Bridegroom Clarification

Is the portrait of Jesus as our Bridegroom scriptural?

Other than the portrait of God as our Father, the portrait of Jesus as our Bridegroom is painted more frequently than any other, throughout the Old and New Testaments. The Bible opens with a “marriage” (Adam and Eve) and closes with a “wedding ceremony” (Christ, “the second Adam” coming on a white horse for His Bride). In between are whole books devoted to the concept, such as The Song of Songs and Hosea.  Isaiah and Jeremiah are filled with pictures of our bridegroom and of us, often as an unfaithful bride. Hidden in Psalm 45, the book of Ruth, and many other passages is Jesus, our kinsman-redeemer husband, our royal bridegroom. Jesus tells not one, but many parables about a bridegroom, a great wedding feast, and virgins who were not ready. Paul tells us that earthly marriages are a picture of a much deeper reality, the mystery of the relationship of Christ with His Bride, the Church. (Ephesians 5:32)

What is the main message we should gain from Jesus as our Bridegroom?

The Lord longs to help us understand that His heart is not for the rules and regulations of religion, but for a relationship of ardent devotion. God is looking for true worshipers who will keep a covenant relationship with Him. He rejoices over us and it breaks His heart to be forgotten, to see us running after other lovers, reducing our relationship to ritual, breaking our “marriage vows.”

But isn’t there a sexual connotation that is inappropriate?

Anytime a portrait is given to help us understand a holy God, it is possible to press certain aspects too far, distorting the meaning. Because we’ve talked about intimacy with God in this series, it has sometimes broken our hearts that some have only been able to equate deep intimacy with sex. God does use sexual images to convey a point, for after all, He created sex, but it is always in the purest and holiest sense. He desires oneness with us. He has made a covenant with us. He has betrothed us to Himself. In Hosea, He says:

I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness,  and you shall know the Lord.

Hosea 2:20

Paul tells us to keep ourselves pure until our Bridegroom returns, explaining:

For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

2 Corinthians 11:2

Throughout the ages, God’s bride has struggled with purity. She goes looking for love in all the wrong places. In Hosea, we are told:

She decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the LORD.

Hosea 2:13

Derek Kidner’s explanation is vital, worthy of repeating:

It is a bold and creative stroke by which God, instead of banning sexual imagery from religion, rescues and raises it to portray the ardent love and fidelity which are the essence of His covenant. [1]

But for many the use of sexual images in Scripture is upsetting. We believe this is because our world has polluted the beauty of the marriage bed. Sexual immorality is rampant and images of impurity flow, like a sewer, into our minds and hearts. And yet the holiness of the sexual union between a husband and wife has not changed. God still says: “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled.” (Hebrews 13:4) Clearly, marriage is a dim reflection of a deeper reality, that of Christ and His Bride.

(Kathy) Even as a single woman I understand the portrait. I may not have a husband, but I am living in the “deeper reality.” I am the Bride of Christ. I do not have an earthly sexual partner, but just as married women can understand the spiritual analogy, so can I. That is such a joy to me to live my life knowing I am in covenant with the living God. So though I do not have an earthly husband, the sexual images are still meaningful, not in an earthly way, but in a spiritual way. Jesus meets the deepest needs of my soul and tenderly directs me through this life.

When I met the Lord I was very much aware of Him as my Bridegroom, even more so than as my Father. I was telling Dee that even as a young believer I wrote a song called “Mr. Tenderness.” It was when I first took a glimpse of the pictures in Song of Solomon. In my newfound love for Christ, and His love for me, I was overwhelmed by the fact that He desired deep intimacy with me. Him calling me Beloved awakened my soul in a way I had not known, and, based on pictures from this Song, I wrote my own song, a song that shows intimacy is about relationship.

Your left hand under your little girl’s head
Your right hand embracing me Sweet Beloved
We are skipping over mountains,
bounding over hills
I’m sitting in the shadows to be led where You will
Your tenderness.Mr. Tenderness.

Awake O South Wind
Awake O North Wind
Spread the fragrance of my love for Him

Arise my Love
My fair one come away
Is what You said to me
on our lovely wedding day
Now I’ll cling to all your promises
Your love has set me free
I am my Beloved’s
His desire is for me

Your tenderness.Mr. Tenderness

In the morning I arise
to see the loving in Your eyes
so tender to me
And at the setting of the sun
I’m still embraced by my Loved One
So tenderly.

We understand that not everyone is going to be comfortable with the portrait of Jesus as Bridegroom, just as not everyone is comfortable with the portrait of God as Father. We tend to process spiritual things by our human experiences. If we have had negative earthly role models or painful experiences, the Lord as Husband or as Father will be difficult for us. But God is so good. In the process of growing in relationship with Him, healing starts to happen and we relate to God in ways He has so desired. In fact, one day, the portrait we pushed away may become the most meaningful one of all. In the meantime, let us give one another grace, as we all are at different points in our journey to the high places.

Is the portrait of Jesus as our Bridegroom just for Israel?

In Hosea, God is specifically addressing Israel. But in Hosea we also see the wonderful promise, the mystery, fulfilled in the New Testament, that God was going to make a people who were not His people, His people. Not only would believing Israel be His Bride, but the way would be opened to Gentiles who believe as well. The pleadings in Hosea are not just for Israel, but for each of us who believe.

Does the portrait of Jesus as our Bridegroom apply only to the corporate Bride, and not to us as individuals?

There are three pictures in Ephesians to describe the body of believers: a building, a body, and a bride. In each, there is an individual and a corporate application. Consider, for example, the building, or temple. Each one of us is, indeed, the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). Yet this picture also represents all of God’s people. (Ephesians 2:19-22) With the picture of the body, the hand should not say: “Jesus is talking to the whole body, so this isn’t relevant to me, the hand.” Yet the hand should also understand the value of the eye, and of cooperating with the eye, and of not seeing itself as superior to the eye. In the same way, the portrait of the bride, is clearly both individual (as in The Song of Solomon) and corporate (as in Hosea). However, even when the Church is being addressed corporately, there is always an individual application. It would be a great evasion to say: “God isn’t asking me, personally, to be faithful – this message is for the Church.” When John writes, “God so loved the world,” that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love us as individuals. God is so personal that He knows our names, the number of hairs on our heads, and our innermost thoughts. When He tells us He loves us, when He tells us He wants us to be faithful, He is talking to us as individuals, individuals who make up the entire body of believers.

Yet in emphasizing the individual aspect of this picture, it is easy to fall into the other error, neglecting the corporate picture. One young woman wisely observed: “So often women have a tendency to not get along with other women – to feel intimidated, to be easily hurt, to be jealous – so they withdraw from their responsibility to the body of Christ. Since Christ is preparing a Bride that is to be without spot or wrinkle, the goal is for the WHOLE bride to be that way.”  Another woman observed, “Sometimes individuals will not see the need to be involved in godly community and the local church. They fail to see that this is a primary way the Lord has provided for them. They’ll justify their lack of involvement, by emphasizing that you don’t need church to love God. I’m okay. Jesus is with me.

While the picture of the Bridegroom may be particularly meaningful to us as individuals, and particularly to us as women, it is vital to remember the corporate aspect. The Bride of Christ is made up of all believers: Jews, Gentiles, singles, marrieds, men, women, and children. There is a beauty in corporate worship, for example, that cannot be achieved alone. There is a beauty in loving one another, that cannot be achieved alone. There is a beauty in sharpening one another, in holding one another accountable, in praying and supporting one another, in coming under the protection of a local church, that cannot be achieved alone. If we are not actively involved in the body of Christ, we are not a beautiful bride. When John sees “the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband,” (Revelation 21:2), he is seeing the WHOLE Bride of Christ, in all her many faceted colors, made up of every tribe and nation, loving one another in holy harmony.

We understand the injustices and hurts that many have experienced with Christians. You can really get to the point where you don’t want “anything to do with them.” But no matter how hypocritical, sick, or healthy the body of Christ has been through the ages, it is still and always will be His body, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Scripture is clear we need each other and that forsaking being together grieves and angers the Lord.

Just how literal is Scripture being when it talks about Jesus as our Bridegroom?

Obviously there are times when Jesus speaks in metaphors. When He weeps over Jerusalem, saying He wished He could gather her as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings, we know He is speaking metaphorically. We also have learned that The Word likes to paint pictures to penetrate the heart. So, just how literally can we take the pictures of a wedding feast, a bridegroom coming on a white horse for His Bride, or of the Lord rejoicing over us with singing? The picture of the Bridegroom is a primary one, as is the portrait of the Father. How literal is it? It is much more than a metaphor, but it is also a mystery. Read carefully at what Paul writes about this picture:

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery but I am talking about Christ and the church.

Ephesians 5: 25-32 (NIV)

It is a profound mystery, but certainly an enthralling one, and not to be dismissed.

[1] Derek Kidner, The Message of Hosea, Inter-Varsity Press, Leicester, England, 1981, p. 33.