TITLES OF CHRIST
THE BRIDEGROOM
DR. JIM DIXON
JOHN 3:27-30 & MARK 2:18-20
JULY 16, 1989
Things are getting pretty tough in Libya. It used to be if a Libyan man wanted to marry a Libyan woman, the bride price, the amount of money and wealth that the bridegroom had to give to the family of the bride, was an average of about 1,000 dinar, $3,500 with perhaps a camel or sheep thrown in. You see, that was about 20 years ago. Today in Libya, the bride price in many parts of Libya is an average of $12,000 and a brand new car. That’s what the bridegroom has to give to the family of the bride. In some parts of Libya, the average is $35,000 and a brand new car. You see, today in Libya when the doctor leaves the delivery room and comes into the waiting room and says “It’s a girl,” there’s a smile on dad’s face. But bridegrooms are not smiling and some of them are going to Egypt and Tunisia where the bride price is still only $200.
Our word wedding originally meant bride price and in England the wed was the earnest money that the bridegroom offered to the family of the bride. Now here in America and in the West, it is not customary to pay a bride price. But ask yourself, what you would be willing to pay for your bride? How much would you be willing to pay? What cost? You see, the greatest cost any bridegroom ever paid for any bride was paid by our Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says the church is the bride of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the bridegroom and the church is the bride. The Bible says “He purchased her with his blood, the precious blood of Jesus Christ.” We sang that hymn today, “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord.” From heaven, He came and sought her to be His holy bride and with His blood, He bought her and for her life, He died.
If you’re a Christian, if you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you’ve entered the church, the great bride of Jesus Christ, and there’s a sense in which you are married, married to Jesus Christ.
This morning I’d like us to examine this marriage of Christ and the church. Biblically, two words define this marriage. The first word is the word unity. The marriage of Christ and the church is a union. You see, the biblical word, the Greek word for unity is the word “henotes” from the Greek word “henos”, which means one. Even our word unity comes from the Latin word “enus,” which means one. You see, a marriage is two people becoming one. The Bible says, “A man shall leave his mother and father cleave unto his wife and the two shall become one.” Unity. Union.
Well, a Christian marriage between a husband and wife, the Bible says, is meant to be an illustration of a greater marriage, meant to be an illustration of this greater marriage, this greater union between Christ and the church. Christ and the church are meant to be one. The Apostle Paul says, “The man shall leave his mother and father cleave unto his wife, and the two shall become one. This is a great mystery, and I take it to mean Christ and the church.” As Jesus Christ loved the church and gave His life for her, so it is a Christian husband is to love his wife and give his life for her each day. As the church looks to Jesus Christ and seeks to honor Him in her life, so it is the Christian wife is to look to her husband and seek to honor him. The church, Jesus Christ, joined unity. This union is meant to provide strength. You see, good union always produces strength.
If you look at the back of a dollar bill, you’ll see the great seal of the United States of America. If you look on the face of the great seal, you will see the words “E Pluribus Unum”…“one out of many.” One nation out of many states, the United States of America, a union, a unity.
You see, on December 7th, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. They attacked Hawaii. They sunk 18 ships. 3,500 people were either killed or injured. But they didn’t simply attack Hawaii, because Hawaii was joined and is joined to the United States of America. It was not yet a state, but it was the United States territory, married, married to the United States, and the next four years the United States rose from a great slumber with incredible strengths. 20 million American men went to war. $200 billion spent by this nation and an incredible display of strength that this nation might not fall. You see, there is not a foreign power in the world today, there is not a foreign nation, no matter how hostile to the United States that would think, “Well, you know, let’s go attack Colorado. We can take Denver.” There’s not a nation that would think that way because they understand Colorado’s married, married to 49 other states and that union brings strength. Well, that’s how it is with the marriage union, strength. The two become one.
Have you ever read Ecclesiastes, the fourth chapter, how it speaks of two becoming one and the strength when one falls the other is there? That’s how it is with a marriage. You comfort each other, you encourage each other. You see, someone cannot attack Barb without attacking me because we’re joined. Someone can’t attack me without attacking Barb because we’re one and there’s strength there. In the midst of a hostile world where many things can go raw, where many people can fail, we’re best friends. That’s what a marriage is meant to be. From that union, we draw strength.
Now, if that is true of an earthly marriage, how much more is that true of this greater spiritual marriage between Christ and the church and between Christ and the Christian? Nothing should be a greater source of strength in your life than your union with Jesus Christ.
You see, I met this last week with three different people who’ve just gone through divorce. Their spouse left them. Their spouse filed for divorce. In one case, the spouse said, “I still love you. I’ll always love you, but I’m not in love with you and I want to find somebody I’m in love with.” Hard to even imagine the pain, the rejection that someone feels going through a divorce like that. But you see, these three people I met with this week all have one thing in common: they all have a greater marriage. They’re all joined to Jesus Christ. They love Him, and they believe in Him, and they draw strength from that union. Even though their spouse rejected them, and they are wounded to the core, still they carry on. I know they will continue to carry on because they have strength that is supernatural and it comes from this deeper marriage to Jesus Christ. He gives strength. The world can’t possibly understand. Jesus Christ says to you, you who believe in Him, you are joined to Him, He says, “I’ll never fail you.” He says, “I’ll never forsake you. I’m with you always, even to the end of all time.” You’ll never get a better promise than that.
Chuck Swindoll says that in this world, we need to learn to hold things loosely. We need to hold things loosely in this world. We need to hold our children loosely, need to hold our jobs loosely, need to hold our money loosely, even need to hold our spouse loosely. Because you see reality is you might lose them. People do. But the Bible is clear. There’s one person you don’t have to hold loosely, one person you’ll never lose, and that one person is Jesus Christ. He’ll never fail you. He’ll never forsake you. He holds you tight and He wants you to hold him tight. Joined. Union. What can separate us from the love of God? What can separate us from the love of Christ? The Bible says “Tribulation, persecution, famine, peril, nakedness, sword…know in all these things we’re more than conquerors. I’m convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, things present, things to come, nor anything else in all of creation can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.” Union. It’s meant to give you strength, but you see, you can’t really be married to Christ, you can’t really have this strength of this union with Christ unless you’re willing to be transformed because this unity of marriage with Christ requires your willingness to be transformed. That’s how it always is in a marriage. You can’t really have two becoming one unless there’s a willingness for transformation and change.
Let me give you an example. Years ago I had a strange method of taking care of my clothes. When I was in college, this is hard to admit, but I had a system, and my system was that when I took my clothes off, if they looked like I could wear them again, I threw them over the chair. If it looked like I couldn’t wear them again, I threw them on the floor. Now, in this system, when it got to where I couldn’t walk anymore, then I gathered them off and I washed them. Then, as I had need, I would iron a shirt or a pair of pants and then, you know, if it looked like I could wear them again, I’d throw it over a chair. If not, I’d throw it on the floor. Now, this system worked okay for me because in college and in graduate school, the guys I roomed with had pretty much the same system. But you see, then I married Barb and Barb had an entirely different system. She used things called closets and hangers. If you could wear it again, you hung it back up. If not, you put it in the dirty clothes hamper. Well, you see, when we were married, if I really wanted union, if I really wanted to become one, I had a choice. Transformation had to take place if we were really going to be united. And who do you think was transformed? I learned to hang my clothes up when I could wear them again and put them in the dirty clothes hamper. Change. Transformation. Well, you see, if you really want a marriage, you’ve got to enter that marriage willing to change. If you really want marriage union, you’ve got to enter that marriage willing to change.
In a Christian marriage ceremony, oftentimes there’s a part of the ceremony, the wedding ceremony, called the unity candle. In the unity candle, the bride and groom come forward to the altar and they take…there’s usually three candles on the altar, and the two outer candles are lit prior to the ceremony and they represent, those two outer candles, represent the life of the bride and groom apart from each other. But there’s one center candle, and that one center candle is usually thicker and larger and it represents their union. As the bride and groom come forward to the altar, they take the two outer candles and they join in lighting that one center candle, which represents their union. “A man shall leave his mother and father cleave unto his wife, and the two shall become one.” They light that one center candle and they blow out, they extinguish, the two outer candles.
I’ve done hundreds of weddings. I’ve seen hundreds of unity candle lightings. I’ve seen strange things. I’ve seen brides unintentionally light their veil on fire. I’ve seen a bride and groom struggle to light that center candle and not be able to do it because the groomsmen had cut the wick on the center candle. I’ve seen brides and grooms unintentionally blow out the center candle when blowing out the outer candles. And of course, I’ve seen bride and grooms say, “I don’t know…I don’t know whether I want to do a unity candle. I don’t know whether I really want to become one and I don’t know whether I really want to risk that and the change.” Sometimes, I’ve had a bride or groom say, “Well, I’ll do a unity candle, but only if I’m allowed to keep the two outer candles burning.” Maybe that’s okay. I mean, obviously there’s a sense in where you still have two people here and they have their distinct personalities. But sometimes when the bride and groom say, “I’ll only do it if I can keep the two outer candles burning,” they are really saying, “I don’t really want to become one. I’m afraid of transformation. I don’t want to be absorbed in this other person.” I had a bride say to me, “I don’t mind two becoming one. I just want to know which one.”
Now you see, when you come to Jesus Christ, when you come to Jesus Christ and you receive him as Lord and Savior and you become part of that great bride called the church and you enter into union with Him, unity. The Bible is very clear; it’s the church that needs to be transformed. We, the believers, part of the bride, we need to be transformed. We need to become like Jesus Christ. You’ve got to want that. If you don’t really want to be transformed, if you don’t really want to be changed, if you don’t want His heart, if you don’t want His mind, if you don’t want His very spirit, you’ll never really experience marriage union with Him. “Do not be conformed to this world,” the Bible says, “be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”
There’s another word, a final word we’re looking at this morning in discussing this marriage of Christ in the church. A second word that describes this great marriage between Christ and the church and it’s the word “fidelity.” You see, marriage is a union, but it’s a union that can only be sustained if there’s fidelity. This word fidelity comes from the Latin word “fidelitas,” which means faithfulness. There must be faithfulness in a marriage.
I know you’ve all heard of Princess Anne. She is, of course, is the daughter of the Queen of England. She is royalty. She’s married to a commoner, a man named Mark Phillips. According to the Denver Post and the London Daily Mirror, they have a happy marriage arrangement but they don’t live together. They live quite separate lives and they admit that they’ve had many sexual affairs, both of them, and that she has a lover at Windsor Castle where she has an apartment, a man who works there. They say they respect each other very much and they have a good marriage. In the eyes of the world, maybe they do have a good marriage. But in the eyes of God, that’s an abomination and it’s a desecration because there’s no fidelity. Marriage requires fidelity, faithfulness. When a Christian man and woman are married, they make a vow of faithfulness in the presence of God and many witnesses. When I said to Barb, “I, Jim, take you Barbara, to be my wedded wife, and I do promise and covenant before God and these witnesses to be your loving and your faithful husband in plenty and in want and joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, til death do us part.” Faithful unto death. That’s the marriage covenant.
It’s more than a curiosity, if you look at recent American history, that marriage is having trouble. In 1921, out of every seven American marriages ended in divorce. One out of seven. In 1940, one out of every six marriages in the United States ended in divorce. In 1960, one out of every four marriages. In 1972, one out of every three marriages ended in divorce in this country. In 1977, one out of every two marriages ended in divorce in this nation. More than 2 million marriage licenses were granted in that year, and more than 1 million divorces. That ratio, one to two, continues to this present day. Obviously people are willing to take each other for better or for worse, but not for long. Part of the problem is fidelity. There’s a lack of faithfulness that is reflected in perseverance. God wants you to know, Christ wants you to know, if you’re a Christian and you’ve joined this bride called the church, He requires faithfulness of you. He wants you to know that He promises to be faithful to you, amazingly so.
Have you ever read the book of Hosea, that little book in the Old Testament? Hosea was an eighth century prophet of Israel. He was kind of unusual, very unusual for a prophet of God because, you see, he married a prostitute. You might say, “Well, why did he marry a prostitute?” He married a prostitute, the Bible says, because God told him to. God came to him as recorded in Hosea, Chapter 1. God said, “Go take yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry.” So Hosea married Gomer, a prostitute. They had children. Gomer had three children, but they were not by Hosea though they were married. They were illegitimate children, children of harlotry. Then she found her way back into the street and began to practice harlotry. Then you have this amazing moment in Hosea, Chapter 3, where again God speaks to Hosea and says, “Go get your wife again. Go get your wife again and bring her back to you and love her. Love her even though she loves adultery.” Amazing.
Well, you see, it was all meant to be an object lesson for the nation of Israel that God might speak through the prophet Hosea, for God said to Israel, “I have married you. I’ve entered into covenant with you. You are my bride. I didn’t choose you because you were virgin pure. You were a harlot and I married you and you’ve not walked in faithfulness. You’ve continued your harlotry, but I still love you and I still want you to come back to Me.” But you see, the message of the book Hosea was not simply meant to be a word of comfort. God wasn’t saying, “Continue in harlotry, I love you anyway.” God was saying, “Look out.” The book of Hosea is a warning. “I will not forebear unfaithfulness forever. I will not forebear harlotry forever. Come back to me, be my pure bride.” And they refused. Three years later, Israel fell, conquered by the Assyrian empire.
God demands faithfulness. Christ is married to the church. I hope you understand the church is in great trouble today. The institutional church, the visible church, even the main line Protestant denominations, they’re questioning the deity of Christ, the full authority and inspiration of the holy scriptures. They are questioning the urgency of the gospel, the relevancy of biblical moral and ethical values. There are people who take the name of Christ and call themselves Christians and say, “Jesus Christ is Lord” and they continue to live for themselves however they want to live. There are people who call themselves Christians and live in accordance with the ways of the world and claim to belong to the world to come. It is a warning from the bridegroom to the bride.
The Bible prophesied that in the consummation, before the close of this age of the world, the church, the bride, will commit apostacy and enter into harlotry. This is being fulfilled in our time. As a church, we desperately want to be faithful. I hope and pray you want to be faithful. Have you ever read the first three chapters of the book of Revelation where Christ gives a message to the seven churches: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia? The message is consistent. The call to His bride is a call to faithfulness and the warning is that harlotry will be judged. He demands faithfulness from His church. He demands faithfulness from you.
In 2 Corinthians, Chapter 11, verses 2 & 3, the Apostle Paul writes to the Christians in Corinth and Paul says, “I betrothed you. I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband, but I’m afraid that as the serpent beguiled Eve, so Satan might beguile you and lead you to walk astray.”
Are you walking faithfully with Jesus Christ? Are you living in accordance with His Word? Do you really want to be His bride?
In Matthew, Chapter 25, Jesus Christ refers to Himself again as the bridegroom and He says that “At the consummation, at the close of the age, the bridegroom will come again to this world to claim His bride.” He says, “Some people will be ready, some will not be ready. Some will be found faithful, some will not be found faithful. Some will have oil in their lamps, some will not.” But the choice is yours. He’s the bridegroom. He’s married to the bride, the church. If you’re a Christian, He’s married to you. He wants union with you, that you might have strength that is supernatural. This world can never understand. You must be willing to be transformed if you’d be married to Him. And He calls us to faithfulness fidelity. Let’s close with a word of prayer.