Quote:
Originally Posted by Jo S
In Revelation 19:8, the bride is clothed in linen. We know that linen is an analogy because it's right in the text in the following sentence so there is no guessing;
"For the fine linen she wears is the righteous acts of the saints."
If you argue that the linen in verse 8 is the church then you have to explain the following verse 9;
"Then the angel told me to write, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”
It says blessed are those that are invited. Now, does a bride have to be invited to her own wedding if in fact the bride is the church? The answer is obviously no, so the church cannot be the bride.
Now the friends of the bridegroom, on the other hand, do need invitation to a wedding. If you go back to the gospel of John you will see that John the Baptist did not consider himself as the bride but he did consider himself a "friend of the bridegroom".
John 3:39;
"The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete."
So comparing scripture with scripture we can conclude that those that make up Christ's church are the "friends" of the bridegroom because just like John, we are looking to Jesus' coming.
Now going to Revelation 21 we see John likening the holy city's appearance to that of a bride. The analogy is clearly laid out He then goes ahead to specifically describe a city (not people or any other thing) and give properties and measurements in line with that of a physical location. So we can conclude that the bride is a metapor for a city because it's plainly right there in the text.
Revelation 21:2
"I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband."
There is no indication given, like in Rev 19, that when John is describing the walls of the New Jerusalem that the walls of the city are analogous to anything else. Logically we can conclude that he is actually describing a real city.
There is nothing in this chapter to come to the conclusion that the bride in Revelation is anything other than a real heavenly city. The descriptors John gives are not obscure, they're specifically related to a physical city.
To claim that the city is the body of believers would require tremendous amounts of esoteric scripture interpretation to even remotely conform this premise to the rest of scripture. You'd then have to explain what the walls, stones, gates, precise measurements, ect and how these things point to people. Without substantive biblical support for the idea that these things are describing a group of people the burden of proof remains on you.
ByHisMercy asked to have a discussion on this topic. Evangelical, I'm not trying to convince you of anything but I do appreciate your challenge.
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I disagree that the burden of proof remains on me. This is because in Christianity the most commonly accepted interpretation of the bride of Christ is the Church, and your view is an uncommon interpretation.
Normally the most commonly accepted view is the one that must be disproven. So really the burden of proof is on you to be able to provide enough evidence to reject this idea that the Bride of Christ is the Church. Do you have any book or scholar or author you can refer me to for further reading?
From biblehub I can easily quote bible scholars who say that the bride is the people, not the physical structure:
http://biblehub.com/commentaries/john/3-29.htm
Vincent's Word studies says:
The bride
A common figure in the Old testament prophecies, of the relation between Jehovah and His people (Ezekiel 16; Hosea 2:19; Malachi 2:11). See also on Matthew 1:21, concerning Hosea.
It goes on to explain how the friends of the bridegroom are those who leads out God's people to meet God.
The friends of the bridegroom are Moses, John the Baptist, even the Apostles,. who lead God's people to meet Christ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bride_of_Christ
The great difficulty with the bride = city interpretation is that it means Christ is "marrying" a physical structure and as "friends of the bridegroom" we get to watch Christ marry a building. Who or what is in this building that Christ is marrying and why would Christ love a mere building when He died for people?
My understanding of the terms Babylon and Jerusalem is that it refers to the people inside them, and their condition, not the physical structure which contains them. Nothing makes much sense if we only talk about the physical structures and not the people in them.