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One of the New Testament metaphors for the Church. In it
HaMashiach is pictured as a Husband and the Church as
His bride. Addressing the church at Corinth, the apostle
Paul referred to himself as the one who gave the church
to HaMashiach, presenting her as a pure bride to her one
husband (2 Corinthians 11:2-3). In ancient Near Eastern
culture the father gave his daughter in marriage to the
bridegroom, assuring him of her purity. To Paul,
understanding himself as the church’s spiritual father
(1 Corinthians 4:15), the thought of the church as his
daughter sprang readily to mind. To be HaMashiach’s pure
bride requires the church to have pure and simple
devotion. Like a concerned father, Paul was worried that
the young bride (the church) might commit adultery by
her willingness to accept “another Jesus,” “another
Spirit,” or “a different gospel” (2 Corinthians 11:4).
As between marriage partners, the relation between the
Church and HaMashiach is governed by a covenant of
mutual faithfulness. Disloyalty shatters the Covenant.
The Old Testament furnished Paul a rich background for
that image of the Church. YHVH’s Covenant with Israel
was commonly pictured as a marriage pledge, with Israel
as YHVH’s bride. Through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord
said to Israel: “I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride” (Jeremiah 2:2, RSV). He went on to
lament the fact that Israel had been faithless; by going
after other gods, she had actually prostituted herself
and become an adulterous (Jeremiah 3:6-9, 20). The theme
of Israel’s desertion of her lover (YHVH) was explicitly
treated in Ezekiel 16 and in Hosea. The terms “harlotry”
and “whoredom” were used to connote disloyalty to YHVH
and allegiance to other gods.
Thus, adultery and idolatry became synonymous. Through
his own struggles with a faithless wife, the prophet
Hosea experienced YHVH’s agony over His bride Israel and
His longing for her to return. Hosea was given a vision
of a future day in which YHVH would betroth His people
to Him forever in steadfast love and faithfulness (Hosea
2:19-20). That vision may have enabled Paul to transfer
the image of Israel as YHVH’s bride to the Church as the
bride of HaMashiach. In Ephesians 5:22-33, the
relationship between HaMashiach and His Church is
compared to the relationship between a husband and wife.
The image is taken from the common understanding of the
husband-wife relationship in that part of the world. The
Church’s submission to HaMashiach is compared with the
wife’s submission to the husband, but the stress of the
passage is on the role of the husband: he is to love her
as HaMashiach loved the church and gave Himself up for
her.
HaMashiach relates to the whole Church on the basis of
self-sacrificial love. Just as a husband is joined to
his wife, with a mutual interdependence so intimate that
they become one, so HaMashiach and His Church become one
Body. As the man’s love for his wife intends her
wholeness, so HaMashiach’s love of the Church intends
her completeness. A variation on the theme is found in
John the Baptist’s testimony to Yeshua (John 3:29). John
saw himself as “the Bridegroom’s friend” who, according
to Jewish custom, takes care of the wedding
arrangements. The Mashiach is identified with the
bridegroom to whom the bride (His Messianic Community)
belongs and who comes to claim that bride.
In Revelation 19 and 21 the metaphor of the Church as
the Mashiach’s bride is further developed. The vision in
Revelation 19:7-8 announces the marriage of the Lamb (HaMashiach)
to the bride (Church). In Revelation 21 the vision
depicts the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven,
“prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (verse 2).
Then the seer is invited to behold “the Bride, the wife
of the Lamb” (verse 9) and to see the Holy City “coming
down out of heaven from YHVH” (verse 10). The New
Jerusalem is identified as the people of YHVH, the bride
of HaMashiach, among whom and with whom YHVH will be
present forever. |
