Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| That Christ is the Bridegroom, having the Church as His bride, from which spiritual children were to be born.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
19. That
Christ is the Bridegroom, having the Church as His bride, from which
spiritual children were to be born.
In Joel: “Blow with the trumpet in
Sion; sanctify a fast, and call a healing; assemble the people,
sanctify the Church, gather the elders, collect the little ones that
suck the breast; let the Bridegroom go forth of His chamber, and the
bride out of her closet.”4052
Also in Jeremiah: “And I
will take away from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of
Jerusalem, the voice of the joyous, and the voice of the glad; the
voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride.”4053
Also in
the eighteenth Psalm: “And he is as a bridegroom going
forth from his chamber; he exulted as a giant to run his course.
From the height of heaven is his going forth, and his circuit even to
the end of it; and there is nothing which is hid from his
heat.”4054
Also in
the Apocalypse: “Come, I will show thee the new bride, the
Lamb’s wife. And he took me in the Spirit to a great
mountain, and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem descending out of
heaven from God, having the glory of God.”4055
Also in the Gospel according to
John: “Ye are my witnesses, that I said to them who were
sent from Jerusalem to me, that I am not the Christ, but that I am sent
before Him. For he who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the
friend of the bridegroom is he who standeth and heareth him with joy,
and rejoiceth because of the voice of the bridegroom.”4056
The mystery
of this matter was shown in Jesus the son of Nave, when he was bidden
to put his shoes from off him, doubtless because he himself was not the
bridegroom. For it was in the law, that whoever should refuse
marriage should put off his shoe, but that he should be shod who was to
be the bridegroom: “And it happened, when Jesus was in
Jericho, he looked around with his eyes, and saw a man standing before
his face, and holding a javelin4057
in his hand, and said, Art thou for us or
for our enemies? And he said, I am the leader of the host of the
Lord; now draw near. And Jesus fell on his face to the earth, and
said to him, Lord, what dost Thou command unto Thy servant. And
the leader of the Lord’s host said, Loose thy shoe from thy feet,
for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”4058
Also, in
Exodus, Moses is bidden to put off his shoe, because he, too, was not the
bridegroom: “And there appeared unto him the angel of the
Lord in a flame of fire out of a bush; and he saw that the bush burned
with fire, but the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will
pass over and see this great sight, why the bush is not consumed.
But when He saw that he drew near to see, the Lord God called him from
the bush, saying, Moses, Moses. And he said, What is it?
And He said, Draw not nigh hither, unless thou hast loosed thy shoe
from off thy feet; for the place on which thou standest is holy
ground. And He said unto him, I am the God of thy father, the God
of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”4059
This was
also made plain in the Gospel according to John: “And John
answered them, I indeed baptize with water, but there standeth One in
the midst of you whom ye know not: He it is of whom I said, The
man that cometh after me is made before me, the latchet of whose shoe I
am not worthy to unloose.”4060
Also according to Luke:
“Let your loins be girt, and your lamps burning, and ye like to
men that wait for their master when he shall come from the wedding,
that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him. Blessed
are those servants whom their Lord, when He cometh, shall find
watching.”4061
Also in
the Apocalypse: “The Lord God omnipotent reigneth:
let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give to Him the honour of glory;
for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself
ready.”4062
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
