Please tell me more about the bride of Christ.
Categories: Bible Questions and AnswersWhat does it mean when we become the Bride of Christ? Are we already a Bride when we believe and born again? Revelation speaks of Christ coming for His Bride? Please tell me more about Bride of Christ.
Thanks for your good question.
The idea of being the “bride of Christ” is *symbolic* of our relationship with Christ. In Romans 7:4 Paul writes, “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” Paul was using the concept of marriage as an illustration that Christians are no longer under the Old Law of Moses. By becoming a Christian, we died to the Law of Moses and have committed ourselves to Christ. So Christians can say that they are “married,” symbolically, to Christ.
The relationship between the Christian and Christ is a strong relationship, as strong as a wife to a husband, if not stronger. The church is made up of individual Christians, and so, the church is also, by analogy, the bride of Christ. Ephesians 5:23-33 has much to say regarding the relationship of Christ and the church by way of the relationship between a husband and wife. Paul says that just as the husband is the head of the wife, so also is Christ the head of the church. The church is to submit to Christ as her head/authority. The church is to know that Christ loves her. The church is to understand that we, as Christians, are members of the body of Christ. Paul says that it is a “great mystery” but when he speaks about the husband/wife relationship, he also speaks about the relationship between Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:32). The church is the bride/wife of Christ.
2 Corinthians 11:2 also comments upon the idea of the church being the bride of Christ. Paul writes, “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” Our one “husband” is Christ; the “chaste virgin” is the church, particularly, the church at Corinth, however, the same principle could be applied toward all the churches (1 Cor. 4:17).
Finally, in Revelation 21:2 we read, “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Verses 9 and 10 say, “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