Video Study 4 “Beauty Forever”
Reading: Revelation 18:1-13; 19:1-10; 21:9-22

The Goal

Anyone with a conscience must have asked God at some time; “Why does there have to be so much evil and suffering in this world?”  There is a highly related question that only Christians can ask; “Wasn’t there some other way to get us to heaven other than through the anguish of the cross?” Since most of the churches addressed by Revelation were compromising with the idolatrous-hedonistic culture of the time they obviously did not believe in the absolute indispensability of the way of the cross. Many churches today are much the same, and whatever their reputation cannot understand these words from Paul, “Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.” (Eph 6:24 ESV), Or inwardly appreciate Peter’s counsel to Christian wives who are to image the Bride of Christ, “Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewellery, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” (1 Peter 3:3-4 ESV). God has called the whole Church to be a Bride whose love for his Son is immortal and whose beauty is indestructible. These are qualities that are being formed in us NOW in the crucible of the cross.

Someone once said to me, “I have never seen an ugly bride.” There’s something mystically true about this but it is profoundly difficult to understand. For while joy and celebration at a wedding seems to cross all cultures most marriages in this world are pretty ordinary affairs; even amongst Christians.  We need to have a revelation in the Spirit that the healing of the entire cosmos involves the wedding of the Lamb and his Church. Everything that has ever happened in this world has one great overarching purpose, to prepare a Bride fit to marry Jesus.

Corruption

The foundational nature of marriage in every society and its global celebration stems from the fact that our first parents were married before the Fall. The blessing of the Father as he brought Adam and Eve together filled this foundational marriage with joy and pointed forward to what creation would finally become for the Lord himself, one vast marriage chamber (Gen 1:26-28; 2:21-25). In Eden the pleasures of the first couple in one another mingled unashamedly with the delight of their Father (Gen 2:25)[1]. They were blissfully innocent but not yet perfect.

I remember being in bed with Donna early one morning on the Turkish coast. Even though she was asleep, she was radiating her usual extremely attractive personal presence. In the midst of this awareness of my mortal wife the Lord began to speak to me as so he often does of eternal things. It became crystal clear to me that Donna is not a corrupting influence in my life. To be grasped by this revelation of the incorrupt nature of a true bride is to see into the ruin of the original creation.

God created us with desires, but evil desire is at the root of the degradation of the universe. Peter testifies, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.” (2 Peter 1:3-4 ESV).

Genesis records Satan directing Adam’s wife to the tree of knowledge and that she saw it as “good…a delight to the eyes… and to be desired to make one wise”; immediately she ate (3:6). Eve fell into sin the moment she took her eyes off not only the pleasure, goodness and wisdom of the Lord but also off the man God had given to her to delight in, as he was. She desired things not given her by her Creator and Father (Luke 3:38; Acts 17:28). In rebelling against God, Eve, soon to followed by Adam, also rebelled against her husband[2].  The corruption amongst human relationships means love for its own sake is never enough; there is always a felt need for something “more” than what you have been given. As Satan accused God of depriving his children of all they needed for a full life, so fallen human beings accuse one another of not being able to meet one another’s needs. Such a chronic desire for something more in relationships is constantly driven by a sense of shame (Gen 3:7).

Since the corruption of relational breakdown imparts a deep sense of the loss of glory and immortality men and women desperately feel the need to “cover up”. Adam and Eve used fig leaves (Gen 3:7) but the whole of human civilisation as we know it is a “cover up”. (JY example: tried to cover over my sense of failure/emptiness by academic success.) The Climax of this world’s corrupt shaming system of controlling and being controlled is what Revelation calls “Babylon.”

Come Out of Babylon

In Babylon you can buy and sell anything, “gold, silver, precious gems, pearls; fabrics of fine linen, purple, silk, scarlet; perfumed wood and vessels of ivory, precious woods, bronze, iron, and marble; cinnamon and spice, incense, myrrh, and frankincense; wine and oil, flour and wheat; cattle, sheep, horses, and chariots. And slaves—that is, human souls” (Rev 18:11-13). Nothing has changed in 2000 years. Of course anything can be bought and sold in Babylon, for is “the mother of prostitutes” a harlot “drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” (Rev 17:5-6). If God’s great mystery is Christ and his Bride (Eph 5:31-32), the mystery of evil is a city without a bride (Rev 17:5; 18:23). This is a city that lives by raw pleasure without any lasting joy, a city without marital bliss. Babylon is our world dominated by its idols of leisure and pleasure, but as no idol ever laid down its life for its worshipper Babylon has no place for the Lamb[3].

Immediately before we are introduced to the marriage supper of the Lamb this chorus breaks out in heaven, “I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” Once more they cried out, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”” (19:1-3). When God purges the universe of the lust of Babylon all that is left will be pure love.  But the End is not yet. Another cry comes from heaven, ““Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues;”” (18:4 cf. Isa 48:20; 2 Cor 6:17 cf. John 17:14, 16). Babylon is so pervasive and intrusive that there is only one way to come out of the evil city, submit to the beautifying  process that God has set out in the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world (13:8 cf. 1 Pet 1:10-20).

For Beauty and for Glory

The vocation of the church between the first and second comings of Christ is to look like a woman who is so in love with her husband that she is preparing herself to be married to him forever. For this her love for him must be incorruptible and can only be formed in one way.

Earlier I quoted Ephesians, “Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.” (Eph 6:24 ESV). This description of pure love comes after Paul’s famous passage on spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6. Our battle with “the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” is a miniature version of the titanic struggle between Satan and the saints in Revelation. Paul’s confidence that pure love will always conquer evil is echoed repeatedly to the churches in Revelation, it is always “the one who conquers” who will inherit the future with God[4] (2:7; 3:5; 21:7). The mystery of the necessary place of evil in beautifying the Bride is a deep one; at its heart is a revelation of holiness.

The deepest teachings on the Bride of Christ in the New Testament come from two unmarried men, Paul and John; they understood pure marital love because they were holy. God created the world to have a holy bride for his Son who will worship him no matter what. All false/corrupt worship is an exchange system. Moslems worship Allah in order to get to Paradise, the goal of Buddhist devotion is Nirvana, and so on. The inspiration of all idol worship comes from the spirit who said to Jesus, ““I will give you all… authority… and glory… if you will worship me.”” (Luke 4:6-7). To worship a G/god in order to gain personal profit is the highest form of corruption. The Satanic-Babylonian spirit stands in direct opposition to the message of Revelation.

Twice John is so overcome by the glory of an angelic message that he falls down to worship the messenger. The reply is immediate and absolute, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Revelation 19:10 ESV cf. 22:8).  ““Worship God.””, this is the unifying message of the scriptures, the testimony of Revelation and the meaning of creation; “Worship God.” as he has been revealed in the Lamb.

When we hear “Worship God.” our minds need to go not to a typical Sunday church service but to the apocalyptic scenes of the Revelation with the beheading of Christians and the great Harlot “drunk with the blood of the saints” that refuse to deny the sole Lordship of Christ and bow down to idols (13:10; 17:6; 20:4). We all know of cases where the worship leader/pastor is leading a compromised life and seems still to be doing a good “job” of leading “worship”.  How can such things be?

I remember being at a conference in our city listening to song after song speaking skilfully performed by the worship pastor of a local megachurch; after awhile, when the names Father, Son, Spirit, Jesus, Lord or God had not been mentioned ONCE, let alone the cross, I spoke to my friend next to me and said; “We need to get down on our knees, the spirit of antichrist has taken over this meeting.” To be the Bride of Christ is a matter of the most intense holiness and the absolute antithesis of entertainment!

Hear the word of the Lord, “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” (Rev 2:10); “And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” (Rev 12:11); “If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.” (Rev 13:10). When there seems to be no discernible reason to be a Christian, when it feels like you have been cast into the abyss of rejection and the seeming absence of the presence of God, and you choose nonetheless to worship him, this is the point where our love for Jesus begins to be like his own, love incorruptible. This is when we start to know something of what it is to be loved by the Lamb our heavenly Bridegroom. (JY example: no ministry, no church “But if I have you I have everything.”) True worship, worship to the point of death produces a radiance (incandescence) that will ultimately penetrate everything.

Radiance

“Then came one of the seven angels… saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.” (Rev 21:9-11). The Bride is the city and the city is the Bride so pure as to be like a great see-through crystal.

The wall of the city of God is “like clear glass”, “the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass” (21:18; 21). The whole city is like one giant prism through which the light of the glory of God streams uninterruptedly without dilution or refraction through the new creation. The Lamb stands in the middle of the city (22:3) because it is the power of his blood that has cleansed this world from all its stain so that a new creation arises saturated with the fragrance of the glory of God. The cross illuminates everything. The best way I can explain this is through sharing several of my experiences.

Last year I was walking down a street in Phnom Penh littered on both sides with foul smelling rubbish and an open drain on one side of the road running with the greyest water I have ever seen.  As I was praying surrounded by this filth it was if I could see in the Spirit what the Father saw when he looked at the cross, I could see that he did not look at the cross so much as look through the cross, through the absolute purity of heart (cf. Matt 5:8) of the sacrificial Son dying for the world, and what he saw was himself, he saw the fullness of his own glory perfectly imaged without any defect, distortion, corruption or stain (Col 1:15)[5]. The glory of the Lamb slain for us is the glory that fills the eternal city (Rev 21:22ff).

This is also the vision of the glory of the Church. The Father sees the Church presented to Jesus as a Bride in “splendour, without spot or wrinkle … holy and without blemish.” (Ephesians 5:27 ESV). The mystery of the eternal plan of God for the world is that in the End we will see God as God sees himself (1 Cor 13:12; 1 John 3:2). This is the perfect oneness of marital bliss planned from the beginning of time.

One of the most profound experiences of my life happened in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. When you enter the chapel that stands over the site where Jesus was stripped and nailed prostrate on the cross, a large painting faces you. As I looked at the face in the painting something strange and wonderful happened, I was engulfed with a sense of immeasurable beauty. It was as if I could hear the Father speaking about the sacrifice of the Son, “This was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” That Jesus would be submissive to his Father to love his Bride so much as to die for her is the source of all the beauty which will fill the new world.

The Old Testament spoke prophetically of these wonders. “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” (Isaiah 61:10 ESV); “You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.” (Isa 62:3) Cf. Ps 45:10-11; SoS 2:10.

A Bride sprinkled with the blood of Christ, what I call a “blood-ified Bride”, is exceedingly beautiful (1 Pet 1:2). As a sacrificial bride she shares in the life-giving aroma of Jesus and is saturated with the sweet fragrance of the cross (2 Cor 2:14ff.; Eph 5:2) The Church begins to fulfil her eternal destiny as she radiates the glory of her husband (cf. 1 Cor 11:7) by sharing in the power of his death and resurrection (Phil 3:10). As I was so strongly attracted to the incorruptibility of my wife on the Turkish coast, Jesus overwhelmingly desires to bring his own glorious illuminating presence to his wounded Bride.

Application

A love that has freely suffered for the beloved is the substance of the final joy and incorruptible beauty of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb to the glory of God the Father. In the light of such things, Revelation, a book so strange and misunderstood, becomes transparently a bridal manual whose apocalyptic images and severe warnings are seen to have the one purpose of preparing us for the wedding at the climax of all history.

Revelation can be heard as a prophecy only by those who are “in the Spirit” (1:3, 10; 22:10). “In the Spirit” we discern the distinctiveness of Christ’s love for us as his Church[6]. The beauty and glory of this unique marital affection is seen only through the through the wounds of the cross. As we our union with Christ are rejected as useless in the eyes of the world we see more and more the glory of God[7].

The Bible teaches us to live in a strange rhythm of feasting and famine. Jesus said, ““Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”” (Matt 9:15 ESV). In a world which refuses to recognise Jesus as Lover and Groom we will often be called to a life of various deprivations for the glory of God (cf. 2 Cor 8:9).

Whatever the mourning (Matt 5:4) we know that no power can stop our marriage with Jesus from going ahead and its festivities will go on forever; “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” (1 Peter 4:12-14 ESV).

We have had a conference on The Bride of Revelation, but in heaven we will be exploring the depths of this marriage forever and ever. I am reminded of something Donna said at the marriage of one of our daughters. “I have never found marriage boring.” May it be our testimony, whatever the cost, that to be betrothed to Jesus is endlessly interesting.

That was going to be the end of this sermon, but I sensed this morning the Lord was posing for us a challenge. “Am I your greatest desire?”