The Bride of Christ?
By Roger Farrah
Many people do not understand the great significance between Christ as the groom and we (the church) the bride.
The following verses do not make much sense unless you understand the Hebrew wedding ceremony.
Acts 1:9-11
Now when He (Jesus) had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up and a cloud received Him out of their sight.
And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel.
who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.” (NKJV)
Daniel 7:13
“I was watching in the night visions,
And behold, “One like the Son of Man,
Coming with the clouds of heaven!
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
The Hebrew wedding ceremony
When a young Jew male comes to the house of a prospective bride and meets with the father of the bride. They negotiate a price. If the father accepts the offer, the young couple drink a benediction which the father offers of wine. The couple are married in Spirit. The groom goes away to prepare a place but the bride doesn’t know when He’ll return. He has gone back to his fathers house to prepare a place for her. When he comes back it is usually at night with a shout “make way for the bride groom cometh” and the sound of the trump. He does not enter the house but waits in the street, the bride and her brides maids come out and the friends of the groom surround them and go back to his fathers house. He and her enter the Hoppa they consummate the marriage physically. He rejoins the celebration and she remains protected, hidden… in the hoppa for seven days.
What I just described is what Christ was referring to in John 14:4.
John 14:1-6
“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, Believe also in Me.
“In My Fathers house are many mansions (dwellings); if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
“And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, No one comes to the Father except through Me.