 19:7-8 we see the wedding dress of the bride; it is of fine linen, bright and clean, and later it says it is the righteousnesses of the saints.
Bright refers to the expression and clean refers to the nature; the wedding garment is clean, pure, bright, and radiant!
This wedding garment is not something given to her freely; rather, it is “the righteousnesses of the saints”, which can also be translated as “the righteous acts of the saints”.
We need to realize that, as believers in Christ, we have two garments – or we need to have two garments.
First, as signified by the robe given by the father to the prodigal son upon his return in Luke 15, we have Christ as our objective righteousness covering us at the time of our believing into God.
When we receive Christ, He covers us as our righteousness before God before God to meet the requirement of the righteous God.
However, we need to have yet another garment, which is the “righteousnesses of the saints”, the subjective righteousness, that we may meet the requirement of the overcoming Christ.
The righteousnesses of the saints are subjective (Phil. 3:9) and they are likened to fine linen, indicating our overcoming life, our overcoming living.
The righteousnesses of the saints is the very Christ whom we live out in our daily living.
So on the one hand we thank and praise the Lord for giving us Christ to cover us as our objective righteousness; simply by believing into Christ, we receive Him as our righteousness covering us before God.
The Father is happy to have us back, and He quickly brings out the best robe to put it on us (Luke 15:22) when we return to Him.
And whenever we confess our sins, repent, and come back to the Lord, even during our Christian life, Christ becomes our righteousness before God, qualifying us to fellowship with God and enjoy God.
However, we need a second garment, the wedding garment in Matt. 22:11-12; here we see that there was one person at the wedding feast who didn’t have his wedding garment, and he was cast out into the outer darkness, where there’s the weeping and the gnashing of teeth (Matt. 22:13).
We cannot attend the wedding feast of the Lamb without the proper wedding garment.
In the old days no one could attend a wedding feast without a special wedding garment; similarly, in order for us to attend the wedding feast of the Lamb as the bride of Christ, we need to have the wedding garment, the wedding dress, which is the righteousnesses of the saints.
This robe is not a justifying robe before our righteous God but a garment that qualifies us to receive the reward.
It is a special garment that qualifies us to attend the wedding feast of Christ; to have such a garment we need to live Christ, live by Christ, and live Him out in our daily life.
The Christ who is wrought into us and lived out of us becomes our wedding garment for us to enter the wedding feast with our dear Bridegroom.
May we realize that we need both the justifying garment and the wedding garment, and may we cooperate with God to have the wedding garment for the wedding feast!
Thank You Lord Jesus for becoming our righteousness covering us before God and meeting all the requirements of our righteous, holy, and glorious God! Hallelujah, we can now come to God and fellowship with Him based on Christ as our righteousness, the best robe covering us and qualifying us to enjoy God and feast with God! Amen! Lord, may we realize that we also need the wedding garment, and may we cooperate with You today for this garment to be wrought little by little in our daily living! We want to live by Christ, live Christ, and have Christ lived out in us as our many righteousnesses, so that we may prepare our wedding dress for the wedding feast of the Lamb!
Christ Lived out of us is our Subjective Righteousness to be our Wedding Garment
For us to be justified by God is to be declared righteous according to His standard of righteousness; Christ is our righteousness, and in Him we are approved by God because this standard has been met by Christ, our righteousness.
Furthermore, Christ as our subjective righteousness dwells in us to live for us a life that can be justified by God and that is always acceptable to God (Matt. 5:6, 20).
Through Christ as our objective righteousness, we have been justified by God and we are accepted by Him in Christ; but we also need the wedding garment for our meeting with our Bridegroom.
This garment is composed of the righteousnesses – Christ living in us and for us and through us a life that can be justified by God.
No matter at what stage we are in our experience and growth in the divine life, we all need to learn to let Christ live in us.
We all have to admit that on any given day things we said or did or failed to do were not according to God’s righteousness; these things can’t be approved by God and are not justified by Him.
We need to give more ground to Christ as the Spirit to live in us, and day by day we need to learn, develop, and experience this precious One living in us in our actual situations, in the environment we are in.
When we let Christ live in us and when Christ is lived out of us, His living produces this subjective righteousness which is the wedding garment.
If we are to be found in Christ, we must fulfill the condition of not having our own righteousness but the righteousness which is not our own – a righteousness which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is out of God and based on faith (Phil. 3:9).
We shouldn’t have any trust in our being right or contend for our self-made righteousness; rather, we should utterly reject it.
If we live in our self-made righteousness, we are in the self and in the flesh, not in Christ.
For us to be in Christ we need to set aside our own righteousness and be joined to Christ to allow Him to live in us and be expressed through us; then, this Christ lived out of us is justified and approved by God. Christ lived out of us as our subjective righteousness becomes our wedding garment.
On one hand, the righteousness we received for our salvation enables us to meet the requirement of the righteous God; this is our objective righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30).
On the other hand, the righteousnesses of the overcoming saints are subjective and enable them to meet the requirement of the overcoming Christ (Phil. 3:9).
Without having Christ wrought into us and lived out of us, we are not qualified to attend the wedding feast of the Lamb.
May we not be misled or deceived by the feel-good teachings in Christianity today that say that all believers will be there at the wedding feast.
We do have Christ as our righteousness before God that qualifies us to fellowship with Him, enjoy Him, and experience Him, but we also need the wedding garment before Christ, our Bridegroom, soon to be our Husband.
Such a realization is both sobering and also supplying.
We want to be the bride of Christ who is pleasing to Him, satisfying Him in every way; we want to be those who are mature, built up, and have the righteousnesses of the saints as our wedding garment before God.
When Christ the Bridegroom looks at the bride, He sees Himself expressed through her in a most wonderful way. May we prepare ourselves by being trained by the Spirit to prepare our wedding garment.
The wedding garment in Matt. 22:11-13 signifies the Christ whom we live out and who is expressed through us in our daily living as our surpassing righteousness (Matt. 5:20; Rev. 3:4-5, 18).
And if we, at the end of the day, realize that we failed so much and did not live Christ too much, may we take the Lord as the reality of all the offerings, applying Him as our sin offerings for our sinful nature, as our trespass offering for not living Him, as our burnt offering for not being absolute for God, and as our peace offering for our peace with God.
And may we be at peace that every day, as we turn and open, as we learn to live Christ, there is some increase of Christ in us, and Christ is living in us.
Lord Jesus, we want to cooperate to You for the preparation of our wedding garment, the righteousnesses of the saints, that qualifies us to attend the wedding feast! Amen, Lord, live in us today. We turn to You, we take You as our righteousness, and we let You live in us as our subjective righteousness so that we may have our wedding garment sewn stitch by stitch until the wedding day! We do not trust in our own righteousness; rather, we want to have the righteousness which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is out of God and based on faith! Oh, may Christ be lived out of us as our subjective righteousness to be our wedding garment! May Christ live in us to be expressed through us in our daily living as our surpassing righteousness!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Revelation, pp. 626-628, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, A Timely Word Concerning the World Situation and the Lord’s Recovery (2020 Memorial Day Conference), week 6, The Preparation of the Bride.
- Hymns on this topic:
– And it was given her that / She should be clothed in fine linen, / Bright and clean; / For the fine linen is / The righteousnesses of the saints, / of the saints. (Scripture song)
– Oh, that fine linen garment / Which on that day we’ll wear / E’en now, Lord, work within us / And stitch by stitch prepare. / For this we would redeem / Every moment opportune / For the wedding day that’s coming / Very soon. (Hymns #1316)
– Christ comes quickly for His Bride, / Wedding feast He will provide, / Garments bright and pure supplied— / Dress in time! / Taking Christ as life she’s dressed, / By much suffering stitched and pressed; / Righteous acts are thus possessed— / Dress in time! (Hymns #1304)
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