(Ver 2.0) This is now Part 3 in the series of lessons on “The Bride of Christ Revealed”.  In the last lesson, we learned about the identity of the bridegroom and established several great scripture verses that taught us that Jesus Christ is the Groom that is getting married.  We have learned that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh and that He is marrying a wife.  We understand that a wife is always a female woman.  These are just some of the basics and today we will begin to explore the subject of what is a female woman in the spiritual eyes of God.   This will involve getting God’s definition of the subject which should change how we think about her.  Most of the time in doing Bible studies, I have discovered that God’s definitions do not normally match what we believe the definitions of the subjects are.   This is mainly because God is a Spirit, and we have grown up on the earth, mostly as naturally dominated thinking humans. God clearly says to us that His ways and thoughts are much higher than our natural ways and thoughts. In other words, humans know and understand the natural realm usually much more than the spiritual realm normally.  If you have not been reading this series from the beginning, I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with Part 1, The Introduction.

First Mention of a Woman in the Bible

Today’s subject ought to be fun.  What does the Bible say about a woman? What does the Bible say a woman is? In this introductory section we will utilize the “Law of First Mention” to help us gain foundational information about our mystery bride. Where does God first mention a woman and how does this apply to our study. You might be amazed that it will enlighten us and inform us more than we can possibly imagine.

The first direct mention of a woman is found in Genesis 2 and this was concerning God’s focus on making the first created woman. This appears to be a natural woman being her physical body came from her husband whose body was formed from the dirt/dust of the ground/earth. There is another type of woman in the Bible and this one is a spiritual woman. We find this type mentioned in many verses but two that we will mention are the spiritual women described in Revelation 12 and the Whore of Babylon mentioned in Revelation 17. Both of these women are spiritual, with the first being righteous and the 2nd being very ungodly.  So based upon this information we must conclude there are two kinds of women in the Bible and within each categorization they are divided into the subsets of the righteous and the unrighteous. What kind of woman are we focused upon if we are searching for a woman called the bride of Christ?

1. A Spiritual Woman/Bride
2. Who is and was Made Righteous

Most people have studied the book of Genesis and found out where the first natural human woman came from.   We learn that this first created woman was eventually named Eve, and she was taken from the side (rib) of Adam, and she becomes Adam’s natural wife (bride). She certainly appears to fit the pattern for God’s point of view of what a spiritual female woman represents. However, we are viewing a spiritual woman through the lenses of a natural creation viewed perspective. We are learning that this first natural woman is a limited example of what God really considers to be His spiritual woman and bride.   Since this series of lessons is about the identity of the Bride of Christ we must figure out if the church qualifies as being a candidate made in the likeness of Eve. We should learn soon that she does at least at the beginning of creation before sin. At the beginning before sin, she was:

1. A Woman/Female (Rom 7:4, 2 Cor 11:2)
2. A Bride/Wife (John 3:29, Eph 5:25, Eph 5:31-32)
3. Called the body of her Husband (Rom 12:5, 1 Cor 12:27, Eph 5:30)
4. A Virgin (2 Cor 11:2)
5. Righteous (Rom 3:22, Rev 19:8)
6. Pure (Eph 5:26, Rev 19:7)
7. Was not a Whore (1 Cor 6:15)
8. Has only one Husband (2 Cor 11:2, Eph 5:25)

All of these female qualities mentioned are references describing Eve and the church, believe it or not. I have included scripture references to confirm each female quality of Eve that is also a description in a typology parallel to the church. So, now we are ready to get past the basic introduction of the bride and the bridegroom and get into a brief explanation of what God says a spiritual woman is.

The Last Mention of Women in the Bible

Just as the first mention of any subject builds a foundation for God intended purpose of design, the last mention of the subject of women brings us to God’s conclusion or purpose of the designed subject. In other words, how a woman ends in the book of Revelation is how God intended the beginning of subject to remain or become. What we learn from reading and studying the book of Revelation is that there are two major women mentioned at the end of the book of Revelation.

Revelation chapters 14, 16, 17 and 18, speak of a woman called the Whore of Babylon who is also called the mother of all Harlots in Revelation 17:5. This does not sound like a virtuous woman. Therefore, whe is not the bride we are looking for. The last woman mentioned in Revelation does appear to fit the pattern of the woman and is actually called the Bride of the Lamb in Revelation 21:9. There are only 22 chapters in the book of Revelation so chapter 21 could be the last reference to a woman, but we can find another hidden woman in chapter 22. This woman called a bride in Revelation 22:17 is joined with the Spirit of God in unison saying, “Come”.

What is most interesting is that the church is never mentioned again directly by name after chapter 3. But guess who appear again in chapter 22? Yes, it is the “Chruch” The verse directly before the last mention of a woman called a bride, has the last mention of the church’s name “Ekklesia” in the Bible. Do you think this could be a clue to the identity of the Bride of Christ? It sure appears this way. Why else would God join the name of the church with the Spirit and a bride saying “Come”? Isn’t the Spirit of God joined with the spirits of the saints in the church right now? That is what 1 Corinthians 6:17 teaches us. This verse in Corinthians is a form of a quotation of Gensis 2:24 that says, “the man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two will be one flesh”. However, in the church’s case we have become one “spirit”. Let us go explore this lady in Revelation further to discover how she is identified.

One of the greatest errors that Christians make in studying the Words spoken by the Spirit of God, is coming up with their own human definitions for far greater spiritual realities God was referring us to.  Too many times, a preacher will teach the Bible and not consult God’s loving heart, His Spirit or His Word or even attempt to get God’s definition on the subject they are teaching.  Hopefully you can understand what a poor choice that might be.   God has designed the Bible in a way that it fully defines and interprets itself.

As a part of this process, God assuredly provides us spiritual definitions and descriptions on every conceivable subject.   If the church is a woman and the bride of Christ this certainly will be relevant information and very important to know.  I believe sometimes people look at a subject and think they already have it all figured out before they hear anything that is about to be taught.  Hopefully, today in this lesson today this will be different.

As a warning again, please be reminded that many lessons do not follow traditional teaching methodologies or styles.  Please come today to learn and be open minded to receive what the Bible says. Remain open even if it says something that you never heard before or have imagined could be true.  But also, do not automatically accept anything that is written here as truth, just because it is written.  Instead prove everything that is stated for yourself.   Keep your eyes open and look it all up in your own Bible study time with God. He alone can cause your spirit to see what the real truth is.

Today we are about to review one of the major reasons why some ministers say the church is not the bride of Christ. We were introduced to this reason in the Introduction. In reviewing this reason, we will go again to the book of Revelation and see what we can learn on the subject of what God thinks about what a spiritual woman is, in the Bible.  So, let’s turn to the book of Revelation in the 21st chapter and start to read with verse 2:

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

Reading this verse is very informative and it is very important to understand correctly for many reasons.  Some Bible teachers have read this chapter and concluded that here is the most important information concerning the “bride of Christ”. It is certainly important; however, the lenses of personal viewpoint can restrict the verse’s interpretation and can dramatically shift what is viewed as truth. For example, a natural lens view can potentially cause thinking to lean in natural terms and not in spiritual terms. Of course, with some teacher’s that could be viewing the verse naturally or also called literally, this can cause reasoning that says, “if the church is the body of Christ, this holy bride city in Revelation 21 is also the church’s wife”.  However, this reasoning omits all of the contradictory verses to this belief. We will be addressing these in this series and hopefully you will be able to see the problem with this belief.

For example, some have raised the church in their mind to be the groom and this certainly contradicts what we learned about the groom’s identity in the previous lesson being Jesus Christ alone. Another problem is that yes, we can find verses that say the church is the body of Christ, but can you find a verse that says we are the groom? Or can you find a verse that says we are the Lamb of God?  Perhaps some do have not seen all the verses that we are learning, or maybe some do not yet understand these scriptures we are learning today about a spiritual woman and the verses about Christ being the bridegroom.

What does this verse in Revelation actually say and reveal to us?  Let’s look at the verse again and just simply see what it says with our spiritual glasses on.  Verse 2 says that John saw a holy city coming down out of heaven from God and it calls her by name the “New Jerusalem”.  That is a very interesting revelation right there.  The first thing we should realize is these are largely symbolic references in this verse.  If you do not understand, what symbolism is you should please spend time studying how God uses symbolism from cover to cover and then understand that the book of Revelation is almost completely symbolic natural references revealing spiritual truths.

Otherwise, for now, let’s please just at least try to agree on this, that there is a “symbolic” spiritual woman coming down out of heaven, she is called a holy city, she came from God, she has to be spiritual because heaven is a spiritual location, and her name is the “New Jerusalem”.  Finally, it also says she is adorned or dressed for her husband.  Of course, this is still symbolism and purely figurative language since we have already discovered that this woman is said to be a symbolic holy city and cannot be a literal city called a woman.

The implication given from this verse is that this woman is dressed as a bride adorned for her husband.  Here is where some male preachers get the picture of them wearing a literal wedding gown in heaven fixed in their minds, but that is not what God is teaching us. This gown is described as clean and white and represents God’s gift of righteousness as we were given described in Romans 5:17.

I hope you can agree with those few statements that were just made about this first verse that describes this female bride.  Let’s look at the next verse to see what God says immediately following these descriptive terms about this woman:

Rev 21:3 – And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

Wow, did God change the subject, or did someone just misunderstand what He just said?   You see clearly within the context of a woman, the bride, a holy city that is being spoken of God immediately starts talking about a group of people being the temple of God.  He calls these the “tabernacle of God” within the context that this tabernacle is a group of people.   You can clearly see the implied meaning of the symbolic city as being a group of people who God indwells spiritually.  This is so significant that I cannot even begin tell you.  We will certainly explore what we have just learned later in much more depth.  But let us skip down a few verses and go on to the next direct mention of the bride in this chapter in verses 9 and 10:

Rev 21:9  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.

Rev 21:10  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,

We will not go word for word through these 2 verses, because they basically say the same things that we just read in verse 2.  In verse 9, we do see the clear reference to the “Lamb of God” as being the Bridegroom.   You should remember that the Lamb refers to Jesus Christ (John 1:29, John 1:36).  Therefore, we have just identified again who the husband is.  I’m going to stop right there and ask you this question again and maybe you can answer it because I haven’t been able to yet, “have you ever heard or read any scripture that says the church is the Lamb”?  I haven’t yet found any scriptures that say the church is the sacrificial lamb that took away the sin of the world.  So, are we (the church) “The” Lamb?  The correct answer to this question matters greatly and we must determine it to understand what the book of Revelation is teaching.

There is a woman called the wife of the Lamb in Revelation 19:7. In Revelation 21:2 we are given the reference of a woman who is adorned for her husband. This verse does not mention Christ or the Lamb and claims she is a city. However, in Revelation 21:9 we begin to receive additional clarity. In Revelation 21:9 the angel speaking to John says, “Come here, and I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife”. This verse confirms without a doubt that this city is being referred to as 1) a woman, 2) a bride, and 3) a wife of the “Lamb”. Again there is no reference to the Lamb being Christ, even though we know Christ was the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world from verses like Revelation 13:8 and 1 Peter 1:19.

Hopefully, we can begin to see why it matters that Revelation is speaking of the Lamb’s wife and bride not “Christ’s” wife and bride.  If God had written that the city was the Bride of Christ, we would associate that city bride to not be the church. This is because the church is definitely called the body of Christ but never the body of the Lamb. Therefore, anyone could conclude as some have, that this city must also be the church’s bride and wife.

But because God says plainly that this is the Lamb’s bride and wife, the church cannot have a bride because logically we are this bride as we will soon confirm. Let us begin this confirming by asking another question. What did the Lamb of God accomplish for the church? Remember the sacrifice Passover Lamb was the substitutionary payment made to keep the church from death in hell. We know this because it is written in 1 Corinthians 5:7 that Jesus is described as “our” (the church) Passover that is sacrificed for “us” (the church).

Here is another important Bible that must be addressed.  In 1 Peter 1:18 God reveals that “we (the church) were not redeemed with corruptible things….”. Then in verse 19 God further confirms with a new revelation that it was the precious blood of Christ who was crucified who was the payment for our redemption. But this reference to “Christ” is now joined with the reference that Christ was slain as a lamb without spot exactly like Exodus 12 describes.

This fact causes us a new possible problem. We can clearly see the Lamb is Christ. Therefore, how do we resolve this now? Is the city in Revelation both the Lamb’s wife and Christ’s wife? The answer is really yes! But the whole truth is more complicated than a simple yes. You see we need to consider some additional new facts that many may have not thought of before. God required a sinless mortal man with blood to be the Lamb of God to redeem us (the church). However, before the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, there was no church possible. Remember that God also required a resurrection and after Jesus was raised up from the grave, He took His remaining blood to heaven and offered it on the Holy spiritual temple once and for all. We know this is true by studying Hebrew 9:11-28. Please take the time to read and study these verses for yourself.

Finally, we have another Bible truth that is also in need of understanding to help us know who the bride of Christ truly is. At the resurrection of Jesus, He became the “Firstborn from the dead”. This initiated God’s New Covenant as well as His New Creation that never existed before. We can read about Jesus being the “first born from the dead” in Colossians 1:18, and Revelation 1:5. This is more important than can be taught in this lesson today. However, know from Romans 8:29 that Jesus was also the “firstborn” of many other brethren.  These brethren are the church. Now we have learned a new problem that also needs resolution. How can brethren as in family members be called the body of Christ?  Or better still, how can fellow brethren be called a “bride” of Christ? We will resolve this new problem soon!

That is really a most interesting fact to put in your mind going forward.  Sometimes I think I can ask good questions.  I do know God asks really good questions and I’m trying to learn from the best.    Ok, so here we find the same basic confirming information we read in verse 2.  We have a woman, she is called a bride, she is called the wife of the Lamb, she is called a great city, and her name is the “Holy Jerusalem”.  I also found it interesting in verse 10, when it says John was carried away in the spirit in order to see this city.  The implication is that we are looking at a spiritual reality and not a physical one.  Chapter 21 of Revelation says a lot more and describes other characteristics that we may get into later in this blog series.  But for now I just want you to agree with what I’ve said so far about what the Bible says about this woman.  Until you learn some more I can’t go into the other parts of the description of this woman.  Here is a quick synopsis of what we have just learned, see if you can agree with this:

1. This woman is a city, this city is a woman
2. This woman/city is to be married to her husband, who is the Lamb
3. Her name is “New Jerusalem” or “Holy Jerusalem”
4. This woman came down from God and Heaven
5. This woman/city is a symbolic reference for a spiritual reality

Regardless of what else is in this chapter, can we agree with these basic facts from the scripture?  If you have problem with any of these statements you are not going to do well going forward.  If you can see what these verses are telling us then you will have a much easier time seeing the other verses that I will soon give you.  Truth many times builds upon truth.  So instead of attempting to figure out everything a verse or a chapter says all by itself, I try to write down the things that I learn from that verse and then go and look at other verses in the Bible that help to explain it.  The Bible, like I said before interprets itself.  That is why I reject men’s opinion so fast, if they can’t give me verses I really don’t want to hear what they thinks it says.

Where we are right now, if you did not realize it, we have just discovered the basic Bible definition for what a spiritual woman is in the eyes of God.  There are many other things still left to learn and we will continue to build upon this definition with other witnesses from the scripture, but hang on to this basic definition for what God thinks a woman is.  A woman is a city and a city represents a group of people who live there.  We can fruther undersand that based upon the identity of the groom being Jesus the Lamb, that the bride city has a marriage covenant relationship with God.  That is a spiritual definition of a woman to God and knowing this much changes our perspectives of many things found in the Bible and we will confirm what i have just talked about using many more scriptures.

Before I continue, I want to make a point and show what else these truths reveal to us from the verses that we just read.  Many times you can read verses and never see what they indirectly are teaching us so I want to show you an example of this.  Did you notice that the woman has been given a name?  She has a name and she is called “New Jerusalem” and “Holy Jerusalem”.  What does that tell you?  If you understand the Bible and especially the Old Testament you know there is more than one city called “Jerusalem” in the Bible.  Why would God call this city by the same name, but with qualifiers and prefixed descriptive adjectives?  An adjective is a word class that qualifies a noun.  So God uses adjectives of course to differentiate one city from any other city with the same name.  It is unnecessary to call something “New” if there is not an “Old”.  It is unnecessary to call it “Holy” if there is not an “Unholy” city with the same name.  Did you understand what I just said?  We have a city name being given to us with the clear implied truth that there is another city that is an opposite picture or a negative image of these positive adjective qualifiers.   Wow, that is very strong language and I wonder who God is talking about?  Or do you already know?  This Old Jerusalem and Unholy Jerusalem must be something or someone else, a different woman in the Bible.  I really hope you are understanding these very simple truths that you can read so plainly.  I think I will give you another reference in Revelation to an unholy city for you to think about and to further confirm what we have just learned.  This verse is found in Revelation 17 and verse 18 says:

Rev 17:18  And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

Chapter 17 of Revelation is about a much different woman, but yet this woman still fits the pattern for our definition of a woman that we have just developed.  This last verse in Revelation chapter 17 reveals to us that the woman God has been talking about in this chapter is a “great city”.  This city is said to rule over the kings of the earth and I will not attempt to identify this woman at this time in this blog.  If you read the first part of the chapter you see her name is a symbolic reference to “Mystery Babylon”.  I just want you to see the pattern and the revelation that a city is a woman and a woman is a city.  A city is made up of people, normally a nation of people consisting of males and females.  A city can be the capitol of a nation.  This nation and group of individuals live together in a named city and this city is called a woman in the eyes of God.

I understand that these concepts and definitions are not that complex, but since what I am saying in this blog is so radically new and different than anything you have heard before, it will probably be hard to understand.  We have just seen two completely different cities described, these are two witnesses from the book of Revelation and both are called women.  In my next blog we will expand our definition of a woman and research God’s idea and definition of marriage.

If you would like to continue reading this series, you can go to “Part 4“.