Bride of Christ

“ Men’s aspirations for communion with their gods could find no final satisfaction save in marriage. To the few, we may suppose—men of refined and reflective mind, capable of imagining spiritual joys—this marriage of men and gods was but a mystic, figurative expression for the union of man’s soul with the soul of God, a thought as chastened and innocent of all sensuous connotation as the thought of many a woman who in a later era, withdrawn from the world, has comforted her loneliness with the hope of being the bride of Christ. ”

“ It was just like a marriage to look upon, except for the absence of a visible bridegroom, the invisible one being Christ. And the taking of the vows was like a marriage service too—only more solemn and sacred and touching—the bride receiving the ring on her finger, and promising to serve and worship her celestial lover from that day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as life should last and through the eternity that was to follow it. ”

“ The Bride alone is subject to Christ with a never-failing subjection. And He on His part loves her as His own flesh, a union of the two loves of the Head for the Body, and of the Bridegroom for the Bride, which is true with regard to Him of the Church alone, since individuals within her He may cast off, but her alone He cherishes and fosters for ever. ”

“ It belongs to a bride to make her will one with that of her bridegroom; she cannot will more than he wills, and seems unable to think of anything but him. Now do you so think, daughter mine, for you, who are a bride of Christ crucified, ought not to think or will anything apart from Him—that is, not to consent to any other thoughts. That thoughts should not come, this I do not tell thee—because neither thou nor any created being couldst prevent them. For the devil never sleeps; and God permits this to make His bride reach perfect zeal and grow in virtue. ”

“ He covers them
with the mantle of his providence, the mantle of his
righteousness. the mantle of his intercession, the
mantle of his Spirit; sure then the bride of Christ:
is in absolute safety. He hath retiring chambers for
her, to hide her in till the day of indignation be
overpast.
4 This doctrine lets us see, that believers are
no such mean and despicable persons as the world
generally takes them to be; they are Christ's bride,
and he is their husband: and, O what an honour is
it to be married to the Son of God! ”

“ These quotations from the saints show that the holy catholic church is the number of all the predestinate [21] and Christ's mystical body—Christ being himself the head—and the bride of Christ, whom he of his great love redeemed with his blood that he might at last possess her as glorious, not having wrinkle of mortal sin or spot of venial sin, or anything else defiling her, but that she might be holy and without spot, perpetually embracing Christ, the bridegroom. ”

“ It distresses us more than we can tell to find those who are nourished at the breasts of the Bride of Christ, callous to Her charms, unmindful of Her privileges, thoughtlessly and grudgingly rendering their minimum of service, for we realize how Christ is thus being 'wounded in the house of His friends' and His Bride made to lose Her comeliness in the sight of men. ”

“ For the omniscient God, who has given to all things their weight, measure and number, has foredetermined how many shall ultimately be saved. Therefore, the universal church is also Christ's bride about whom the Canticles speak, and about whom Isaiah, 61:10, "as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned with jewels." ”

“ Underlying all forms of Christian doctrine, there is the deep human truth that Gentile thought, with its Art and its fancy, its sensibility and its weakness, is the "Bride of Christ,"—the counterpart and destined helpmeet of the pure strong Hebrew faith. We Christians have got our life into confusion by trying to copy our Ideal "Christ" ”

“ Thus, by means of faith, the soul is delivered from all sins, and invested with the eternal righteousness of Jesus Christ the bridegroom. O happy union! Jesus Christ the rich, the noble, the holy bridegroom, takes in marriage this poor, guilty, contemned bride, delivers her from all evil, and decks her in the richest robes. ”

“ So, since Christ crucified in His life chose naught but the Cross and pain, and clothed Him in this raiment, His bride holds herself blessed when she is clothed in this same raiment; and because she sees that the Bridegroom has loved her so beyond measure, she loves and receives Him with such love and desire as no tongue can suffice to tell. Therefore the Highest and Eternal Goodness, to make her attain most perfect love and possess humility, permits her many conflicts and a dry mind, that the creature may know itself and see that it is not. ”

“ Never did any girl or woman love her lover or her husband more than I did the Lord Jesus Christ, whose bride I thought myself to be, because I had taken those three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. ”

“ We are looking forward to the time when He shall have completed His work, when the body of Christ shall be perfected, and the bride, all filled and streaming with the life and glory of the Spirit within her, shall be set with Him on His throne, even as He sat with the Father on His throne. We hope through eternity to worship and adore the mystery of the Thrice Holy One. ”

“ They express the moral and religious condition of those who constitute the bride. No outward righteousness alone, with which we might be clothed as with a garment, is a sufficient preparation for future blessedness. An inward change is not less necessary, a personal and spiritual meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light. Christ must not only be on us as a robe, but in us as a life, if we are to have the hope of glory. ”

“ It is plain, therefore, that it is befitting that Christ always love his bride, the holy church, just as he will love her after the day of judgment; and in the same way he hates every reprobate, just as he will hate him after the day of judgment. ”

“ The love which grace has begotten in the heart of the bride is itself divine and persistent; many waters cannot quench it, nor the floods drown it. Suffering and pain, bereavement and loss may test its constancy, but they will not quench it. Its source is not human or natural; like the life, it is hidden with Christ in God. What "shall separate us from the love of Christ? ”

“ It is from this connection that Christ and the Church are called bridegroom and bride, or husband and wife. The other relationship, in which Christ and all the saints are brethren by divine grace and not by earthly consanguinity, or by the father and not by the mother, is more easily expressed in words, and more easily understood. For the same grace makes all the saints to be also brethren of one another; while in their society no one is the bridegroom of all the rest. ”

“ It is wonderful to think of this union with Christ, that we are His Body and He is the Head; but there is another wonder quite as great, it is that He is the Bridegroom and the Church is the Bride. When we speak of the Church as the Body of Christ, it is a living union, life is the one thought brought out; when we speak of Christ as the Bridegroom it is love which is the chief point. It brings out the affection, tenderness and nearness of the Bridegroom. "So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies, He that loveth His wife loveth Himself." ”

“ For in the union of Christ with the Father by the concord of love, even if we consider Him as God, there is not said to be a marriage, since it implies no subjection such as is required in the bride towards the bridegroom. ”

“ And reflect, that this is the state of the perfect; if it were possible for them to escape Hell, and have joy in this life and joy eternal beside, they do not want it, because they delight so greatly in conforming themselves to Christ crucified; nay, they want to live rather by the way of the Cross and pain, than without pain. Now what greater joy can the bride have than to be conformed to her bridegroom, and clothed with like raiment? ”

“ Not under its present dispensation, but after it is cleansed by fire; after the wicked are destroyed by fire, as the antediluvians were by water; after the resurrection of the saints, and when Christ’s prayer, taught to his disciples, shall be answered, “Thy will be done on earth, even as in Heaven.” When the bride has made herself ready, and is married to the Bridegroom, he will then move her into the New Jerusalem state, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, where we shall reign with him forever and ever, on the new earth and in the new heavens. ”

“ In the meantime, the least intimation of Christ's love is sweet, and the hope of marriage with the Bridegroom holdeth me in some joyful on-waiting, that, when Christ's summer-birds shall sing upon the branches of the Tree of Life, I shall be tuned by God Himself to help them to sing the home-coming of our Well-beloved and His bride to their house together. ”

“ The bride is satisfied with her washed feet while the Bridegroom, His "head filled with dew," and His "locks with the drops of night," is toiling for others. See Luke 6:12; 14:21-23. The state of the bride is not one of sin, but of neglect of service. She is preoccupied with the graces and perfections which she has in Christ through the Spirit ; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; Galatians 5:22,23. It is mysticism, unbalanced by the activities of the Christian warfare. Her feet are washed, her hands drop with sweet smelling myrrh ”

“ The Bridegroom is our Lord Jesus Christ; he is so represented in the 45th Psalm, 1, and often in the New Testament. It bespeaks his singular and superlative love to, and his faithful and inviolable covenant with, his spouse the church. Believers are now betrothed to Christ (Hos. ii. 19) ; but the solemnizing of the marriage is reserved for the great day, when the bride, the Lamb's wife, will have made herself completely ready, Rev. xix. 7, 9.
2. The virgins are the professors of religion, members of the church ”

“ He compares our Saviour to the bridegroom: "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom. Do all men come to him? It is well, whither else should they go? Has he got the throne in men's affections? Who else should have it? It is his right; to whom should the bride be brought but to the bridegroom?" Christ was prophesied of in the Old Testament as a bridegroom, Ps. xlv. The Word was made flesh, that the disparity of nature might not be a bar to the match. Provision is made for the purifying of the church, that the defilement of sin might be no bar. Christ espouses his church to himself ”

“ Is it so, that there is a
marriage-relation betwixt Christ and believers?
1. This informs us of the infinite love of God
towards lost sinners, in giving his own Son to be
a Husband and Redeemer unto them ; “God so loved
the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him, might not perish, but
have everlasting life,’’ John iii. 16. God so loved
the world, as neither angels nor men can tell.
2. This informs us of the infinite love of Christ,
in condescending to be a husband to such a bride. ”

“ Nothing could be more significant than that, when the God-man came to found His kingdom upon earth, and entered upon His Messianic work, His first work should have been wrought in honor of the wedding tie. And so God's Word speaks of marriage throughout. When the Apostle desires a comparison to set forth the holy and pure relation between Christ and His Church, he knows none more sublime and noble than the union that exists between man and woman in wedlock, for which reason the Church is called Christ's bride—Christ is called her Bridegroom. ”

“ In her voluminous writings, unrivalled in purity of language and elegance of style, she considers herself, always, as the bride of Jesus Christ, to whom she addresses herself with the same transports of love, and with the same demonstrations of tender submission and endearing respect, that might be used by an affectionate and p. ”

“ The children of the bride-chamber will mourn when the bridegroom is taken away (Matt. ix. 15) , especially for the sin which provoked him to withdraw; and, if we do so, we shall be in care to recover the sense of his favour and diligent and constant in the use of proper means in order thereunto. We must search the scriptures, be much in prayer, keep close to ordinances, and all with this upon our heart, Saw you him whom my soul loveth? Those only who have seen Christ themselves are likely to direct others to a sight of him. ”

“ Jesus wants a bride who will live His life with Him and enter into all His plans and sorrows, ambitions and trials, aims and purposes. There are many people who are glad Jesus died for them who know nothing about "suffering with Christ." ”

“ As a woman who becomes a wife accepts her husband as the head of the family (loses her name, her individuality, to become his bride) , so the Church accepts Christ as her Head, and each member of the Church thus comes into relationship with the Lord as a member of His Body. ”

“ And as a pure virgin and bride forsakes father, mother, and all strange company and subjects herself to the will and obedience of her only bridegroom; so all true children of God must separate themselves from all false worship, flee from the stranger’s voice, and unite themselves to Christ, to hear and obediently follow his voice, which is proclaimed by the ministers sent by him. ”

“ When love is not, faith is not, and affection is not, what sweetness can there be in kisses?
18. But the Church ceases not to kiss the feet of Christ, and therefore in the Song of Songs she desires not one but many kisses, [27] and like Holy Mary she is intent upon all His sayings, and receives all His words when the Gospel or the Prophets are read, and “keeps all His sayings in her heart.” [28] So, then, the Church alone has kisses as a bride, for a kiss is as it were a pledge of espousals and the prerogative of wedlock. Whence should the Jew have kisses, who believes not in the Bridegroom? ”