Glorious Bride Part 1
Dear Glorious and wondrous Bride of our Living God, today we will begin a new series called “The Glorious Bride”. The things that I will share will be deep and profound and will be difficult to comprehend in our natural mind, so let us pray for the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit to help us in our understanding. For the things of God and the revelation of God cannot be contained within the crucible and limitation of our human thinking, and more specifically a Greek, Hellenistic and linear mindset. We cannot go beyond understanding unless we have revelation, for revelation takes us somewhere than human thought and reasoning alone cannot. And revelation is not limited by human wisdom, philosophy or our own earthly wisdom, but is something that is given by God and transcends our thoughts like a window into the mind of God. You may remember in Matt 16 when Jesus asked who do people say that I the Son of Man am, and there were different answers that were given: some say John the Baptist, Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Then turning to his disciples. he asked but who do you say that I am. And it was Peter who responded you are the Christ the Son of the Living God. Jesus said blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood but by my Father in heaven.
We are in need today of revelation. The revelation of which I speak does not contradict scripture or replace scripture or is superior to scripture. We discussed this in our last series “The Bride in the Wilderness.” But it illuminates scripture. For scripture is the inspired Word of God and His Word is multidimensional. It has power, it is not linear or restricted by time and space but is eternal. What I am saying and sharing with you is that I believe the Lord wants to bring us into a deeper place of intimacy, understanding and revelation about the things of His bride. But these things are not easy to come by. Indeed, they have great cost like the pearl. And these things will not be scattered like pearls amongst the swine. For the Bride is the most precious and glorious of all creation she will not be found by the casual, lukewarm and half-hearted Christian, but will require diligent study of the scriptures and seeking the Lord for understanding. Like Daniel who prayed for 21 days, though the revelation was sent immediately, it required persistence and spiritual breakthrough in the Heavens, because the messenger angel had been opposed by the Prince of Persia. So don’t give up today, but keep on praying and seeking the Lord, His Word to you is on its way! To see the bride is to enter the most-holiest place. To comprehend the Bride requires absolute consecration and purity, respect and humility before the Lord. These things are deep and require that we have an openness of mind and not to think about things as linear, or singular, or with the limitation of time and space. Because God is eternal, and He transcends His creation. So we have to see things from God’s perspective, and that means allowing Him, whether by angels, as it was for John, or the Holy Spirit as it was for Paul, to go to the heights in order to see, but never departing from Scripture! Okay, so let us now with humility, openness and scriptural integrity, begin our journey into the Glorious Bride.
I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ Isa 46:10
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and at that time there was no external manifestation or representation of the bride, yet God has always known and always seen the end from the beginning, The Bible says about us in Eph 1:4 that He chose us in Him before the creation of the world. If God chose us in him before the world was Created, then in some form we existed in the heart and the mind and the plan of God. If that is so, then we must also accept that the Bride has also existed and been in the heart and mind of God. For He knows and therefore sees the end from the beginning. Indeed, as we are discovering on this glorious journey into the reality of all that the Bride is, we discover that she, like Him is eternal. But in Isa 46:10 it says much more. It actually says that He has made known the end from the beginning. From ancient times, the Bride has been visible, yet not revealed! To be visible is to be able to be seen, but to be revealed is more, it also means its purpose unveiled! So from Creation itself, the Bride has been visible, though not yet revealed.
The Bride is central to creation. She is the means through which God manifests his glory. She is a means through which He interacts with His creation. I want to present a principle that will help us as we unpack this profound mystery. I will call this the principle of dual realities. There is a primary reality and there is secondary reality. Let me give you an example of this. In Hebrews 8:5 it talks about the tabernacle being a copy or shadow of that which is in heaven. There is a temple in heaven and God gave the blueprints for a copy or shadow of it to be built upon the Earth. Jesus himself told us to pray “let Thy Kingdom come let Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven”. There is a dual reality. That which is on Earth is an outworking of that which is in Heaven, but note that which is in heaven is superior or primary to that which is upon the Earth. Even Jerusalem which we will look at in this series has a dual reality, for there is a Jerusalem in heaven that Paul tells us is the mother of us all Gal 4:26. And there is of course a Jerusalem upon the Earth the city of the Great King. It is with this principle on dual reality I want to present an understanding of the glorious bride. And we will begin by looking at the end and the beginning of the Bible.
“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars” Rev 12:1
In Revelation 12 John sees a great wonder in heaven, and he goes on to describe what he sees as a woman clothed with the sun, a crown of twelve stars on her head and her feet upon the moon. Who was this woman? We will take time to answer that question in this series on the glorious bride. Note that John doesn’t see this woman being created, but she is already there and what he sees is a picture of a woman that is not upon the Earth, but a vision of a reality that is in the heavens or the stars or the cosmos. The woman that he sees has not just been created, on the contrary this woman in heaven gives birth to a man child who we will see later represents Jesus Christ. This woman has great significance and importance. And she has also been a reality for as long as the stars which depict her. Her age is as old as the stars and the universe. In other words, this woman can be traced back to creation itself. So that is the picture of the woman that John receives in revelation 12. Now let us go back to the creation story in Genesis and remember our principle of dual realities. That that which is upon the Earth is a representation or secondary reality of something which is in heaven. So I propose that when the Lord had finished His Creation, there was both Adam and Even upon the Earth, but they represented a higher or primary reality of the Lord and His Bride. As Adam and Eve enjoyed the Garden of Eden, the Bride was visible and a wondrous sign of her was in the heavens, but she was not yet revealed. Well, let’s leave it there, and follow on from this next time.
Maranatha
Mike @Call2Come
