Mystery of the Bride

Part 1

Vicky Moots

The mystery of the church, the body of Christ, composed of all believers, both Jew and Gentile, is hidden in the Old Testament and revealed to us in the New Testament.  Inside this mystery, there is a second mystery: the mystery of the bride of Christ. Israel is mentioned several times as the wife of Jehovah, but that refers to Israel as a nation. These are two separate subjects and two separate groups. This study only concerns the bride of Christ, which includes both Jew and Gentile believers.

Paul first speaks of the bride of Christ in II Cor. 11:2, when he says, “For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” It is as though Paul were acting as the father of the bride, who looked forward to the privilege of giving his daughter away at the marriage of the Lamb. He desired that they would give up their childish ways and let the Word of God purify their hearts, so that they could truly become a chaste, pure virgin, perfect and spotless just like the Lamb, and be presented to Christ as His bride.  However, this letter to the Corinthians is also applicable to us today, as are all of Paul’s inspired letters.

The espousal invitation has been offered to the whole church, not just the Corinthian saints, but sadly, not all believers are willing to accept it. Many lukewarm Christians only desire a friendship relationship with Christ, or only wish to be a good servant. As we study this subject, allow the Holy Spirit to woo you into a deeper, more intimate, place of fellowship with Christ and give you the desire to lean upon His breast, as did John, the beloved disciple.

The marriage relationship was first instituted by God shortly after He created man. In Gen. 2:18, we read, “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should dwell alone; I will make a help meet for him.”

This was not just an after-thought of God simply because poor Adam looked lonely. God had already created the animal kingdom, male and female, to have mates. Why didn’t He just create both Adam and Eve at the same time out of the dust of earth? Wouldn’t that make more sense? Instead, He created Adam and then formed Eve out of one of Adam’s ribs. The reason for this unusual surgical procedure is a great mystery that we would not be able to understand if it hadn’t been revealed to the apostle Paul, who then revealed it to us.

Everything that God did was done for a specific purpose, according to God’s plan. When God created the heaven and the earth, He intended for it to be a forerunner, or type, of the new creation, He had already planned that Jesus would later become the “last Adam,” the head of the new creation, as we read in I Cor. 15:45-47: “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening [life-giving] spirit.  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.”

So, we see that God intended the natural to be a picture of the spiritual.  The first man, Adam, was given life (God breathed life into him), but the last Adam, Jesus, gave life to us (His life is breathed into us by the Holy Spirit when we are born again).

Now, we are going to see that when God formed Eve, the first Adam’s wife, from his rib, He intended for her to be a spiritual picture of the bride of Christ (the last Adam).  Paul unfolds this mystery to us in Eph. 5:25-27.  He first gives us the natural order of the husband and wife relationship, and then he reveals to us that it is a spiritual picture of the relationship of Christ and His bride: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church [assembly glorious] not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”

Notice that it is Christ who is doing the work in us to sanctify and cleanse us by washing us with the Word, which not only removes every spot and blemish, but irons out all of the wrinkles, to make us pure and holy.  The word “sanctify” means “to separate” or “to set apart.” Our part is to submit. He then presents the “glorious assembly,” the ones who have submitted to His Word in order to be made pure, to Himself as His wife.

In vs.30-32 of Eph. 5, Paul refers back to Gen. 2:23-24 to confirm the connection between the physical process which God used to form a wife for the first Adam in the Garden of Eden and the spiritual work which God is doing now to prepare a bride for His Son, the last Adam.  Verses 30-32 state, “For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

The word “of,” in v.30, used three times, means “out from among.”  In Gen. 2:23, Adam said concerning Eve, “…This is now bone of [out from among] my bones, and flesh of [out from among] my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” God formed Eve from a rib that He took out of the first Adam’s body.  God is also forming a spiritual bride from a spiritual rib that is being taken out of the body of Christ, the last Adam.