The readiness of the bride of Christ depends on the maturity in life of the overcomers, and in addition to being mature in life, the bride must be built up as a corporate person.
There is a difference between the bride of Christ in Rev. 19 and the wife of Christ in Rev. 21 and 22.
In Rev. 19 the bride of Christ is not composed of all the believers in Christ; contrary to the popular Christian belief that all believers will be part of the bride of Christ, the bride in Rev. 19 will be composed only of the overcomers.
However, the wife of Christ, the wife in Rev. 21, is composed of all the people of God throughout the ages. In Rev. 21 the New Jerusalem is prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; we all will be part of this eternal, glorious, prepared bride.
However, in Rev. 19 we see that the bride that will enjoy the wedding feast is composed not of all the believers but of the overcoming saints throughout the ages.
The bride as composed of all the overcomers will enjoy the wedding feast of the Lamb and will reign with Him for one thousand years.
Most of the believers, however, will not be part of the bride because they do not arrive at maturity in life to be overcomers, and they are not built up as a corporate person, the bride of Christ.
May we be those who grow in life every day, every week, every month, and every year; may we grow in life unto maturity until we arrive at maturity in life to be the Lord’s overcomers, those who are raptured by Him before the great tribulation and who will reign with Him.
May we be enlightened concerning the aspects of our being prepared as the bride of Christ, and may we learn to apply the powerful and overcoming blood of the Lamb whenever we fall.
Amen, may we learn to daily wash our robes so that we may have the right to the tree of life! May we wash our robes in the blood of the Lamb day by day and have a new start with this in view.
May we pray and cooperate with the Lord to be produced as His overcomers today, those who are the bride of Christ, to enter in with Him at the wedding feast and reign with Him for one thousand years!
Amen, Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to You to be prepared as the bride of Christ, the overcomers in this age, for Your sake, for Your purpose, for Your return!
The Readiness of the Bride of Christ depends on the Maturity in Life of the Overcomers
The bride of Christ will be the Lord’s counterpart; as such a one, she can’t be a young girl, an immature girl, or an infant – she must match Him, even as Eve matched Adam.
The match between the bride of Christ has to be so close that the Lord can say, This is bone of My bone, flesh of My flesh.
When He regenerated us, He made us the same as He is in life, in nature, in constitution, and in expression; the difference is that only He is God in the Godhead, only He is to be worshipped, while we are the worshippers.
For us to be qualified to be the Lord’s bride, we must grow in life and pass through many things to arrive at the maturity in life and be the Lord’s overcomers.
An infant or a little girl, even a teenage girl is not qualified to be a bride, and a man would not pick an immature or infantile girl to be his wife.
Even more, different men may have different standards concerning whom they consider for a wife; someone with a doctoral degree may want a bride with a high education, and only someone with at least a master degree would meet his expectations.
Similarly, the Spirit has very high requirements for His bride; the Spirit would not marry an immature bride or unprepared bride.
The Lord will not return until His bride is mature and fully prepared for Him.
We should not be deceived in thinking that as long as we are the church, as long as we are in the church life, we are qualified to be the bride of Christ; this would be similar to saying that any female, regardless of age or maturity, is qualified to be married.
When the Lord Jesus comes as the Bridegroom, we need to be qualified to be His bride by growing in life unto maturity and being prepared.
If we only go to the meetings of the church and then live the rest of our life on our own, we are not qualified to be the bride of Christ.
We need to grow and mature so that we may be qualified and matured to be the bride of Christ, for the readiness of the bride depends on the maturity in life of the overcomers.
The bride of Christ signifies the church in its ultimate state; the bride enters with the Lord as the Bridegroom at the wedding feast, and the bride being ready means that God has completed His building work in man and that we have grown and matured in the Lord’s life.
In the New Testament the word perfect is used for the believers’ being full-grown, mature, and perfected in the life of God, indicating that we all need to grow and mature unto perfection in the divine life (Matt. 5:48).
We believers in Christ need to continue to grow in the divine life until we are fully matured in the divine life to become a full-grown man, arriving at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13).
As the Body of Christ is growing and being built up, the new man is maturing.
There should be prayers for this, intercessory prayers for the whole recovery and for all the saints and all the churches, that the Lord may grow in us.
We cannot cause the growth: only God can cause the growth, and by our cooperation with Him, we can arrive at a full-grown man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
For us to grow in life and arrive at maturity in life, our love and faith need to be fully developed (Titus 3:15).
Faith and love are two inseparable, excellent virtues of the believers in Christ (1 Tim. 1:14; 2 Tim. 1:13; Gal. 5:6); we need to pray for the development of faith and love so that we may arrive at maturity in life to be the Lord’s overcomers.
Through faith we receive the Lord, and through love we enjoy the Lord whom we have received (John 1:12; 14:21; 21:15-17).
We daily need to exercise our faith to receive the Lord, allowing Him to impart Himself into us.
God in Christ as the Spirit wants to dispense Himself into us; we exercise faith to receive, and then love enables us to enjoy what we have received.
Faith is given to us by God that by it we may receive Christ and thereby enter into the Triune God and be joined to Him as one, having Him as our life, life supply, and everything (2 Pet. 1:1).
Love issues out of faith, and it enables us to live out all the riches of the Triune God with those who have believed into Christ in order that the Triune God may have a glorious corporate expression (Eph. 3:19-21).
Through love we enjoy what we have received of the Lord; by this same love we are enabled and motivated to live out the riches we have received.
And as we live this out with one another, this is the church life; we supply one another mutually, we have something to impart, we all open to receive, and we’re all motivated by love.
And this exercise of love based on faith brings forth the bride as a glorious corporate expression of Christ.
Lord Jesus, grow in us day by day; cause us to grow in life unto maturity to be prepared as the bride of Christ! Amen, Lord, cause us all to grow unto maturity until we all arrive at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ! May we remain in this organic union with the Lord, enjoying Him in love and receiving Him in faith so that we may be enabled to live out all the riches of the Triune God with those who have believed into Christ! Amen, Lord Jesus, bring us to the maturity in life to be Your overcomers today!
Being Built up as a Corporate Person to be the Bride of Christ: God built into man and we’re built together!
On one hand we need to be mature in life, for the readiness of the bride depends on the maturity in life of the overcomers.
On the other hand, the bride must be built up as a corporate person (Matt. 16:18; Eph. 2:21-22; 4:15-16; Rev. 19:7; 21:2).
The bride of Christ is not a particular person but a corporate person; the bride is a corporate being composed of all the overcomers in the Lord who are both mature in life and are built up together.
As we are growing in life unto maturity, we need to experience being built into a corporate expression; building is the corporate expression of God.
God’s building is the desire of God’s heart and the goal of His salvation (Eph. 1:5, 9; Exo. 25:8; 1:11; 40:2-3, 34-35).
What was in God’s heart in Exodus when He brought the people of Israel out of Egypt based on the Passover was not only to bring them across the Red Sea, to the mountain to give them revelation, but the tabernacle, the dwelling place of God.
God intends to have a building in which God and man, man and God, cane be a mutual abode to each other (John 15:4; Rev. 21:2-3, 22).
May we abide in the Lord as He abides in us, realizing that Christ is in the Father, we are in Christ, and He is in us.
As we experience this abiding in the Lord day by day, He is built into us and we are built into Him, and day by day we experience the preparation of the bride.
The principle of God’s building is that God builds Himself into man and builds man into Himself (John 14:20; 1 John 4:15).
God is building Himself into us – He is mingling Himself with man; we are being built into God – we are being mingled with God. God’s mingling Himself with man is God’s building Himself into man.
May we have such a yearning in us that we may experience more of the building of God into man and of man into God! When we are mingled with God, we are being built into God (Eph. 3:17).
Vertically, we need to have God built into us and we need to be built into God; horizontally, we need to be built with our fellow believers.
To be built up with our fellow believers is the Lord’s supreme and highest requirement of His faithful seekers (Eph. 4:15-16).
This is the highest requirement to fulfill His prophecy, I will build My church.
Being built up with the saints, the fellow partakers of the divine life, is the highest virtue of one who pursues Christ in God’s eternal economy (1 Tim. 1:4).
May we be those who arrive at maturity in life and are built up together, having this highest virtue of becoming God’s building, to be prepared as the bride of Christ!
Lord Jesus, build Yourself into us and build us into Yourself for the preparation of the bride of Christ! Amen, Lord, we pray for more mingling of God with man; we don’t want to hold anything back but open to You and let You work Yourself in us and build us into You! Save us from being individualistic; save us from any kind of isolation. Lord, build us together for Your bride. Cause us to arrive at maturity in life and build us up in You for the preparation of the bride!
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 2 Corinthians, msg. 21 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:
– Now betrothed to Thee, dear Bridegroom, / Bring us to maturity. / Beautify, reconstitute us / Till we match Thee perfectly. / May our love grow deeper, fuller; / Foretaste of our married life. / How we long to finally meet Thee! / Thou, the Lamb, and we, the wife! (Song on, Lord, perfect us, Thy believers)
– Thy anointing Spirit / Me shall permeate, / All my soul and spirit / Thou wouldst saturate; / Every part transforming / Till conformed to Thee, / Till Thy life shall bring me / To maturity. (Hymns #841)
– God would have a group of people / Built together in His plan, / Blended, knit, coordinated / As His vessel—one new man. / God would come into this vessel / With His nature, life and ways, / Mingling Spirit with our spirits / For His joy and to His praise. (Hymns #1325)
