The Hope of Perfect Relationships
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. Revelation 21:9-10
Talk about the glorious mixing of metaphors! The next part of John’s gospel-hope saturated vision includes an extended description of the Bride of Christ, “the wife of the Lamb.” But this bride is not described in terms of the usual sweet frou-frou images you’d expect accompanying a nuptial celebration. Indeed, this bride is described in terms of a city–the New Jerusalem! How can a bride be a city? Actually, in a most wonderful way!
What John goes onto to describe in the next several verses (Rev. 21:9-22), many of which we will ponder in the coming gospel-sanity devos, is the population of the New Jerusalem. As great as it’s gonna be to live in the actual world called the new heaven and new earth/the New Jerusalem, the most stunning aspect of our eternal life there will be the relationships we will enjoy with the population of the City-Bride. The wife of the Lamb is being gathered and prepared, by Jesus and for Jesus, from every single race, tribe, tongue and people group that has ever existed in history!
This is what God covenanted with Abraham when he first grabbed this unsuspecting Chaldean and made promises that he, God, alone can keep (Genesis 12-17)! “Count the stars, sand and dust, if you are able, Abram. For such is the mathematics of my mercy! I will redeem a numberless people for myself, by myself, but I will use you to tell my story!” Oh my, much more to say about that in the coming days, but let’s stop with this one gospel-gem of a notion to ponder the rest of the day.
If you are a part of the Bride of Christ-if you, by grace alone through faith alone, have already been betrothed, that is married to Jesus in the gospel, then you are destined for a life of perfect relationships with every single member of that grace-granted people called the “wife of the Lamb.” Most of us would simply settle for one really, really good relationship in this life, but in Christ, we are promised, and guaranteed, an eternity of nothing but perfect, joy-filled, never-to-be-broken relationships with the whole City-Bride! Ponder that all day long!