The Marriage of the Lamb. Revelation
19:6-8
Revelation chapter nineteen
portrays the climax of the Tribulation which is the return of the Lord Jesus
Christ in victory as the King of kings and Lord of lords. He will return in victory
to destroy the works of Satan, He will destroy the armies of the Antichrist and
the false prophet, He will wipe out and completely destroy the civilization of
As we get into the remaining
part of the chapter we see some really interesting material biblically. We just
get a summary of the action here in this chapter—the Lord Jesus Christ returns
at the head of an army riding on a white horse, etc., and the focal point is
really on who the Lord Jesus Christ is, as indicated through His dress and His
character, and then it culminates in the destruction of the armies of the
Antichrist and their punishment in the last four or five verses of the chapter.
But this is just a summary. There are dozens of other places in the Old Testament
as well as a couple of passages in the Gospels that give us much more
information about what is going to transpire during this time when Jesus Christ
actually returns to the earth. We don’t see much about where He returns in this
chapter as much as we see the manner in which He returns as he is going to
establish the reign of God upon the earth.
We have looked at the four
Hallelujahs at the beginning of the chapter. The first one relates to a praise
to God for the destruction of religious
The fourth Hallelujah.
Revelation 19:6 NASB “Then I heard {something} like the voice of a
great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty
peals of thunder, saying, ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty,
reigns.
Revelation 19:7 NASB
“Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the
Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.”
Notice verse 4 NASB
“And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and
worshiped God…” It is very clear when we get into the Greek text and some of
the problems with the MSS that there are really only a couple of MSS that have a
problem here. The vast majority (all but two) indicate that the 24 elders are
giving praise because the Lamb has redeemed them. That means that the 24 elders
cannot be angels; they are those who have been redeemed by the death of the
Lamb. So they are a representative entity representing the church. The fact
that there are 24 goes back to a similar situation in the Old Testament where,
among all the Levites and all of the priests, there would be a group of 24 that
would be on duty. Those 24 represented the entire body of Levites and priests.
The idea also carried with it the implication of their priestly function during
this particular time, and that is no longer apparent after this; they are never
referred to again after the marriage of the Lamb. The rile shifts from a
priestly role to a ruling and reigning role as the church will be ruling and
reigning with the Lord Jesus Christ during the Millennial kingdom. This is what
you and I are being prepared for today.
So in verse 7 there is a
call to celebrate because the marriage of the Lamb has come, “and His bride has
made herself ready.” These two verbs are both in the aorist tense which
indicates past action, so what they are stating is not is not that the marriage
of the Lamb is happening then but it has happened; it has taken place, it has
already been accomplished, so that now something different is going to be
focused on and that is the invitation to come to the marriage supper of the
Lamb, verse 9. We have to understand the difference between the marriage and
the marriage supper and what these indicate.
Revelation 19:8 NASB
“It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright {and} clean; for
the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.” What is the fine linen? It
is clean and bright, it has been cleansed, white—always a picture of holiness;
it is the righteous acts of the saints. It is viewed corporately. This is the
divine good that has been produced in the history of the church in church age
believers that comes together as the adornment of the bride at the marriage of
the Lamb.
The Jewish customs related
to marriage are quite informative, and even though the initial audience of the
book of Revelation were not Jews the writers were, and all of the Hebrew
Scriptures, all the background was Jewish and oriented around Jewish marriage
customs. So we need to understand what was involved in a Jewish marriage, a
Jewish wedding and that which preceded it in terms of the betrothal.
The first step was the
betrothal, and this would take place at least a year before the wedding itself.
Many times the bride and groom never met before the wedding itself. The
betrothal pictures the period of the church during the church age when the
church has been betrothed to the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has paid the
bride price, the dowry, by His death on the cross. It was that purchase price
paid by Christ on the cross that is equivalent to the bride price. At the
ascension He left, and this also fits the pattern that would be seen in a
Jewish wedding ceremony. We see this betrothal alluded to in Matthew 1:18.
During the time between the arrangement of the wedding and the wedding itself
the groom would leave, and it was the groom’s responsibility to prepare for
having a wife—having a home, taking the financial responsibility for the family
and for the marriage—and it was often not known precisely when the wedding
itself would take place. The bride would be waiting for the groom until he came
to fetch her. This also fits the pattern of Scripture. John 14:1-3 NASB
“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.
Once he has prepared
things the next thing is for him to come and to get his bride. At times this
was not going to be announced and it will be something of a surprise. He will
come accompanied by his friends in order to bring her back to his home. What is
interesting is that in 1 Thessalonians 4:14 Paul says, NASB “For if
we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him
those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” That is, when Jesus comes at the
Rapture for those who are alive and remain He will be bringing with Him those
who have preceded us in death. It is the father of the groom in a Jewish
marriage who determines the timing, and secondly, the groom has to have
completed the abode. That fits the biblical pattern: only the Father knows when
the timing will be; the Lord Jesus Christ prepares a place for the bride. [15]
“For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and
remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen
asleep. [16] For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with
the voice of {the} archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in
Christ will rise first. [17] Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up
together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall
always be with the Lord.”
The third thing that takes
place is the wedding ceremony itself. Only a few people were invited to a
wedding ceremony. Prior to the ceremony the bride is prepared. She would go
through a ritual immersion or cleansing, which indicates the purification of
the bride. This is analogous to the purification of the church at the judgment
seat of Christ where the dead works of believers are burned off, consumed in
fire, and the bride is left clothed with gold, silver, precious stones, the
works of righteousness that are done through the power of God the Holy Spirit.
The wedding ceremony itself takes place after the purification, so for the
church that means there is the Rapture, then the judgment seat of Christ, and
then the wedding itself take place in heaven at some time during the events of
the Tribulation on the earth. At the end of the Tribulation period the marriage
of the Lamb has already taken place.
Following the marriage
there would be a marriage supper or feast and this could last as many as seven
days. It was an opportunity to celebrate the union of the two people who had
just been married. Many more people would be invited to the feast than would be
invited to the marriage ceremony itself. So we see all of these steps portrayed
in the way the church is brought into its final union with the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Father made the arrangements; the Son paid the bride price and
purifies the church—Ephesians
Summary
· It is crucial to mark the distinction between the wedding itself and the marriage supper. They are two different things.
· There is an invitation to the marriage supper.
· Then the Lamb will return; He will destroy His enemies.
· After the destruction of the enemies and the purification of the earth, the judgment of the nations, there will be the marriage feast during a 75-day interval between the second coming and the beginning of the Millennial kingdom.
·
It is crucial to
mark the distinction between the marriage of Yahweh in the Old Testament to
·
In the Old
Testament Yahweh is depicted as the husband of
·
The basis for
this marriage is the bond of the covenant. But that covenant can be violated,
broken through the unfaithfulness of the bride (
·
Isaiah 50:1 NASB
“Thus says the LORD, “Where is the certificate of divorce By which I have
sent your mother away? Or to whom of My creditors did I sell you? Behold, you
were sold for your iniquities, And for your transgressions your mother was sent
away.” When God put away
·
Revelation 19:7,
the marriage of the Lamb. This is not the marriage of Yahweh because Yahweh
never put away
· The church was not mentioned in the Old Testament at all; it was a mystery (hidden).
Ephesians 5:23-27 NASB
“For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church,
He Himself {being} the Savior of the body.
This then leads to the
wedding invitation. Revelation 19:9 NASB “Then he said to me,
“Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’
And he said to me, ‘These are true words of God.’ [10] Then I fell at his feet
to worship him. But he said to me, ‘Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of
yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. For the
testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.’” There are several times in
Scripture there is an angel giving a message and somebody wants to fall down
and worship the angel, and the angel says not to do that. But when the Lord
Jesus Christ was on the earth and people would worship Him, He never said that,
indicating that He understood that He was complete deity. That is why we must
say that the voice that is coming out from the throne in this section is
neither the Father nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit, but is an angel in service
to the Lord. In this verse the word “prophecy” is not talking so much about
foretelling future events. Actually, prophecy is a term that has more to do
with revealing God’s will to man. The title of this book is the revelation from Jesus Christ, not about Jesus Christ. God gives this body
of doctrine to Jesus Christ to reveal further to His servants. That is what is
alluded to here in verse 10—“For the testimony of Jesus,” referring back to the
unveiling of this revelation, “is the spirit of prophecy [or the thought of
prophecy].” That summarizes or ends this prelude to the return of the Lord
Jesus Christ.