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The Promises and Covenants of God are ALWAYS Conditional!
(Ver 1.1) I want to discuss a difficult subject found in the Bible that is hard for many Christians to get their minds around. Too many Christians like to put everything on God’s back and make Him completely responsible for everything that happens to them. It is like when a major storm comes and blows their house down and they believe God is in control and He had a higher purpose for doing this to me. However, when you read the Bible and study it closely we find out some very surprising things that should cause us to begin to think differently.
When God makes a covenant with a People on the earth, you will find that God is always capable of keeping the covenant and to Him it was a forever agreement and arrangement. However, what we find in the Bible is that it is not all completely up to God and that you and I have a part to play in the relationship for the continued blessings of God to manifest. Let’s review the principle and then establish this spiritual law Biblically and learn what we can:
Isa 1:19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
In this verse in Isaiah, God puts forth a promise to His covenant people. But, this promise comes with conditions. In order for God’s people to eat the good of the land, they must first, be willing and obedient. These sound like two little requirements that are placed upon God’s People! But they really are larger than you think. If people fulfill only one condition such as being willing but not obedient or being not willing and obeying does that match the conditions necessary to eat good? Obviously not, they fail and do not eat the good of the land. This is the basis of a spiritual law, that I call the “IF YOU DO THEN I WILL DO” law! “IF” “THEN” is a popular computer programming construct that is widely used in programming languages. There is also a converse or inverse part of the law that goes something like this:
IF YOU DO THIS
THEN I WILL DO THIS
ELSE THIS HAPPENS!
God knew about IF THEN ELSE computer programming constructs before we knew there were computers. God uses this construction in the Bible in the promises that He makes with humans and the Covenants that He implements with the People. If we apply this construct to the verse we just read in Isaiah 1:19 we can see it more clearly:
IF (YOU ARE WILLING AND OBEDIENT)
THEN
YOU WILL EAT THE GOOD OF THE LAND
ELSE
YOU WILL NOT EAT FROM THE GOOD LAND
This is some very basic Computer Logic applied to the Word of God and yet so profound! If you understand what I have said so far, then let’s go through some other verses in the Bible and determine what else God says about conditional requirements.
Let’s go back and review some words spoken to Natural Israel by Moses from God. These are the Words of God spoken directly to them, but if you look closely they are also prophetic and we can easily notice that they are very conditional:
Exo 19:5 Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:
What does it mean to be conditional? If I said I would give you $1000, if you would stay silent for 24 hours, is that $1000 conditional or automatically yours? No, it not guaranteed! We can see that conditional means, if you follow the instructions and rules you will get the $1000, otherwise you do not. The key word is “IF” you satisfy the requirements! Pretty simple concept isn’t it? However, Christians I guess do not understand these concepts, especially when it comes to God and the Bible.
When we read a verse like Exodus 19:5 and it says to Israel that “you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me and above all people”. What was the requirement for this to happen in the natural realm? God clearly said, “if you obey my voice and keep my covenant”, then I will do what I said and make you above all others. So when did natural Israel ever fulfill any of these requirements? If you searched your Bible and could not find it in the Bible, I have to admit that I couldn’t either. It would seem to me, that Israel has a major problem. Let’s continue with the next verse:
Exo 19:6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
Exodus 19:6 continues to demonstrate what God will do, if Israel obeys and keeps the covenant. What we see in these two verses are a discovery of the fact that God’s blessings to Natural Israel are conditional. In order for those in covenant with God to obtain the best that He has for them, they must do something to qualify for them. Did any of the words in these two verses ring any bells to you? Did you see any parallels or glimpses into another reality that God is prophesying about? To me it was obvious, but to others they miss it, because they may be slightly dull of spiritual eyesight. These key words are echoed in a verse found in the New Testament:
1Pe 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
Peter writes to the church and declares to them that they are these “peculiar” people, the holy nation unto God, being priests and kings of the Most High. Isn’t that an amazing coincidence? Of course God doesn’t do anything by accident and this verse is put here to show you who the church really is. I know I haven’t introduced you to this concept yet. Many Christian people do not like to think or believe that the Church is a spiritual version of the natural nation of Israel, but yet it is so prevalent in the Bible I do not know how people miss it. This is based upon the concept of natural patterns that point us to greater or higher truths within the spiritual realm. Let us read another verse:
Rev 1:6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Again we see John this time writing about the church and to the church, calling them the kings and priests of God. That qualifies the church as being these royal rulers of the spiritual domain of God. That makes the church a new spiritual priesthood unto God. This is of course difficult to fully accept for many believers. Please do not let it offend you. I will not be offended if you believe something else.
Heb 8:9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
So as we have seen, the blessings of God are conditional. The human continuation and participation within the covenant of God is also conditional. People want to put all of the responsibility on God to whether or not a covenant is valid and that is not what God says in the Bible. You can always depend on God to be faithful and He will never fail you, but that does not relieve you of your responsibility in the relationship.
What if you are married to a spouse and you are the one that is faithful and they are not. Will that work for very long? I know my wife would not put up with it. If you think you can then you are a fool. Is faithfulness a two way street that is required of both marriage participants? Of course it is! So do not put all of the responsibility upon God, God will not fail the covenant. God is eternally faithful. However, humans are imperfect and fail, people make mistakes and God will forgive us. But only if we ask for forgiveness. Repentance is an essential and valuable key part of any Christian life. If we are not sorry for how we how we act and the things we use to do, we are not a Christian. We are just someone who doesn’t want to go to hell.
Hebrews 8:9 clearly tells us that God disregarded Israel, because Israel did not keep their covenant. The Bible says this, God says this and I did not write the Bible. Is God anti-Semitic? That is what some will try to call me for saying something like this. So you can accept it for what it says or you can attempt to explain it away. Covenants with God are always Conditional! Let’s review another Old Testament example of these conditional promises of God:
Deu 28:1 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:
The key word “IF” is given to the nation of Israel again and God tells them that “IF” they would diligently follow the Word of God that “THEN” God would make them above all nations. There are very specific requirements to the blessings of God and if you continue to read down in this chapter you will also find that there are very specific curses for not following these instructions. This is a Bible principle and a spiritual law being established by God. This is how God works and this should inform us of our responsibilities to listen and obey. We start by recognizing that we have some responsibilities and then we go about finding out what they are and how to follow them or fulfill them.
Jer 4:1 If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the LORD, return unto me: and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, the shalt thou not remove.
You see in Jeremiah God says to Israel, if they would return and put away their abominations, that God would not remove them. There is a very strong statement with very direct consequences being made to the Natural Nation of Israel. There are just too many verses in the Bible like this that declare God will do something if you first do something.
We cannot pray and ask God for something and then when it does not come, think that God said NO! Many times things like praying for specific answers in the Bible have specific conditions and requirements attached them. You have to base your prayer on the Bible promises that provide the answer, pray the right way, believe the right things, do the right things, say the right things, act in the appropriate manner and then God will do His part. This is a staggering concept to many Christians, but yet it is in the Bible if we look.
God always tells us what to do and then expects us to do it. Then God will always step in and do the rest. Read the Old Testament very closely. Notice things that God instructs Joshua when taking Jericho and other such examples. God would always tell them to do something very specific and if they did it, God would come through and do the rest. When Moses went to God with a problem, either about Pharaoh or the children of Israel, God would always tell Moses to do something with very specific steps and requirements or conditions. If Moses followed and obeyed, God would always do His part faithfully. The Bible is full of examples like this.
Jer 31:36 If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.
I guess many Christians cannot comprehend that God would require humans to do anything in order to obtain God’s Grace. It is almost unimaginable that Israel could do anything that would cause God to end their Covenant. I have read in a few Bible lessons from other teachers that some people think that God’s love and all of the blessings of His Covenants are unconditionally guaranteed and nothing that anyone does can cause God to back out of it.
We should go back and reread the Bible and look for how many times the word “IF” is used in verses concerning Israel. We will discover that God has put conditions on many of the things that He has given to His people. God placed responsibility of the continuation of the covenant into the hands of those who He was trusting to do the right things and be obedient. If you study carefully you discover that Israel did a very bad job of fulfilling their end of the bargain. What a bargain they had, they had the fastest and most direct way to the Messiah, they had the first choice at Salvation, they were the keepers of the Holy Word of God and they blew it.
NEW COVENANT CONDITIONS
Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Just as the Old Covenant was conditional, entrance into the New Covenant is also conditional. There is no such thing as Universal Salvation. There is no such thing that everyone is saved automatically, because God wants them to be. God always requires action by man. People need to realize that God has already done everything that He needs to do to get all of the people on the earth saved. However, that does not mean everyone is saved or will be saved. Jesus tells us clearly in Revelation that He is standing at the door of the heart of man, knocking and that clearly indicates that He wants to come in. However, the conditional part of the verse clearly states that the Man on the inside is required to hear the knock and open the door to let Him come in. There are conditions to people getting saved. People are required to act appropriately and let Christ in. There are also specific conditions to staying saved. I really do not want to get into this subject any deeper for I have touched on this subject in other lessons. Realize and understand that the Old Covenant of God with natural Israel was a conditional agreement. It was very clear in the Bible that in order for Israel to remain in Covenant with God, that Israel was required to be faithful to God. Just like in any natural human marriage contract, God’s covenant works this way also. Both parties are either faithful to the vows, commitments and conditions of the agreement or the agreement is terminated. If one party is faithful and the other party is not, the agreement is terminated. There are many very difficult things like this in life and they are also revealed to us in the Bible. Recently in national news several prominent men have been caught being unfaithful to their wives. They have discovered the hard way that there are consequences to their actions in life. Israel may learn very soon that she has also encountered the consequences of her actions.
Then pay attention to things God writes to the church in the New Testament. Why would Jesus and God say so many times a warning for us not be deceived? There appears to be some unseen consequences for being deceived. Perhaps a Christian does not live a long life. But perhaps the Christians finds out like one of the 5 foolish virgins that they were not really known by Jesus. Remember in the 10 Virgin parable there was a need to have oil for the lamps. This sounds like a major condition for entering into the divine wedding feast.
Thank you for reading this lesson. I know there are a of other Bible verses that come to mind that teach this concept that I did not get to include. I appreciate your time reading and I also appreciate your comments, and questions. If you have a prayer request, please leave it and we will pray for you and add you to our prayer list. God bless you until next time.
God In 3 Dimensions, God For Us, God With Us, God In Us!
(ver 1.1) The Bible speaks of God in many different aspects with various described characteristics. The New Testament also states that we in the church today are now in a better covenant than the one that came before (Heb 8:6). What makes our covenant better now than the one that was established with the natural nation of Israel? I will not attempt to fully answer that question, but I will give you some pertinent clues to why I think it is better now. In the Old Testament God was certainly for the nation of Israel. God was certainly with the children of Israel. But, I do not think that God was ever in the children of Israel. God dwelt with the nation of Israel only in things that were built with the hands of men. Moses made God a temporary dwelling place using tents. Solomon built God a temple in Jerusalem. But, all of these things were just temporary patterns made by men for something that was to come that was made by God. Let’s examine the Bible today for God’s realities and why we have a basis of a better covenant now.
We will start with God being with us and look for Bible verses to establish God’s presence with His people. What does it mean for God to be “with” us? One definition of the term “with” is to be in the company of. In other words to be in the same company. God is said to be in our company. You could say that God is said to be our companion. Here is a Bible verse that appears to convey this thought:
Psa 46:7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
God is the Lord of hosts and this verse establishes the idea that God was with the children of Israel in the Old Covenant. We can read stories in the Old Testament when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, how God went before them in the day as a cloud and a fire by night. So we can clearly see how God was present with them during their time in the wilderness.
Isa 8:10 Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.
We can clearly see that there are implied benefits for God being with us as this verse says that God was with Israel. This verse is speaking about the subject of spoken words and this verse implies that they can be weapons against us. But, elsewhere in the Bible God also said that no weapon formed against us will prosper, so we can see this is possible because God is with us. God is on our side, by our side and that is a very good thing. We have specific benefits, because God is with us.
Mat 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
This verse in Matthew is a little different than the others. This time God is spoken of in terms of becoming a man like us and walking around with us on this planet. God in the flesh, walking around looking just like us. That is the powerful story of the salvation and redemptive plan of God. If God never came to be with us, we would all still be in dire straits. Let’s shift gears and look at the next dimension of God, God For Us!
Rom 8:31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
It is said that God is “for” us. This is contrasted as an antonym to the word to be “against”. I am certainly glad that God is not against us. However, I think that many religious people struggle with the concept of God not currently acting as the judge, the jury and the executioner. Whenever, 9/11 happened and terrorist flew planes into NY and Washington D.C., I heard many Christians try to say it was God’s judgment upon us. However, these are ignorant Christians who do not understand that God is “For” us and not “against” us. If God was “against” you and that was His judgment, no one would be alive to tell the tale. There is coming a day of judgment, but that is in the future. Right now Satan is responsible for all of the killing and murder going on in the world, not God! Satan is against you, God is for you. I could give you many more verses that speak to God being for us and not against us. But, I want to move on to the third dimension of God that makes our covenant much better than the Old Covenant God had with Israel. You see God was “with” Israel and “for” Israel, but never “in” Israel. We have this gift of God and it makes our covenant much better than the old.
Rom 8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
You see in this verse in Romans, God is saying that those who are born again, have the Spirit of God dwelling in them. God further stipulates that the Spirit of God is also called the Spirit of Christ. You cannot separate Christ from God nor God from Christ, they are one in the same. What is the difference between Old Testament prophets and New Testament Prophets? Both have a prophets anointing, but the New Testament prophet has God living on the inside of them and the Old Testament prophet did not. An anointing is like an outward pouring of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God comes “Upon” a human and is anointed to do a specific job for God. David was anointed to be King by Samuel. The prophet poured the oil over the head of David and this was symbolic of how the Spirit of God came upon him. If David would have had the Spirit of God on the inside of him, David would have had to drink the oil. Little details like these are often times missed when casually reading the Bible.
Rom 8:11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
This is another verse in the same chapter of Romans, that declares that the Spirit of God dwells in the believer. This of course is very hard to describe to someone who doesn’t believe. I can tell them that I have sensed the presence of God within in me at times, in the past sometimes very strongly, like my insides were on fire. Other times I have felt nothing at all. But, regardless of the feeling or sensations that I perceived with my senses, I know He is there because His word says He is. He said He would never leave me nor forsake me, so I know He is there all the time. God can give you sensations that can be physically felt if He so desires and thinks that you would benefit from them. However, it is dangerous to pray and ask God to do this, because Satan can also manifest to deceive you. I never prayed or asked God to make me feel like I was on fire on the inside of my chest, God choose to do this because I guess He thought I needed it. Be very careful what you pray for, make sure it is based upon scriptures. I do not know of any verses that says God will give you any specific feeling in your flesh to confirm His presence.
Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
There are many verses like this one that I could include, but they just go to confirm the fact that the Spirit of Christ now dwells in those that believe. This is truly a mystery to the world and to the natural Jews. They have never experienced this, but they do have the opportunity to participate in this great mystery if they choose to. The free gift of life and salvation is open to whomsoever will. What does it mean to have God dwell in us? To dwell somewhere implies a place or a location that we live. Say a specific address or a specific city. I dwell in Dallas, TX, some might be able to say. A dwelling also implies a home. God has made his home in us. We are now the new home of God. Where we were not His home we have become His home. This is really an awesome difference between the New Covenant and the Old Covenant. The church is the New Jerusalem, the spiritual city of God’s new home. We have become this spiritual city built up in Christ, Jesus Christ the chief cornerstone, where in we all fit together being built up in the spiritual realm.
So God is For You! God is With You! and God is In You! if you are a believer and have made Jesus your Lord and Savior.
Genesis 12: Was Abraham A Liar? Seeing the Truth in Genesis!
(Ver 1.3) Today is a subject that contains some very deep water concepts. As you can see from my diagram in this post, these are warning signs concerning water hazards. So please be advised that this is an advanced Bible study lesson with some new concepts that forces you to get into things that may be over your head. So many times I have heard ministers in the pulpit accuse Abraham of being a liar because of one story in the book of Genesis that they clearly misunderstood. In this story, we find that Abraham is faced with what he perceives as a threatening situation and he makes a decision that many have thought was a lie. But, what we have is an example of how preachers can take a part of a story and try to make it the whole story and as a result they have jumped to some erroneous conclusions and an incorrect interpretation of the Bible. I do not attack these preachers personally, I just attack their ignorance. Truth will always prevail if you want to see it. We will pick up with the story of Abraham starting in Genesis chapter 12 and verse 11:
Gen 12:11 And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon:
We can see in this verse that Abraham is traveling about and he comes near the country of Egypt. Abram begins to speak to his wife and this is where it starts to get good. Abram tells his wife Sarai that she is very beautiful and this must have been the truth. No one that I know of has ever questioned the beauty of Sarai his wife.
Gen 12:12 Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.
Abram begins to speculate and imagine some very negative things as he approaches Egypt. Egypt is a type of the world, if you did not know that, keep that in mind as you read accounts in the Old Testament about Egypt. We can see that Abram’s fear is that the men of this country will see how beautiful his wife was and kill him in order to take her to be theirs. So Abram was very concerned about his own personal well being and safety and did not think much beyond that, it appears. So Abram comes up with a plan or so the ministers said, he lies about who his wife was.
Gen 12:13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.
We can see that Abram asks his wife to tell everyone that she is his sister and not to mention that they are married. Abram thinks that he will be spared and be safe if anyone in Egypt wants his wife Sarai. So this was Abram’s plan, a plan or work of some sort of alleged deception to save himself from being killed, or was it? You see if you only read these verses and come up with a sermon based upon this limited information you would probably conclude that Abraham was a liar. That he out of fear chose to purposely lie to a group of people because he was afraid of being killed. This would in affect make Abram a type of Satan, the deceiver. I just can’t go along with that picture because it doesn’t fit his character. Nowhere in the Bible that I know of is Abram ever called a liar. So if God does not call Abram a liar, I do not feel it is right that a preacher should call him a liar. So we have to come up with another explanation or interpretation of the verses or at least some more information that helps us to understand what the real truth is about Abram and Sarai. So we continue to read the book of Genesis and we read chapter after chapter and finally come to the answer later in Genesis 20. During these chapters and this time period, Abram and Sarai have a lot happen to them. God changes their names. Abraham enters into a covenant with God. But, it seems that Abraham repeats the same plan when he comes to another country called Gerar, ruled by Abimelech the king of Gerar. We can see that Abraham didn’t learn very much from his Egypt experience and he repeats the same plan.
Gen 20:2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
So Abimelech believed what Abraham said, that she is my sister and he takes Sarah to be one of his wives. God again saves the day and keeps the king from doing anything to Sarah with a dream.
Gen 20:3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife.
Apparently God frowns upon one man taking another man’s wife. I guess that is putting it very lightly since God told Abimelech that he was a dead man. Apparently God thinks it is very serious to take another man’s wife. That would be a very strong lesson for many Christians to learn, I don’t think God has changed his mind any time in the last 6000 years. So as we continue down the chapter we discover that Abraham gets his wife back and he is not killed. God saves the day again and preserves the linage of Christ. But did Abraham lie? We still haven’t resolved the situation or the circumstances that he was faced with. I believe the answer to the question and the solution to the problem is finally solved by reading Genesis 20:12:
Gen 20:12 And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.
You see from this verse the solution to the problem that Abraham never lied. Abraham did marry his sister. However, she was a half-sister, the daughter of his father, but not the daughter of his mother. Abraham had a different mother than Sarah, but she is still called his sister, legally and truthfully. Abraham could call her, his sister and omit the wife part and still not be called a liar. If you omit part of the truth and only tell a different part that is true, what would you call that? I call it being very tricky. I do not defend what Abraham did at any time. It seems if it was not for God saving the day that Sarah would have ended up in someone’s harem. God is faithful though to save them both.
I had one reader write me a comment that Abram was guilty of the sin of omission. In other words by not telling all of the truth he committed a sin. I thought that was an interesting misinterpretation of the Bible again so I spent time studying the subject in more depth. I looked for any scripture that said withholding information was a sin and I could not find any. Then I went and studied the subject of deception and I learned some new things found in the Bible that are very profound. While Satan is called a deceiver, the Bible does not indicate that every deception is a sin. I could give you more examples found in the Bible, but I wrote a blog on this subject and you should go and read that to find out more about the subject of “Righteous Deception“.
We can really learn a whole bunch from this story of Abraham if we look for it. I will not go into all of it, but I will tell you that Abraham is a type of Christ a picture of Jesus the man born of the natural woman Mary. God is both the spiritual and physical father of Jesus Christ. Mary is Jesus’ natural mother in the flesh. The church is called the spiritual children of the “heavenly Jerusalem” in Galatians 4. We can see that if there is a spiritual mother there also has to be a spiritual father in order to have spiritual children. So the picture of Abraham as being a type of Christ with the same father of his wife Sarah, but with different mothers, actually fits the pattern given to us of Christ and the church. The Bible is full of little complex imbedded hidden truths like this. If you understand how to look for them you can learn a lot. In another blog I told you that Jesus married his sister. I told you that Solomon was also a type of Jesus and that 3 or 4 times in the book of Songs that Solomon calls his lover bride to be his sister. Interesting isn’t it? Why are things like this written in the Bible for us to figure out? So I’ll end this blog with a picture diagram of Abraham’s family and hopefully you will that this is a pattern of another family that I will talk about in the future:
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 11 The New Jerusalem
(Ver 1.2) This is now Part 11 in the series of advanced Bible lessons on the subject of the Bride of Christ Revealed. In my last lesson in this series we came full circle back to the New Jerusalem and today I want to address this bride city in more depth. This will probably be the last lesson in this series on this subject for now. Today’s lesson will cover the city of New Jerusalem mentioned in Revelation 21 as the Bride of the Lamb and how she is representative of the church. This city has long been a point of controversy since she is described symblically and these symbols can potentally be interpreted to mean many things. However if we use the Bible to interpret the Bible we will only come up with one true identity that she can be. We have really covered a tremendous amount of new information found in the Bible in this series. If you have not read the first 10 parts of this series I would strongly recommend that you go back and start reading with Part 1.
I have already given you a lot of scriptures and references that the woman in Revelation 21 appears to represent the church. But we have certainly not exhausted the scriptures on this subject and probably would not be able to if we tried. The Bible is much more complex than what people see on the surface of the text. So let’s go through some more of the scriptures in this blog and see if we can find other confirming verses of the identity of the New Jerusalem.
Let’s look at some other scripture that I’ve heard does reflect the identity of the bride. In fact it is almost impossible to ignore since it directly reflects this title.
Rev 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
It is very interesting to note that God finds it necessary to create a new heaven and a new earth. There is an implied problem with the old heaven and the old earth. Why buy a new car if your old car is still in great shape and useful. Why create a new family or a new covenant if the old is in such good relations. There lies the problem that God had and the solution that He has implemented with the establishment of a new heaven and new earth. If is also noteworthy that this verse says the “first” and not just the “old”. That actually tells us there were none others before this first heaven and earth. But yet it does tells us that there will be a second.
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.
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.
I can’t emphasis enough the reality that this city is called the wife of the Lamb. We already have a good understanding of who the Lamb is, but many may still be struggling to figure out the identity of the city called New Jerusalem. So let’s look at some other verses in this chapter that describe this city:
Rev 21:12 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:
Rev 21:13 On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates.
Rev 21:14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
Revelation gives us significant additional information that I think we should take a look at now in some depth. If the church is the bride and Jesus is the bridegroom, then God is also calling the church the “new Jerusalem” the new covenant city of God. I’ve heard some say that here in these scriptures it proves that the “new Jerusalem” is the bride and not the church. If this is true this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I’ll put it to you this way why couldn’t the church be both? In fact if you look at scriptures accurately I believe you will find out that the church is both. Someone said that we are the body of Christ and therefore, if Christ has a bride we have a bride. You know based upon scripture that I’ve shown you that this is not true. We have been called the body of Christ, but we are never called the Lamb. I don’t know of any scripture that says we are the Lamb of God and here in Revelation Jesus is referred to as the Lamb more than once. I’ve given several scriptures that demonstrate how the church became the body of Christ and that was clearly by a marriage covenant. So we have already established that the church is the bride of Christ, but now we need to further confirm that the church is also the New Jerusalem.
In Biblical days a city was usually a walled dwelling place where all the human people of a common nation lived. The reason for building a wall was for safety to keep enemies from stealing from them and killing them. This city is said to have 4 walls as if a square or a rectangular structure. Each of the 4 walls has 3 gates. Each Gate has an angel. It still appears that God is guarding the way in an out of this city. But all of these can also be taken symbolically. If we are talking about a symbolic city with symbolic gates, symbolic walls and symbolic foundations we really have a lot more to learn. I believe we make a mistake if we think of this spiritual city in terms that it is a physical place.
We have already discussed that a city represents a covenant and is referred to as a woman. The covenant is not with the city however, it is with the inhabitants or residents of the city. I could give you several good scriptures, but I’ll choose one that I liked and one that stood out to me. Let’s review the Word of God in Isaiah:
Isa 54:11 O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.
Isa 54:12 And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.
Isa 54:13 And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children.
These scriptures are an amazing parallel to the description of the city found in Revelation 21 called the New Jerusalem. We see the mention of many of the key qualities of a large city with stones, foundations, windows, gates and borders. We also see the mention of key stone types meaning they are valuable, precious and rare. These key elements describe a city for sure in verses 11 and 12 of Isaiah 54. However, did you notice the reference found in verse 13? It speaks of this city as a woman with children. Isn’t that an interesting commentary. I tell you when you see what the Bible is describing as a woman you begin to see a lot more clearly the things that are symbolized in the Word of God. We again see in Isaiah that a city represents a woman and not just any woman in our case it is called the bride of the Lamb in Revelation 21:9. A woman has children and that is one of the primary reasons for marriage.
There are so many good things within these scriptures in Revelations, but I saw a definite significance of the number 12 mentioned, did you notice that too? It is not an accident that there were 12 tribes in the nation of Israel for this was a type and a shadow of the spiritual Israel to come. It is no accident that Jesus choose 12 Apostles and the book of Revelations informs us that their names are written on the 12 foundations of this new city Jerusalem. If the names of the 12 apostles are written on the foundation doesn’t that describe the church? Who started the church if it wasn’t Jesus breathing on the apostles (John 20:22) I don’t know who it was. We also see the reference of 12 angels and of the 12 tribes of Israel so the new Jerusalem is comprised I believe of, at the least a part of all three of these groups. So if we get right down to it, I don’t think that the Gentile Church is the entire city, only a big part of it. Hopefully you will understand this more as the Word of God is revealed further. Let’s look at just one part of this new city and see the part that the church plays. Once you finally realize that this woman represents a covenant marriage relationship, then you can easily associate the role of the church to this woman.
Here is a good time to remind you of what we read earlier when God said my wife “Jerusalem” committed adultery (Ezekiel 16:32). Who did God call his female wife? The earthly city Jerusalem was referred to as “her”. This physical city is in no doubt a foreshadowing of the new Jerusalem the spiritual city that we just read about. The reference to a city is the a reference to the people within the city who were in covenant with God, Yes? The people living in the earthly city Jerusalem were in covenant and married to God. God calls all of these people by a name of Jerusalem and says she is my wife. This was the Old Covenant people or the earthly nation of Israel. So, who is in the New Covenant with Jesus Christ? It is those people in covenant or marriage with Jesus that are the residents of this new Jerusalem. The distinct parallels between these two cities are very numerous and cannot be ignored, unless you just want to remain ignorant.
Do you remember in the Old Testament the life of David the king of natural Israel? In the book of Acts David is called a type of God. If you understand the significance of Biblical Typology these Old Testament stories have meaning for us in the church today. The Bible in Acts 13:22 says that David was a man after God’s own heart. David had it in his heart to build a temple in Jerusalem, but God said it was not for him to do, but for his son Solomon (1 Kings 8:17-19). Solomon represents a type of Christ as I said before and he was the builder of the physical Temple of God in Jerusalem. But Christ Jesus was the builder of a spiritual house for God. Natural types are only God’s patterns or foreshadows of that which was to come. Jesus today is the builder of a new spiritual temple and we can prove this by reading the New Testament:
2Co 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Here is a most significant scripture with great revelation. The implied reference is that of a building. But buildings are many times built within cities. It says God will live in them and walk in them. That sounds like a really big house or a city to me. If you live in Dallas Texas, and wanted to go for a walk, where would you be walking? But this is not a physical building or temple, for God in the same context speaks of this temple in the terms of people. In other words the temple is built with people. People are the spiritual building blocks that make up this structure. Do you understand that concept?
1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
Here is another scripture that says we are the dwelling place of the living God right here and right now. There is a clear implication of a building or a house or even a city within both of these verses. After all what does it mean to “dwell”? When it says God dwells in us what does that mean to you? If I said I dwell in Dallas Texas what does that mean? It specifies the location of my home. If I said I dwell in a big white house on Jones Rd. What does that tell you? It describes a building or house that I live in and helps give you the location of that house. I don’t know how we can be the bride and the temple and the city and the body of Christ and all of these things at the same time, but I believe we are.
What is a temple? A temple is a building or a structure that is created to be inhabited or occupied by someone. Modern temples are called places of worship many times. However, the original temple was put together by Moses according to God’s instructions and made out of tents. A tent represents a temporary dwelling place. It was not until Solomon, that the permanent dwelling place was built in the earthly Jerusalem. Both of these are representative of what the church is experiencing now and foretells that which is to come. Look at these scriptures:
2Pe 1:13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
2Pe 1:14 Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.
This is a very interesting pair of scriptures and I believe they give us some light on the subject of the temple of God. These scriptures say that Peter was dwelling in a tabernacle. This is not talking about a physical house or a building made by the hands of man. In fact he is not talking about any kind of physical building at all with walls, doors and windows. No, it is speaking of his body that he and God dwells in. God has showed him that he was soon to die and leave his body and go and be with the Lord. The tabernacle represents a temporary dwelling place. The Greek word translated “tabernacle” comes from another root word that contains the meaning of a “tent”. A tent represents a temporary dwelling place and we know that if Jesus doesn’t come we will all die. However, when we are raised from the dead and given a new glorified body then we will have a permanent dwelling place for God.
2Co 5:1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2Co 5:2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:
2Co 5:3 If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
2Co 5:4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
2Co 5:5 Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.
2Co 5:6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
2Co 5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
2Co 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
These are very powerful scriptures and teach us many of the things that I’ve been attempting to convey. They speak of our current mortal bodies as a temporary home and even calls them an earthly tabernacle or tent. What is an earthly tabernacle? It has to be a tabernacle made of earth or dust as it says in Genesis that God formed the body of man from the dust of the ground. But it also gives us the hope of a new house that was not built with man’s hands, but it will come from God and will be immortal. So we see a pattern from the Old Testament where Moses established a temporary tabernacle for God made of tents. Then came Solomon and he built the permanent tabernacle. These are types and shadows of what Jesus has done and is doing.
Eph 2:19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
Eph 2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
Eph 2:21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
Eph 2:22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
These are some of the most interesting scripture references comparing the church to a symbolic building and they say that we (the church) are ALLL the habitation of God. Notice first in chapter 2 verse 19 God is referring to the church as being fellow citizens with the rest of the saints. A citizen is a resident of a city. Which city are we now citizens of? Isn’t that very relevant to what we are talking about in Revelation? God then implies that this city is where we were once on the outside of the walls being called strangers and foreigners but, we have now become a residential part of this implied city of God. Then notice all of the symbolic architectural terms and references in these verses. There is a clear reference to the act of constructing a building. Also notice in verse 20 the reference to the symbolic foundation of the 12 Apostles and prophets. Doesn’t that sound familiar? What about the description of the city in Revelations coming down from Heaven? It also had a foundation of the 12 Apostles of the Lamb. This is no accident, but demonstrates a confirmation of the relationship of the church to the city New Jerusalem. Going back to verse 19 you see the connection to the household of God and the spiritual building that God is putting together. These verses also further imply the members of the church are symbolic building blocks in this construction being joined together laid upon the foundation. These are amazing verses to remember for our study of the New Jerusalem. Let’s review an earlier concept and remember what God said in 1 Corinthians using new light:
1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
Don’t you know that you are the temple of God? What does that now mean to you? That means to me that each and every one that is born again represents a living stone in a new temple dwelling place for the True Living God. I know the natural earthly Jerusalem contained the temple of God as one of its key components. So at the minimum the temple of God is within the new Jerusalem and to say it is not the entire city would be difficult in my perspective. So if we are this new temple then we are at minimum a major or significant part of the new Jerusalem referred to in Revelation.
1Co 3:10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
1Co 3:11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
I included these scriptures as a contrast to what I was talking about previously. For they contain more building and architectural terms, but the reference is given in much different context. We see a foundation which is clearly Jesus Christ. Then there are references to other builders that continue to reveal the word of God. So does these scriptures contradict the others or complement them to give a different perspective or view. I say they only complement. I’ve spent a lot of time and effort showing multiple scriptures that at the minimum shows the church is a significant part of the new Jerusalem, if not the entire city. I don’t feel like I’ve exhausted the subject but I feel I’ve given enough scriptural evidence to justify the claim. So now I want to stir up a different point of view and look at some other scripture that seems to indicate to me that the church is this woman mentioned in Revelation 21.
Eph 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
Eph 5:27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Verse 26 in Ephesians 5 specifically mentions the church as the bride and says she has been made clean by Christ. In verse 27 we see another inference of marriage in direct relationship to the church with the word “present” her. Present in the Greek means to stand beside. So if the church was only the body of Christ then there would be a direct contradiction, because how can a man stand beside himself? In a marriage ceremony usually the bride is standing beside the groom when taking the vows. Finally in verse 27 there is a reference to the church not having spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish. I know that is speaking of God’s righteousness that was bestowed or given to the church and not something that we earned or achieved on our own. But did you notice a distinct parallel to another verse in Revelation 19 where it speaks about the bride in this regard:
Rev 19:7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
Rev 19:8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.
This is a most interesting choice of words. It speaks of a cleansing process that has taken place. You might could infer a washing. Fine linen infers a garment that is spotless without stains, imperfections, rips or holes. Isn’t this what Ephesians was saying also? Also notice that it says in the last part of verse 8, the righteousness of the saints, not the righteousness of God. I fully understand it is God’s righteousness I’m just making a point. The word “saints” is used in other places in direct reference to the church. Look how God addresses His people in Rome:
Rom 1:7 To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I think the similarities and parallels between the scriptures in Revelation describing the bride as a city to other scriptures that are written directly to the church in the epistles are so amazingly related that they complement each other. They simply give a different perspective of the same thing. God simply uses symbolism that we can grasp hold of and shows us some natural things to help us to understand these spiritual realities. In this verse in Romans 1:7 that is written to the church, we are called saints of God. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard anyone besides the church ever referred to as saints. Have you? Then I noticed something very interesting in this verse, God calls the church “His beloved”. I don’t know if you noticed this or not, but this is a term used some 27 times in the Song of Solomon. The beloved is often times used in conjunction with a direct reference to his bride. Is this a coincidence or a clue to God’s purpose and plan? I believe it is a valuable clue to see. The church is this beloved, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…”. To love someone that much to give yourself for them is an incredibly unselfish act.
Before I end the discussion in this blog, let me show a verse of scripture that has tremendous significance to the identity of the “Lamb’s Wife”. As you read this verse notice that Jesus is speaking and who Jesus is speaking to. I believe you will see Jesus is talking to the church:
Rev 3:12 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.
I don’t know how you can read this verse and not see clearly that Jesus is speaking to the church. Jesus is telling the church some very specific things. These specific details confirm in other words what we read in Revelation 19 and 21 about the New Jerusalem. Again the city is referred to as the city of God and it comes from above. But the name of this city will be written on or given to them that have overcome. Who is it that has overcome? What city name was it that was to be written on them? Of course Jesus says that to those who overcome, He will write the name of the New Jerusalem upon them. Jesus also said these same people will be living stones or pillars in the temple of God. This confirms that the spiritual temple of God and the spiritual city New Jerusalem are one in the same thing. These are totally complementary views of the exact same spiritual structure. If you can see it you will understand some very powerful spiritual truths. Then there is the whole name changing operation that takes place at a marriage between a husband and the wife. The wife traditionally always takes the name of the husband and isn’t this what this verse is saying? The church is taking the name “New Jerusalem” and becoming the wife of the Lamb. This is all New Covenant language and spiritual truths that have been overlooked by many. I hope you have enjoyed this lesson the identity of bride of Christ. I know I did not cover everything that I could have, but hopefully I gave you some new things to think about and study.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 10 The Bride in the Old Testament 2
(Ver 1.1) This is now Part 10 in the series of advanced Bible lossons on the subject of The Bride of Christ Revealed. Today will be a lesson on more Old Testament references to the Bride of Christ. I have already covered a lot of infromation in this series. For example, if we are talking about someone being a bride then there are implied subjects that we needed to be covered. For example, an implied bridegroom and an implied wedding or marriage. I went over the subjest that Jesus was the Bridegroom of the bride providing you with many scriptures. I then defined what a spiritual woman or a spiritual bride was in the eyes of God using the Bible to help us to understand her. I further have defined the reality that a marriage in the eyes of God is a covenant between God and his bride using several verses. If you have not been following this blog series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and read it from the beginning Part 1 The Introduction.
As we have seen, we know from the Old Testament prophets that God was married to the natural nation of Israel and the people of the earthly city of Jerusalem. Maybe you didn’t realize that, but it is there. What we see is a natural example of a marriage covenant between Israel and God the Father. This is a pattern and a foreshadowing of the New Covenant that was to come. When Jesus was crucified He implemented a new covenant, which represents a spiritual marriage to a spiritual woman called the new Jerusalem. The parallels between these two women are numerous and I really think they are obvious if you look for them. Here are just some of the parallels I found from studying these two women:
| Old Covenant | New Covenant |
| Physical People | Spiritual People |
| Natural Nation of Israel | Spiritual Nation of Israel |
| 12 Sons of Jacob | 12 Disciples of the Lamb |
| Earthly Jerusalem | New Jerusalem |
| Unholy Jerusalem | Holy Jerusalem |
| Solomon Builds God a Natural Temple | Jesus Builds God a Spiritual Temple |
| Priests unto God | Jesus our High Priest |
| Blood of the Lamb on the Doorposts | Blood of the Lamb of God covers our Sins |
| Offers Yearly Sacrifices for Sin | Jesus the Lamb of God once for all Sin |
| Described as a Natural Woman | Described as a Spiritual Woman |
| Married to God the Father | Married to Jesus the Son of God |
| Abraham The Natural Father | Abraham the Spiritual Father |
| Called the Natural Seed of Abraham | Called the Spiritual Seed of Abraham |
| Circumcised in the Flesh | Circumcised in the Heart |
| Covenant of Mt Sinai in Arabia | Covenant of Mt Zion in Heaven |
So who is this new covenant with? It has to be the church, those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The parallels and patterns between these two women are very significant and intentional by God’s design. God implemented an Old Covenant to give us patterns into the New Covenant. Let’s go through some verses in the Old Testament now and look for the bride of Christ. Here is an Old Testament scripture that I believe is very relevant to the subject of the identity of the bride:
Isa 54:5 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.
We see a clear reference that God our maker is called the husband. I know this verse could be taken as directed at Israel and God, but I believe by the law of double reference it is referring to Jesus and the church. This is a prophetic verse of scripture for it speaks of God being “our” husband. How did I get to “our”? Because it says “thy Husband” is also called “thy Redeemer”. So who has redeemed us? Did you know we were redeemed from something, maybe that ought to be my first question. Here is a familiar scripture to some and others might not have seen it:
Tit 2:14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
You see in this verse that Jesus is called our Redeemer. God writes to the church and tells them that Jesus gave himself for them. Jesus did this to free them from their captive state and from the consequences of their sin. Here is another verse that speaks along these lines:
Gal 3:13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
So we see from Galatians 3:13 and Titus 2:14 that Christ has redeemed “US” the church. So who did Isaiah say our husband would be? He said our Redeemer would be our husband. These kind of scriptures are all over the Bible if you look for them. I know it can be like putting a big jig saw puzzle together, but the pieces of the puzzle only fit together correctly one way so keep trying them to figure out what is right and what works. God didn’t give you a puzzle that couldn’t be solved. I hope you can see why I included this scripture right here and how it also fits with the story of Ruth in the Old Testament. I talked about the story of Ruth in the last blog. Christ is our redeemer and he is now also our husband. We can see that this verse is one of those that I referred to as applicable to the church by the law of double of reference. It was historical and prophetical at the same time. You can learn so much if you can accept these simple truths. I think I should briefly talk about what “redeem” means. If you look this word up and see the definition, it informs us that God buys us out of an impending doom or disastrous state. The word states that the item being bought is on the verge of being lost and the buyer paid the price to save it. We were that item on the verge of being eternally lost and Jesus Christ with His blood bought us out of our impending disaster.
So many times people do not think when they read the Bible. If God had to buy us out of our sin and pay the price for our freedom, who did this payment go to? If you have never been in a pawn shop perhaps you do not know how they work. Someone takes in an item into the pawn shop that has some value to it. This item is pawned for a specific time period. The shop owner gives the owner of the item some amount of money, usually pennies on the dollar for the item and keeps the item in their vault until either the owner comes back and buys the item back or the time period elapses. If the time period elapses the pawn shop owner is then free to take the item and sell it for more than he paid for it and that is one way that they make their money. If the original owner of the item comes back for his item he usually has to pay what he was loaned plus interest to get the item back. So what does this have to do with God redeeming us? We were that item of value that was pawned and held for ransom. God in His infinite mercy paid the price for our redemption. Perhaps I’ll do a blog on this showing you the Bible verses in the future.
Let’s get back to the bride in the Old Testament. The book of Isaiah has several scriptures that can be taken to heart by the church and here is another example of one of these:
Isa 62:5 For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.
This verse gives us a scriptural comparison of a natural and a spiritual truth. We can clearly see a reference given to a marriage between a natural man and a natural woman. We can then see that compared to a covenant marriage between God and his wife. By the law of double reference we can easily make the leap and see that this is Jesus and the church. Jesus as you recall was called the bridegroom with a bride in book of John. So as this verse says it says the bridegroom will rejoice over you. Who do you think “you” is? Of course it is the church. Who do you think the bridegroom is, who rejoices? Of course that is Jesus. Verses like this are so easily overlooked and ignored and people do it every day. But, when you see the truth it makes it easier to see other related truths in the Word of God.
We have seen two very significant verses in Isaiah that are relevant to the church, but there are also other verses and other prophets which can be viewed in more than one way by “the law of double reference”. What does this law of double reference mean to us? It simply means that it can be taken in a natural and a historical way according to the natural nation of Israel and then it can be taken in a spiritual or prophetic way that relates to the new Jerusalem and the new Covenant people of God. Here are a couple of verses that I think further reflect what I am telling you.
Jer 50:4 In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go, and seek the LORD their God.
Jer 50:5 They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten.
We know reading this scripture in verse 4 that this appears to be addressed to the natural people of Israel and Judah. During this time period the prophet Jeremiah had seen the natural nation of Israel split into two opposing factions. This involved the 10 tribes of Israel to the north and then the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin to the south. Israel experienced a split and we won’t get into any of that because even though it is important, it is not relevant to the identity of the bride of Christ at least as far as we know right now. For you see there is a verse in the New Testament that gives us some clues into this statement:
Heb 8:8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
We can see from this verse written to the church that God is speaking of the New Covenant. God states that this new covenant is with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. But, since this is written to the church we can very easily say that we are them, the spiritual Israel and the spiritual Judah.
Look back at Jeremiah 50. We can see a stark change in context in Jeremiah 50:5 with these natural people being previously mentioned. Did you notice what they said? Probably you don’t fully grasp what was said without studying and finding out the significance of the words. It starts by them asking the way to Zion. They end with a statement that says let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant. A perpetual covenant means an eternal, everlasting, never ending covenant. We know from study that to join with another is a part of a marriage covenant. The wife is joined to her husband they become one flesh by the law of marriage in Genesis 2. So we are definitely talking about a bride and a her husband in this verse. But, do you understand what Zion is? It has far reaching implications that are very significant. I do not feel I can fully explain everything in this blog, but I will try to give you enough information to help you see what I am talking about. I’ll start by saying that Mt Zion has an earthly reference to a mountain in Palestine called Mt Hermon. This is not the mountain in this verse that the people are asking for directions to. If you think it is you are probably just confused. Let’s look at some key verses in the New Testament that will help us unlock the meaning. Here are two verses that are quotes from the Old Testament:
Mat 21:5 Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
Joh 12:15 Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass’s colt.
Both of these verses say basically the same thing. But, it give us a key phrase or wording that maybe you don’t understand fully yet. These words are addressed to the daughter of Zion. Do you know who the daughter of Zion is? This may be news to many of you, but the daughter of Zion is the church. I think several readers just choked on their drink. Jesus is prophesied to be riding on a donkey into the city of Jerusalem. But, it says look daughter of Zion here is your King. Who is the King of kings and the Lord of lords? If you don’t know the answer to that you may need to do more Bible study. Who are the kings and lords that Jesus is King and Lord of? This is not a trick question. Let’s look at some more verses and this will become clearer as we do further study. Let’s first establish the location of Mt Zion. Where is Mt Zion, this mountain is not in Palestine or the natural nation of Israel. Here is a clue and a verse that might help you see it.
Rom 9:33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
Isa 8:14 And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
The Bible is so much more complex than we give it credit for many times. When we read the Bible most of the time we see Israel and Jerusalem and only think in natural terms of the physical country and city on the earth. However, there are more than one of both of these in the Bible. From what I have seen in the Bible there are three cities in the Bible all called by the same name Jerusalem. One is physical and two are spiritual. I really don’t have time to teach you this in this lesson. I have included more information on this in other blogs so go read and study. So who or what are these verses speaking of? Who is the stumbling stone? Who is this rock of offence? Here is another scripture from Isaiah that also speaks of this stone:
Isa 28:16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
You can see that God has laid a stone in Zion to start a foundation for a building project. This stone was tried, which has all kind of implications on it. Jesus was tried by Pilot and sentenced to death. Then it refers to this stone as a corner stone. A corner stone in terms of building is the stone that all the other stones are aligned from. It is the first stone laid in a building project. God is talking about a building project, yes? Sure He is! However, God is building a spiritual building, a spiritual city which is to be His eternal dwelling place. This dwelling place is the church and it is called the New Jerusalem. Let’s read some very important verses in Ephesians 2:
Eph 2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
Eph 2:21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
Eph 2:22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
You can clearly see a reference to a very, very large building project in these verses. This is a large building project because we have a really big God. God is building an eternal city, a holy city to dwell in. This city is of course the New Jerusalem. This city will be His eternal dwelling place and will be a glorious place to be forever. As you recall this city is described in great detail in Revelation and is called the Holy Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem. It is New because the Old is going away and being replaced totally and completely.
Heb 8:13 In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
So God tells us that the New replaces the Old. The New is not an augmentation or a modification of the Old or even an upgrade from the Old. The New is a better covenant, built upon better promises. God tells us that the Old will soon vanish away completely. We can see this repeated in the New Testament if you look for it. God tells us there will be a new Heaven and new Earth. So obviously both of these will also be completely replaced. It would appear to me that God is preparing a new spiritual world that replaces the old spiritual world.
So we are still talking about Mt. Zion and where it is. Who was this “Stumbling Stone” that Isaiah 8:14 is referring to? Of course it is Jesus Christ? Where is Jesus Christ today? He is in heaven sitting at the right hand of the Father. Do you agree? So apparently Mt Zion is in heaven. Here is a verse that will clear things up better for you since it tells us exactly where this Mt Zion is located:
Heb 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
Heb 12:23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
This verse is so clear and so informative that I wonder why we haven’t seen it before. Of course this verse is written to the church and it declares us, the church as having come to this Mt Zion. Then it reveals the location of this Mt Zion as being the city of the living God. This time it names the city directly as the Heavenly Jerusalem. As I hope you recall we have already seen this city named in Galatians 4, where it was called the Jerusalem that is Above. Who was this city according to Galatians? Wasn’t it the “Jerusalem from Above” that was the mother of the Church? Uh Oh? We are beginning to put together pieces of the puzzle that have huge implications to challenge our current understanding of God’s word. If you use your brain a little bit you realize that every covenant of God has a corresponding mountain associated with it. From reading in Galatians 4 the Earthly Jerusalem is tied to Mt Sinai where Moses received the law from God. This heavenly Jerusalem also has a mountain associated with it inferring there was another covenant that most of us don’t know about. If the heavenly Jerusalem contains the mountain named Zion and this city is said to be the mother of the church, could the daughter of Zion also be the church? If you keep studying longer you will come to the conclusion that it is, as I have.
Son 3:11 Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart.
The daughter of Zion is mentioned in the Song of Solomon when speaking of his wife that he loves. Solomon is an O.T. type of Christ and a pattern for Jesus’ marriage to the church. The “daughter of Zion” again is a reference to the church a spiritual name for a spiritual woman.
I have in a roundabout way gone in a complete circle in this teaching about the bride of Christ. As you may remember, we started out very early with a definition of a woman coming from a description of the woman in Revelation called the New Jerusalem. This woman has suddenly reappeared from Old Testament references thus completing the circle. If you have been following this you will soon begin to understand the connection and the process of how we got to where we did. God does things like this on purpose to teach us. This woman called the New Jerusalem is the Holy City of God. The eternal dwelling place for the Spirit of God. The eternal covenant wife of Jesus Christ the Son of God. This city is a new spiritual habitation for God because the Old spiritual city in heaven will soon pass away. Why was it necessary for God to create a new spiritual city? Why was is necessary to create a new heaven and a new Earth? Why did God have to marry a new wife through His Son Jesus Christ? Why was the Church a necessary part of God’s plan as a woman and a wife? There are just so many questions to answer and research. Before I close out this incredibly long lesson, I’ll leave you with one more set of scriptures about this city called “New Jerusalem”:
Isa 52:1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
Isa 52:2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
Isa 52:3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.
Here God is speaking to the New Jerusalem. If you noticed He again called it the “Holy Jerusalem” like He did in Revelation. There is a parallel given to us of a spiritual truth. We know the uncircumcised refers to those not in covenant. But, in the New Testament God informs us that we who have been circumcised in our hearts are the true Jews (Rom 2:29). So God is speaking prophetically as well as naturally. Then in verse 2 it says to free ourselves from the captivity of sin. Where we were bound in darkness to Satan we have been purchased and redeemed by God. As you can see in verse 3 it says we sold ourselves for nothing to Satan, but God has bought us back without paying any money for us. It didn’t cost God any money to redeem us, but it was not free either. God shed His blood, which was more valuable than anything else that He could have given and paid the price to buy us out of our dilemma.
So we have gone full circle and ended where we started. Funny how God does that. The City of New Jerusalem is the New Covenant wife of the Lamb of God and this spiritual woman is the church. There are certainly many other scriptures that I did not cover, but I know I have run very long in today’s lesson, so I will stop here.
If you would like to continue reading this series, you can go to “Part 11“.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 9 The Bride in the Old Testament
(Ver 1.1) This has been a very long extensive advanced Bible study about the identity of the bride of Christ. This is now Part 9 in the series and is my 100th blog on this site. I have been going through an intentionally designed set of information to step you through a process so that you could clearly see and understand the identity of the Bride of Christ. We have discussed a lot of subjects and a lot of scriptures. These are absolutely critical for you to understand so that you know who you are in Christ. By knowing who you are spiritually, it clearly indentifies you and your responsibility in the spiritual realm and helps you to understand your covenant relationship with Christ. If you have not read these blogs from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you go back and start with Part 1 The Introduction and then continue forward in progressive blogs so that you can clearly see and understand what God is saying.
Within the Old Testament there are several styles of writings found within the pages. First we should realize that God originally started by giving the first part of the Old Testament to Moses. Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible and these are many times referred to as “the law”. The law represents commandments and instructions given to the nation of Israel so that they would learn and know of God and His ways. There is a lot of information contained within the law, but most of it does not apply directly to the church. We know from the New Testament in verses like Romans 6:14 that it says the church is not under the law, but under grace. So we have to understand the law, but not live thinking that by obeying the law that is what saved us. Jesus also said that a new commandment I give to you and this was the commandment of Love. Jesus told us that in this one new commandment was summed up all the other commandments of the Old Testament. Next, we should see the Bible as a historical document with actual events, places and people recorded for our benefit. The Bible says these things were written to us for examples (1 Cor 10:11) so that we could learn from what they did right or wrong. Learning from History will help us to not repeat it, so the saying goes. So we should read first and foremost for examples that we could learn from. Next, there are prophetic words recorded of events and things which have not yet occurred. Jesus of course fulfilled many of the prophetic writings when he was born a man and walked the earth. Then he was killed and rose from the dead and these were all prophesied events. Events that were written hundreds of years earlier. So we should be reading the Old Testament for events that are soon to occur. The next type of Old Testament writing that we should be aware of when reading, is the fact that God has developed patterns, types and shadows of future events and people. Many times it is a natural occurrence of a specific event that parallels a future spiritual event. God informs us that the thing that has been is the thing that shall be again ( Ecc 1:9). He told us that there is nothing new under the sun. So what we can determine from this is that God has given us glimpses into future spiritual events by showing us previous natural events. So as we read the Old Testament keep this in mind and look for natural patterns, types and shadows of people, places and events. I believe there are many other types and styles of writings in the Old Testament, but there is only one more that I want to point out. The last type of writing that I want to make you aware of are scriptures that many call double references. In other words they may be words that are originally given to or directed at the natural nation of Israel, but these words can also be applied to the spiritual nation of Israel or the church as it is also known. The law of double reference represents words that come from God that can be viewed historically and prophetically simultaneously. The Bible declares that all of the promises of God are yes and amen to us (2 Cor 1:20). For example, some of these promises were from the Old Testament given to Abraham and his seed (Gal 3:14). But, we know from Galatians that now we (the church) are the seed of Abraham and whatever God said to him, he said to us also (Gal 3:29). We can see from this example, that the story of Abraham has vast spiritual implications for the church. However, without reading and understanding double references and O.T. writings styles, you would never know these promises were yours without Galatians 3. So let’s look at some Old Testament scriptures and see what God has revealed about the identity of the bride of Christ.
There are so many Old Testament references as well as specific patterns, types and shadows that reveal the identity of this woman called the bride of Christ, but unless you are looking for them you will probably glide right over them and not even realize it. For example, have you ever read the Song of Solomon? This man goes on and on about a woman, describing her in detail and speaking of his deep feeling of love for her. I really don’t know how you can read that and not realize that woman’s true identity, that woman is the church. The man speaking is God in the flesh. Jesus died and gave himself for payment to purchase the church with his blood. I think for time sake I will not go through that book, but it does have many verses that are relevant. I would strongly recommend that you read this book with a new perspective and focus and look for examples of the bride. We can easily tell because we know who the author is, who the male or bridegroom is in the relationship. Jesus made this statement,
Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
So as you read stories about the man in the Song of Solomon, remember what Jesus said. Search the scriptures, but keep this in mind for they are written about Him. That will help you a whole bunch in figuring out what they mean. I’ll give you a hint that will help you maybe in your study of the Song of Solomon. The woman in the story is many times referred to as the “daughter of Jerusalem” or the “daughter of Zion”. In the King James Translation it is incorrectly translated as “daughters of Jerusalem”, but if you look up the word you will see that it should have been singular. So who was the daughter of Jerusalem? If you recall we read in Galatians 4:26 that the Heavenly Jerusalem, is the spiritual mother of us all (the church). That would of course help confirm the identity of the Bride as being the daughter of the Heavenly Jerusalem in the Song of Solomon. There are many other interesting things to read in the book of Song of Solomon so I recommend that you spend time in studying this book in great depth. For example, six times in the Song of Solomon the woman is called his “sister” and his “spouse”. The term “spouse” is obvious and it means wife. The term sister is of course is more difficult for religious people to grasp. However, the church has to be a spiritual sister to Christ since we have the same spiritual mother and father. But I guess I won’t elaborate anymore and get you upset at me.
Another classic Old Testament type and shadow of Christ and the Church is given to us in the book of Ruth. The entire story is about a woman who is the primary named character. This woman is a gentile woman and ends up marrying her Jewish Redeemer. Sounds kind of familiar to another story in the New Testament. People who don’t see the Church as this woman must be ignoring the obvious or just blinded by the enemy so that they won’t see it. The book of Ruth is not a very big book, it is only 4 chapters and you can read it without spending much time doing it. However, reading is not the same as understanding it. You are going to have to study to show yourself approved a workman unto God. Study involves digging for the big hidden nuggets of truth and not just scanning the surface for the easy stuff. Study will always involve work on your part. If you would like to read my blog series on this woman Ruth you can go to “The Book of Ruth“.
Here is a quick synopsis of the story of Ruth. It seems that this story begins when there was a time of famine that existed in the land of Israel. A man, his wife and two sons moved out of Israel to find food. They went to the land of Moab and settled down. The father of the family dies there. His two sons marry Moabite women to start their own families. However within 10 years time, the two sons also die leaving no heirs. With all of the Hebrew men dead that left the mother-in-law and her two daughter-in-laws only. Naomi, the older widow then attempts to convince her two daughter-in-laws to go back home and find new husbands because she can’t have any more children for them to marry. One daughter-in-law takes her up on this and one does not. The one daughter-in-law named Ruth declares where ever you go I will go, where ever you die I’ll die, your people will be my people and your God will by my God. This is covenant talk if you didn’t realize that. So Naomi and Ruth return to Naomi’s homeland where her relatives lived. This so happens to be in and around the city of Bethlehem. This is the exact future birth place of Jesus. This is certainly not a coincidence. Ruth must have become familiar with the law of Moses being married to a son of Israel or from her mother-in-law Naomi, because everything she does going forward follows the things written in the law.
The law of Moses provided for a method of raising up an heir in the case and circumstances that Ruth was experiencing. A man called a kinsman redeemer was responsible to marry the widow of the dead relative and have children with her. This child would become an heir for the dead husbands family. This kinsman redeemer was named Boaz in the book of Ruth. Boaz was a very wealthy man and owned a large field that Ruth would gleam from in order to get food to survive. Boaz ends up meeting this woman Ruth and finds out who she is. The net result of this meeting is a marriage. Boaz redeems Ruth from her widowhood and they have a child and an heir. This natural child becomes the great grandfather of David the king and eventually directly in the lineage of the birth of Jesus, our redeemer. You might be able to recognize the types of some of the characters in this story fairly easily and others will be much more difficult to see. Boaz is definitely a type of Jesus, the redeemer. Ruth the gentile is a type of the church. Naomi the mother-in-law would be a type of the nation of Israel. I don’t know of any type and shadow that is a perfect match otherwise it wouldn’t be a shadow it would be the object that is making the shadow. Everything may not fit exactly like you think it should, but I guarantee you everything is significant and has meaning, you just don’t know what it means yet. I could attempt to explain more things in this blog, but since it is not my primary subject it would just cloud the issue at hand. If you go and read the story of Ruth closely you will find that I didn’t include every character mentioned. I didn’t include every interaction between these characters either. There are certainly many more things to learn from this book, but you will need to wait.
I would highly recommend if you haven’t read those two books that you go back and read them and pay very close attention to what is being said. Take note of who the characters are and what they do. The patterns, types and shadows given are very relevant to our subject of the identity of the bride of Christ. Both books are about a male and a female relationship. Both books are about love and marriage. Both represent types of Jesus and the church.
So that was an introduction to two major patterns of Christ and the church in the Old Testament. You should be intimately familiar with these stories and have a really good understanding of them so that you will know who you are in the spiritual world. We will continue looking at other Old Testament scriptures for the bride in my next blog.
If you like to continue reading this series, you can go to “Part 10“.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 8 The Bride in the New Testament 2
(Ver 1.1) This is now Part 8 in the series of lessons on the Bride of Christ Revealed. I have been going through an intentionally designed set of information to step you through a process so that you could clearly see and understand the identity of the Bride of Christ. We have discussed a lot of subjects and a lot of scriptures. These are absolutely critical for you to understand so that you know who you are in Christ. By knowing who you are spiritually, it clearly indentifies you and your responsibility in the spiritual realm. If you have not read these blogs from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you go back and start with Part 1 The Introduction and then continue forward in progressive blogs so that you can clearly see and understand what God is saying.
I heard a minister say that speaking of Saul in the book of Acts when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, that those scriptures prove we (the church) represents Christ. Jesus says to Saul “why persecuteth thou me” in the book of Acts and if Jesus said you are doing something to me that proves we are Him. But, you see the reason that Jesus could make that statement, is because it says in Corinthians that the church is one spirit with Christ because they were joined or married to him. So we are not Christ, but have been joined to him by a marriage covenant, making us His body. This is the law of Genesis 2 concerning marriage, where God said the two will become one body. I tell you if you ignore these easy scriptures, you are going to have a lot of problems with the harder stuff in the Bible. In the last lesson we looked at the verse in 1 Corinthians:
1 Cor 6:17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
This verse says that the church was joined to the Lord and became one Spirit. To be joined to someone is different than actually being someone. A wife is always joined to her husband and she becomes his flesh and bone. But that never means her role changes. She is never the husband or the head in the relationship. This is just basic reasoning and logic based upon scripture that we have read in Ephesians. Look at the Greek G2853 word translated as “joined” in the Strong’s dictionary:
G2853
From κόλλα kolla (“glue”); to glue, that is, (passively or reflexively) to stick (figuratively): – cleave, join (self), keep company.
The word translated as “joined” means to glue, cleave, or to stick together. This is another clear definition of marriage which is the act of taking two separate distinct people and making one out of them. That’s marriage in the clearest form of God’s definition given to us by God himself in Genesis 2, Matthew 19:5, Mark 10:7-8 and Ephesians 5:31. The two shall become one flesh. Glue is the joining substance and this could very well represent the Holy Spirit. But the purpose of glue is to take two separate and distinct pieces and join them or put them together and make one piece out of them. It is interesting that this Greek word is different than the previous Greek word that we looked at and since I am not a Greek language expert I don’t really have an explanation of why and how it is different. However, I did notice that the Greek word G4347 which is used in Ephesians 5:31, Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:7 in the marriage law from Genesis comes from G2853 so they are definitely connected and definitely related and they definitely say and mean the same thing.
I don’t know how to make this any clearer. So if you think the church is still not the bride based upon these great witnesses I sure hope you will begin to see it someday. There are certainly more scriptures in the Bible that indicate that the church is the bride of Christ and I will give you some more for the stubborn and those who have chosen to close their eyes to the truth. Here is one that I found that I thought was very interesting and certainly fits together with a bunch of what we have been studying. This scripture is found in the book of Revelation and here we have Jesus himself again speaking to the church. Notice the words are in Red and then notice closely what Jesus is saying to us.
Rev 3:12 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.
I want you to first notice who this is written to, to whom is Jesus speaking? According to verse 13 of chapter 3 it is written directly to the church. That is certainly a critical point to understand up front. Then let’s go back to verse 12 and see what Jesus said to the church. The primary subject or theme of the verse appears to me to be a name changing operation. He says to them that have overcome, He will do what? He is going to give these people a new name. From what I see it could be three different names or all three new name references could also be the same. But did you notice the relationship to the new Jerusalem? This is definitely a part of the naming process. Who gets a new name in a normal wedding and marriage? Of course it has traditionally been the bride that takes the name of their husband. If the church was already the body of Christ, I don’t think there would be any need to write a new name on his body if the head already has a new name, then the body also has a new name. But, somehow Jesus finds it necessary to write a new name on the church, that sure sounds like a marriage to me. Putting the pieces of the puzzle together correctly sure seems to make things work together better. One of the main take away from this verse would be to see the association of the name “New Jerusalem” to the church. Are you one of the overcomers Jesus is speaking to? Jesus is telling you if you are, then you are the New Jerusalem of God. You are the city called New Jerusalem. You are the new house and temple of God. You have become a pillar in the temple of God. A pillar is a key part of a structure that holds the other parts together and keeps it from falling down. That is a major responsibility being given to us. What I wanted you to see was a verse of scripture that implies a marriage between a bridegroom and a bride. The bride should be willing to take the new name of her husband and this is what Jesus is telling us to do. What we have is a confirmation to the fact that the bride of Christ is a spiritual city of people called the New Jerusalem. This New Jerusalem is a New Covenant marriage between Jesus Christ and the church.
I want to show you some verses in the Bible written to the church that clearly reveal us to be a chosen woman. Do you realize that when a man asks a woman to marry him, that man has already made a choice. Out of all the women on the planet, that man chose this one. That was a selection of one and the rejection of all the rest. This is what Christ has done and you can find that in the Bible if you look for it. Let’s read this verse:
2Jn 1:1 The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth;
So what do you do with a verse like this? It is easily explained away or it can be taken and understood to be very profound. God is writing a letter to the church through the Apostle John and he calls all of us the “elect lady”. If you think only naturally you will try to say this is a letter written to a dear friend of John or maybe his wife. It is a great error to conclude that based upon the context of the words that are written. The “elect lady” being called “her” is the spiritual church of God. A lady by definition is a woman with character and moral standards. It would be the opposite of calling a woman a “whore”. Uh oh, I guess I won’t go there.
2Jn 1:5 And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.
As you can see John and God calls the church a lady. The commandment of love was the same new commandment that Jesus gave to John and the rest of the disciples. This commandment is now being passed on to the rest of the body of Christ. However, you have to see that the church is called “a lady”. A lady certainly qualifies to be the bride of Christ.
It seems that there are numerous other scriptures that imply marriage even though they don’t say it directly. Here are some of those that I have found, you of course can disagree and ignore them if you like. Remember in the Old Testament the word “Knew” was used numerous times for a sexual act between a husband and a wife. It says “Adam knew his wife Eve and they had a son”. That of course represents a covenant act between a husband and his wife as we have seen before. There are numerous scriptures in the New Testament that could very easily be taken to mean the same thing but in a spiritual context, not a natural physical act. After all God is a Spirit. His Spirit resides in the believer and as we have seen they become one Spirit with Him.
Gal 4:9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
You can see from this verse that there is a two way street being spoken of. We the church are now said to know God and now God also knows us. This is spiritual knowledge and represents a spiritual consensual covenant act. This is marriage in the purest spiritual form. We can easily ignore verses like this or overlook them or we can figure out what they are saying and believe them. Here is another example of God knowing us the church.
2Ti 2:19 Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
We can again see a covenant act of consensual spiritual knowledge being expressed in this verse. It said the Lord “knows” them that are his. It would be the same as saying Adam knows his wife and they had a son. I guess some might say we shouldn’t be talking about this kind of stuff in a lesson about God. I think they forget who invented and created sex. You can see God all over it if you look at it the right way. The other critical piece of information in this verse is the reference to a name change again. Again this describes a marriage covenant act of a name change performed by the bride. This verse in 2nd Timothy 2:19 says that they (everyone) have taken the name of Christ. Here we can see another reference to how the church became the body of Christ, by taking his name in marriage. Moving on to a couple of other example, I found in the book of 1 John these verses.
1Jn 2:3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
1Jn 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
As you may or may not know, John wrote and delivered a thematic message of Love. Love was his primary theme throughout all of his writings. We again see the covenant act portrayed in verses like these in direct relationship with love. This of course fits precisely with God’s definition of a covenant marriage. It’s amazing how many verses you can find that speak of the church in terms of the Bride if you look for them. I hope I am helping you to see these verses in a new light. Here is another interesting scripture reference that also speaks of the church as the bride of Christ in a clear but indirect reference:
Rom 9:24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Rom 9:25 As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
You can see in verse 24 of chapter 9 of Romans that it is speaking to those God has called? I cannot speak for you, but I know that is me. He then informs us that this group of called individuals are made up of both Jews and Gentiles. That is correct, isn’t it? Then in verse 25 He speaks of the prophecy of Hosea and that is an interesting reference that we really haven’t explored very much. Let me first point out the last statement in that verse, that says I will call her my beloved who was not my beloved. That sure sounds like a marriage to me. If you recall, Hosea was commanded by God to marry a whore. He went and bought her out of whoredom and married her. While this could indirectly relate to the Gentiles, we know for sure that it is speaking of Israel as being the whore. The Old Testament quote is given that I will call them my people who were not my people. Right here we miss something that is implied and is dramatically different than what I’ve heard many teach. Many preachers speak of the nation of Israel as being God’s people today. I certainly believe that in the Old Testament, Israel were God’s people. But this verse says that I will call those that are not my people, my people. Do you understand the reciprocal truth given here? What is an inverse or reciprocal truth? I’m not sure if you’ve ever thought about that question or not. It is mathematical in its roots. The inverse or reciprocal of a number is the measurable opposite of what is given. In other words it is the opposite or negative truth of the positive truth that is given. It means the verse says more than what is on the surface. If the people who were not God’s people are now God’s people, what happened to those that use to be God’s people? The inference is that they are now not God’s people and can never be God’s people again because they were once God’s people. You see something that is pretty hard to grasp if you are not a logical, mathematical type thinker, grasping concepts and laws that are based in these verses can be difficult.
Since Israel is not my primary subject, I really can’t elaborate any more on verses like that one in this blog. I will recommend that you do some additional research on your own about Israel and their fate. I think where we need to go now is to review some more Old Testament types and shadows of the bride of Christ. So let’s dive into the Old Testament. In my next blog we will go back into the Old Testament and look for patterns, types and shadows for Christ and the church as the bride. We have already seen the Old Testament reference to the nation of Israel as being a woman, a wife and a bride to God in the Old Covenant. That is certainly a great pattern for the New Covenant, but there are other verse in the Old Testament that we should also be aware of. So until next time I hope you are having a great day.
If you would like to continue reading this series, you can go to “Part 9“.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 7 The Bride in the New Testament
(Ver 1.1) This is now Part 7 in this series on the subject of the Bride of Christ Revealed and I have covered a lot of information on the subject. In my last blog on this subject I introduced you to some very strong New Testament verses that confirm the identity of the Bride of Christ directly as being the church. Ephesians chapter 5 is predominately about the subject of marriage and the relationships between husbands and wives. We went verse by verse through key verses in this chapter and counted the references to see how many times natural husbands and wives were mentioned and then we looked at how these natural marriages fit a pattern for a greater spiritual truth. Jesus is clearly given to be the head, the husband and the bridegroom in these verses. The church is clearly given to be his bride, his wife and his body by marriage. If you have not been following this series from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you go back and start reading from Part 1, The Introduction. This series is designed to step you through the subjects in a way that you can more easily see and understand this very deep and complex topic. So read each part of the series in order and hopefully you will grasp all of the spiritual concepts.
I heard more than one preacher say “search the Bible and you won’t find one scripture that says the church is the bride”. I sometimes wonder what Bible they are looking at, for I found a bunch of verses that tell me the church is the bride of Christ. These were well known ministers and men who have been teaching and studying the Bible for 50 years. The main problem they are experiencing is one that Jesus said you will always find what you are seeking. Jesus actually said seek and you shall find. But the problem is when people seek wrong things you find wrong things. If you are looking for no verses that say the church is the bride you will find no verses that say this. You always get what you seek and not necessarily what is the truth. That is how God designed the Bible to give you a choice to believe whatever you want to believe. That is a law of Bible research and study. Here is another law of Bible interpretation, it tells us that in the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established. I already showed you Ephesians 5 about Christ and His bride. So what other scriptures can we find in the New Testament that reveal the church to be the bride of Christ? Read these next scriptures very carefully, for they too are written directly to the church in Rome and they reveal very clearly the identity of the church as being the bride of Christ.
Rom 7:1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
This is an incredibly critical verse to understand fully. It speaks about the law. Here is the important thing to grasp, it says as long as a man is alive the law has dominion over him. Do you understand that statement? The implication is that when a man dies, the law is no longer in effect over his life. But did you notice who Paul and God wrote this verse to? It says “brethren” and that would be the church, except then it qualifies it further and says to only my brothers who know the law. Do you understand that statement? I bet you don’t fully get it. You see to “know” is a covenant term between a husband and a wife. Adam “knew” his wife and she had a son. To “know” is a sexual type reference, but God is not talking about a physical intimacy but a spiritual intimacy. What God is saying in this verse is, these next verses are written to members in the church who were previously under the law of Moses and the Old Covenant wife of God.
Rom 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
So we see some more important information concerning marriage and the law. If you recall in an earlier blog I discussed the law of marriage using Genesis 2. This verse confirms that there are laws in the Old Testament that govern marriage relationships. This verse says that a woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as her husband is alive. Why is that? The law of marriage said that they are one flesh. You can’t cut off a piece of your own body and get rid of it and still be whole. In most marriage ceremonies there is usually a phrase “until death do us part”. God informs us that death is a legal separation of a marriage covenant. There is really a tremendous number of applications of this scripture to the women in the Bible. If you recall Israel was called a woman married to God. That is exactly why God is using Paul to write these verses to Messianic Jewish believers. He is informing them of something that is very profound and relevant so let’s keep reading:
Rom 7:3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
I really don’t want to get off of the subject and go into a lot of detail right here concerning Israel, but I guess I will mention it so that you can do further research and see that it does apply. If you read Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Hosea to name a few good examples you will see God called Israel a whore because of her unfaithful interaction with foreign gods and idolatry. God considered these acts as adulteress conduct of sexual perversion. God also considered these acts as covenant acts of marriage to these foreign gods and idols. So I gave you a lot to research, but let’s get back to this verse and what it says. It is speaking to those under the law and it tells them that as long as their husband is alive if they are in covenant with another then they are committing adultery. But then it says if a woman’s husband is dead, then she is free to marry or enter into covenant with another man. Remember these verses are written to brothers, males and these men are referred to as a woman. I think sometimes people don’t see this and miss out what God is saying.
Rom 7:4 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.
I hope you are getting what these scriptures are saying for they end in a very clear statement in Romans 7:4 that says you are now married to another, the Lord Jesus Christ! Try to explain that away! I’m sure you’ll come up with something if you don’t want to see the truth. I could say a lot more about these scriptures because they reveal so much more that we haven’t seen, but since that is not my primary purpose in this lesson, I will not weigh you down with any unnecessary things to think about. The main thing to take away from these verses is the reference to a man married to woman and how she is bound to that husband until he is dead. If she marries another while he is alive she is called an adulteress. However, Paul clarifies the problem because he says the first husband died by the body of Jesus Christ. So now they are free to be married to another and that is to him that was raised from the dead. This is an incredibly detailed discussion about the law and the law in specific relation to marriage covenants. Only people under the law would have been concerned to this level of detail. Gentiles were never married to the law or God, so they are free to marry Jesus the same as a natural Jew is now free to marry the Lord. The primary point to see is that the New Covenant is a marriage. But instead of a covenant with the Father God, it is with the Son of God, Jesus Christ and that is a very important concept to note and pay attention to. There is always a reason for everything that God says and does and this is no exception.
So is the church the bride of Christ? Some sure have gone through great extents to try to prove that we are not. I don’t know how they don’t see it, it sure seems to be there to me. Are you seeing it? Let’s start going through some more scriptures and continue by looking at this important verse:
2Co 11:2 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.
This verse is another that some Bible teachers are determined to explain away not letting people know what it really says. All the ingredients of marriage are mentioned in this verse. The identity of the bridegroom is clearly given as Jesus Christ. The mention of being married or “espoused” to Christ is a very clear reference. So who is the verse directed to? The verse is written to the bride. Bible teachers who don’t believe this verse say it is just making a comparison with the word “As”. You of course know if you can read that the word “as” is added by the translators and is not in the original Greek language so that argument is shot down pretty easily. We can clearly see that it is not making a comparison but it is identifying the church to be the chaste virgin. The Greek word translated as “virgin” has the following definition in the Strong’s:
G3933
Of unknown origin; a maiden; by implication an unmarried daughter: – virgin.
The description of an unmarried woman is clear from this definition. The reference is specifically to an unmarried daughter being presented to Christ. The word “present” in this verse is the same word we looked at in Ephesians and it means to stand beside. So we again see the reference to a marriage ceremony. Then there is the Greek word translated as “chaste” in the King James Bible and here is what Strong’s says about it:
G53
From the same as G40; properly clean, that is, (figuratively) innocent, modest, perfect: – chaste, clean, pure.
Wow does that describe the church you know, it’s not a whole lot of the church I know. So you can read this verse in 2 Corinthians and do what you want to with it. But it clearly has all the necessary ingredients and parties of a wedding ceremony and a marriage covenant. The clear inference is this bride is unmarried and a virgin that has not been touched by another man. The reference is basically the same as a woman dressed in clean and white fine linen that has made herself ready for her husband. But I guess that is just me speaking isn’t it? I can’t prove it to you, either you see it or you don’t. It is so funny how that you can’t make anyone see the truth if they don’t want to see it.
I tell you if you look for scriptures that identify the church as the bride you will find them, the trouble is so many are just not looking for them. I know sometimes that verse can say things indirectly and sometimes not be totally obvious when you read it. Look closely at this scripture because you will find another reference to the church being the bride of Christ:
1Co 6:15 Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.
1Co 6:16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.
1Co 6:17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
Verse 15 starts with confirming the church is the body of Christ. God tells us that our bodies are like individual cells in the bigger body of Christ. We make up the pieces that His body is comprised of. It is a spiritual truth using a natural pattern of the human body. The natural human body consists of many different organs, tissues, bones, cells and other components that when working with each other make up a healthy living body. But as we have already seen we know how we got to be the body of Christ was by the law of marriage found in Genesis 2. That law states that two shall become one body after they are married. This marriage covenant between Adam and Eve was a pattern for the Jesus and the church. Finally, in this verse the subject of harlots come into play in direct relation to the body of Christ. The implication is given that the church now that they are married in covenant with God can still have spiritual sexual relationships with other gods and other spiritual entities. I will agree that these verse seems to go both for natural relations with whores as well as spiritual relations with whores. I believe there is a clear application to the law of double reference. Where a verse of scripture can be taken naturally and spiritually and both points of view are true.
Within the context of these scriptures here we see another direct reference to a physical relationship between a man and a woman. The reference is purely sexual in nature and contains an inference of a woman being joined to her husband by covenant. In 1 Corinthians 6:17, the husband is clearly the Lord Jesus so who is Paul writing to that has been joined to Him? What does it mean to be joined together in Holy Matrimony? Doesn’t this verse have the same contextual relevance to our subject of marriage between a man and a woman? God contrasts the union of Christ and the church to that of a man to a harlot. This is certainly a significant comparison and gives us a lot of information that we should be aware of. For example, having a sexual relation with a whore is called a marriage in the eye’s of God. The sexual act is a covenant act. So if the man has a one night stand with a whore, it declares that in the eyes of God they are joined together as husband and wife. I was watching TV and to my surprise there was a group of individuals sitting around a table and discussing how many sexual partners some of them had. Of course in the unsaved world to men it is a matter of conquest to say they have had a lot of female partners. Who knows who was lying and who was telling the truth, but a couple of them had estimated they had 40 to 60 different women in their lives. According to scripture God sees each of these relations as a marriage covenant act. Obviously men and women don’t see it the same way or they wouldn’t be so casual about who they married. If the courts viewed sex as God views sex, there would be a lot more alimony going out of some of their pockets.
Going back to the verse in 1 Corinthians 6:17 we see the same sexual act reference given but this time to the Church with Jesus Christ. If you don’t see this it is because you don’t want to see it. The difference or contrast is given that we the church have become one spirit with Jesus and the man with the harlot has become one flesh with her. Both have become one by a marriage covenant act. There is a very clear statement of the church being joined to the Lord Jesus. To be joined is of course a marriage. A marriage is always where God takes one male and one female and makes one body out of them. This is so critical to understand.
I have given you at the minimum three great witnesses found in the New Testament that all deal with the church being called the bride of Christ by a marriage covenant act of God. The law of marriage is applicable and helps to explain a great number of other Bible verses, like how the church became the body of Christ? So we have explored more than enough witnesses to confirm this truth, but I might give you some more unique points of view in my next blog on this subject. I think I have said enough today so I hope you have a great day.
If you would like to continue reading this series, you can go to “Part 8“.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 6 Presenting the Bride
(Ver 1.2) Today I want to begin to explore the New Testament references for the identity of the bride of Christ. I want to “present” you to the identity of the bride of Christ. You will see later why I said that so look for it. There are certinly many scriptures that identify the Bride to us, but I want to start with the strongest verses first. If you have not been following this series from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you go back and start reading from Part 1, The Introduction.
Here it is, one of the strongest scriptural evidence that I’ve seen concerning the identity of the Bride of Christ and it’s found in the New Testament in the book of Ephesians and chapter 5. These are words written directly to the church and specifically about the church so read them very, very carefully. Understanding Ephesians 5 is critical for you understanding your identity in the spiritual world. Pay close attention to the subject being discussed and then see how they fit together: I will go verse by verse starting with verse 22. I will keep a running total of references that I find on the primary noun subjects being discussed. So help me count as we go. Let’s start reading in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 22:
Eph 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
We can clearly see that the primary subject of this verse is marriage because it is talking to wives and husbands. But did you notice who this verse is written to? It is written to the church, the wife of Christ. If you notice in this verse, it ends with “as unto the Lord”. The implied reference is that the church is the bride and Christ is the husband. There are clearly two patterns given to us; one is a natural pattern and the other is a spiritual pattern. The church is clearly commanded to submit to their husband, the Lord Jesus Christ. So while “wives” are mentioned only once, the implication is given that we the church are also a wife to Christ. If we count the references to noun subjects we have the following totals:
| Direct | Implied | |
| Husbands | 1 | |
| Wives | 1 | |
| Church/Body | 1 | |
| Christ | 1 |
You will notice the primary nouns given in this verse is concerning wives, husbands and Christ. There is one implied or indirect reference to the church as being a wife. I hope you can see what this verse is talking about and who it is talking to. So let’s go to the next verse and see what it says:
Eph 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
So we have a continuation of the primary subject of marriage still in the context of husbands and wives being given to us. Again we see a direct relationship being established between the natural and the spiritual. The husband is said to be the head of the wife in the natural world and I refuse to comment on that statement. However, Christ is the implied husband of the church given the clear context of being the head of the body. The church is clearly given to be the body of Christ which is a direct parallel that we learned about when we studied about Eve being the body of Adam. We know that these are patterns for spiritual truths that God is communicating to us from natural truths. So let’s update our total number of noun reference counts.
| Direct | Implied | |
| Husbands | 2 | |
| Wives | 2 | |
| Church/Body | 2 | 1 |
| Christ | 3 |
So we are up to 2 direct references to husbands and wives and 3 direct and indirect references to Christ and his bride. Let’s continue with verse 24:
Eph 5:24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
Again in this verse we have two parallels given to us. Both of these patterns are implied covenant marriages given from the context of the subject being spoken of. The church is said to be subject to Christ and that is just another way to say we are to submit. We can clearly see that this implies Christ is the husband and the church is the wife, given the ending statement of the verse being directed to natural wives to be submitted to their natural husbands. These are God’s words and not mine so don’t shoot the messenger. Just read them and accept them. Let’s update our total reference count from this verse:
| Direct | Implied | |
| Husbands | 3 | |
| Wives | 3 | |
| Church/Body | 3 | 1 |
| Christ | 4 |
I do not know how ministers have read these verses and refuse to see what they clearly say, but that is the way the Bible is written, men see what they want to see. Let’s continue with the next verse in the chapter:
Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it (her, the Church);
This verse repeats the pattern and speaks to husbands and wives again. It clearly implies that Christ is the husband that loves his bride, the church. It clearly says that He proves his love for her by giving Himself as a sacrifice for her. This verse should have used the personal pronoun “her” instead of “it”. The church is not an “it”. God did not send Jesus to die for an “it”. Let’s update our total noun reference count:
| Direct | Implied | |
| Husbands | 4 | |
| Wives | 4 | |
| Church/Body | 5 | 1 |
| Christ | 6 |
Let’s take a brief look at verse 26 even though this is a bit off the main subject of marriage. Take a look at what this verse is saying:
Eph 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
According to this verse “it” is again mistranslated as being a reference to “her”, the church. This verse is saying that Christ is sanctifying and cleaning the church by a washing process that involves the Word of God. This implies that the Word of God is a liquid like pure water with a power to clean dirty spots out. Isn’t that an interesting statement? Aren’t we talking about the church? I mean I can clearly understand it, but can you? If the church is the body of Christ, why would Christ need to give himself a bath to make himself clean? You see the problem with that logic, don’t you? That is why people who teach that the church is the body of Christ and only the body of Christ are severely mistaken. This is just further proof to me of how preachers have taught some incredibly stupid things. If the church was just the body of Christ we wouldn’t need cleaning or washing. Jesus is already clean and righteous. We are the ones with the faults and blemishes, the dirty spots that need cleaning off. But since we have become His body by a marriage covenant and we are a separate individual that still needs cleaning, we can more clearly see how we fit into all of these verses and not just some of them. As we continue with verse 27 we see more marriage terminology given to us about Christ and the church:
Eph 5:27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
In reading this verse I think of many weddings that I have been to. The bride comes walking down the center aisle and is presented to the husband usually by the father of the bride. Ephesians 5 is primarily about marriage so we can know that Christ is talking about His bride in this verse. What we have seen in the last three verses are a extraordinary effort being put forth by Jesus to give himself completely for His wife. This is a process that involved Him suffering and experiencing tremendous pain and death on a cross. He shed His blood for us, because He loved us that much. Verse 27 informs us why He was willing to go to this extraordinary effort. Verse 27 declares so that He might present “it” to himself. We of course lose a lot by not studying the Greek to determine what this actually means. From the English translation in the KJV it sure sounds like a term for marriage. In many marriage ceremonies I have heard it said by the minister after the final vows, “may I present to you Mr. and Mrs. fill in the name. However, the Greek word translated as “present” actually has a literal meaning “to stand beside“. That is actually a fascinating contradiction of terms. How can the body of Christ stand beside Himself? You see it just doesn’t really make sense unless you put it into the context of a woman standing besides her husband in a marriage ceremony and the two becoming one flesh that way. Several times in these verses the church is referred to as “it” and this again is a mistranslation and the same word should say and mean “her” and it is translated that way in the New Testament many times. In fact it is translated as “her” in Revelation 19:8 when referring to the woman called the “New Jerusalem”. Isn’t that a coincidence? Let’s look at this verse just for grins:
Rev 19:8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.
I hope that you see why I included this verse, because it is so very similar to the one we just looked at in Ephesians 5:27. The first thing I wanted to point out is the term “G846” is translated correctly this time as “her” and not “it”. So how can translators make such obvious mistakes in one verse the word is “it” and another one it is “her”. That is a question that I suppose we all need to understand and see that translators are just men capable of making mistakes. Then the next thing I wanted to point out is what are the terms “clean and white” saying, is this describing what we read in Ephesians 5? Obviously they are references to what she is wearing a type of extraordinary piece of clothing or fabric. So how does that compare with what the woman in Ephesians 5 is wearing, it says “without spot or wrinkle” and this implies fine nice clothing also that does not have any dirty spots. I think we can clearly see that these two verse are speaking of the exact same woman. So again, what did Paul tell us that Christ was presenting to himself, a church without spot or wrinkle, clean by the washing of the water of the Word. It’s amazing how the Bible fits together, isn’t it? Both of these are describing the same wedding apparel if you ask me. What we see is that both of these women are described as being in perfect condition, wearing the finest clean garments. This is a clear picture of the church and this truth is reflected to us in the book of Revelation 19 when it speaks of the bride being adorned for her husband and how she has made herself ready. These are all pictures and patterns into a spiritual truth that I hope you are seeing and understanding. So let us update our running count of references that we have observed in these verses and see the new totals:
| Direct | Implied | |
| Husbands | 4 | |
| Wives | 4 | |
| Church/Body | 6 | 2 |
| Christ | 7 |
Let us continue with the next verse in Ephesians for it is really getting good now. In this verse we start to again see the law of marriage being restated in context with the husband and the wife in marriage:
Eph 5:28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
Are you understanding these concepts? God is reaffirming the law of marriage from Genesis 2 in this simple verse of truth. This verse speaks to men and instructs them to love their wives because they are his body. Since Eve came from Adam’s body, so a wife is joined to her husband and the two are now said to be one flesh. If a husband physically abuses his wife it is like him hitting himself in the head, and that is idiotic and crazy behavior. In this verse we have several direct and indirect references to husbands and wives and this now is reflected in our total reference count in the following:
| Direct | Implied | |
| Husbands | 7 | |
| Wives | 6 | |
| Church/Body | 6 | 2 |
| Christ | 7 |
The next verse continues with more about the law of marriage from Genesis 2, but now concludes with the revelation that this also applies to Christ and the church:
Eph 5:29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
You see from this verse further confirmation that the woman and the husband are said to be one flesh or one in the same body. Whatever happens to one affects the other directly. However one treats the other is how they treat themselves. God is really saying to them to treat the other like he or she is you, because you two are one body. God then concludes this verse with the revelation that this applies to Christ and the church. Christ the husband and the church is the wife. Christ cherishes His bride, the church with great love and affection. The church is the Body of Christ. Christ dwells in us right here and right now if you are born again. Christ therefore loves the church because she is His body and His wife.
| Direct | Implied | |
| Husbands | 8 | |
| Wives | 6 | 3 |
| Church/Body | 7 | 2 |
| Christ | 8 |
I hope you are following my count and seeing the references, both direct and indirect implications being given to us. These scriptures are very important to understand. We are finally getting to some great scriptures that we have been working up to and the anticipation has been building with great excitement:
Eph 5:30 For we (the church) are members of his (Jesus Christ) body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
You finally begin to see what God is speaking of about Christ and the church. This verse informs us in very clear language that we are the body of Christ and indirectly tells us how we became His body. But then did you notice that it also calls us his flesh and his bones. Isn’t this what Adam said about Eve? Adam said she is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Do you understand the context? I put the description of who this verse was talking about in parenthesis so that you could better understand it. What we clearly see is a reference to the natural law of marriage given to us by God in Genesis 2. To reaffirm the connection to Adam, God repeats the law from Genesis in the next verse:
Eph 5:31 For this cause shall a man (Jesus Christ) leave his father (God) and mother (Israel), and shall be joined unto his wife (the church), and they two shall be one flesh (body).
God is directly saying that what happened with Adam and Eve was a pattern for Christ and the church. I included the participants in this verse and named names. I put these in parenthesis so that you would not confuse them with the original verse. I did not add to the verse I only clarified the subjects and references so that you could more easily see them. Did you see them? Did you understand them? That is the main part we are going for, if you can understand them, then Satan can’t steal them away from you. One of the key words in this verse is given to us and it is that the two will be “joined” together to be one flesh (body). The Greek word for “joined” literally means “to glue”. That is God’s definition of marriage, creating one body, taking two separate pieces and gluing them together to be one piece or one body. This is again basic math God’s way. With Adam he took one and made two, however God still called them one. You can see this from a multiplication perspective. One man times one wife equals 1 body. I’ve done wood working before, and I have taken two pieces of wood and using dowels and glue I’ve put them together or “joined” them and clamped them and let them dry. After sanding and staining it is incredible the strength and beauty of the one new piece of wood. There are in fact some glues that are so strong that if you would try to pull them apart the wood would usually break in a new spot. This is what God is trying to communicate to us. To join together is a process of marriage. Taking two separate individual pieces and creating one new piece. Here is a revised count of direct and indirect scripture references to the subjects in marriage:
| Direct | Implied | |
| Husbands | 8 | |
| Wives | 6 | 3 |
| Church/Body | 9 | 2 |
| Christ | 13 |
We can see that from this total sheet that we have an overwhelming number of witness to the subject matter of marriage in context with all of these participants. God declares that just as husbands and wives are in covenant and become one flesh so it is with Jesus and the church. The next verse in Ephesians actually declares to us some very valuable information. This verse is the overwhelming climax to the subject of marriage in this chapter of Ephesians:
Eph 5:32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
You see in this verse Ephesians 5:32 God lets us in on a secret that has been kept hidden since the foundation of the world. God had a plan and He patterned this plan after things that He created for us to see. God created a man and a woman and established the law of marriage. God declares that just as one wife becomes one flesh or body with her husband, so all wives become one flesh with their husbands. God declares this to be a Great Mystery. The Greek word for mystery here means “to shut the mouth” as in “keep a secret” from someone. Did you know God had secrets? God must have not wanted someone to see his plan and I believe this was Satan. God says that all of this chapter is about marriage covenant relationships and that this is or was a great secret, but He lets the proverbial cat out of the bag so to speak by telling us that this all has to do with Christ and the church. Jesus Christ is the bridegroom and the church, the bride. The New Covenant is a marriage and the result is the establishment of new family unit. Why did God have to establish a new family? Apparently He had a major problem with his old family. If you can see this and understand it you will be far beyond a lot of other Christians who do not yet know who they are. Satan has tried to confuse the identity of the Bride for many reasons. Even preachers have helped Satan to confuse us. God is doing a new thing in these last days, He is getting the truth out for us to see and to understand. I hope and pray that you can see it. We will continue in the next blog on the mystery of the identity of the Bride using more New Testament verses that confirm our true identity.
If you would like to continue with this series, you can go to “Part 7“.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 5 The Law of Marriage
(Ver 1.3) In the last blog on this subject we talked about a covenant being a marriage. Before that, I talked about a woman being a nation of people and a city. We have been building our scriptural knowledge base to understand the identity of the bride of Christ and today I want to talk about the Law of Marriage. I hope you realize that the Old Testament holds the law of God written down by Moses. In these books God has established principles, concepts, definitions, and laws concerning every subject you can think of. So today I want to establish what happens when God enters into a marriage blood covenant with a group of people. If you have not been following this series from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you go back and start reading from Part 1, The Introduction.
I know this is a very new advanced study of a complex subject. I know that it will be difficult for some to see and understand. Based upon your current spiritual level of maturity, that alone will determine if you are able to fully grasp what is in this lesson series. Many times I know people read my stuff and think it is not true. It is funny how Jesus would go around and tell people “let him who has ears, hear”. Jesus was not talking about just hearing sounds with their ears, he was talking about them understanding with their hearts and that is something completely different. Too many people know how to read, but do not know how to see what was written. Getting understanding is the key to growing in spiritual maturity. Just as you cannot hand a first grader a college calculus book and say learn this, if you are struggling with the things that I have been saying you are probably not ready for this lesson. I would recommend that you either go back and study the basics some more until you fully grasp the foundational truths before you attempt to tackle any of the advanced subjects found in the Bible.
Let’s get into the second chapter of Genesis and see the account of the creation of woman and the first recorded marriage covenant and what happened to all of the participants. After all, we are talking about the identity of a woman called the bride of Christ, so where did the woman come from?
Gen 2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
Gen 2:22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
We can clearly see from these famous well known verses where God says woman came from? You’ve read this before I’m sure, but I doubt if you really fully understood what you read. You see these verses declare that woman was taken out of a man. That is representative of a mathematical operation of division or subtraction. You could say God took one and made two. One divided by 2 gives the same answer as one subtracting one half. Using either division or subtraction the result could still be two halves. But here is another perspective of division and mathematics. If you divide one by one you get one. Isn’t that an interesting concept. The reverse multiplicative principle would be to multiply one by one and you would still get a result of one. One male times one female equals one flesh and here is why I say that. Look at the next verses in Genesis in what Adam has to say about his wife:
Gen 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Gen 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Since the woman was taken from his body, Adam then declares that she was his body. Did you see that? What is flesh and bones? His flesh and bones is the same as his body. Adam’s body consisted of flesh and bones. God took a portion of his body and made her body. Flesh and bones are the primary parts or pieces that make up his body. I hope all kind of light bulbs are going off in your mind based upon this revelation. Flesh and bone and the body are different terminology for the same thing. There are so many ways to describe, label or name the same things that we have to be smart enough to know when they are the same and when they are not. When Adam looked at his wife he called her the body of Adam. This is a pattern for another New Testament marriage we will see later. If God took a part of man out and created a woman who became the mother to all the natural living descendants on the planet earth, then you might say it would be legal for God to put back a woman into his son Jesus Christ. I’m sure you are wondering how I came to that reasoning and conclusion. It starts with this fact, did you know that Jesus is called the “last Adam” in the New Testament? Read this verse:
1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
Not only is Jesus called a quickening spirit in contrast to a living soul, but Jesus is specifically called the “last Adam”. Meaning there is a direct and specific relationship and connection to the “first Adam”. The distinct parallels and patterns between the two Adam’s are quite profound. I hope you are grasping this concept. 2 different Adams, one natural and one spiritual. If it was legal for God to take one man or as we have seen one Adam and create one male and one female, then the reverse logic would be to take one male and one female and multiply them together giving you one flesh again. Multiplication and division of 1 and 1 always results in 1. It is the only set of numbers that I know of that you can do this with. 2 times 2 doesn’t equal 2. 2 divided by 2 doesn’t equal 2. This is of course, very basic math truths, but it is amazing how God does things. Sometimes it is the really simple things that God uses to confound the wise.
When Jesus is called “Adam” in the New Testament, this of course is the same Hebrew word that we looked at earlier. This Hebrew word can be translated either as “man” or it can be translated as “Adam”. Both translations originate from the exact same word and this makes understanding the Bible much more complex. It is a puzzle of sorts, but that is the way God works. God is much smarter than we are and he could have chosen any words that fit, but he specifically selected these words to describe a man/Adam.
So, what other relationship do these two Adams share? I’ll probably lose some of you right here, but here goes. Both Adam’s were sons of God and therefore they are natural brothers. Both Adam and Jesus had the same Father. If you don’t understand that, don’t throw it away because it does have significance. There are things in the Bible that are difficult to grasp and understand at first because they are so different. The more religious you are the harder it will be for you to grasp certain things in the Bible and this is probably one of them and there are many others. I did not say Adam was God, but I will say Jesus was. Jesus the Last Adam was also the son of Adam. Jesus walked the face of the planet and constantly called himself the “son of man”. You lose the meaning and significance of that statement by reading an English translation. Jesus being a Hebrew and of the house and lineage of David was saying I am a son of Adam. The Hebrew word for “Adam” can and is translated as “man” several times. It’s the same word “H120” and “H121”. Sometimes translated as “Adam” and other times as “man”. How can the Son of God also be the Son of Adam? The Son of Adam and the brother of Adam? It’s pretty tough to grasp, but nevertheless this is what the Bible says. Nobody ever told you that the Bible was easy to understand. If they did they lied to you. If you look at the family lineage of Jesus given to us in Luke you will see that it goes all the way back to Adam and then to God. There is a clear implication that Adam was also called a “son of God”. Not God, not “The Son of God” either just a “son of God”.
Luk 3:38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.
Reading this verse is very informative, even if the words “son of” are added by the translators. Some say since these words are not in the original Greek we can explain away what actually is being conveyed. However, I believe the words “son of” do assist us in correctly interpreting the meaning. The clear implication is that Adam is called a son of God. You don’t go through a long list of names in a genealogy and every named pair represents a father and a son relationship except the last one. That would be idiotic to attempt such reasoning. I’ll say it again, be consistent a list is a list and every entry in the list should be treated the exact same. I know I got off of the subject for a side trip, but I believe it was important. Let’s get back to the original husband and wife.
We can sometimes ask questions that help us in our discussion. When God formed Adam’s body from the dust of the ground as it says he did, why didn’t God also make the female’s body from the dust of the ground? He wasn’t out of dirt or dust? It is of course an interesting puzzle? Why take out a part of something you already made to make another complementary piece of work? That of course is a hard question. Obviously God had a good reason, or He wouldn’t have done it. Let’s figure out why he did it?
Believe it or not the verses that we read in Genesis 2, gives us an established foundation of how we the church became the body of Christ. If the first Adam has a wife, God is saying it is Ok, for the “last Adam” to have a wife. The first Adam’s wife was a physical woman, the last Adam’s wife is a spiritual woman. Let’s go back and reread verses 23 and 24 in Genesis 2, because these are absolutely critical to understand.
Gen 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Gen 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
We see again in verse 23 that Adam declares his wife’s body to be his body and obviously that is where it originated from. God purposely selected this way to create the woman. This was a prophetic event of Biblical proportions. Again I will reemphasize that “flesh and bone” is the same terminology for the “body”. In other words a human body consists of both flesh and bones. Jesus actually confirms this with words in the New Testament when he used this terminology in the Gospels, he told his disciples, “handle me, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones”.(Luke 24:39). So Jesus confirms that he has flesh and bones and the clear implication is that is also called his body. If Jesus says “touch me” where would a man put his hand on Jesus to see if he was real? It seems obvious to me that Jesus is referring to his body as being flesh and bones. This is not rocket science, and you should be seeing something new by now.
Moving on to verse 24 in Genesis 2 we see God’s law of marriage being established. This is the first reference in the Bible of the marriage covenant relationship between a man and a woman. This again sets the “type” or “pattern” for every marriage relationship between a man and a woman in both the natural and the spirit worlds. I call this God’s “Law of Marriage”. God gives us a rule or a law for a blood covenant marriage. God said that a man in this case Adam would leave his father (God) and his mother (the earth) and would cleave unto his wife (the woman). I probably lost some of you again by including explanations in that preceding statement. I’ve already dealt with who Adam’s father was so you should already understand that. Since Adam did not have a birth mother and God formed his body from the dust of the ground I consider “the earth” to be his mother. That of course is my opinion, since I don’t have a Bible verse for that statement. You’ve heard the common term “mother earth” before haven’t you? Then the verse finishes up with the most critical thing that you should learn on the subject of marriage with a woman and that is it says the two (the male and the female) would become one flesh (body). This reveals how the church became the body of Christ, it was by marriage. You can obviously still reject everything I’ve said up to this point and say I don’t believe it. However, I’m not through though and I have many more scriptures that confirm what I just said. Is this what God really meant? Did Jesus believe this? Well guess what, I think so, because here is what Jesus said to us on the subject. If you notice these words are in Red, meaning Jesus in person spoke them directly.
Mat 19:5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Mat 19:6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Again we see a clear reference to the exact same words spoken by God in Genesis 2. Within the context of these scriptures you will find that the subject being discussed is divorce and is it lawful? Jesus’ attitude toward divorce is the same as it is today, he says “can’t you read?”, “didn’t God create them male and female in the beginning?” “Aren’t the two joined together and are they not one flesh.” How can a man cut off a part of his own body and get rid of it, isn’t that what he is really saying? Are they not the same body? Jesus said there should be no divorce if it was done right. Jesus is saying that the man and the woman were two, but after they are married God considers them to be one body. This is the Biblical law of covenant marriage. Two people have become one body. This is why Jesus when he married the church with the New Covenant has become one body with her. We can now begin to see how the church became the body of Christ. Just as Eve was the body of Adam, so the church is the body of Christ. These are very important truths to learn and remember. We will continue this study of the identity of the bride of Christ in my next blog. I hope you are beginning to see and understand these important spiritual concepts. We have now laid a foundation for getting into the subject of the identity of the bride of Christ using scriptures we can search for in the New Testament. We have discovered that a covenant is a marriage. God when in covenant is always the male in the relationship. The people that God is in covenant with is always the female. A female in covenant with God is a nation of people consisting of males and females and is always associated with a city named Jerusalem. Then we discovered the law of marriage that states when they are joined together, they become one body. I have another lesson that might be good to go read now that might help clarify some things or give you more information on the subject. This lesson is called “How did the Church become the Body of Christ“. Within this lesson I actually answer many questions that I have presented in this series. I hope that you are learning and we should be able to move into the identity of the bride in the next lesson in the series.
If you would like to continue reading this series, please go to “Part 6“.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 4 God’s Definition of Marriage
(Ver 1.2) This is now Part 4 in the series on this subject concerning the identity of the Bride of Christ. We are building a foundational scriptural knowledge for the identity of this woman and we will continue to learn more in this blog. Today, I have more new revelation from the Word of God on the subject of both what a woman is in the eyes of God and what a marriage is when in a relationship with God. In my last blog I introduced you to God’s definition of a spiritual woman using some verses you probably would have never used before, from Revelation 17 about Mystery Babylon and in chapter 21 that spoke about the New Jerusalem, a city, a woman who is called the bride of the Lamb. This was a New Testament definition so today I want to go back to the Old Testament and see what God says about marriage, expanding and confirming the definition of a woman that I gave you from Revelation. What we will be doing is looking for Old Testament patterns that confirm these New Testament truths that we have already discovered. I hope that you are beginning to understand how important it is to get God’s definition on the scriptures and subjects that we study. If you have not been following this series from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you go back and start reading from Part 1, The Introduction.
Did you know that God the Father was already married to a woman in the Old Testament? Probably you have read it before or maybe heard it taught, God was married to the nation of Israel in the Old Testament? So did God have a wife? Was God married to a woman in the Old Testament? Who was this woman? Does she fit the pattern that I showed you of the woman in Revelation 21? I wonder if you’ve ever seen this in the Old Testament, where God says to Israel I was your husband. It’s certainly there if you look!
Jer 31:32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
Here we have a very powerful verse of truth given to us by the prophet Jeremiah. These are the words of God spoken through the prophet and they call the natural nation of Israel a woman and the wife of God. I wonder what Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses, Joshua and the rest of the males in the nation of Israel thought about being called the female bride and wife of God? Do you think they had a problem being called the female wife of God? Do you think they even knew they were called a woman? Do you think they really cared? They were the physical bride of the Jehovah God? The nation of Israel, a woman married to God, could this really be? God said in this verse that He made a covenant with their fathers, the males in the family. He then said He “took them by the hand” and led them out of Egypt. When you take a woman by the hand that is a marriage terminology or statement for a wedding proposal. God then made it very clear what this covenant represented, He says I was their “husband“. The Hebrew word H1166 here translated as husband comes from a root word that means “to marry”.
H1166
A primitive root; to be master; hence (as denominative from H1167) to marry: – Beulah have dominion (over), be husband, marry (-ried, X wife).
God married to a physical nation which consisted of both males and females. If you don’t see the significance in this scripture and the relationship implied to the New Covenant, I pray you will get it as we continue going forward. I will tell you right here and now that if the Old Covenant was a marriage to God, then the New Covenant is also marriage, but to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Are you in the New Covenant with Christ? According to this verse a covenant is a marriage in the eyes of God. I’m going to say that one more time so that you will get it, when God enters into a covenant, He enters into a marriage. God is the Groom, the people in covenant are the bride. We can see a confirming witness to this revelation by reading a verse found in the book of Malachi:
Mal 2:14 Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.
God is speaking to a husband in a clear reference to how he treated his wife. He informs him that she is the wife of his youth. You could apply this to many marriages today in the world and for that matter in the church. I think that I read that the divorce rate within the church is close to 50%. Meaning half of every marriage in the church is ending in divorce. This certainly should not be. Did you notice how Malachi 2:14 ended. God said this is the wife of your covenant. That is a powerful revelation which applies across the board to every marriage on the planet. In the eyes of God a marriage is a covenant. By the laws found in mathematics and algebra, we can also say that a covenant is a marriage. Maybe you didn’t take Algebra, but the principle is, if A = B, then B = A also. Some might think I’m making this stuff up, but we just read it in the Bible. The implications to this verse are far reaching. If the Old Covenant was a marriage to a people, the New Covenant would also be a marriage to a people. I did say people, and not a city, even though we will learn more about this as we explore more scriptures. We can clearly see that God said I was their husband in Jeremiah 31:32. God the Father would therefore be the Old Covenant Bridegroom. What is a husband except the one that was formerly known as the bridegroom. We could further call Israel the wife the former Old Covenant bride. We can also see in that verse that God has made a covenant with Israel and that He considered this covenant to be a marriage. So what is a covenant? The Strong’s definition of this word is as follows:
H1285
From H1262 (in the sense of cutting (like H1254)); a compact (because made by passing between pieces of flesh): – confederacy, [con-]feder[-ate], covenant, league.
We can see from this definition that it is describing the blood covenant event that occurred in Genesis 15, when God makes a covenant with Abraham. During this chapter, Abraham took 3 animals and split them into two pieces and then laid the pieces on the ground. We later read that the smoking furnace and the burning lamp pass through the pieces implementing the covenant. This is a blood covenant and it is also a representative type and shadow of the New Testament blood covenant, implemented by Jesus Christ. We know that the children of Israel while in captivity in Egypt, took a lamb and killed it and spread the blood on the doors of their houses and then they ate the lamb as a Passover meal. All of those are key types and shadows of the New Covenant implemented by the blood of the Lamb of God. I would certainly hope that all of this is not new to you and that you are intimately familiar with the subjects of blood covenants. There are good teachers that have done good jobs of covering the subject and I would strongly suggest that you take time and the necessary effort to gain knowledge on this subject.
So the Bible as you are aware is divided into two Testaments or Covenants. The first being the Old and the last being the New. Could it be that both of these represent marriages to God in the eyes of God? The first marriage was to a natural people, the last to a spiritual people. The first to a natural Nation and the last to a spiritual Nation. Could it possibly be? I think as you go on you will have to say it is more than possible, it surely is. Here is another scripture from the Old Testament prophets that we should be aware of:
Jer 3:20 Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD.
This scripture is another witness to the relationship of God and what is referred to as the house of Israel. It speaks of a wife that is leaving her husband. You can see that the word “as” was added by the translators thinking they were making a comparison, but the true identity of Israel as being the wife to God is there. I heard one minister say don’t confuse identity with relationship. He was attempting to explain away a valuable Bible truth by claiming that I guess the church’s relationship to Christ was suppose to be that of a wife to a husband, but that didn’t mean we were a bride or a woman. But you know I always heard that if it looks like a duck, it walks like duck, it flies like a duck and quakes like a duck, then it in most likely hood, it is a duck. I’ll tell you who is confused and that is someone who reads the Bible and then attempts to explain away what it says. Heaven help that man for he is in danger of being held responsible for deceiving everyone that he has taught this to. Here is the dilemma, Bible teachers have encountered what appears to them as a major conflict on the surface. How can the church be the body of Christ and still be the bride of Christ. Rather, than looking for the Bible answer to the conflict they simply write off one position in favor of the other position and that is a wrong approach. Let’s look at another witness to the identity of Israel as being a woman and the wife of God:
Eze 16:2 Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,
Eze 16:8 Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine.
Eze 16:22 And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood.
These scriptures are very revealing and again we see the clear reference to a husband and a wife relationship. The wife this time is called “Jerusalem”. Isn’t that interesting? Could this be the “Old Jerusalem” that we saw from the last blog? Doesn’t that sound familiar? Didn’t we read about another wife, a woman in Revelation called the New Jerusalem? We just read verses in Ezekiel that says God was married to a woman and a city named Jerusalem in the Old Covenant. The earthly city Jerusalem was related to the identity of a woman and within the marriage context of the Old Covenant. So was the covenant with the city or with the people in the city? Does God care about cities and building architecture or does God care about people? Did Jesus shed his blood for a city or for the people that make up the city? Would God marry a city and not the people in the city? I tell you there are so many questions that arise and I wonder if people have given any of these any thought?
There are really too many scriptures to give you all of them. If you study the subject for yourself and search your Bible you will see what I mean. Look for terms of marriage, look for the name of the women, Jerusalem. Look for terms like husband and wife, bride and bridegroom. Think of other terms that refer to covenants and marriages indirectly. Look for Israel and Jerusalem being spoken of in female terms of “she” and “her”. These scriptures will give you an expanded knowledge of what a woman and a marriage is to God. If you have the time read Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Hosea and see all of the references to the nation of Israel as being a woman married to God. Look for how many times she is called by adulteress names like, whore. The Hebrew definition of a whore is a woman who commits adultery. Did you know that you cannot be an adulteress unless you are married according to the Bible? You will soon discover that a marriage is a covenant and a covenant is a marriage. God is always the man and the husband and those in covenant with God are always the female, the bride and the wife. That is the way it is, whether you like or not and whether you want to accept it or not. I pray that you are learning these new radical concepts found in the Bible about God, the covenants of God and these women married to God named Jerusalem that are cities of people.
If you would like to continue reading this series, please go to “Part 5“.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 3 God’s Definition of a Woman
(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?
- A Spiritual Woman/Bride
- 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:
- A Woman/Female (Rom 7:4, 2 Cor 11:2)
- A Bride/Wife (John 3:29, Eph 5:25, Eph 5:31-32)
- Called the body of her Husband (Rom 12:5, 1 Cor 12:27, Eph 5:30)
- A Virgin (2 Cor 11:2)
- Righteous (Rom 3:22, Rev 19:8)
- Pure (Eph 5:26, Rev 19:7)
- Was not a Whore (1 Cor 6:15)
- 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:
- This woman is a city, this city is a woman
- This woman/city is to be married to her husband, who is the Lamb
- Her name is “New Jerusalem” or “Holy Jerusalem”
- This woman came down from God and Heaven
- 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“.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 2 Identifying the Bridegroom
(Ver 2.0) This is “Part 2” of the series of essential Bible lessons on the subject of “Identifying the Bride of Christ” in scripture. Too most serious Bible students this should be an easy subject. But for a lot of people, they have never heard it taught or read about this subject. First, it should be obvious that if the primary subject of this series is to identify the Bride of Christ, that this subject is speaking of a covenant marriage between a female woman becoming joined to her male groom creating one new family. In every normal Bible marriage, there are always two participants, and always only a man and a woman. Any other type of marriage is a perversion of truth and scripture. This union of two opposite sexes, was established in the beginning and still is God’s design and definition of a marriage. Today in Part 2 we will learn more about this great subject. However, instead of focusing on the bride, today we will continue our study by identifying and confirming the bridegroom using the Bible and the scriptures that speak specifically about this marriage event. If you have not been reading this series from the beginning, I would strongly recommend that you go back and start with Part 1, The Introduction.
In every normal wedding that Christians have attended, there should only be two primary participants being married. These are the bride and the bridegroom. This is what God defines to be normal. Any other marriage type defiles God created design of marriage. We know this because Genesis 2:24 established this law of covenant union and marriage between one male and one female. This verse also they would be joined together as one flesh. Therefore, in order to establish the identity of the bride of Christ we might desire to start with the basics and confirm that Jesus Christ the groom? Hopefully, this will not be too difficult.
Basic theology is not the normal focus of Agapegeek. However, we might want to start with something more fundamental, like who was Jesus Christ? Was he God or was he just a man? Hopefully we can agree he is 100% man. But simultaneously we also must know that he is 100% God. In Romans 8:3 God writes through Paul, that Jesus was made in likeness of sinful flesh and this verse calls Him the Son of God. Jesus was both 100% God and 100% a man. While I was studying, I counted over 30 times just in the book of Matthew that Jesus is referred to as “the Son of Man”. Of course, the term “son” clearly indicates that he was a male and this then identifies Him be a child descendant of Adam, the first created man. You might not see that very clearly right now, but it is there, and we will probably get into that in more depth later.
When there are a lot of scriptures on a subject it seems it is easier for people to see what is taught to them. I believe that God was making a direct point of emphasis with an implied exclamation point that Jesus Christ was a human male due to the number of scriptures that are recorded with this revelation. So, let’s back up again and now scripturally establish the deity of Jesus. There are not as many clear references in the Bible that declare the specific deity of Jesus Christ as being human. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Let’s start with one in Matthew the first chapter:
Mat 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
This verse is of course speaking about Mary becoming pregnant with Jesus Christ. Here we have a very clear reference that he will be called by the name “Emmanuel” which is a Hebrew name meaning “God with us”. This of course is very controversial in various religions of the world and many of them would certainly deny that God would do something so ridiculous as becoming a part of His creation. It is funny how God uses these foolish things to confound the wise (1 Cor 1:27). So, we need at least one more good reference that Jesus was God, and I think there is a very good one in the first chapter of John.
Joh 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Joh 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
The first chapter of John is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible, it is really amazing what it says. In the very first verse of the chapter, God describes Himself as being “the Word”. This verse is a parallel to Genesis 1:1. John 1:1 and Genesis 1:1 both are written about the “beginning” of creation. However, they speak of God’s Work in different terms. John 1:1 identifies the contribution of God’s Spoken Word to create our world.
If you see what John 1 says, it is almost a paradox or a riddle. How can the Word be “With” God at the same time that it “Is” God. It is an interesting theological predicament, much like trying to explain the Trinity of God. It is usually advisable that if we do not understand a verse in the Bible fully and how it is possible, it is wise to just accept it for what it literally says and believe it just because it says it rather than to attempt to understand it before we believe it. God will always unfold the written words in due time to us in time if we ask, expect the answer to be shown to us, and then trust Him to show us this answer very soon.
As you read down the chapter of John 1, we find an amazing statement of truth in verse 14 about this God called “The Word”. Verse 14 informs us that “The Word” who is also known as “God” was made flesh and lived among us. The God who has purposely hid himself throughout the ages from our physical view, would take on the form of a human male and walk around like He was just one of us. That concept boggles the religious minds of many people to no end. However, what we can clearly see in this first chapter of John, is the fact that the man Jesus Christ was God in the flesh. Let’s look at just one more reference in the Bible where Jesus himself makes a statement to some men who couldn’t understand or accept what he was saying:
John 10:30 – I and my Father are one.
John 10:31 – Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
John 10:32 – Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?
Johh 10:33 – The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
From the mouth of Jesus himself, he spoke and said that God the Father and him were one in the same. That is an awesome statement of revelation that we need to get a hold of and understand the full implications given. The men that heard him wanted to kill him and took up stones to do so. Jesus just asked for what good work are you going to stone me for? But they said it wasn’t for anything that he did, just for what he said.
They could see that he was a man of flesh and based upon this fact and what he said they rejected his claim to be equal to God. Jesus in affect was saying I am the one that created the universe, and you didn’t recognize me. Jesus was God standing directly before them and they did not see it. Obviously, we can learn a lot from this lesson if we are open. In another place in the Gospels, Jesus said “If you have seen me you have seen my Father.” (John 14:7-9). Again, Jesus says He is God. There are certainly a lot of other scriptures that could have been included in this discussion, but for the sake of time we will end this part of the divinity of Jesus using three witnesses.
We could certainly say more and easily get off of the mainline of the subject, so let’s go ahead and look at verses about Jesus being the bridegroom. So, in every marriage, there should always be a male participant making a proposal to his desired female, and this is followed by a wedding ceremony if she willingly accepts. So, who is this bridegroom? Is it this God Man named Jesus?
Later we will go through an in-depth study of Revelation 21 where an angel takes John in the spirit to view the Lamb’s wife. In this chapter we are given a glimpse and a view into the spiritual realm to see a symbolic city who is described in elaborate terms to be a female bride who has finalized her marriage and is now called a wife. But like we learned earlier God does not say she is called the Bride of Christ; in this verse it only says she is the “Lamb’s Wife”. As we know from the Book of John and other New Testament books, only Jesus is ever directly or indirectly called the Lamb of God. Let us confirm this briefly:
John 1:29 – The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
John 1:36 – And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!
Jesus is seen walking up to John and John stops in his tracks and says, “Behold the Lamb of God”. This is an awesome revelation. John knew that Jesus would soon suffer and die and become the one-time sacrifice for the payment of all human sin. Therefore, we can clearly see the reference that Jesus is indirectly called the “bridegroom” that will marry the bride shown to us in Revelation 21. We will certainly get into this in more depth soon. We could talk a lot about the significance of the lamb and about God’s usage of a lamb’s blood. There are a number of very significant typologies and parallels given to us in the Old Testament, that reveal Jesus’ substitutionary work, but we will not cover this today.
Now I want to go through other scriptural conformations found in the New Testament concerning the identity of the bridegroom. There are really several scriptures, and I will not attempt to include them all for the sake of time and space. We can see the identity of the bridegroom in the words of Jesus himself speaking to the disciples of John:
Mat 9:14 – Then came to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?
Mat 9:15 – And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast.
We touched on this subject briefly in Part 1. If you recall this was when the disciples of John ask Jesus why his disciples don’t fast like they do, Jesus’ reply was very important, and a simple truth. How can the children of the bride chamber fast when they are physically present with the bridegroom? The inference is clearly given that Jesus is calling himself the bridegroom and since he was present with them, they didn’t need to fast and this made them at least a part of the “bride”.
He then says there will come a time when I, the bridegroom would be taken from them and then they could fast. We can see that Jesus is looking forward to his crucifixion, his subsequent resurrection and his ascension, when he would be taken from this earth. These words in Matthew 19:14-15 are echoed in Mark 2:19 and Luke 5:34 also, so here we see three specific witnesses declaring Jesus Christ to be the bridegroom. In fact, all of these are quotes of Jesus himself declaring himself to be the bridegroom.
Also, if we look closely at these verses and the specific term “bridechamber” we will also see the implied inference to who the bride is. If you have been following the other blogs you can also see an implication of the “seed of the woman” by the reference to the children of the bride. But since we aren’t there yet, let’s look at another witness to the identity of the bridegroom. We can see that Jesus is again called the bridegroom by John the Baptist in the Gospel of John.
John 3:28 – Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him.
John 3:29 – He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled.
We can see in verse 28 of John 3, that John the Baptist tells everyone that he is not the Greek word Christ, or the Hebrew equivalent word is Messiah. However, we now know the identity of the one who John is about to talk about. Then in verse 29, three times John the Baptist calls Jesus Christ the bridegroom. This verse actually has more revelation, but that is the primary point that you should accept as a great additional witness. John’s first statement is concerning the bride and declares that Jesus is the bridegroom that has her. While John does not directly identify who the bride is, he definitely identifies who the Groom is. Interesting, isn’t it? Also, the Greek word G3565 translated as bride in this verse has the following definition in the Strong’s:
G3565
From a primary but obsolete verb νύπτω nuptō (to veil as a bride; compare the Latin “nupto”, to marry); a young married woman (as veiled), including a betrothed girl; by implication, a son’s wife: – bride, daughter in law.
You can see that this word is related to the Latin word “Nupto” meaning to marry. We get English words like nuptial from this word. So clearly, we can see the association of a woman that is being married to the Lord Jesus Christ. This woman must be the bride of Christ since Jesus is the Christ. So, who is this woman that is married to the Lord Jesus Christ? Knowing who the bridegroom is, gives us a firm foundation for us to start an in-depth study of who the bride is. But let’s list some of the basic facts that we have just learned from the preceding verses:
- Jesus Christ was and still is, God in the flesh
- Jesus Christ was and still is a Man and is also called the Son of Man, causing Him to be a descendant of Adam God’s first created man.
- Jesus Christ is called the Lamb of God.
- Jesus Christ calls Himself the bridegroom.
- Jesus Christ is said to have a bride and a wife.
- A bride is always a female.
- There must be a marriage proposal and covenant established and then a wedding ceremony between Jesus and His bride.
I think these are basic scriptural facts, but yet maybe you haven’t seen them until now. So, knowing these facts we can now begin to explore the identity of the bride of Christ. Therefore, let us start by researching the subject in the Word of God. Two questions should come to our minds at this point in the study and I think answering these questions will help point us to where we should go next. Here are the two questions that maybe you thought of also and these are based upon knowing that God is a Spirit and any wedding that He is involved in as a bridegroom, is also spiritual in nature:
- What is a spiritual marriage in the eyes of God?
- What is a spiritual woman in the eyes of God?
I believe by focusing in on what God thinks are the answers to these two direct questions that it will help to provide us a firm foundation to the clear identity of the bride of Christ. In the next lesson we will begin to focus on these subjects.
If you would like to continue reading this series, you can go to “Part 3“.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 1 The Introduction
(Ver 2.0) This is Part 1 in the Bible Advanced Study series revealing the identity of the spiritual woman called the Bride of Christ. Perhaps you have heard preachers and Bible teachers say, “There is nothing in the Bible that says the church is the Bride of Christ”. However, after we study this subject for ourselves like the more noble Berean Bible students mentioned in Acts 17:11, we should all begin to find and see this teaching is not Biblically accurate. It is interesting how one preacher will teach something totally opposite to what another will teach. But all it does is prove that at least one is wrong or possibly that both are wrong and only God is right. This however creates confusion, division and an atmosphere for deception in the Body of Christ. Satan is all too ready to pounce on error and use it to cause a split or an offense against other Christians in the church. We are going to start a new series of lessons today on why the Church was called to be the Bride of Christ. We will discover scriptural evidence and a lot of it so that it can be clearly understood. This will probably be the most in-depth and comprehensive Bible lesson series that many have ever encountered on the subject of the Identity of the Bride of Christ, and it will probably take a long time and a lot of lessons to cover based upon the information found in scripture.
I want to start this lesson by confirming one thing, the term “Bride of Christ” is not found in the Bible anywhere that I have personally found. That might shock some people to learn that truth. But neither are the terms abortion, homosexuality, rapture, demons or the trinity found in the Bible either. Does that mean none of these exist either? Does anyone think that God cares nothing about any of these subjects to discuss them directly by name? Many times, basic theological principles are not directly named or labeled with a clear title that can be found in the Bible. Many times, these theological terms come as a result of man naming them with titles that have stuck. These manmade titles and labels cause the subjects to be more easily taught and referenced and for others to understand them.
So instead of us looking for the term “Bride of Christ” in the Bible and saying it doesn’t exist and therefore concluding that the church is not the bride, let us become wise enough to learn the lesson of how God wrote the Bible and do a search for other information that is given to us using synonyms and implied references to marriage. The Bible contains an almost infinite number of mysteries, puzzles, riddles and hidden information. God used this technique for two primary reasons. First to hide this information from His enemies who were led by Satan and then second to conceal the truth for us (the Church) to find at the right time. If we can understand this, it will help us unify in trying to figure out what the Bible really says and means.
The “Bride of Christ” is of course a very deep subject with a lot of complex interwoven layers of truth, and it may be extremely challenging to be taught concisely in a blog format. Therefore, if length of the lessons is problem, this series may be offensive just by the volume of information that needs to be covered. But please note brevity was not always God’s motivation in the Bible. After all understand God wrote 66 books from over 40 authors and very few of them were short books. We can also learn from Jesus who taught a very large group of people for 3 days in Mark 8:2 and none of them had had natural food to eat. Is anyone today that hungry for what God has to teach? Do also remember Peter in Acts 20:9 who preached so long one man fell asleep in an open window to fall to the ground and died. However, this man was raised from the dead and lived to talk about it. If anyone gets tired reading this series, you are not going to die just break it into sections and learn when you can get the time. Thank you.
INTRODUCTION
Let us start our introduction of this subject by addressing the two main reasons why some preachers think that the church is not the bride. In this way we will not ignore the views and thoughts on the subject from others. This will hopefully allow everyone the fair ability to weigh the evidence from everyone, to determine which is the view that matches with the witness of the Holy Spirit living in each of our hearts. Or perhaps there will be elements of each teacher’s view that bears witness with our spirit or perhaps neither teaching view will bear witness with your spirit, and then you are free to believe as the Spirit leads you. Out of respect and in the name of love, we will not name any names other teacher’s views. So, if you want to listen to any of these teachers who teach these beliefs it is easy to find them by a search of the internet using the topic.
The first reason that has been popular to why the church is not the bride, is because they say the church is the Body of Christ. This may shock some, but I believe this too. The church is the body of Christ. This is irrefutable and this belief is definitely amazingly true. But we will soon discover that this truth does not contradictory with the belief that the church is also the bride of Christ. We all should know that the New Testament clearly gives an overwhelming number of scriptures that confirm this basic truth. Again, I believe these verses, and everyone should teach firmly that the Church is the Body of Christ.
Many people with limited knowledge believe the Bible contains contradictions. And when someone encounters these differences in scriptures this is when potential errors can occur and even carnal fights over theological beliefs of doctrines. It should be obvious to everyone that being the body of Christ is a contradiction to also being the bride of Christ. How one resolves these conflicts will possibly result in unity or division within the church depending upon if we allow the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth or not.
What some teachers have concluded to resolve this conflict is that, if we are the body of Christ (Rom 12:5) and if Christ has a bride (Rev 21:9), then we (the church) also have a Bride. That belief would make us (the church) the bridegroom also. Jesus clearly claimed to be the bridegroom in Matthew 9:15. However, in this context Jesus is asked why doesn’t His disciples fast and Jesus’ reply is “How can the children of the bridechamber fast while the bridegroom is with them”. This statement clearly calls the disciples of Jesus those in the bride chamber and not the groom.
Therefore, we are observing thinking that brings us new contradictions in scriptures. A belief that says we are the bridegroom places us on equal ground with Jesus Christ and it causes us to be God as an equivalent in every aspect and feature. That logic should set off all kind of red flags in our minds. We are not the Creator God; we are His creation. What these teachers have done is a classic error of Bible Interpretation that many have fallen into without knowing it. They have taken “A” single truth and exalted it and have made it “The” complete truth. This happens very frequently and is a misrepresentation of what God desired us to know as truth. You see there are many truths in the Bible and if we take just one of them and exclude the rest of them, we are now in the potential of great error. That might be the most important thing that we can learn today from this lesson so don’t throw it away.
Now for the second reason why some preachers think the church is not the bride of Christ. They turn to the last chapters in Revelation and read about a city coming out of heaven from God (Rev 21:9). This holy city is called the “New Jerusalem”, and she is referred to as a woman. She is also called specifically the “Lamb’s Wife”. In their reasoning they have determined that since we are the “Body of Christ”, this is our (the church’s) wife also. In other words, God came to the earth in the flesh, suffered and died on a cross, went to hell and arose back to heaven all so that he could marry a city with buildings and houses that we could all live as one body happily ever after. Does this belief agree and balance with all scripture?
Would this teaching raise any questions in your mind with what you know about other verses found in the Bible? If this city New Jerusalem is the bride of the church, then we must also conclude that we are the Lamb. However, have we ever seen any verses of scripture that claims the church is the “Lamb of God”. In fact, we should have all been taught and know that the term “Lamb of God” refers to our spotless “Passover” sacrifice that only Jesus would qualify to make for our salvation (1 Cor 5:7, 1 Pet 1:19).
Let us quickly address the city called “New Jerusalem”. This city cannot be the bride. God uses this named city as a symbolic reference to the residents of the city. For example, if someone said on the news, “New York City” elected a new Mayor, did the buildings vote for them, or was it the people living in the city’s buildings? It should be obvious that only people are supposed to vote. But in our evil world the devil even tries to win elections in whatever way goes unchecked. Therefore, a city called the bride in Revelation is speaking of all of the inhabitants and residents of this city called New Jerusalem and collectively these people are called the Lamb’s “bride”, and we will find later the church is confirmed to be that city in other scriptures.
Let us now cover reason number three that is being taught to claim the church is not the bride of Christ. There are some modern Bible teachers that were clearly born a natural human male, and they feel if they are being referred to as a spiritual female bride, it removes their masculinity. One nameless pastor said, “I am a man, I don’t wear panties”. This clearly demonstrates a concerning level of carnal focus and thinking.
According to this pastor, he was struggling in thinking of himself as a spiritual woman or being called the bride of Christ, because he was a natural male, and any normal natural man should have a problem with being identified as any kind of female, even one that is female. I can understand that thought process, because I am a man also. There are so many natural people in the world that are so confused with their sexual identity, whether they are a man or a woman. These kinds of people ask, “Am I a man in a woman’s body” or vice versa. It seems this sexual identity crisis has also crept into the church by Satan’s design to produce confusion.
Is the church a man or is it a woman in the eyes of God? That is certainly the great debate that seems to be raging. You can so easily see why Satan wants to keep the church in confusion so that they don’t understand who they are and why they are here. If the church doesn’t understand the truth, then Satan is able to steal away their purpose and calling from our hearts and we will never be able to know our purpose according to what God’s Word and Jesus has taught us. As you read the rest of this lesson series, we will soon discover why Satan wants to convince the Body of Christ that they are not the bride of Christ. If he can convince us that we are not the bride, then we will not be able to fulfill the Biblical prophecies spoken by the words of God himself.
So normal men don’t like being thought of as a spiritual female. However, what we think, or would like or don’t like shouldn’t really mean anything. That also goes for how you and I feel about being called a woman. We must humble ourselves and submit to God realizing whatever He says about us and who we are is right, and we are the ones that are wrong. Therefore, we need scriptures to help us make our mind up who we are? Can we agree? This is us not making a prejudged decision, this is just us being open to receive whatever the outcome is that is found in God’s Word. Yes, or no?
Perhaps you have heard that a picture of the church being the bride, brings out an image of a woman dressed in a wedding gown, wearing combat boots. This one minister just couldn’t identify with such a thought being a male. Is there any natural female that may as a female woman have a problem if she is called a spiritual male (the body of Christ)? For some reason I’ve never heard a female complain. Therefore, why would a natural male have a problem if he is called a spiritual female (the bride)?
Isn’t this like having a natural carnal male chauvinist attitude, thinking a man is better and knows things better than God. Did you know that the Bible says in Galatians 3:28 that there is neither “male” nor “female” in Christ? If you are in Christ and you are worried about being called a male or a female you are could be thinking too carnally and naturally. If you are a male and have a problem identifying yourself as a spiritual woman and that did say spiritual, then you may need to repent and figure out what God thinks about it and not worry about your outward appearance or feelings on the subject.
What we must ask ourselves, is there precedence in the Bible for the Church to be the bride of Christ? Ok, that was a legal term and what is really meant to be said was, is there a valid Bible pattern, a type or a shadow given to us in the Old Testament that would mirror and confirm to us this New Testament truth being a spiritual woman?
In Legal terms, precedence is when a judge gives a ruling, he is obligated to explain why he ruled that way. Many times, a judge will normally give established case histories where similar rulings were given and then explain why he ruled the way that he did. Why does the Judge feel obligated to include similar case rulings in his decision process? That is an interesting concept if you think about it. When a judge provides supporting evidence for his decision, he is saying this is not just my lone opinion.
Precedence can also apply to the order of priority or sequence of importance. This is exactly how the Bible is written if you didn’t realize it. God is the ultimate Supreme Judge and Jesus is our Lawyer or Advocate. God does everything in an orderly legal fashion. He explains His rulings giving us His precedence on the subject in His Word. The Old Testament parallels the New Testament, as well as the Old Testament precedes the New. The Old Testament helps us explain the New Testament and vice versa. The Old Testament gives us natural pictures of actual living people that point us to spiritual truths. There are many natural examples in the Old Testament that point us to spiritual New Testament truths. In fact there is an Old Testament scripture that says, “The thing that has been, that is the thing that shall be” (Ecc 1:9) and God said there is nothing new under the sun. In this lesson series we will definitely explore some new foundational truths from both the Old and the New Testaments that confirm the true identity of the church, so get ready to learn.
Perhaps you recall in the Old Testament that the natural nation of Israel was named to be a female whore repeatedly? This was because they went whoring after other gods through idolatry. We can read in Jeremiah 13:27 where God is describing the earthly city named Jerusalem as going whoring and committing spiritual adulteries. Please understand that this is a natural city containing natural human males and females who at that time was in covenant with God and God refers to them collectively as a female. Did this female reference remove the masculinity of any of these males? Carnal thinking is a major enemy of receiving spiritual truth. God desires us to come up to a higher spiritual way of thinking and believing. Please let us not fall for this trick of Satan.
We can’t cover every scripture reference, and reason people believe and teach the church is “not” the bride, but I really do not want to dilute the truth. I must apologize if some lessons come across very blunt and to the point sometimes, there is never any intention to offend anyone, it is rather just an attempt to wake some sleeping giants up to the truth. Jesus who was God in the flesh and is called “LOVE”, said and did some things to religious people that was shocking blunt and direct. He called some a generation of serpents and vipers; he called others a den of thieves, and on and on we could go. Do you believe Jesus was being too tough and not walking in love? Could it be that people who get offended at the words of God are being challenged to change? Do you remember what Paul wrote in Galatians 4:16? He said, “Have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” That sounds like a bold statement, and some would call it prideful. People have the potential to learn more by not becoming offended than they do than if they do not allow offensive to control them. Therefore, if you read something that offends you in this series, it might be wise to forgive first and realize God might be speaking something that He desires for us to know.
Finally, learn the lesson from the US Secret Service. You know these people do not spend a lot of time studying how to make counterfeit money. Instead, they concentrate on studying the real money, its features, characteristics and qualities. If you become intimately familiar with the real you can automatically recognize the counterfeit. That principle works with the Bible in the same way. The more we study the truth; the false teachings become easily recognizable. What we have to do is to make sure that what we believe is firmly based upon 2 or 3 witnesses of scripture found in the Bible. If we do this, then we are standing on good ground that is able to recognize any false teaching influenced by the enemy.
Mat 22:2 The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son,
As you can clearly see, Jesus is describing a spiritual reality using a descriptive natural story found in the form of a parable. This marriage being described to us is what we will begin to study in this series of lessons. Jesus is telling us of the “Kingdom of Heaven” so He must be speaking about spiritual truths using natural descriptive terms that we are all familiar with. However, this is another reason why Satan is trying the destroy the God created institution of marriage between a male and female. This covenant marriage law is written in Genesis 2:22-24 and it is being attacked directly by Satan today. It is this amazing God created union that is the basis of our salvation. That is how important this subject of the bride of Christ is to learn.
In this parable there was a certain King what has arranged a marriage for His son. So, we must begin by understanding the King is representative of God the Father. The Son in this parable is clearly Jesus Christ and He is the “bridegroom”. The marriage must be to a “bride”. The bride can be referred to as a future “daughter-in-law”, or the King’s “son’s” wife. So now we need to determine what is a spiritual woman, who is this spiritual woman (bride) and what is a spiritual marriage in the eyes of God.
Before we can accurately understand the identity of the bride of Christ and confirm her existence we really need to step back and come to understand some spiritual basic concepts; like what does the Bible say a spiritual woman is, and how does a spiritual woman relate to a spiritual family unit. Obviously if we are talking about women and brides we are also talking about a marriage as Jesus begins to describe in the first line of the parable.
How is a son’s marriage to a bride related to this subject in the eyes of God. We also need to figure out scripturally who is the bridegroom? Please recall, that we were previously introduced to this answer in this introduction. What is a Blood Covenant and how is it related to marriage? I believe that Biblical blood covenants are also a key subject to study and understand for us to build the basic knowledge of the subject of the identity of the bride of Christ. I cannot fully expound in this lesson on all of the Bible basics that we should be aware of to more fully understand this subject.
This means that this lesson series is built upon other foundational teachings that are available and easily found on the site. Not all of this information can be retaught here. Please spend the time to review these lessons to gain the firm foundational understandings of the Bible about these subjects that were just mentioned. Most advanced studies of any subject must logically assume there are prerequisite subjects that are required for basic knowledge of the more advanced subject, so this lesson is no different. Anyone is free to study this lesson alone, but it is recommended that you go back and study the other subjects if you struggle with anything that is said that is difficult to understand.
Hopefully we all can agree that when we go to college and take an advanced class like Calculus or Statistical Probability, they don’t start the class with 1 + 1 = 2, we should have already learned that in elementary school. So it is in the Bible in many subjects. This lesson is a spiritual college level Bible course, and not much time will be spent on any elementary school basics. The bottom line is that if I say something that you don’t agree with, it is strongly recommended that before you reject it or write it off, that you do some basic study to see how the study has arrived at that statement.
So let us go back to one of the first major points of the introduction; This was “taking a truth and trying to make it the only truth”. This is a repeated error for many Bible teachers, and it is such a critical mistake because it closes our mind to look and examine other verses found in the Bible. When this happens our spirits become closed to new information that God wanted to teach us on the subject. Here is a God challenge for us all today. Realize that there is more than one truth written in the Bible.
Many of God’s truths found in the Bible are like the threads of a finely woven fabric or tapestry. It consists of many different threads (truths) that all fit together closely so that they overlapped with other threads (truths) and all of these fitted together correctly reveal the picture of God and His Son Jesus Christ correctly. In fact, the Bible is so complex that it is practically impossible for any human alone to fully comprehend everything that the Bible says. This is by God’s design. This causes us all to learn from each other.
But some saying the church is “only” the body of Christ and that’s it, simply closes our minds to anything else that the Lord wanted to teach us about the subject of Jesus and His bride. Also, weaving truths together incorrectly only produces a mixed-up confusing mess of individual truths not fitting together correctly in harmony.
You see, in the Bible God describes the church using many, many different names, titles and descriptions with each revealing several different new characteristics, qualities and features. We are described as “kings” and “priests” (Rev 1:6). In 2 Corinthians 5:12 the church is called “ambassadors” for Christ. In other places in the Bible, we are described as “saints” (Romans 1:7). The church is described as an “army” with armor and weapons (Eph 6:13). We are described as “children” and even “sons” of God in the New Testament. We are called “joint heirs” with Christ in Romans 8:17. In Romans 2:29 the church is called the spiritual “Jews”. In other places in the New Testament like 1 Corinthians 3:16 the church is called the “temple of God”. We could go on and on with other scripture references, but hopefully we get the point.
We can’t take any one of those truths alone and attempt to make it and it alone the entire truth of God’s word. And if we do this, we are in BIG trouble with trying to understand the rest of the Bible. Here is another good question for those who may teach that the church is only the body of Christ and therefore cannot be the bride. How can the church be called “joint heirs” with Christ if we are “Christ’s body”? Wouldn’t that make us the only heir and not a joint heir? Uh oh? That may be a problem that some have not given enough thought to resolve. A “joint heir” with Christ clearly implies a different heir and not the exact same one. So how can the church be joint heirs at the same time they are the Body of Christ?
This is just one example of a very significant puzzle and mystery, that we will get into and solve in this series. Hopefully you are learning a few things from this short introduction. I believe this series was designed by the Holy Spirit to introduce and teach us things in a specific order and sequence to hopefully help everyone more fully understand it. If you desire to know more of the Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols for the Church you can go to that lesson and research them in your Bible.
Conclusion
This has only been a short introduction to our subject of identifying the Bride of Christ as being a figurative term for the church. While this subject is controversial, there can only be one true identity of this spiritual woman, even if she is also symbolized by other identifying names, titles and descriptions. There is so much more to learn on this subject, and it is really amazing how much of it is unknown or ignored by many Christians.
If you are like many Christians, there should be a spiritual curiosity to desire to know the truth. Jesus called this being a true disciple in John 8:31-32 that will grow to find His truth. I have diligently sought to have this relationship with Christ intimately to know His truth and I pray you will also. Thank you for taking your valuable time to read and study the Bible with us. If you do not know Jesus Christ, there is a link at the bottom that will help you begin the journey to knowing Him. God Bless you.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons, you can continue with “Part 2“.
Gen 3:22-24 Guarding The Way To The Tree of Life!
(Ver 1.5) This is Part 6 of the Bible lesson series on Understanding Genesis 3. I am going to take this subject out of sequence and teach a 2 part Bible Study series on the Tree of Life first mentioned in Genesis 2. From reaching in this 3rd chapter of Genesis we discover the story of how Eve was deceived by the serpent into eating from the spiritual tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam then listened to his wife’s voice and he also ate from the same tree. The Bible says Adam was not deceived (1 Tim 2:14) so whatever he did was an intentional rebellious act of disobedience to commit sin. If you have ever studied the Bible, you know that God shows up on the scene and places curses on each party involved in Genesis 3 and I have not taught on these subjects yet. However, we know from scripture (1 Jn 4:12) that no man has ever seen God. This fact would include Adam or 1 John 4:12 is not a true statement from God. So how did God curse everyone without making himself visible to them? That is an interesting point to consider, but since it is not my subject today, I’ll leave it alone for your consideration. Now after Adam’s sin, we have the man and woman in covenant with Satan, the symbolic serpent of old. We can now get to today’s subject from Genesis, guarding the way to the tree of life. Who was God trying to keep from eating from the tree of life? You can make the logical conclusion that if God wanted to guard the way to the tree of life, there must have been someone who was greatly interested in it. You don’t place guards on your garbage piles so it must have been something of great value to someone. So, who was after this tree of life? What exactly is this tree of life? Why is it important to keep it safely out of the hands of someone? So many questions to consider? Let’ start with the 22nd verse of Genesis 3 and see what God says to us:
Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
I’ve already addressed the 1st part of this verse in another blog so I will not rehash that part of the verse. It is just important to note that God says the man has become like Him, in covenant with good and evil. That is some very powerful information, and it helps give us some foundational information for why God came in the flesh. If you need more information, please go back and read the Blog on “Gen 3:5 You Shall Be As God Knowing Good and Evil!“. Now pay attention to how God ends that verse. God says “because the man might also eat from the tree of life and live forever…”. Then God abruptly stops talking. This is one of the only places in the Bible that I know of where God doesn’t finish His sentence or His thought. God stops talking and leaves us wondering what was He going to say? Based upon the creation account in Genesis 1, we can see that whatever God says happens, so I would venture to guess that God did not want what He was thinking to come to pass so He shut His mouth and stopped talking about it. But that is just my opinion on the verse. But, I do think that is a powerful lesson for us all to learn from.
Let’s briefly address whether this is a physical tree or a spiritual tree. If it was just a physical tree why couldn’t God have just cursed the tree like Jesus did with the fig tree in Mark and bam the tree would not be a problem anymore. You see I do not believe it is a physical tree, with physical fruit. In this verse God says that the man could have “put forth his hand” and taken from the tree. What does that reference invoke in your mind? Most would think that it is speaking of Adam’s physical hand reaching out and picking a natural apple from a natural fruit tree. But I do not believe this is what God is saying. The term “hand” is a reference to power and ability. Adam had the power and ability to eat from the tree even after they had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The word hand is a very popular word in the Old Testament. It occurs over 1400 times. Many times it is used in reference to a individual’s power and ability. Here is just one example of this found in the book of Job. Satan is in conversation with God about Job and he makes this statement to God:
Job 1:11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
You can see the reference here to God putting forth his hand. This is clearly the same terminology used in Genesis 3. Satan was telling God if he used his power to “touch” all that Job had, Satan thought that Job would curse God. Without getting into the story of Job, I will tell you that God did not take anything from Job. God did not hearken to the voice of his wife and do the wrong thing, like Adam did. What I want you to see is the reference that God has a hand that can be stretched forth. If the Spirit of God has a hand it must be spiritual. Just understand the difference between a spiritual hand and a physical hand and both are called a hand. This is one of the trickiest ways God has used to conceal information in the Bible. Speak of spiritual things in natural terms and then challenge your reader to figure it out.
Apparently, Adam had power and ability and was still capable of eating from the tree of life and living forever even after God said he would surely die. Obviously Adam did not understand what had happened, much less how to eat from the tree of life. We know from Genesis 2, that God had commanded the man not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But God never said anything about not eating from the tree of life. There appears to be an assumption that eating from the tree of life is good. But now that Adam was in covenant with Satan, what does God do? Who is God attempting to keep from the tree of life?
Gen 3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
We can see from this verse that the man and his wife are sent out of the garden of Eden. They are returned to the ground from where he was originally created. Exactly where was that? Where was Adam created in relation to the Garden of Eden? The Bible tells us if you look for it and pay close attention. Let’s go back to Genesis 2 and read:
Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
You can clearly see that this is the creation account of the body of Adam. Adam’s body was formed from the dust of the ground. So where was Adam when this occurred? All you have to do is read the next verse and pay attention to the compass directions given.
Gen 2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
If the garden of Eden is located to the East of where Adam’s physical body was formed, what direction was Adam and Eve returned to after they had sinned? If you guessed back to the West, you would be correct. Why is east and west and these direction so significant? We can begin to ascertain the importance only after reading the last verse in Genesis 3.
Gen 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
So God drives the man out of the Garden and then it says God places a Cherubim at the east of the garden holding a flaming sword to keep the way of the tree of life. Are you beginning to see the paradox? Where did God drive Adam? God put the man and his wife back to the ground where they were created and this was West of the Garden of Eden. So where was the guarding Cherubim placed? They were placed to the East of the Garden. It is so fascinating when you see things correctly, isn’t it? God is obviously not attempting to keep the man away from the tree of life, if he was he would have placed the Cherubim on the West side where the man was.
(North)
(West) Adam ——-> Garden of Eden ——> Cherubim (East)
(South)
I wrote an earlier blog about the differences between the east and the west. I will not rehash all of that, but if you study the earth from the context that Israel is the middle of the world, then east of Israel towards Asia you would see that the religions of the world become increasingly darker and in some countries non-existent. Generally speaking if you move west from Israel you see the majority of the Christian nations in the world being to the West of Israel. Knowing this fact alone should help you see who God is guarding from the way to the tree of life. It is not from the Christians, but it is from the enemy of the church, the devil that God is keeping from the way to the tree of life. If you didn’t realize it, Satan is still looking for a way out of judgment. Eating from the tree of life would by association mean the establishment of a new covenant relationship with those for who it is intended. If you have followed what I showed you earlier you know that by Adam eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it established a covenant between Adam and Satan. So whoever is intended to eat from the tree of life, Satan is looking to get into covenant with to save his rear end. The tree of life is mentioned again in the last chapter of Revelation and this chapter starts with this statement:
Rev 22:1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
We can see that this verse describes the throne of God and the Lamb. It declares that there is a river of water of life flowing from the throne. That of course is an interesting concept since Jesus told us in John 7:38, that out of our bellies will flow rivers of living water. Our bellies is referring to our spirits, the true inner man. This reference is about the words that we speak and them being a river of life to others in the world. So the river of life flowing from the throne of God must also be the Words of God.
Rev 22:2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Revelation 22:2 now directly mentions the tree of life. But did you notice where or what this tree is? It says this tree grows in the middle of the streets around the throne of God. Who walks the streets of heaven? I personally believe this is a reference to Christians. It further says that there are more than one of these trees of life. In fact if you look closely it implies there are many, many trees of life everywhere surrounding the throne of God. If you use your brain a little bit you might be able to see that the implication is given to us, that we are the trees of life. But that might be hard for some to see. Let’s approach it from a different perspective? It says this tree is suppose to produce 12 fruits monthly. Exactly what is fruit? To the natural mid it is just apples, oranges, grapefruits, etc. But to the spiritual mind it is much different. God being a spiritual being is speaking of spiritual trees that produce spiritual fruit. So what are the fruits of the spirit? Oh, that changes everything doesn’t it?
I guess I’ll end this blog here and just leave you hanging. Maybe I have given you some new things to consider and challenged you to think on a higher dimension. God had to guard “the way” to the tree of life from Satan. Satan is still after this tree, but I don’t believe he has a shot at it. You see Jesus said “I am the Way”, so nobody can come to God except Jesus allows him access. Jesus Christ is the only legal way to this tree of life and if you belong to Him, you now have access to this tree of life to produce the fruit of the spirit. I’ll try to continue this in another blog to help expand our understanding of this deep subject.
If you would like to continue reading this series on Understanding Genesis 3 you can go to “Part 7“.
Gen 3:5 You Shall Be As God Knowing Good and Evil!
(Ver 2.2) This is Part 5 in the series about Understanding Genesis 3. The Bible has so much information in it, it is challenging just to know what to teach. Genesis 3 is about the spiritual downfall of Adam and Eve. But there are a number of other good lessons to learn from this chapter also. I am shocked sometimes at how people don’t see what the Bible really says and I think today will be another example of that. You can tell if you have read my blogs on Genesis that we are faced with a challenge by God to recognize the difference between spiritual things and natural physical things being described to us. Many times men tend to look at everything in the Bible naturally, but since the author of the Bible is a Spirit, God’s perspective is the only one that should count. Most of the time wrong interpretations of the Bible revolve around private interpretations from the natural minds of men. But, if we use the Bible to help us determine the true meanings, we are far more likely to get it right. In my last blog on Genesis I talked about spiritual fruit being different than natural fruit. I gave you several scriptures that declare that it is not what we eat physically that causes us to sin. We can therefore conclude that God did not command Adam and Eve to not eat of a natural physical fruit tree in the Garden. We can further conclude that God when He was speaking of not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was telling them not to eat of a spiritual tree. If you didn’t realize it, God is more concerned with spiritual things than He is with natural things. People want you to save the planet, save the trees, save the environment, save the whales, etc., but God wants us to produce spiritual fruit and become a mature Christian, to be a laborer and to help prepare for His spiritual harvest. So when we read the Bible we need to become more spiritually aware and less naturally focused. Focus only on spiritual things in context with the subject given. Recognize how God applies natural things to give us glimpses into the spirit world.
Today I want to expand on verse 5 in Genesis 3. This verse has some profound truths written in it, that I believe we need to understand. This verse is Satan, the symbolic serpent speaking to the mind of Eve. If you didn’t know the serpent was a symbolic representation for a spiritual being, then you need to read my blog, “Was There a Talking Snake in the Garden?” Many times people overlook what Satan says because he is called the father of lies and they don’t realize that Satan will use the truth, if he thinks it will work to his advantage. Satan actually knows more truth than you do, that is why he can lie so well. Here are the words of Satan spoken to the mind of Eve as a thought:
Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Satan is of course very presumptuous to think that he knows what God knows. I do believe that God taught Satan everything that Satan knows, however, I do not believe that God taught him everything that God knows. I think people need to learn that lesson, if they don’t learn anything else in this blog. We then see a statement that declares that their eyes would be opened. I would hope that you could see that Satan was not speaking of their physical eyes, but Satan was referring to their spiritual understanding. Here is a scripture from the New Testament which speaks to us along these lines:
Eph 1:18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
Our spirits have the ability to see, perceive or as it says in this verse to understand. To see with our spirits is the ability of our spirits to understand the spiritual truths being spoken to us. The term is repeated to us in this verse “to know”. Isn’t that what Satan said to Eve? Satan told Eve that they would “know” good and evil. So what does this Hebrew word translated as “know” mean? If you have been reading my blogs you already understand the answer to that question. To “know” something is a covenant term. To know something represents an intimate sexual knowledge. God uses this same Hebrew word when He describes “Adam knew his wife and she had a son”. To “know” someone is to be in covenant with that individual. So what was Satan telling Eve? According to the wording and the underlying meaning, Satan said to Eve you will be just like God, in covenant with good and evil. I know I probably lost several readers with that statement, but if you keep reading in the chapter you will see that God did not contradict that statement, but He actually confirms it. You see if this was a lie or a deception of Satan, then God had the opportunity to confront the lie when He was talking to each of the participants after Adam had sinned. But, never do you see any confrontation or rejection of that statement in the chapter discourse. As you continue in the chapter you actually see that God confirms what Satan said to Eve in verse 22:
Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
I should probably go back and address one modification that I made to the verse 5 translation before I talk about this verse 22. In verse 5 the word “gods” is the Hebrew noun “Elohiym”. This is a plural word that is often times used for one of the names of God. God being a triune being is a plural being and not a singular one. It is a complex paradox that God is directly called three personalities, but is still just one God. In contrast there are many gods, but there is one “Elohiym”, the Supreme God. In the first chapter of Genesis, this word “Elohiym” is translated as God around 26 times. So the KJV translators instead of making this word say “God” as they did the majority of other places in Genesis, they chose to make it say “gods”. But the problem with that reasoning was Adam and Eve were already gods, but they were gods that only knew good and not evil. The only thing that Adam and Eve would gain from eating this spiritual fruit was the covenant with evil and what a dumb mistake that was. So translators got the word wrong in verse 5 and focused in on the wrong noun. Instead of saying Adam and Eve were “elohiym” (gods) they should have just made it say “God”.
So why did I have to go into all of that explanation? Because if the translators would have just put these two verses, 5 and 22 together correctly they would have seen what God said in verse 22 “Look, the man has become like Me!”; in covenant with good and evil. God actually repeats exactly what Satan said would happen, so it could not have been a lie. God declares that Adam was now in covenant with evil and therefore we can determine based upon our knowledge of Bible covenants, Satan was now married to man. Whatever Adam was given was now given equally to Satan. There are many verses in the Bible that confirm this statement; I’ll give you one found in the temptation of Jesus:
Luk 4:5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
Here in the temptation of Jesus by Satan, Satan takes Jesus on a mental journey to the top of a very high mountain on earth. On the top of this mountain Satan shows Jesus all the kingdoms of this world. That would include every race, creed and inhabitant of the planet. There was nothing omitted or left out so that goes along with a true Bible covenant relationship between the two parties Adam and Satan. Then after showing Jesus these kingdoms, Satan makes this statement:
Luk 4:6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
We can clearly see that in Luke 4:6, Satan tells Jesus all of this which I just showed you has been given to me, and I have the power to give it to whoever I want. These were all true statements and Satan thought that he was in control of the situation, but God had a different plan. Now let me give you one more example of what I am saying found in 2 Corinthians:
2Co 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
You see God shows us that one of Satan’s titles is “the god of this world” in this verse. Or actually I should say that this is the title that Satan stole from Adam and God just informs us of this. Adam when he was created was given dominion over all of the creation of God’s handy work. You can read this in the 1st chapter of Genesis as well as verses found in Psalms. God transferred complete control and responsibility over the planet to Adam and in effect made him the “god of this world system”. Adam had complete control over his own destiny and whatever he decided carried the decision for every one that descended from him. So after Adam dies, Satan becomes the “god of this world system”. Jesus gives us some very strong insight into this spiritual transaction between Adam and Satan in the book of John:
Joh 10:1 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
You can see from this statement a very powerful spiritual truth being revealed to us. Jesus is telling us that Satan did not enter into our world legally. He took advantage of Adam and Eve and entered in the world that God had given to them by deception. Jesus is calling Satan a thief that has robbed someone of something that didn’t belong to him. Jesus was also contrasting His presence on the earth as being legitimate, while Satan’s presence on the earth as being illegal. You see God could not come to the earth the same way that Satan did and just take back everything that was given to Adam, without being called a thief and become just as guilty as Satan. So we can see a puzzle being revealed to us. Jesus says whoever enters into the world by the door is legitimate. So what is this legal door into this world? It is only being born here by a natural woman that has given birth to you, and that makes you legally here. You have to be a direct descendent of Adam and Eve to be here legally. God is so very tricky and smart. God knew that He could come into the world and pay for our salvation, if He came as a son of Adam. So we have a man that was born into this planet that was both 100% man and 100% God and this was legal. So I got off track giving you some insight into Satan’s illegal entry and God’s legal introduction into our world. So let’s go back to Genesis and look at this covenant relationship.
What are the spiritual implications given to us from what we just learned? A Bible covenant relationship represents a marriage in the eyes of God. So Adam became married to Satan. Whatever God had given to Adam now belonged to Satan. After Adam’s death, Satan had complete control of it all. A converse truth was whatever Satan had now belonged to Adam, and that was really not a good trade. Adam was originally created to know only good, the things that God had provided for him. But now whatever happens to Satan will happen to Adam and vice versa. Fortunately for us, God had a plan of salvation that would destroy the works of the devil and make a separation from all the consequences that Satan now faces in the future. As soon as the prophesied 6000 year time table of Adam’s dominion is up, Satan will be cast out along with those who are now in covenant with him. The time is very short, and Satan knows his time of reigning on this earth is almost ended and guess why he is so very angry with the church. Lucifer who was once second only to God himself will not enjoy his eternal destiny.
We can see from a previous blog a conformation given to us in these verses in Genesis 3. God is in covenant with the angelic beings. This would include the good and the evil ones. In one of my last blogs I showed you that death is a legal separation of a covenant marriage relationship. Because of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s covenant relationship with evil was terminated. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our salvation was confirmed. All of those who believe in Him will be saved, but all of those who do not will be damned with Satan. It is a covenant reality, you are either joined to Jesus Christ and one with Him, or you are joined with Satan and one with him. These are powerful truths and help to explain a lot of the hidden things found in the Bible.
I know I teach a lot of new things, that you have probably never heard anyone teach before. The disciples in the Bible made a statement that is very profound, they said “Silver and Gold have I not, but such as I have give I thee”. Just as the disciples could only give what they had, I can only give you what I have. This is just a simple but basic Bible truth; everyone gives from only what they have. I hope and pray you enjoyed my Bible lesson today and grasped something from it that you can hold on to. If you liked it please share it with others that can also benefit from knowing the truth. God Bless.
If you would like to continue in the lesson series on Understanding Genesis 3 please proceed to Part 6.
Understanding Bible Covenants! Part 5 Until Death Separates Me from Thee!
(Ver 2.3) This is now Part 5 in the advanced study series on Understanding Bible Covenants. If you have not read from the beginning, I would recommend that you go and start with “Part 1“. We have been discussing Bible covenants as being a marriage covenant relationship between two individuals. We can see that these individuals can be either spiritual beings, natural beings individuals or groups or any combination of them. Covenants with God always result in God being the husband and the people in covenant as being the wife in the relationship. We know that Jesus is the mediator of the New Covenant (Heb 12:24). Jesus is therefore the Bridegroom and the church is His bride. Many have agreed with the scriptures in the New Testament that declare the church to be the body of Christ without understanding how the church became the body. This transformation was accomplished by marriage, when God declared in Genesis “that the man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and they two will become one flesh”. One flesh is a synonymous term for one body. Therefore one flesh refers to one body. A body consists of flesh and bones. Adam was opened up and his wife was taken out of him and Jesus the Last Adam was opened up and His wife was joined to him on the cross. The Bible actually says we were crucified with Christ, yet none of us hung on the cross physically as He died.
So in the eyes of God a covenant is a marriage and a marriage is a covenant. I gave you many scriptures that confirm this reality. As a marriage God provided us natural things to help us to understand spiritual things. Marriage covenants are a complex system of many dependent and interrelated aspects. Sex is one aspect of a marriage that demands and expects faithfulness of those in the relationship. Faithfulness is an essential aspect of marriage that applies to a covenant relationship with God. As your spouse trusts and expects you to be faithful to them, God expects and trusts you to be faithful to Him.
We can clearly see that the natural nation of Israel was not faithful and as a result had spiritual intercourse with other gods, religions and idols. This unfaithful infidelity resulted in God divorcing His Old Covenant wife. The net result of the divorce was a termination of the marriage/covenant relationship without any hope of reconciliation. I base that statement on the law of divorce given to us in Deuteronomy 24 where it says the first husband is forbidden to marry his divorced wife again after she has been married to another. I then attempted to give several scriptures that showed that Israel according to established spiritual laws was in a covenant relationship to another spiritual being other than God.
These are all very deep things that God has taught us from the Bible and I know it will be difficult to get people to see them. It is not my responsibility to make you understand or to make you see the truth. I simply present the information found in the Bible the best that I can and it is up to you to prove it, accept it or reject it. That is the way God designed the system and I can’t improve on it. I have found that people can read the same verse of scripture and pull out whatever they want to hear and close their eyes to whatever they don’t agree with. It is funny that God wrote a book that allows people to believe wrong. God will always enforce our right to be ignorant and foolish. God never forces us into knowing the truth. We are free to act and believe foolishly and God will not stop us. Ok, let’s get back to our subject.
I know there are many other aspects of marriage that also apply to the subject of covenants and perhaps someday I will expand to include them in this teaching. A marriage covenant is the establishment of a new family unit. Marriage always results in a new household, with a new head of the house. These two married covenant individuals enjoy a sexual knowledge that is only experienced between the two in covenant. Physical sex is just a pattern of a spiritual knowledge that Jesus desires to have with His wife. I showed you earlier that Adam “Knew” his wife and they had a son and I told you this was a pattern for the Last Adam, Jesus and his wife. These are all new concepts, new ideas and new thoughts based upon a new perspective from God’s Word. You can read the Bible and study it for yourself. All of this has been a review of stuff that I have already covered so I hope you understand them.
UNTIL DEATH DO US PART!
In this lesson we want to explore another aspect of marriage and covenants to show us some new information based upon what we have learned about the subject so far. This section will be about the subject of death as a legal separating force/power that terminates a covenant relationship between two legally bound parties or individuals. I’d like to begin this section with the foundational verses from the book of Ruth:
Rth 1:16 And Ruth said, Do not beg me to leave you, to return from following after you. For where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.
Rth 1:17 Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May Jehovah do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.
These are covenant words being spoken by Ruth to her mother-in-law Naomi. Ruth pledges “faithfulness” to the God of her mother-in-law Jehovah. She places such a strong commitment that she claims that only death could separate her from the God and religious ways of over mother-in-law. If we read the rest of the book of Ruth and the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew we will discover that she is blessed and rewarded by God tremendously for making these covenant statements of commitment. She becomes the wife to Boaz, a type of Jesus Christ, and the great-grandmother to the great King David.
I believe this is a good time to introduce the fact that Bible covenants are entered into by speaking words. Words can be spoken to initiate a good covenant with God or an evil covenant with Satan. For example, if we read Romans 10:9-10 God informs us how we entered into a covenant with Jesus Christ by believing in Our heart and confessing with our mouth the LORD Jesus. Then in Proverbs 6:2 God informs us that humans are taken captive prisoners by also speaking words. In Proverbs 18:21 God declares that “life and death are in the power of our tongue”. Jesus informed us in John 10:10 that the thief came to kill, steal and destroy us, but that He came to give us life and that life in more abundance. God appears to be teaching us that our words spoken matter.
Knowing God gives us life and knowing Satan gives us the sin punishment of death (separation from God). Speaking right words are one key part of entering into Bible covenants wit God. These words can be called vows, promises, commitments, oaths, pledges or guarantees. Speaking words and entering into covenant relationships with anyone should be taken very seriously and never lightly or casually. I believe that God holds us responsible for our promises made to Him and to each other. There are numerous examples of this found in the Bible.
For example a famine of three years occurred to the nation of Israel in 2 Samuel 21:1-2. When David inquired of the LORD why this was happening, the LORD told him it was because of bloody Saul that attacked and killed the Gibeonites. God informs King David that Israel had made a covenant with these people a long time before. God obviously believed that this covenant that was made before Saul or David was born was still in effect and could not be terminated by either of the parties in the covenant. Therefore, judgement fell upon the natural nation of Israel for something that happened long before King David became king. Wow, this sounds very important to know in our education of understanding the serious nature of Vows and covenants. The covenant was entered into by Joshua and it was disavowed by Saul and the negative consequences fell upon Israel during King David.
Most modern marriage ceremonies include speaking words to each other. These words are often called “vows” and many of them are based upon Bible covenant principles. For example, many say “until death do us part” in their wedding vows. Wedding vows are considered covenant words of complete commitment made to each other. Just as Israel violating a covenant that they had made with another nation had consequences, I believe the breaking of covenant vows today will also result in negative verdicts of judgment at some time in the future. We just learned that Saul had murdered a people in covenant with Israel and Israel in the next King’s reign reaped a famine. I believe that this is possible even today that two people ending a marriage covenant can cause judgement to occur on future descendants. But, that is a different subject for another lesson.
We can clearly learn from the book of Ruth that death represents a legal termination of a covenant relationship and commitment. If one spouse dies, the other is said to be free to marry another. So death represents a legal point of covenant division. It represents a separation of the two that were said to be one when they were joined in covenant by the Law of Genesis 2:24. I’d like to cover an essential set of N.T. verses that confirm this truth. We will be reading from the book of Romans and chapter 7:
Rom 7:1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
Rom 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
Rom 7:3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Rom 7:4 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.
Wow, these verses help explain our subject of covenants and the power of death separation precisely. Notice that Paul in verse 1 is speaking to believers that “know” the law. This phrase “to know” represents covenant relationship. Paul in this short passage was directing the next few verses to only former Jewish Old Covenant people. God writes this to teach them that because Jesus died (God in the flesh) on a cross, they were now freed from the bondage of that covenant in order to legally remarry in covenant the risen from the dead LORD Jesus Christ. There are people that claim Jesus was not God but 1 Timothy 3:16 informs us plainly that “God was manifested in the flesh”.
Paul was writing in Romans 7 by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to teach us the legal fact that since Jesus (God manifested in the flesh) experienced death for them all, they could now be legally joined in Covenant marriage with risen Jesus and not be called an adulteress. This truth simply confirms that a marriage is a covenant and a covenant is a marriage and if they enter into another covenant while their husband was still alive, God called this adultery. Therefore we have all the subjects that we have been learning, marriage covenants, faithfulness, death separation and termination and remarriage in a New Covenant. Wow, Wow & Wow!
Can we begin to see what these verses in Romans say and learn how they apply to covenants both natural and spiritual? I believe these are amazing and especially important to how God eliminated Himself from the covenant of Israel and the angelic beings.
MARRIAGE, DEATH AND WIDOWHOOD
I alluded in previous lessons to this subject when speaking of the Heavenly Jerusalem who was described to be a free woman that came from an allegory given to us from Galatians 4. This Genesis allegory used Sarah’s relationship to Abraham. This relationship was a physical picture and representation of God’s spiritual relationship to the city called the Heavenly Jerusalem. I concluded that this free woman was the first wife of Jehovah God and therefore in covenant with God long before Hagar. In looking at other verses in Hebrews 12 we determined that this Heavenly Jerusalem consisted of the angelic beings too numerous to count. This means that Lucifer the top angelic being in the past was included in this covenant relationship. So how does God terminate an eternal marriage covenant relationship to eternally created angelic beings without the law? We know that the earthly Jerusalem (type of Hagar) is now in bondage with the law and that God used the law to end/divorce the Old Covenant marriage relationship because of her continued unfaithfulness (Isa 50:1, Jer 3:8).
But the heavenly Jerusalem was called the free woman or the woman outside of the law. We also learned from verses in the New Testament that without the law there is no punishment for sin. So how does God terminate a marriage covenant relationship with a group of sinful eternal spiritual beings that cannot ever die, without any law or legal precedence? It is a fascinating problem to consider and it is very perplexing puzzle to solve, but God always has a plan and an answer. We should be able to answer this question already but there are two solutions presented to us that can be utilized. The first solution is to get Satan to place himself into a covenant with the Law. The second potential solution is for the husband in the covenant to become a a being that could experience death on a cross to terminate all previous covenants.
If we recall from the previous lessons, we saw numerous scriptures from Galatians 4 that spoke about these two women in marriage covenant with Jehovah God. The one bond woman (Hagar) was directly said to be the natural nation of Israel and corresponded to the earthly city of Jerusalem. We just read about her in the last section of this lesson that was now freed from her covenant by the death of Jesus. Wow again! Then the other woman was the free woman and she is called the heavenly Jerusalem. It is essential to understand that both covenant women were married to the same God Jehovah and their covenants overlapped for a short time just as the allegorical type of Hagar overlapped with Sarah’s marriage. Now recall this O.T. quotation concerning this allegory:
Gal 4:27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren (Heavenly Jersualem) that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate (free woman Heavenly Jerusalem) hath many more children than she which hath an husband (bond woman: natural Israel).
What we can see in Galatians 4:27 the presentation that the bond woman had a husband with the implication that free woman did not. In fact the Greek word translated as “desolate” in this verse literally means “lonesome” and “solitary”. This is describing a woman that is not in covenant with anyone. Notice also the Greek word translated as “barren” is transliterated as “steiros” and we get our English word “sterile from it. These words are used by God to describe the Heavenly Jerusalem covenant wife. Finally, notice the prophecy that tells this woman to rejoice because her children will be many more than the children of the bond woman (Earthly Jerusalem). Who were we told that these many more children were? God teaches us in Galatians 4:26 that the spiritual free woman’s children were all of us in the church. That confirms and explains why Jesus said in John 3 that we must be “born again” in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. Everyone in the church has been first born naturally into the world and then next born supernaturally into the Spiritual Kingdom of God. It is important to note that if we are born once we can die twice, but if we are born twice we can only die once.
Galatians 4:27 seems like a paradox or a contradiction to what was said that both of these women were in covenant and married to God in the past. What happened to the husband of the woman in heaven? And I thought God divorced the woman natural Israel and here He says she has a husband. These are a really good questions. We have already explored how natural Israel may have entered into a covenant with Satan. But, let’s figure out the other question by going back to the Old Testament.
Isa 54:1 Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD.
We can see that these are the direct words of God himself spoken through the prophet Isaiah. We can see again this verse is speaking of two different women. I find it fascinating that nowhere in these verses does it claim this is an allegory of Sarah and Hagar. However, God reveals this to Paul in Galatians 4. This is just one way that God hides truth in the Bible.
We could conclude that only one of these women is now married by just reading this verse. However, we know from God’s explanation in Galatians that these women are Sarah and Hagar, and both were married to Abraham. If we recall from New Testament verses that were discussed in previous lessons, if anyone has sex with someone, God considers them to be married to that someone (1 Cor 6:16). Having casual sex has major covenant consequences in the eyes of God because of the experience of having “carnal knowledge” of that person. So far this was some review, but as we read down in the rest of Isaiah 54, we can begin to see the solution to God’s puzzle. The answer to what happened to the husband of the Heavenly Jerusalem is found in context of verse 1:
Isa 54:4 Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more.
Here in verse 54:4 of Isaiah we see the answer to the question. The heavenly Jerusalem who was called the barren wife and the free woman in Galatians 4, is now declared to be a widow in the context of Isaiah 54:1. What exactly is a widow? This is not a trick question. A widow is a wife whose husband has died. Uh oh? That sure makes life difficult for many ministers that we have heard, who claim that God can’t die. Have you ever heard this before? That claim appears to contradict verses that we have been studying.
What is death? That is of course the million dollar question? We know from the book of Ruth that the only separation of Ruth from her mother-in-law covenant was going to be by death. We know Ruth said to Naomi, “until death part me from thee”. Without death we know that the wife is bound to her husband and if she marries another while her husband is alive then she is considered an adulteress.
We saw in Romans 7 that Israel can only be called an adulteress if while her covenant husband God is alive, she has sex with another man and becomes his wife. We know this harlotry is what happened in the O.T. many, many times. But, Romans 7 says because Jesus died Israel was now freed from that covenant to marry the risen from the dead LORD Jesus in the New Covenant.
No one can deny that based upon scriptures in Jeremiah, Isaiah and Hosea that Israel is called a whore, harlot and adulteress because she has committed sexual union and become married to other idols and gods while God was alive and in covenant with her. The Living God then divorced Israel His wife, and ended that covenant using the law. We also know that this heavenly woman if she was married to God, she would be bound by the law of marriage as being one spirit with her husband also. So if this heavenly Jerusalem consisted of good and evil angelic beings, how would God get rid of the evil angels, while keeping the good angelic spirits? Fascinating, isn’t it?
By Jesus Christ being crucified, God accomplished a major accumulation and combination of things simultaneously. This was God’s demonstration of His true wisdom and power. Through the death of Jesus Christ, God multi-tasked salvation for us with the termination of His covenant relationship with Satan, simultaneously. Through this death, it resulted in the heavenly Jerusalem becoming a widow. She is now free to marry another. The heavenly Jerusalem was now the widow and that makes it legal for her to marry another by the definition from the Word of God. But by Satan becoming entangled with Israel under the law, we now see that his relationship with God has now completely ended being separated the separation of death. Because Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, God died in Jesus Christ. I guess I could say God tasted death through the body of His son Jesus Christ hanging on the cross (Heb. 2:9), since spirit beings do not actually die as in cease to exist. Nevertheless, we can see that Satan’s future was sealed due to what transpired on the cross. So while it is technically impossible for a spiritual being to cease to exist, it is not technically impossible for a spiritual being to experience death. Through death, He destroyed him that had the power over death (Heb 2:14). This is why the Bible says if Satan would have known the consequences, he would not have crucified the Lord of Glory (1 Cor 2:8).
We should be able to easily begin to understand now why the Heavenly Jerusalem is called a widow and why God did this. God would have been one with this spiritual city and all of its inhabitants (angels). So God could not have legally punished Satan without punishing Himself along with Satan.
CONCLUSION
God found himself with a problem that needed to be resolved. Without the law of divorce how did God terminate His covenant marriage with Satan and his evil angelic beings? I really hope we are seeing this spiritual reality. Death is a legitimate separation for every covenant. Because Christ died, we died. Why was it necessary to be born again? To be born again represents another new beginning and an opportunity for a fresh start. Jesus was called the first born from the dead, so being the firstborn He is the head of this new family. Jesus now had preeminence over all other spiritual beings. In heaven Lucifer/Satan use to be the one with the Father, but he is now no longer in covenant with God because of the death of Jesus Christ. Since we were also crucified with Christ, we too are no longer in covenant with death, hell or Satan, either. The work of God was full and comprehensive. By Jesus being crucified on the cross, God accomplished 1) salvation for us, 2) the full payment for sin past, present and future, 3) reconciliation of our relationship with God and 4) the termination of our and His former flesh covenant relationship with Satan. God is so much smarter than we are and if we can see these things that was just described, we will increase our understanding of the Word of God by leaps and bounds above where we use to be.
Jesus said if you continue in my Word, then you will be my disciples and then you will know the truth and then Jesus said the “truth” that you “know” will set you free. I pray that the eyes of your understanding will be enlightened in the knowledge of Him.
Understanding Bible Covenants! Part 4 Israel’s New Husband
(Ver 2.0) This is now Part 4 in a very advanced Bible study serious concerning Understanding Bible Covenants. This series is intended for spiritually mature Christians with an open mind that will commit to go and study the subject for themselves to verify if it is really true or not. Obviously by the title we have more controversial topics on covenants to discuss today. We have been discussing Bible covenants in some new terms using scriptures in the Bible that many have not seen before. I know this is a very deep subject and the complexities are vast. It is a very hard thing to accept new things when they are first revealed. I believe the natural human tendency is to reject the new, to fear the new, and to not believe the new. This is because I believe that we trust in our old understanding and beliefs so much more. The problem is that the majority of Christians do not have a clue what the Bible really says. Learning always involves growing in understanding. That implies an ever increasing and expanding knowledge process. Today’s knowledge should be building on what we learned yesterday. New truth should always fit balanced correctly with previous known truths. When it does not God is presenting us a new opportunity to come up to a higher spiritual level of thinking. Learning involves change. Being flexible and open is a key to growing with God. In my last blog I went into Old Testament verses that reveal the law of marriage and divorce. If you have not been following this series from the beginning, I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with Part 1 Covenants and Marriage.
In the last lesson we talked about Israel being divorced from God. Then we also were given several scriptures that strongly implied that Israel is now married to another spiritual being. This means that this spiritual being is now in covenant with the natural nation of Israel and God’s Law. Why was this necessary? Why would God want to get someone under the law? How would God accomplish such a task? These are all important questions to consider. But first let’s determine if this is even possible. Here are some interesting verses from the Old Testament:
Isa 28:14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
We can clearly see who the next words of God in verse 15 are addressing by looking at verse 14 and seeing that God is speaking directly to the rulers of Jerusalem. This is the earthly city Jerusalem and God is speaking directly to the men that ruled that city. These were the old covenant people that God was married to. So what does this next verse say?
Isa 28:15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
We can again clearly see covenant words of marriage being spoken in regards to the natural nation of Israel to someone. This time it says that these people are in covenant with death and hell. That declaration does not sound very positive or good, does it? Who does the New Testament say had the power over death when this verse was written? This verse in Hebrews should help you:
Heb 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
So we can see from what God reveals in Hebrews that Satan held the power of death in the Old Testament. We can therefore conclude that if Israel was in covenant with death and hell, that would mean they were in covenant with Satan. What does Jesus have to say about these Old Testament verses in Isaiah 28?
Mat 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
We can see by this statement that Jesus implies these people in Jerusalem were married to a spiritual being that made them the children of hell. This implies a covenant relationship or marriage between a husband and a wife that has produced children of hell. Are you following these statements? Parents have children, produce families, and establish households. Basic physical biology dictates that a male and a female participate in order to produce children. If Israel is the woman who can have children, that was married to God, then who is the husband and the father in this relationship? Remember that it always takes two to tango. Jesus often times asked, if you don’t understand natural things, how will you ever understand spiritual things? So apparently these natural things are patterns into spiritual things to help us understand them. Here is another statement of Jesus to the natural nation of Israel:
Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.
Did you see what Jesus said to the natural nation of Israel? He said that they were children of their father and that their father was the devil. This makes it almost impossible for us not to realize that in order for them to be Satan’s children, Satan must be in covenant and married to natural Israel. What we see is the identity of the male in the covenant relationship to the natural nation of Israel being the female. A simple husband and wife relationship that has produced children. These are of course spiritual and not natural children. Satan is not having natural sex with natural women like they did in Genesis 6. Satan learned that this was illegal and many of his angels were cast into chains awaiting judgement for doing this (Jude 1:6). We know that Satan like God is a spiritual being. We can conclude that because God can be married to Israel any spiritual being can be married to Israel, it is only logical common sense.
Why Was the Law Given to Israel?
Let’s change subjects a bit here and continue by asking what was the purpose of God giving Israel the law? Why was the law given to Israel in the first place? I have heard many say it was to show man how bad they were and to teach them that they were incapable of living up to God’s standard of excellence. I do agree with that and I do not deny that could be a part of the purpose of the law. But, I have found that when God does something He usually accomplishes more than one thing at a time. Many humans tend to focus on getting one thing done at a time. But I have learned from being a computer programmer, that the true demonstration of power occurs when someone is able to accomplish many tasks simultaneously. In computer terminology this is called multi-tasking and God does this everyday just listening to billions of people praying simultaneously. Here is a verse that will help to shed some light on this subject of why God gave Israel the law:
Rom 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
Here we begin to see some major clues to why God gave the law to Israel. It is a lot like our laws that our government makes for us to follow. You see there was a time when child pornography was not against the law. But did that make it right or OK to participate in? Of course not. But the government could not do anything about the people who participated in this until they passed a law. People were free to do wrong because there were no consequences for our erroneous choices and stupidity. Does that help to clear up the reason for God giving Israel the law? You see in this verse in Romans, it says we would not have known sin except that we were given the law. I sometimes wonder if people read the Bible and never think about how these words apply to other spiritual beings like Satan or Lucifer as he was named originally? Thinking and asking questions is absolutely essential when studying the Bible.
We know from Old Testament verses that sin was found in Lucifer (Eze 28:15), but according to Romans, if Lucifer didn’t know the law then he can’t face the consequences for his sin. Do you understand what I just said? God could not enforce Satan’s punishment without first getting him to know the law (be under the law). To be under the law means that you know the law and are now in covenant with that law or in covenant to those people who are in charge of keeping that the law. These are truly amazing things to consider. Here is another very important verse on our current subject of why God gave Israel the law:
Rom 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
Wow, these are powerful words when we apply them to Lucifer (Satan). In order to stop Satan’s mouth and cause him to be found guilty he must be put under the law. Are you still following this? The implication is given unless we are under the law, we cannot be found guilty and we will not face any punishment for our sin. I know that God is a just God and is just in whatever He does, He does everything in a fair and impartial legal way. He treats everyone the same. God applies the same principles and requirements to everyone and everywhere, including Himself or He would be showing favoritism and we should know that He does not do that.
Rom 5:13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
God confirms the truth that declares “where there is no law there are no consequences for a sin”. Sin is still wrong, but no punishment is possible until taken to court and found guilty of violating specific law. This is divine justice and how God works. Most civil normal governments operate on this principle. Corrupt evil dictatorial controlling governments do not operate on this requirement. This verse helps us to understand why God could not convict Satan and throw him into hell the instant that sin was discovered in him. That would have been an unjust verdict since as far as I know there were no laws in heaven. Remember Lucifer was created in a state of perfection. What need is there, of any laws if everyone in your kingdom is created and acting perfectly? I believe this is what is important to know for us to understand why God created a new world with humans in Genesis 1. Then why God created a new separate nation of people called Israel born from a man named Abram in Genesis 12. Then why God gave Israel the Law in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Finally, we can better understand why it was necessary for God to come in the flesh as Jesus to die and save us from this dark Satan ruled world (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).
I have become convinced from Bible study that one major accomplishment of God giving the law to Israel was to get Lucifer under the law. There are very strong implications given to us in the Bible that this is one major accomplishment.
Is Israel in Covenant with Satan?
We were just introduced to a basic foundation for why it was necessary to get Satan to be in covenant with the natural nation of Israel. Before that we saw Israel itself admitting they were in covenant with the realm of death and hell. Then we saw several statements that Jesus made to Israel that would imply they were in covenant with Satan. We can now continue to analyze if this is what the Bible says happened. I’ll do this by going back to some scriptures that we saw in a previous lesson. In the previous lesson we emphasized the aspects of Galatians 4 and how Israel has been cast out of God’s covenant never to return. But hopefully we will bring out some new emphasis to the information for us to see what God is saying on this subject of: “Is Israel remarried to another man”?
Gal 4:22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
If you recall this verse, you can see two women and two sons being referenced. The first woman is the bond woman and the other is said to be the free woman. This is the concept of slavery versus freedom. You may recall that slavery was a condition of being under the law. This would help us to understand that Lucifer was of the free woman. This meant Lucifer was not under any law. Abraham symbolizes a type or pattern of God the Father (Jehovah). It is essential to understand that these women represents patterns of two wives in covenant with God. I’ll say this again, these two woman represent two covenants as we will see in this next verse:
Gal 4:24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants (marriages); the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
We can see in this verse that God says these two women are allegorical and represent a far greater spiritual truth. In Biblical Allegory, God always uses a real historical natural occurrence to describe a parallel unseen spiritual reality. Most of the time if we read this story in the Old Testament we would not have a clue how it relates to any spiritual truth. However, since God gives us a specific example of how He encoded this information into the Bible in these verses in Galatians, we can begin to understand how this is possible. This is a very tricky method that God has chosen to hide these spiritual mysteries in the Bible.
Gal 4:25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
The bond woman is said to be Hagar and she corresponds to the law given to Moses on Mt Sinai. Therefore, Hagar represents a woman in covenant bondage to the law. God then tells us that she gives birth to a child after the flesh. Hagar is the natural nation of Israel and is directly called the “earthly city of Jerusalem”. This is in direct contrast to Sarah, the free woman who gives birth to the promised child after Hagar as we will read in verse 26 next. Who do you think the “promise child” represents? Of course it is the risen from the dead LORD Jesus Christ. However, Hagar who represents the natural Israel, gives birth to natural child Jesus of Nazareth the man after the flesh that gave His life for us to be saved. Mary called Jesus her “firstborn” son and God called Jesus His only begotten Son. But, Jesus is also called God’s firstborn from the dead. That would imply that Jesus Christ had two different births and two different mothers, one natural and one spiritual. These are very deep truths and can be very hard to see at first, simply because they are so new.
God just revealed to us that this Hagar is a type or pattern of the Earthly Jerusalem, who is now in bondage with all of her children under the law. Israel continuously tries to keep the law and earn their salvation by their works and have not realized that they are incapable of saving themselves. Remember we just read earlier that Jesus declared that Satan was the father of these natural children of Israel. Wow, that is so important. But, let’s continue with the next verse and look at Sarah:
Gal 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
We can see that there is clearly a new and different woman, called the free woman that is called the “Heavenly Jerusalem”. This literally means that she is not under the law. This Freewoman (Type of Sarah) is said to be the spiritual mother of Jesus Christ and the church. So what have we seen? There is a bond woman called the Earthly Jerusalem who is in bondage to the law. We then see that there is another woman called the Heavenly Jerusalem who is free, meaning she is not under the law. We know from studying the Bible that these two women were in a covenant and married to God (Type of Abraham) at an overlapping period of time. We know that Sarah (Heavenly Jerusalem) was married first to Abraham (God). Then Abraham and Sarah moved to Egypt where they bought a slave girl for Sarah named Hagar. Later after many years of being barren (Childless) Sarah (Heavenly Jerusalem) gives her husband Hagar (the Earth Jerusalem) as a wife to have a child for her. Abraham did this and had Ishmael that had twelve sons a type and pattern of Jesus and his 12 disciples.
Finally Sarah (the Heavenly Jerusalem) the much older woman and first wife came along and had the promised child and she was free along with her child. The Heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) existed prior to the younger Earthly Jerusalem (Hagar). The younger earthly Jerusalem (Hagar) has a son that is older than the promised son of the free woman (Sarah). These are all allegorical truths to a spiritual reality that has been right before us but one that we haven’t seen until now. Now take a look at the next verse, because I want to reemphasize something very important:
Gal 4:27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
Who is the barren woman? It was a type of Sarah, the Heavenly Jerusalem, the free woman. According to Hebrews 12:22 the Heavenly Jerusalem consisted of an enumerable number of angels. We know from reading Job 38:4 that all of these angels sang for joy witnessing the creation of our world. Therefore, this Heavenly Jerusalem existed a long time before any earthly Jerusalem was formed. Are we all together on the same page?
What can we see by looking at this verse in light of the story of Abraham? We can see that this heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) was God’s wife even before the earthly Jerusalem (young Hagar) ever came into the story. We can conclude logically that this covenant between God and the Heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) existed before there was a natural nation of Israel. God (Abraham) was in covenant with this free woman (Sarah), not under the law for a long time before the bond woman was given to Him (Abraham) to have a child with. But we can also see this verse is telling her (the free woman Sarah) to rejoice because more are the children of the desolate woman than the other woman.
The desolate woman is a descriptive term for a woman incapable of having children as Sarah was for many years. Sarah eventually got pregnant but, only after many years passed beyond her normal child bearing years. But with God all things are possible, the barren woman now has many more children than the bond woman. God promised this free woman that her children will be of a much greater number than those of the woman in bondage to the law. We can then see the punch line in the last part of that verse. This verse ends with the statement “she which hath an husband”. Since God is only talking about two women in these verses, we can very easily determine who He is speaking of. God is speaking about the Earthly Jerusalem (Hagar) in the terms that she now has a new husband. The clear implication is given to us that the Heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) does not have a husband when these verses were written.
We already know from reading verses in Isaiah and Jeremiah that God divorced Israel and ended His covenant relationship with the Earthly Jerusalem (Hagar). We even studied scriptures in Deuteronomy 24 that said it was now illegal for God to marry this same woman again. So we know that God is not in covenant or married to natural Israel. So who is? Who is the husband of the bond woman? Who is now in bondage under the law? Who wishes that they had never crucified the Lord Jesus Christ? If we don’t know this is Satan we need to go back and reread all of this again. Who wants to destroy Israel and wipe her from the face of the planet? How could Satan get out from under the law of his wife Israel? If his wife Israel were completely dead then Satan would be free from the law. If Satan were free from the law, then punishment of his sin could not be applied to him.
CONCLUSION
I have become a firm believer that Satan did not know what would happen to him if he crucified the LORD of Glory (1 Cor 2:8). I am also convinced that this is why Satan wants to destroy the natural nation of Israel and the Church. There are a lot of people in the world being used by Satan to get this done. Many of these people call the natural nation of Israel the little Satan and the USA and Christians the Great Satan. We could go into this subject much further but this lesson is long enough.
Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with us. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to share them. I do read them and appreciate the feedback. We do pray for you and we ask you to pray for us. God bless you and keep you until the next time we get together.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on Bible covenants you may go to “Part 5“.
Understanding Bible Covenants! Part 3 Divorce and the Law
(Ver 2.1) This is Part 3 in the series on the very important subject of Understanding Bible Covenants. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you go back and start reading with “Part 1“. We have covered the Bible subject of covenants in a new spiritual light. In the first lesson we saw scriptures that defines a Bible God kind of covenant is a marriage relationship normally between a male and a female. In God’s covenants He is always the husband and we His people are always the female. In the second lesson there was featured a modern unfamiliar quality called “faithfulness”. This quality of “faithfulness” is where trust is placed in each covenant participant to remain faithful to their covenant partner. When unfaithfulness occurs the resulting infidelity normally causes the intended everlasting relationship to become strained, ineffective and even fail. Which brings us to today’s specific topic called “divorce”. Using this new perspective of “unfaithfulness” we will be exploring the Bible using God’s created concepts found around the essential subject of “faithfulness” in marriage covenants. Because it is so radically different than anything we have probably heard before it may be difficult for many to accept. It is interesting that this is the same response that Paul got in many places that he went into to teach the Word of God. Here is a scripture that describes Paul’s experiences:
Act 17:11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
This scripture describes two different groups and types of people. It speaks of one group being more noble than the other. The term noble is a symbol of royalty, those of nobility. These people were more noble than those in Thessalonica because of two qualities that they did. Or actually to be more precise it was one featured quality or attitude that they possessed and one action they performed. The first difference of these more noble people was they received the Word of God with an “open mind”. Meaning they were willing to listen and hear something totally new and radically different without prejudice. But instead of accepting everything that was taught them by faith and blindly following Paul, they did something else to prove what was being taught to them was actually what God said in the Word. It says they searched the scriptures daily to see if what Paul was saying was really in the books they called God’s Word. In those days they only had the Old Testament books and scrolls so that is the only verification that they had to search from. Today we can see that this also includes the New Testament writings. You can learn so much by following the example of the more noble group of people. You see there is nothing new under the sun, what was, is that, which shall be again. What you have seen before, is that which will occur again. God does things the same way today as He did in the days of the early church. History has always run in cycles that repeat specific divine patterns in human experiences and events. So when someone like me comes along and teaches something so radically new, what should you do? You should start by keeping an open mind to what is being said and then you must search your Bible to see if it is actually true. That is all I’m asking you to do.
In the last lesson we were talking about sex and infidelity in the context of a covenant marriage relationship. We saw that physical things gives us patterns into spiritual things. People who follow physical faithfulness probably have an easier acceptance with spiritual faithfulness. There has been an increased awareness of natural unfaithfulness due to a well know unnamed sports figure that has recently been caught up with the seeds that he had been sowing. Then before that we had a President that was caught up in an embarrassing White House sexual scandal. But, these were just popularly reported news examples that occur often in many natural human experiences. No human is perfect and all have sinned in some way.
Without God no one really has a chance to be perfect, we have all been there and all share in mistakes that we have made. Also, in the last lesson we referred to the fact that divorce was not legally permissible from God’s law unless a spouse had been unfaithful. I guess these two famous wives certainly had grounds for a divorce. I’m sure neither was happy or content with their covenant relationship. As far as the President’s wife, I believe she endured and stuck around the marriage for some future benefits. A wife will always have the right to choose. But, one thing that we can count on is the faithfulness of God. God will always be faithful to us. Therefore, the only opportunity for covenant failure in a relationship with God, will be on us. This does pertain to the subject today.
GOD’S OLD TESTAMENT COVENANT DIVORCE
So we have been looking at the natural nation of Israel as being called the unfaithful wife in the Old Covenant. She was accused of spiritual adultery and literal whoredom by following after and pursuing other gods by worshiping idols (Isa 1:2, Eze 6:8). There is really a very sincere lesson to learn from this, if we think about it. Recently on the news I saw a story that spoke of many so called Christian churches starting to introduce other foreign practices into their congregations. I don’t know if they were attempting to draw more people in or what. But the net result will be disastrous. These churches wanted to bring in yoga and far eastern mind altering religions. Things like far east meditation and mind relaxation and control techniques that just open people up for satanic interaction. By introducing these foreign religions into their churches they are succumbing to the same result that the natural nation of Israel fell into. This spiritual infidelity will result in spiritual sexual covenant relations with other gods just like Israel. I hope you are hearing me and understand what was just said.
So today I want to open a new can of worms that I know will not go over big with a lot of people, but I really have no choice. I believe I need to teach what God has taught me from the Bible. In the last lesson I gave scriptures about God’s wife Israel being unfaithful to her husband and God said I divorced her (Jer 3:8). If a covenant is a marriage, then a divorce is the termination of that covenant! This is absolutely critical that w see this and understand it. According to O.T. verses God is NOT in covenant with the natural nation of Israel anymore or ever will be again. I know that is a shocking statement, but we look it up in the Bible and verify what God says. Natural Israel now has the same opportunity to marry into the new covenant with Jesus, but the old covenant is over. Here is another witness to this fact:
Isa 50:1 Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill (H5612) of your mother’s divorcement (H3758), whom I have put away (H7971)? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.
We have seen that the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah, both have declared the termination of the marriage covenant relationship between God and the natural nation of Israel. Notice that this verse in Isaiah also implies a selling of Israel to another buyer or owner. This sounds like Israel has entered into a new covenant relationship with someone besides Jehovah God, to me. I will tell you up front it was not to be in the new covenant with Jesus the Son of God. The Lord God says “I have Put Away your mother”. Those are terms for divorce based upon Israel’s foolish acts of infidelity. So we can conclude that the divorce is now final in the eyes of God.
Today I want to show you what God’s law says about marriage and divorce. It is so relevant to our discussion that I hope you can see it. The law concerning divorce is found in the book of Deuteronomy in chapter 24:
Deu 24:1 When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill (H5612) of divorcement (H3748), and give it in her hand, and send (H7971) her out of his house.
Here is exactly what we read in Isaiah and Jeremiah that God did to Israel. It is an exact representation of what happened to the natural nation of Israel. This verse says a man shall take a wife and marry her. We know that God took Israel by the hand and led her out of Egypt and married her (Jer 31:32). Then it says if the man finds “uncleanness” in her and we know that God found His wife natural Israel unfaithful following after other gods and worshipping idols repeatedly. So we know that according to the law, the man (God) then can write his wife (Israel) a bill of divorcement and give it to her to end the covenant. God did this using His prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. These were His two witnesses for Israel’s whoredom. You then see that this verse says that the woman is now not a part of this husband’s household anymore. She has been kicked out of the relationship due to her unclean acts of wickedness. This is precisely what happened to the nation of Israel. Let’s look at the next verse in the law:
Deu 24:2 And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife.
I read these words and see how God foretold what was about to transpire with His wife. This verse says this divorced wife can become the wife of another man. We saw scriptures that implied strongly that Israel was another man’s wife now. I could give you many other scriptures that would also confirm this but I just don’t have the time right here to include these. I’ll skip over verse 3 because it is about her new husband divorcing her. What I want you to see is the next verse and what God says:
Deu 24:4 Her former husband (Jehovah God), which sent her away, may not take her (natural Israel) again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD (JEHOVAH): and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.
You see according to the law, it would be illegal for God to marry the natural nation of Israel again. God said it would be an abomination for Him to take back a wife that has defiled herself with another man. It is therefore illegal, according to the law for God to enter into covenant with the nation of Israel again. I am glad I didn’t write the Bible, I just read it and see what it says. But, I don’t see how He could take her back and not make himself out to be a liar.
I know these are very strong words and the implications are very far reaching. Nevertheless I didn’t write the Bible so please don’t throw stones at the messenger. You have the opportunity to embrace what the Bible says or you now have an opportunity to reject it and ignore what God said. I suspect I’ll have both reactions. The Bible was written in an encoded fashion that forces us to correctly divide the words to come up with the truth. That means some will see it and some will not. That also means everything in the Bible is not always self evident or self revealing and since I don’t know everything maybe there is something that I don’t know yet that could change the outcome of Israel. I will humbly admit that truth that I’m not God and I don’t know everything. If God wants to keep something hidden it will remain hidden, if God wants to reveal the truth to someone or through someone then nothing will stop Him from doing that either.
A NEW TESTAMENT CONFIRMATION
I would like to briefly teach a New Testament confirmation for what we are reading in the Old Testament. I believe God will always confirm whatever is important in the Old Testament in the New either directly or indirectly. This reference that we will be going over is fairly direct but often easily misunderstood. We will be reading from the book of Galatians and chapter 4.
Gal 4:22 For it is written (prophesied), that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
Gal 4:23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh (natural); but he of the freewoman was by promise (Spirit).
Gal 4:24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai (natural Israel), which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
Gal 4:25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem (natural Israel) which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
Gal 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all (Jesus and the Church).
Gal 4:27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
Gal 4:28 Now we (the Church), brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise (Free Woman).
Gal 4:29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit (the Church), even so it is now.
Gal 4:30 Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman (Natural Israel) and her son: for the son of the bondwoman (Natural Israel) shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
Gal 4:31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.
This is an amazing passage of scripture filled with untold revelation. There are two women being compared as mothers with sons. The LORD just keeps uncovering new information from these verses the more we study it. Has anyone missed what the LORD said after reading these verses, I will tell you that one woman is Hagar a young Egyptian slave woman and the other woman was Sarah the older barren wife and God says these two represent allegorical types of spiritual realities. Hagar represents natural Israel that came out of captivity in Egypt. Sarah is spoken of as a spiritual type of free woman that gives birth to the church. Abraham the covenant making husband to both women is also a type in this O.T. story. Abraham represents God the Father also known as Jehovah LORD. That was a very quick overview, so let us explore some of the important details for out subject of covenants and divorce.
Notice how God uses a real literal Old Testament story of Abraham as a spiritual allegory to reveal a greater unseen truth. If we read closely, we will discover that God is likening natural Israel to be called a model, type, pattern, or a shadow of a natural Egyptian “bonds woman” named Hagar. God equates her position of natural bondage to Israel’s servitude to the Old Covenant Law. It is remarkably interesting, to note that this Galatians 4 passage is speaking of this Hagar woman as a typology of natural Israel being in covenant with God. It is important to note that the natural people of Israel were taken from Egypt by God through Moses. Then God also gave them the law through Moses on Mount Sinai and later they possessed the land where Jerusalem eventually becomes their capital city.
I will not teach the entire set of verses. There are other Bible lessons on this website that have more detail if you are interested. But I do want us to focus on verse 30. This is a quotation from Genesis 21:10. What does this verse say so clearly? God tells us it is written “Cast out the bond woman (natural Israel) Hagar for her son will not be an heir with the son of the freewoman”. When we go back and study the original verse God uses the Hebrew word H1644 which is translated as “cast out”. Strong defines this Hebrew word as “to drive out from a possession”. But this Hebrew word also carries the meaning of “divorce” and a “divorced woman”. Wow, that is amazing confirmation to the verses we have read from Jerimiah 3:8 and Isaiah 50:1.
Galatians 4 is a New Covenant confirmation for what has happened to the Old Covenant people. Natural Israel is now no longer in covenant with God Jehovah even while still being in bondage to His written Law. There is a further confirmation found within Galatians 4. Remember when I showed implied O.T. references for divorced natural Israel now being in covenant marriage with someone other than God Jehovah? Did you notice Galatians 4:27? What is God saying in this verse?
Gal 4:27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren (Sarah a type of the Heavenly Jersualem) that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou (Sarah a type of the Heavenly Jersualem) that travailest not: for the desolate (free woman Sarah a type of the Heavenly Jerusalem) hath many more children than she which hath an husband (bond woman: Hagar a type of natural Israel).
This verse is another O.T quotation from Isaiah 54:1. I placed in quotations the unstated allegorical references revealed to us by God in Galatians 4 to help us understand who He is speaking of. I pray that everyone observed that this verse says the bond slave woman (Hagar the type of natural Israel) was cast out of God’s marriage covenant but is now being referred to as a “married” wife. But if her husband is not Jehovah God, then who is it? Go and read Isiah 54:1 and we will find God Jehovah is the one speaking about these two women. Notice that He does not claim in Isaiah 54:1 to be her husband. In fact, it was only 4 chapters before this prophecy that Jehovah gave natural Israel her bill of divorce.
Galatians chapter 4 is very profound. God has just confirmed that natural Israel is no longer in a covenant with Him. It further implies by indirect reference that she has no possibility to return to the covenant that she was in with Him. If we study the entire Bible for direct references to Hagar, we will find only 14 times her name is given by God. The last time she is mentioned in the O.T. is Genesis 25 where God gives the genealogy of Ishmael to have 12 sons. Before this mention is Genesis 21 where Abraham “sends her away with her son Ismael in verse 14. The Hebrew word “send away” is H7971 that was translated as “put away” in the law of divorcement we read in Deuteronomy 24 and the divorce decrees we read in Isaiah 50:1 and Jeremiah 3:8. These connecting words and subjects are not a coincidence. God is teaching us that natural Israel will have the same end as the natural Egyptian slave woman named Hagar.
CONLUSION
We have seen scripture that declares natural Israel’s covenant relationship with God has been terminated because of her continued unfaithfulness. We then saw the law of God that declares this relationship is over for good. We cannot blame God for ending the covenant. It was natural Israel’s repeated bad choices to commit whoredom with other gods that finally caused the consequences. Remember what God says in Galatians 6:7 “Be not deceived, God is not mocked whatever a man sows that will he reap”. Israel finally reaped what they had sown for hundreds and hundreds of years. A crop of failure will eventually come to anyone that does the same. God was extremely patient, forgiving and kind to the natural nation of Israel. He is the same today to us. Thank you Jesus!
I’ll end this lesson with this last statement, there is more in the Bible that we don’t know than what we do know. I don’t care how long we have studied the Bible or how much we have memorized and we can quote. Quoting scripture does not mean we know it and understand it. The term to “Know” means understand and I guarantee that we (me and you) don’t understand very much of the Bible. God’s intelligence level is so far beyond ours. Every word in the Bible has significance and meaning and most of the time we just read them like they don’t mean anything. The one reality that I am faced with every time I study the Bible is this: “The more I learn, the more I find out I don’t know”. If you are not there yet, then you don’t realize yet that you have a lot more to learn. In the next lesson, I’ll attempt to explore natural Israel’s new covenant relationship.
If you would like to continue reading in this series you may now go to “Part 4“.
Understanding Bible Covenants! Part 2 Sex, Infidelity and Divorce
(Ver 2.2) This is now Part 2 in the series of Understanding Bible Covenants. The Word of God is so awesome, I just love studying the Bible more than anything. I hope you are as excited about learning about God as I am. Please understand that I don’t say this because the main subject is about sex. I think I may know where some people’s mind is going. This is a very serious subject and I will warn you that it could be offensive to some. If you do not consider yourself a mature Christian maybe it would be best if you do not read the rest of this lesson. Just take that into consideration. In today’s lesson we want to continue talking about understanding Bible covenants. I want to provide several new established scriptures to expand our foundation for a sound understanding of what a Bible God type of covenant is. Today’s subject as you can tell by the title will certainly be different than most anything that you have probably heard before and represents an advanced study on the subject of covenants intended for mature Christians. If you are not a mature Christian then please just go read someone else’s Bible lesson for today. That was warning number two. Also if you have not read from the beginning of this series, I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with Part 1 dealing with Covenants and Marriage.
INTRODUCTION & REVIEW
In the first lesson in this series, we were introduced to some of the basic concepts and parts of what a Bible covenant is and some of what a Bible covenant is not. we learned that a Bible covenant is like a binding legal contract relationship between two separate individuals but yet it is certainly much more than this. We then described this legal contract to be equivalent to a natural marriage between a husband and a wife. We were also introduced to the fact that a Bible covenant relationship can be between any two of the following:
- A spiritual being (God the Father, Jesus, Lucifer, etc.)
- A physical being (Abraham)
- A group of natural beings (natural Israel)
- A group of spiritual beings (church, angels, etc.)
A covenant will always be between at least two of these categories of individuals of any combination. I should also point out that a covenant can be between two individuals of the same type. For example, a spirit being to a spirit being or a physical being to a physical being, or even a nation of people with another nation of people. It is of course difficult to think of a group of people as being a single united entity, but that is what the Bible declares so I’ll stick with that. In the last lesson, we saw examples of the natural nation of Israel being in covenant with the creator God. In these verses, we found scriptures that God called this covenant a marriage relationship. We can see that in a covenant with God, God is always the Husband representative and the nation, group or individual in covenant with God is always the female wife representative. This pattern established in the Old Covenant was continued in the New Covenant with Jesus being the husband (bridegroom) and the church being His bride and wife.
In the last lesson we were also introduced to the concept that when two people or individuals are married, that they become one flesh and/or one spirit. We found and read scriptures that describes God’s law of marriage that was first given to us in Genesis chapter 2. I will warn you the third and final time that today’s subject matter is of a very mature nature. If you didn’t realize it before now, God created physical things like sex as a pattern for us to understand hidden spiritual truths. If God created natural sex, it must be good and have a very good purpose more than just making us feel good and making babies.
NATURAL SEX – A COVENANT PATTERN
We will begin by saying that sex was of course designed to be limited within the boundary of a covenant marriage between a husband and his wife. Since we have been talking about covenants as a marriage, it doesn’t take long to realize that sex is a integral part of God’s designed marriage covenant relationship. This is exactly why Satan wants to pervert sex and make it a casual normal indulgence for anyone and everyone at any time, even younger youth dating. We can’t watch TV or movies without seeing sex glorified and promoted in a very prevalent and a dominate fashion. If Satan wants to pervert the subject, it must have a legitimate purpose and reason for existence for God’s glory. What we need to begin to realize is that the physical union of sexual intercourse and intimacy should point us to a greater spiritual covenant relationship within a much higher spiritual dimension.
So, what does sex have to do with Bible covenants? I want to talk first about the human sexual organs. As most know these are called the male penis and the female vagina. Remember I warned you. What does a male penis have to do with a covenant? For many mature Christians that study the Bible they already know the answer. The answer is circumcision. God introduced circumcision to Abraham in Genesis 17:
Gen 17:9 And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.
Gen 17:10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.
Gen 17:11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.
This is the first mention of circumcision in the Bible that I know of. It is also the first direct mention of the male penis that I have found so far. The male and female sexual union act is first mentioned in Genesis 4:1 and we will talk more about this soon. Notice in verses 9, 10 and 11 of Genesis 17 God calls this His covenant that Abraham and every generation of male seed that they will keep. Now, remember what circumcision is and what we discovered in the first lesson. What is a key component of covenants with God? There is a verbal agreement made and there is a direct cutting of flesh followed by an immediate flow of blood. Wow, that makes circumcision to match the pattern of divine covenants, doesn’t it?
Now we need to move to the female sexual organ called the vagina. God designed the male sexual organ to fill with blood (uh oh, that sounds important) to become erect, and then to enter into female’s vagina to have carnal knowledge with her and this was designed by God to produce offspring (seed from seed). Now, we need to get into more detail. The first time a female vagina has carnal knowledge of the male sexual organ, something happens that does not normally occur ever again. As you probably remember this is the flow of blood and we are not speaking of the female monthly menses cycle. Although this monthly cycle applies because of the involvement of blood, as a type of cleansing, this is not the blood flow that represents the covenant between a male and female. Humans do not normally have sex when a woman is in her monthly cycle.
Ok, let’s get to the main point. There is a small piece of skin Called the hymen that exists for no apparent reason or purpose within the opening of the vagina of every normal female. When the male inserts his blood filled sexual organ inside his wife’s vagina for the first time, this medically unknown purposed skin tears and bleeds. This causes an immediate temporary flow of blood that humans have lowered in importance by labeling it as “popping her cherry”. This is a major conquest for the ungodly male that doesn’t understand what really just happened in the eyes of God.
This piece of unnecessary female skin that was ripped and torn to bleed is called the hymen. I believe we can easily begin to see that it was placed in the female vagina by God for the creation of an eternal covenant bond between that human male and his wife. One reason why this first sexual act is legally binding forever is because the woman does not grow back a new hymen ever again. It is a one and done covenant. At least that is what God intended when He created Adam and Eve. Adam only had one wife with one hymen and that covenant bond lasted them their entire existence on the earth over 900 years. Wow, we should learn that this was God’s design for every human covenant marriage. But, this truth soon became perverted shortly afterward in their following generations.
I pray that was not too graphic and that we all received something new to think about when considering who to have sex with. Just take note of the presence of blood and how many times it was just mentioned. We have the male covenant with God revealed to be a token by the visible cutting and removing of the unnecessary male foreskin. We have a female that when she becomes able to bare children begin a monthly flow of blood exactly where the male organ full of blood enters. Then we had the hymen another unnecessary piece of skin that is torn and bleeds whenever the husband’s first penetration occurs and this act by God’s design produces a husband and wife blood covenant bond that remains in effect until one of them dies physically.
Can we begin to see the power of the blood of God in all of these covenant making connections and parallels? Can we also begin to see the reasons oof Satan’s attempt to make sexual unions a trivial and meaningless temporary pleasure? We are going to talk more about this later but we should begin to know that in the eyes of God everyone that we have had sex with who is still alive physically we are in a marriage covenant with that person. But thank God for the blood of Jesus. I know what many of you may be thinking. How do I undo all of the mistake covenants that I have entered into before I knew all of this? We can simply bring these up to God’s Court in heaven and repent for them, ask Him to apply the blood of Jesus to cleanse us from these unrighteous acts and God’s word in 1 John 1:9 says that “He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. Thank you Jesus!
NATURAL SEX PATTERNS FOUND IN THE
NEW COVENANT SPIRIT REALM
Let us continue by understanding that a spirit does not have physical sex. Yet this natural sexual act is still found as a pattern for a greater spiritual truth. Let us go to the Bible and use the law of first mention and see what God reveals to us on the subject of sex. I already mentioned this verse in the last section, but the first mention of physical sex that I have found in the Bible was Genesis 4:1:
Gen 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
This verse in Genesis represents God’s higher way of describing physical sex experienced in the covenant relationship between Adam and his wife Eve. Recall that since this was the first mention of Adam having sex with Eve her hymen had to be torn and this produced a lasting covenant as well as their “firstborn son” named Cain.
Believe it or not, here we have a pattern of Christ and the church. Adam, the first man was a created pattern (figure) of Jesus Christ (Rom 5:14) who was to come into the world to die and forgive our sins and then be raised from the dead to marry in covenant His bride, the church. Jesus implements this covenant by having His flesh pierced, torn and ripped to shed His blood for us. That is just a quick introduction to the New Covenant. Let’s get back to our study of the first directly mentioned human sexual act in the Bible.
There is a fascinating concept given to us in this verse in Genesis. To “know” something or someone, what does that mean? I’ve often heard the term for sex to be described as having “carnal knowledge of” them. Carnal knowledge is just another synonymous term for natural covenant making sex. The actual Hebrew word YADA (H3045) that was translated as “knew” is defined as follows: “to ascertain by seeing”. It seems to be a form of gaining knowledge, but going further than just a casual surface knowledge of something or someone. Because to YADA someone means to understand them intimately and personally. It would be like someone saying “I know of the President” but to really “YADA” the President we would need to spend a lot of personal time with them to really understand them.
There are many varieties of knowledge in the world. To know a friend is not the same as for you to know your wife, or at least it shouldn’t be. Let’s think about a different form of knowledge other than physical sex for a moment. You see, we can also go to school to learn some specific subjects. For example, we can sit in class to know algebra, to know geometry or to know trigonometry and these are all representative types of having sex within the confines of a physical marriage according to God’s selection and usage of the word. However, people can memorize facts and still not “KNOW” what they mean or how to apply them. For example many people know Einstein’s theory of relativity is E=MC2. But to understand what it means and how to make it useful is not to YADA it.
This word to know (YADA) can apply to either type of interaction by God’s design. You can know a subject intimately so that it becomes a part of you and you understand it and this is representative of a covenant relationship, to know and to understand husband or a wife subject intimately. Do you remember what Jesus said to us in Matthew 5:27 and 28? The subject is about extramarital sex which is inline perfectly with our Bible study subject today. Jesus said “You have heard (in the law) you shall not commit adultery”. “But, I say to you that a man that looks at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery already in his heart”. Wow, this sounds like it is time for many of us to repent and ask for forgiveness. What Jesus is doing is comparing spiritual adultery with natural adultery. One is the physical realization of the fantasy that we had in our heart and the other is simply the fantasy in our heart that Jesus said makes us guilty already of the sin before we act on it. Wow, this is amazing and should be an eye opening encounter for us all. Uh oh! I can hear minds clicking away to say “well if I already thought about her this way, I should go ahead and just do it since I am already guilty in the eyes of God. Please don’t be stupid and foolish to fall into that trap of Satan. Hebrews 11:25 teaches us that Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures of in sin for a season. I guess we will move on.
What we have to see and understand are the concepts given to us by God in His Word. Understand that there are parallels to knowing a subject (or even fantasizing about someone) and how that is related to the act of participating in physical sexual knowledge of someone. God when He was in covenant with the natural nation of Israel, wanted them to know Him so He gave them the law and the words of the prophets. Jesus wants the church to know Him so He gave us the Gospels and the Epistles. By us studying and having intimate knowledge of Jesus and embracing His Holy Word is the spiritual form of the natural wife having a physical relationship with her natural husband. In our covenant marriage case we are His wife and He is our husband. We are intimate with Jesus when we pray and when we read His Word to Know and spend time with Him.
Some might be struggling with the concept of what is being taught today so we are going to read over some key scriptures to help us come closer to a better understanding of the subject of physical sex in relationship with spiritual knowledge more clearly. We’ll turn to a verse that we may have never studied to learn what God desires for us to understand:
1Co 6:15 Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.
This verse represents the very complex subject of covenant relationships utilizing different phrases, words and terms. Hopefully we can all see that this verse is comparing two opposing types of spiritual covenant relationships. The first spiritual covenant is between the church and Jesus Christ. We can see that there is an inferred meaning that the church is now married to Jesus Christ in this statement because of the reference to being members of His body. Remember when Adam saw his wife he said “she is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” in Genesis 2:23. That made Eve the woman the body of Adam the man. This is what the Law of God says in marriages.
We can see that since we have become the body of Christ (by God’s law of covenant marriage), that we can still go and commit spiritual adultery to make the member of Christ the members of a spiritual harlot simultaneously. We learn that this is a sexual but spiritual type of knowledge encounter with this woman called a “harlot”. We can see that it is still possible to be joined spiritually with another besides Jesus.
Again we understand that this is a direct application of God’s law of natural marriage from Genesis 2 being restated and applied using different words in a spiritual application. According to God, the author of the Bible, to become members of a harlot is to be spiritually connected through having knowledge of) her. This statement is actually a parallel to some Old Testament realities that transpired many years before Paul wrote these words. What we can observe and understand from this is an implication that if one wife can commit adultery, then any wife in any covenant relationship (including with Jesus) can commit adultery. Let’s look at the next verse to learn more confirmation to what is being taught by God:
1Co 6:16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.
In this next verse we can see some more outstanding spiritual implications and parallels being given to us by God. We can very clearly learn that sexual relations with a harlot in the eyes of God is the exact same thing as a covenant marriage. That means that having casual sex or a one night stand with any woman whether she is a whore (paid money) or not will cause the two people to be in covenant relationship with each other. This is not really that complicated. Everyone that has been alive on the earth for a period of several years understands that people do not pay a prostitute to get married. No, the transaction and the exchange of money is for a brief pleasure of having sex. So what people do not realize is that this is not how God views the acts. God says in verse 16 that the two having this relationship have been joined in a marriage covenant. The literal Greek word G2853 translated as “joined” literally means to “glue” together two separate pieces. I do not believe people see it this way since it looks like it is just a temporary pleasure.
In the eyes of God having sex is a marriage and a marriage means there should have been sexual intimacy between a covenant husband and his wife. That is some very strong words I know, but you can read it for yourself. Study it out and see if this is not what God is saying. According to God, even a casual one night stand causes the participants to be in a covenant binding relationship.
We know recently in the news that a prominent sports figure was accused by several women to be in relationship with all of them. These fourteen or more women all accused this married man of having had sex with them. I also heard a rock star brag that he had sexual encounters with over a 1000 women and girls while touring with the rock band. He literally boasted that he had photos to prove it. But, according to these scripture verses that we just read these men now have a bunch of wives. These physical realities are parallel to the spiritual realities that God is attempting to get us to see and to understand. We can verify all of this in the next verse:
1Co 6:17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
You see in verse 17 we see another implied reference to Christ being married to the church. The verse speaks directly that the church is “JOINED” to the LORD. That is a marriage term and is the same word that is translated in other places as “cleave” to his wife. This verse then declares that the church is One Spirit with our husband Jesus Christ. Again more marriage terminology. We can understand that this new covenant marriage is suppose to be a spiritual type of sexual relationship just based upon the context of the surrounding verses speaking about people who have sex with harlots at the same time as being in covenant with Jesus Christ. In fact these verses are a warning written to the spiritual bride of Jesus telling her not to be involved with joining herself with other gods, idols, the worldly desires and lusts or whoever or whatever.
There are certainly many things to consider about these statements and we can apply them to both natural and spiritual covenant relationships. These constitute concepts of physical faithfulness and they should apply to us in our spiritual relationship with Christ as well. The bottom line of these verses in 1 Corinthians 6 point us to being faithful to Christ Jesus our husband and not to wander off with a deception or trick of Satan.
SPIRITUTAL SEXUAL INFIDELITY AND ADULTERY
These are all very stout and strong words and concepts given to us in the Bible concerning being in binding covenant relationship with the right and wrong individuals. What we thought was only a temporary pleasurable encounter has been raised to a very serious level of critical importance. I pray that everyone is learning the significance. These concepts and words appear to have not been clearly understood before now by very many Christians . But, before we go to the Old Testament let me show the law of marriage again restated differently for us in the New Testament which introduces us to a new concept called adultery which we should see and know as the act of being married to multiple covenant sexual partners at the same time:
Rom 7:1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
We can see new meaning in these words when we apply what we have just learned about the term “know”. To know something or someone is a sexual term that denotes a covenant act in a covenant relationship. So this verse is written to those that were in covenant with Jehovah God and His law and this could only be the natural nation of Israel. We know this because the Law was given to them by Moses on Mt Sinai after coming out of Egypt. Let’s see what God is saying to them that “know” the law:
Rom 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
These are some interesting words given to us from God. These words declare that a woman that knows the law is legally bound to the covenant law of her husband as long as he is alive. We know from previous study that Israel is called the wife of God in the Old Covenant (Jer 31:32). So we are told by God that this group or nation of natural people were bound (in bondage) by the law of God as long as He lives. God says very clearly that only when the husband is dead is she free to marry (enter covenant) again.
Rom 7:3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Here we have God’s definition of an adulteress. I do not understand how people have not put these things together, but I guess they are just hard to accept so they refuse to see them. Any way verse 3 of chapter 7 says if her husband is alive and she marries another man, then she shall be called an adulteress. An adulteress is a noun title for a woman who has committed a sexual act of adultery. Adultery is defined as “an extramarital sexual affair” and this “infidelity” is known as unfaithfulness. This is what is called the state of being unfaithful to your covenant spouse. Are we following these concepts?
How do we apply these physical things to spiritual things? We know that the natural nation of Israel did not have physical sex with other gods, idols or religions, but God said numerous times in the Old Testament that they were very unfaithful to Him. So apparently spiritual sex follows after a pattern of natural sex and is treated no differently by God. In fact in the eyes of God it is exactly the same. Spiritual sex would involve worshipping false gods, idols and other such unfaithful acts. These spiritual acts of the knowledge of foreign gods are covenant acts of infidelity in the eyes of God. This was Israel, His wife making herself in covenant relationship and being joined with other gods as we have just learned from the New Testament. Let us start looking at some Key Old Testament verses that speak about this subject:
Jer 3:1 They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD.
Yet more difficult words to swallow from God. It is a struggle to understand how Israel the natural nation of people are said to have committed adultery with many lovers. In fact this verse actually says that Israel has become the wife of another man by being unfaithful even while being married to the living covenant God. Remember what we read in 1 Corinthians, that the sexual act itself causes you to become married in covenant with the harlot. This verse in Jeremiah calls Israel the harlot and the wife of someone else and this husband is not God. The implications to these statements are huge and very powerful. The ramifications and consequences to Israel’s acts of unfaithfulness are enormous. Who is this one that Israel is accused of having spiritual intercourse with, and is in covenant with, if it is not with God? It will certainly be a new thing to research and consider using the Word of God.
Studying the Bible on this subject is incredibly difficult, because it implies so many heavy and deep things for us to consider. Many ministers in the church teach and preach such favorable things about the nation of Israel and I guess that they gloss over and ignore statements in the Bible about her infidelity and unfaithfulness. As we continue with this lesson it will not get any easier for me to teach or for you to accept. Let’s continue with this verse also in Jeremiah 3:
Jer 3:8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
In Malachi 2:16 God makes the statement that he hates divorce, however in Jeremiah 3:8 we see a direct statement that God has just divorced Israel, because of her repeated adulteries. If you recall from the definition of an adulteress in 1 Corinthians, an adulteress is any woman who has sexual knowledge outside of her covenant marriage while her husband still lives. God says backsliding Israel has committed adultery while I yet lived as their husband. What are the consequences of those transgressions? Here is a statement by God that directly breaks and terminates the old covenant marriage with the natural nation of Israel and completely ends the relationship. When God gave these words to His Prophet Jeremiah, the nation of Israel was divorced by law and no longer could be called the covenant wife of God but she is called the wife of another man in this book and others because of her sexual relationships with those gods. Because of Israel’s infidelity she has become the wife of another by the simple act of spiritual adultery. I told you that this wasn’t going to get any easier to accept. We are now heavy duty into the subject of divorce as it relates to the subject of marriage covenants. What gives God the right to divorce His unfaithful wife Israel? Let us confirm the divorce for the naysayers so there is no confusion: Please read another witness from the prophet Isaiah:
Isa 50:1 Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.
Here we can clearly see God speaking about His covenant wife Israel. This verse was written to the Lord Jesus speaking to Him to ask His mother about her divorce. What I want you to see that God very clearly says “I have put her away”. This Hebrew word translated as put away means to cast out. Also in this verse God uses the Hebrew word H3748 that is only used 4 times in the O.T. This word is translated as “divorcement” here and it literally means a cutting of the marital bonds. The only other time this word is used is found in Jeremiah 3:8 that we just looked at and in the Law of Moses written in Deuteronomy 24:1-3 where God permits divorce because of the hardness of the hearts of the people of Israel according to Jesus in Matthew. Let’s look at that verse quickly:
Mat 19:8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.
Notice what Jesus teaches about covenant relationships. Jesus said there was a time when this was permitted but it was only because they were hard hearted. Then Jesus says very clearly that this was not the intended design of God from the beginning. This would help confirm to us why God wrote in Malachi 2:6 that it is written that God hates divorce. God does not want to divorce anyone. God also does not want anyone in the world to divorce each other either. Divorce is far from the perfect will of God. God only permitted divorce under the law because of Israel’s repeated unfaithfulness while committing whoredom over and over and over. Let’s look at another verse that Jesus directly speaks concerning divorce in Matthew:
Mat 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
Jesus enforces God’s right to divorce His unfaithful wife Israel here in this verse in Matthew. Here we have Jesus speaking of divorce as not being a legitimate alternative to end any covenant relationship except for the reason of “fornication”. The Greek word G4202 that was translated as “fornication” here actually means “Harlotry” or “whoredon”. I have not heard many or any Christian leaders, preachers and teachers teaching these concepts. I wonder why? Do they exist in the Bible? It is also interesting that harlotry is the physical or natural meaning of this Greek word, but it also conveys the spiritual meaning of “idolatry” in the case of natural Israel. In the case of God’s relationship with natural Israel His wife, the sole legal reason for His divorce to her is based upon Israel’s constant interaction with other gods, religions and their idols. They worshipped false gods and idols instead of the true and living God. They became those that worshiped the creation more than the creator. Wow does that sound familiar?
Jer 3:20 Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD.
Here we have another incredible scripture that relates Israel to be the wife of God. The word “as” is added to the verse by the translator thinking that they were making a comparison, but Israel was the covenant wife by God’s own admission that God was speaking to in this verse. It goes on to describe her as a woman that has “departed” and “left” her husband. God does not like that one bit. A wife should not depart from her loving husband ever. In this verse it is implies that she (Israel) has left her husband for another man. I wonder why these scriptures are not taught and have been overlooked and ignored in the Bible? Are these verses written in the Holy Book? Did Israel commit adultery and fall into a covenant with another spiritual being? How could this be and who is this spiritual being that is now in covenant with natural Israel? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you should. They are truly important to your understanding of the Word of God.
I have to limit the number of verses that I could include on this subject due to lesson length. But please understand that just because I gave you a few verses, it doesn’t mean that there are not many, many others that say the same thing. You are welcome to search and find them out for yourself. You can find many verses of the whoredom of Israel in Jeremiah 3, 16, Ezekiel 16, 20, 23 and 43 and the book of Hosea to name the major references. Go read them and study them all for your self and learn what spiritual adultery represents. This was a woman that has left her husband to go and commit an act of sexual knowledge with another god besides her husband.
What I did was attempt to give you a foundational overview of a very complex subject, showing you how natural things are directly related to spiritual things. Marriage, sex, infidelity and divorce are all subjects that you should be familiar with in the natural. But, knowing how to apply them to God’s designed spiritual things is the challenge we are all faced with. I have shown you that God’s Old Covenant wife was unfaithful to Him and as a result, God has divorced her. That at least implies that this old covenant is over and done with for God the Father but not for natural Israel because of the law. Let’s go back to Romans and see a verse that I did not give you yet about this subject of covenant marriage:
Rom 7:4 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.
Here is a complex verse that does not make any sense if you do not see that it was only written to those that “knew” the law. God says you that knew the law have been freed from that bondage of covenant relationship because your husband God died on the cross in the flesh. Then God says directly to these people that were bound to that covenant that they could be married in covenant with another man named the risen from the dead the Lord Jesus Christ. You see this verse does not make any sense for a Gentile that was never in covenant marriage with God. It can only apply to the natural nation of Israel. Any way we look at it, the natural nation of Israel must enter into the marriage covenant with Jesus Christ or they will not enter into everlasting life. Jesus declared quite literally that He was the only way to the Father and that no one could enter in by any other way and that means covenant also.
There are multiple implied verses given to us in the Bible that the woman natural Israel is now married to another spiritual being and this could be the reason why Satan wants to wipe Israel off of the face of the planet. If you didn’t already know that you must have been living in a vacuum or a bubble. Satan is trying diligently to wipe Israel off the map and probably will attempt something dramatic very soon. As soon as countries like Iran develop nuclear weapons, Israel is in deep trouble. These weapons are not for defense, they are for the sole purpose of eliminating Israel. Many Christians view natural Israel and call them God’s chosen people and assume that is why Satan wants to kill them. I would suggest that Satan may want to kill them for a different reason. Perhaps in my next bible lesson we will get into more verses concerning this unfaithful woman that was in covenant with God but, appears to be married to another now.
If you would like to continue reading this series on Bible covenants, you can go to “Part 3“.
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