Growing unto Maturity and Caring for the Body to be Prepared as the Bride of Christ

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. (Rev. 19:7)

The Apostle John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (Rev. 21:2). In God’s eyes and for eternity, the New Jerusalem is already prepared and ready to marry Christ; in time and today, the New Jerusalem is being prepared as we speak to be the holy city, the bride of the Lamb.

On the one hand we are becoming the city of God as the realm of God’s kingdom with the throne of God in the center, and on the other hand we are being prepared to be the bride of Christ, a corporate, mature, righteous, and beautiful person who will marry Him.

We see a picture of this in the Song of Songs: in 1:4 the loving seeker is being brought by the king into his chambers to enjoy Him in a private, intimate, and personal way, and at the end, in 6:8, the Shulammite is as lovely as Jerusalem.

Through our progress in growing in the divine life and loving pursuit of Christ we are being transformed and perfected to become, from the mares pulling Pharaoh’s chariots in ch. 1, a city, the counterpart of Christ, His bride matching Him in every possible way.

We are in the process of becoming a little New Jerusalem by progressing in the divine romance as revealed in the Song of Songs. Right now, the New Jerusalem is in the process of being prepared as the bride.

We know that for a bride to be prepared, humanly speaking, takes a lot of time; for the bride of Christ to be prepared it takes a long time, but we all are in this process. Eventually, there will be a cry, 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 (Rev. 19:7)!

Until then, may we give the Lord our best cooperation to grow in life unto maturity, care for the Body and do everything in the Body, have Christ wrought into us as our subjective righteousness, and express Christ as our only beauty – so that we may be the mature, corporate, righteous, and beautiful bride for the Lord to marry!

Being Prepared as the Bride, the Wife of the Lamb

To me, less than the least of all saints, was this grace given to announce to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel (Eph. 3:8). Photo credit: Christian pictures blog.

There is a difference between the bride of the Lamb in Rev. 19:7 and the wife in Rev. 21:2. In Rev. 17 the bride is composed mainly of the overcomers in the church, those who are mature in life and are qualified to enter into the wedding feast. The wife in Rev. 21:2 is the totality of saints who have been redeemed and eventually fully matured after the millennium.

We need to strive to be the overcomers to enter into the joyful wedding feast for 1000 years, the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens! In His economy, God wants to obtain a bride for Christ, the church, and for this He came as a man to redeem us through His death and impart His life into us in His resurrection.

As we cooperate with the Spirit’s working within us, we grow in life unto maturity to be prepared as the bride, the wife of the Lamb, and enter into the Lord’s joy (Matt. 25:21, 23) and reign with the Lord as His co-kings for a thousand years.

The Lord’s recovery is for the preparation of the bride of Christ. This involves a lot of activity: preaching the gospel to get people saved and baptized, establishing local churches and practicing the God-ordained way to meet and serve, perfecting and training the believers, shepherding the saints, meeting with the saints, and prophesying for the building up of the Body, etc.

However, even though there are so many activities that are necessary for the preparation of the Bride, we are here in the Lord’s recovery for the carrying out of God’s economy with the goal of building up the Body of Christ as the preparation of the Bride.

Our aspiration is to be part of the bride, the corporate body of overcomers who are qualified to enjoy the Lord in full at the wedding feast for a thousand years. After the millennium, all the believers in Christ will be transformed and fully matured, being fully qualified to be part of the New Jerusalem, the wife of the Lamb.

Our Christian life and church life today should be a life of the preparation of the bride. We may be at different stages in our growth in life, and we are not in a race to “get there first”; rather, we all will arrive at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13).

Growing in Life unto Maturity and Caring for the Body of Christ to be Prepared as the Bride

How can we be prepared to be the bride of Christ? The first aspect of being the bride, the wife of Christ, is maturity: Christ will marry a mature corporate person, and not an infant or immature person. We need to grow in life unto maturity every day so that the bride of Christ may be prepared.

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. Therefore, building is needed. The overcomers are not only mature in life but are built together as one bride. (W. Lee, The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 1781)

The Bride of Christ in the future is the Body of Christ today; when the Body of Christ is fully built up, the bride of Christ comes into being and the Lord will return.

The Body of Christ is composed of the many believers of Christ who received His divine element and are growing in His life, are being built up together, and are being established and shaped in God’s organic salvation. We need to grow in life unto maturity to arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Even though there are millions of believers in the world, not many are growing in life unto maturity, and not many are heading toward maturity. But those who overcome every hindrance to their growth in life will grow unto maturity and will be designated to be the overcomers, the bride of Christ.

And our growth in life is not “individualistic” but it is in and for the Body of Christ. As the overcomers-to-be, we need to be Body-conscious and Body-centered. We are not here for “our growth in life unto maturity to become a spiritual giant”; we aspire to grow in life for the Body of Christ so that we may be useful to the Lord in the building up of His Body.

If we neglect the Body, we cannot be used by the Lord; but if we care for the Body and depend on the Body, not trusting in ourselves and our abilities, we will be useful in the Lord’s hands. A mature believer knows the Body and cares for the Body; he is Body-conscious and Body-centered (see 1 Cor. 12:16, 18-19, 21, 24).

However, simply because we read this and understand it doesn’t mean that we have this reality. We need to come to the Lord every day and ask for His grace to grow in life unto maturity for the building up of the Body of Christ.

When the Body of Christ is fully built up, the Bride is prepared – and she will be so beautiful! The bride will be wonderful and marvelous, being ready in a physical, spiritual, divine, and human situation!

The bride will be the consummation of the union, mingling, and incorporation of God with man, and the bride will be the mutual dwelling place of God and man – God dwelling in man and man dwelling in God. Today we can cooperate with the Lord for the preparation of the bride of Christ by growing in life unto maturity for the building up of the Body of Christ.

Lord Jesus, grow in us unto maturity for the building up of the Body of Christ. Give us today’s portion of grace that we may grow in life in a normal way. May we overcome anything that hinders our growth in life, and may we give You our cooperation to grow in us until we ALL arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Lord, accelerate the growth in life in all the saints. May many brothers and sisters give themselves to grow in life unto maturity so that the Body of Christ may be built up! Gain the overcomers, those who are mature in life and care for the Body of Christ!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ron Kangas’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament (msg. 163), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Aspects of the Christian Life and Church Life Seen in the New Jerusalem, week 2 / msg 2, The City and the Bride.
• Further reading: see life-study of Ephesians, msgs. 53-54 (by Witness Lee).
• Hymns on this topic:
  # The Lord, the seed of life, / Has sown Himself into our heart / To grow up into fullness / And become His counterpart. / The seed requires no rules or forms, / For water is its need— / By this the all-inclusive seed / Will grow in us indeed! (Hymns #1242)
  # Overcomers Christ will take, / Those who all for Him forsake, / Those who of first love partake— / Win in time! / All the deadness overcome, / With the living Christ be one, / Toward the goal now swiftly run— / Win in time! (Hymns #1304)
  # Lord, Your beauty and love have drawn me, / To pursue after You speedily. / In Your chambers I am brought, / And nourished here by Thee. … In the fields let me follow You, Lord, / All my days work, in loving accord. / Be matured, Your Queen, Your Bride, / Then raptured, glorified. (new song on the Song of Songs)
  # In the Body we’ll be fitly framed / As the many members Christ supply; / Working in the measure of each part, / All by growth in love the Body edify. (Hymns #1232)