the bride of Christ

[Guest shiloh357]

William,  in II Cor. 11:2, Paul is not speaking to "the Church."   He is speaking to a single congregation.   He is using bride imagery to make a point about purity.  He is not saying they are the bride of Christ.   So the entire premise of your position is wrong from the get go.

 

The New Jerusalem is the bride of Christ but that is not the Church and no amount of hermeneutical gymnastics will make it so.  The New Jerusalem is a literal city, not a people group.   It is a foursquare city.

[Ezra]

The fact that Ezra has to string unrelated verses together like lights on a Christmas tree proves that it is not a biblical position.

 

Sorry, all those Scriptures are indeed related, but one must see them as related. 

 

The bottom line is the identity of the Wife of the Lamb, and it is crystal clear that all the saints in Heaven are indeed that Wife. Every bride ultimately becomes a wife and that is true for the Church in the New Jerusalem (Rev 19:7-9).

 

As to the references to God's betrothal to Israel on earth, that can be true simultaneously since we are dealing with spiritual realities pertaining to God and His relationships.  Israel, as Scofield points out, was "the adulterous and repudiated 'wife' of Jehovah, yet to be restored BUT IDENTIFIED WITH THE EARTH". Please note the references to the earth in Hosea 2:19-23, all addressed to Israel:

¹⁹ And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.

²⁰ I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.

²¹ And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;

²² And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.

²³ And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.

 

Israel will indeed be redeemed and restored on earth in accordance with the Abrahamic and Davidic Covenants, and God will indeed dwell in their midst.  But the Church will be eternally in the New Jerusalem as the Wife of the Lamb. 

[Guest shiloh357]

Again, Ezra...    The assumption that the Church is the New Jerusalem is simply an assumption and you are filtering the text through that assumption.

[Openly Curious]

The New Jerusalem is the bride of Christ but that is not the Church and no amount of hermeneutical gymnastics will make it so.  The New Jerusalem is a literal city, not a people group.   It is a foursquare city.

Shiloh also quoted:

 

And furthermore, Revelation doesn't say that the New Jerusalem IS a bride at all. It says that the New Jerusalem is adorned as a bride.  It is making a comparison between the beauty of a bride on her wedding day and the beauty of the New Jerusalem.

So which one of these two quoted beliefs of yours Shiloh do you want me to believe? Did you change from one to the other???

[Guest shiloh357]

I conceded that the New Jerusalem is a bride.   I was wrong when I said that Revelation didn't call the New Jerusalem a bride.   I was focused on one verse and forgot the part the came before that verse.

 

However, there is nothing that identifies the New Jerusalem as the church.

[saved34]

William,  in II Cor. 11:2, Paul is not speaking to "the Church."   He is speaking to a single congregation.   He is using bride imagery to make a point about purity.  He is not saying they are the bride of Christ.   So the entire premise of your position is wrong from the get go.

 

If that be the case, how can we today read any of the epistles and gain comfort from the truths and promises in them? I fully understand that Paul was writing directly to a literal Church congregation, but the Holy Spirit gives meaning to the entire Church. This is like saying when Paul wrote to the Galatians to not be brought under the yoke of legalism, that he was ONLY talking to them, therefore we cannot rely on those truths as well since the letter was written years and years ago to a literal congregation. These Letters are to be read by ALL the Churches, not just the Church they were originally written for. 

 

2Pe 3:14  So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 

2Pe 3:15  Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 

2Pe 3:16  He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction

 

Col 4:16  After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea. 

 

Rom 15:4  For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. 

 

[Guest shiloh357]

Saved,  good heremeneutics allows us to view the letters both as literal communication to a people or person in history, while at the same realizing that while not necessarily applicable, there are spiritual principles and lessons we can glean, which make these epsitles relevant to us.

 

Paul is writing to a church to deal with the specific issues that church is dealing with and we need to be able to use the same skills we use with secular literature to know the difference bewtween what is applicable and what is relevant.

 

Not every verse of the Bible is for all people, for all time.   If we interpret the Bible as if every verse is for every Christian of every age, we will run into some very strange  and aberrant theology. 

 

Even if we read II Cor. 11:2 as being written to every Christian, he is still not calling the Church a "bride."   He is drawing from bride imagery to make a point about the kind of purity he is wanting to see in the Church.   The point Paul is making is that we need to a pure and chaste as a virgin bride on her wedding day and Paul wants to present the Corinthians to the Lord with that level of purity.  

[Marilyn C]

There is NOTHING in the New Testament that identifies the New Jerusalem as the Church.

Hi Shiloh,

 

Wow, I never thought I`d find someone here with that revelation. Good on you if you have discerned that by the Holy Spirit. Utterly amazing! I have been taught the difference between the Body purpose & the Bride purpose well over 50 years ago. But it seems you have been open to receive that understanding. I`m am just blown away.

 

People have been taught to lump everything together & it is all about `us.` Good to see you address that.

 

 

 

Now to others -

 

In Hebrews 11 we read of the OT people (the spirits of just men, in the general assembly, separate from the church). These people looked for a promised city whose builder & maker is God. Then in v. 39 & 40 we read -

 

`And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.` (Heb. 11: 39 & 40)

 

Some better thing for us - meaning a great dominion for us. A good topic right there.

 

Marilyn.

Edited March 29, 2015 by Marilyn C

[saved34]

Paul is writing to a church to deal with the specific issues that church is dealing with and we need to be able to use the same skills we use with secular literature to know the difference bewtween what is applicable and what is relevant.

 

Shiloh, I agree that we cannot apply every single scripture to ourselves literally, but matters of the Church are pretty much Universal. I mean we still have the exact same challenges the Church in Corinth had and even in some cases much worse. This is not one of those issues where it is simply a Spiritual application. We are one body, and the Church throughout History is one unit in Christ, Baptized into one body by the Spirit. We still have modern day Judaisers, we still have promiscuity in the Church, we still have sectarianism, and divisions...etc. Those words are more relevant today than ever.

 

Honestly, I respect you and Marilyn greatly, but I think you guys are wrong on this matter. I also think it is splitting hairs as we all know we are not actually brides individually. Scripture does however liken us to an Espoused virgin to her husband, and we are clearly invited to some sort of wedding feast. 

[Guest]

People don't realize that the idea that the church is Christ's bride is a holdover from thousands of years of anti-Semitism when the church thought it was the new Israel as God's wife now applies to the church.

 

This quote by Shiloh got my attention as I was reading through this thread.  The bride of Christ, according to scripture, is the city New Jerusalem.  The idea that the bride is the church or Israel is wrong. 

 

And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  Revelation 21:2

 

And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.  And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.  Revelation.  21:9,10

 

Jesus compared the church to different things in various parables, but the bride of Christ is the city, New Jerusalem.

 

~

 

Jesus

 

O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.

Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.

 

Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.

 

I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him.

I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon.

His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon.

 

They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. Hosea 14:1-7

 

The Husband Of Israel

 

For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. Isaiah 54:5

 

And The Names Of Those

 

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. Revelation 3:12

 

Who Would But Believe In Him

 

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

 

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

 

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:1-3