Sometimes Simple Is Best

Rhetoric:

Dialectic:

In Revelation 21 we read that God shows the Bride of Christ, the Church, to John the Apostle. This is what we read, “9 Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Rev. 21:9). An angel says to John that he will show him the bride. Then we read this next:

“10 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, 11 having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. 12 It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed— 13 on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. 14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”

John hears that he will see the bride of the lamb, and then he turns and is shown the city of God, Jerusalem. Just like in Revelation 5 where he is told about the lion of the tribe of Judah, but turns and sees that lamb that was slain. He hears one thing and sees another. In Revelation 5 the lion and lamb are twin images of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. In Revelation 21 the bride and the city of God are twin images of the people of God.

This image here of the city harkens back to Revelation 3 where the Church in Philadelphia is promised this,

“11 I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. 12 The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. 13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches’” (Rev. 3:11-13).

The church in Philadelphia, and we can safely assume this promise applies to all the churches, is promised that they will be named after the city of God, the new Jerusalem. And then we see in Revelation 21 that the bride, which we know is the Church of Jesus Christ, is “the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.” The Bible interprets itself for us there. The church is the bride and the holy city. 

If we keep reading we see that this city is constituted of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel and the 12 Apostles of the Church,

“12 It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed— 13 on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. 14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”

So, in this passage we have one bride, which is also this one city, and this city is constituted of the faithful believers of the Old Covenant Israel and the New Covenant Church. In other words, the Church and the Israel are all part of the one people of God, the one bride of Christ, the one city of God. God has only one bride and it constitutes the people of God beginning with the work God did through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and culminates in the people whose foundations were laid by the Apostles.

The image is clear here. We are not to see Israel and the Church as distinct images of God’s people, but as two parts of one whole, the bride, the church, the people of God. The two have been brought together, as Paul talks about in Ephesians 2. The Church of God is built upon the tribes of Israel and the Apostles re-framing of Israel in accordance with the teachings of Jesus. They are one. 

You can make this case with a simple image, or with a more detailed point by point argument. Either way, both these arguments point to a biblical reality: there is one people of God, and you can call it Israel, or the Church, either way God has only one bride.