The Bride of Christ or bride, the Lamb's wife is a term used in reference to a
group of related verses in the Bible—in the Gospels, Revelation, the Epistles
and related verses in the Old Testament. Sometimes the Bride is implied through
calling Jesus a Bridegroom. For over fifteen hundred years the Church was
identified as the bride betrothed to Christ.
Ephesians 5:22-33 compares the union of husband and wife to that of Christ
and the church. The central theme of the whole Ephesians letter is
reconciliation of the alienated within the unity of the church. Ephesians 5
begins by calling on Christians to imitate God and Christ, who gave himself up
for them with love. Ephesians 5:1-21 contains a rather strong warning
against foolishness and letting down one's guard against evil. Rather, the
author encourages the readers to constantly give thanks with song in their
hearts because of what God has done for all in Christ. That prelude to the
subject's text takes up again the theme of loving submission that began with
the example of Christ in 5:2 where all
are called upon to "Be submissive to one another out of reverence for
Christ." 5:21 It implies, but is not specific, that the "Bride"
is the body of believers that comprise the universal Christian Ekklēsia (Church) (lit. "called-out
ones")
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The ekklēsia is never explicitly
called "the bride of Christ" in the New Testament. That is approached
in Ephesians 5:22-33. A major analogy is that of the body. Just as husband
and wife are to be "one flesh," this analogy for the writer describes
the relationship of Christ and ekklēsia.
Husbands were exhorted to love their wives "just as Christ loved the ekklēsia and gave himself for it. When
Christ nourishes and cherishes the ekklēsia,
he nourishes and cherishes his own flesh. Just as the husband, when he loves
his wife is loving his own flesh. Members of the ekklēsia are "members of his own body" because it is
written in Genesis 2:4 "and the two shall become one flesh". In
Jesus quotes the Genesis passage as what has been called a "divine
postscript.”
In writing to the Church of Corinth in 2 Corinthians 11 Paul writes to the
Corinthians warning them of false teachers who would teach of another Christ
and confessing his worry that they will believe someone who teaches a false
christ; other than Christ Jesus of Nazareth whom they preached; and referred to
the Church in Corinth as being espoused to Christ. "For I am jealous over
you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may
present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the
serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus,
whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not
received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear
with him.
In the writing to the Church in Rome, Paul writes, "Wherefore, my
brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye
should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we
should bring forth fruit unto God" (emphasis
added). Here, Paul seems to suggest that the Church is to be married to
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom was raised from the dead.
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