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The Bride of Christ

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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 29, 1878

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 4, No. 33.

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The Bride of Christ.

By James White

SERMON TWO—CONCLUDED.

TEXT: "And there came unto me one of the seven angels, which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife." Rev. 21 : 9.
In the description of the city the prophet continues :—
"And the building of the wall of it was of jasper; and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass." Would God the professed church of Jesus Christ was pure gold; but we venture to say that in the popular church of our day there is not more than one per cent pure gold, and we very much question whether there is more than ten per cent pure gold in the best church under the heavens. We might continue this form of reasoning to almost any extent; but the foregoing is sufficient to show the unsoundness of the figurative interpretation and to establish the only safe rule of interpretation that every text of the sacred scriptures should be understood as meaning just what it says unless by the text and the context there is the clearest proof that a figure or parable is introduced. When we attach the mystical application to these texts, we find ourselves in the fields of fancy, where there are as great a variety of interpretations as there are fanciful interpreters. These will deny the personality of God and of Christ, although Paul in writing to the Hebrew Christians says :—
"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Heb. 1 : 1-3.
Two things are here plainly stated. 1. That Christ is in the image of his Father, and that both of them are personal beings. Those who can deny the personality of the Father and Son with such language before them, will not find the least difficulty in turning the literal city of our God into mist and moonshine. They shut up the very heavens, and hide from the people the tangible glories of God, his Son, the holy city, the heavenly sanctuary and the ministration of our adorable Redeemer. When we once adopt a mystical and imaginary interpretation, there is no stopping place. God, we are told, is an invisible spirit diffused throughout the universe; Christ when he ascended up on high immediately ceased to be a being that could be seen; his return is a spiritual coming, making the blessed angels make a false statement at the mount of ascension when they said, "This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Acts 1:11. Go one step farther, and the literal resurrection of the dead is denied, and they too become immaterial spirits, and you can adopt the language of the old hymn,
"Beyond the bounds of time and space, Look forward to that heavenly place, The saints secure abode." Space is somewhere. Beyond space is nowhere. An immaterial spirit cannot be seen, cannot be weighed, cannot be measured; in act, it is simply nothing. Then, according to the theology expressed in the above lines, when God's dear saints go to heaven it is nothing—going nowhere. These interpreters can just as easily dispose of the new earth which is to be the saint's inheritance; but the reasoning of the apostle Peter is to the point. He speaks of three worlds. The world that drowned by the waters of the flood, the world that now is and is reserved unto fire, and the world that shall be when purified by fire and restored to its Eden glory. He says :—
"Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water; whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." 2 Peter 3:3-7.
These three worlds are three conditions of our sphere and are not to be understood as figurative but literal. If we understand them as figurative we can as easily have a figurative Noah, a figurative flood, figurative men who were drowned figuratively by figurative water, as a figurative earth, but a view which involves so many absurdities should be abandoned. No sane man will question the existence of the patriarch Noah, or that he built a literal ark, or that the inhabitants of the Noatic world, were drowned, literally drowned. Being forced to admit these plain facts in sacred history, they are compelled to admit also that the world that now is, is reserved unto literal fire, and that the new heavens and the new earth will be this world when sin and sinners cease to exist, and when the throne of God and the Lamb shall be located upon it, and they reign as tangible beings throughout the ceaseless rounds of eternal ages.
The prophet continues the description of the city and the beings that shall dwell in it. "And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb."
In that city will be the thrones of both God and the Lamb, and the water of life will flow out from them. "In the midst of the street of it, [or, as another translation reads, broad street of it, showing that there are many streets, but one grand thoroughfare], and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." We read of but one tree of life in all the Bible. Man in his purity had a right to the tree of life, but in the sad event of the fall, we find that when man was driven from Eden, the cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way was set to keep the way of the tree of life, lest our first parents should continue to eat of that tree, become immortal sinners, and thus sin become immortalized. After this, we find statements in reference to that tree in descriptions of redemption. As the tree of life was in holy Eden, Adam's home, so it will be in the holy city, the home of the Redeemer, of the holy angels, and of the redeemed.
Through the telescope of faith we look just yonder, and see the golden city with its twelve foundations, its golden gates, its broad street, and the tree of life, glittering with the light that proceeds from God and the Lamb. There will be the saints in immortal beauty and glory. Here they gather around the tree of life, partake of its fruits, and with the golden cup of God drink from the river of life. "And there shall be no night there [in the city], and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign forever and ever."
The sun and moon will shine upon the earth as it now does, and for any thing we can find in the book of God, the earth will revolve upon its axis, giving days and nights, and years; and months will be marked by the phases of the moon to all eternity; but in the city the light that is poured forth from the throne of God and the Lamb will so overpower the light of the sun that they will appear as a dim taper to those who shall view them from the city.
In the language of the prophet Isaiah, "Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." Isa. 24:23.
That the holy city is to be the very headquarters of the universe where the throne of God and the Lamb will be located is evident from the language of Rev. 22:3: "And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it." Mark well this one fact, that the throne of God and Lamb are in the very locality on which fell the curse by reason of sin.
If it can be shown that the curse fell upon the moon, then the throne of God and the Lamb will be in the moon. If it can be shown that the curse fell upon some imaginary sphere in the center of the universe, which may be called the third heavens, then the throne of God and the Lamb will be there; but as the curse fell upon this sphere, the throne of God and the Lamb will be the metropolis of the new earth.
Our world has a remarkable history. When God had formed it, he declared his work very good. It then had the impress of its Maker's hand. But man basely violated the reasonable command of God, and introduced sin and the curse. And when all was lost in Adam, the star of hope for a doomed world appeared in Christ. Here the typical offerings were made, pointing to Christ through which for the two former ages believing men and women looked, and saw Christ, and were saved. Here the blood of the prophets, and apostles, and millions of the holy martyrs of Jesus has been shed. Here the divine Son of God had a lowly birth, preached his own gospel, walked upon the earth a man among men, ate of its bread, drank of its waters, and here was condemned as a malefactor, and died the cruel death of the cross.
But he is to return again. Blessed be his adorable name. And from this earth is to reanimate the numberless hosts of the redeemed. And why should not a sphere which has such a record be honored as the very head-quarters of the universe? "What," says one, "This little world be thus honored?" Was such a question asked by the holy beings of heaven when the proposition was made that Christ should visit it, and die, the just for the unjust? Its dimensions were not then taken into account. If large enough to call for the spilling of the precious blood of God's only Son, is it not of sufficient size to be honored as the locality of both the thrones of the Father and of the Son? We leave the question resting upon the validity of God's living word as meaning what it says. And as the prophet of God was borne to a high mountain, and viewed the golden city in its descent to this earth, may God lift up the church, and give them that spiritual sight by which they may also see that city in all its glory, resting upon the new earth, which will be the inheritance of the saints of God.
And as Adam and Eve lost Eden by breaking the commandments of God, as their posterity have been wandering from the gates of paradise these six thousand years, subject to sin, to pain and to death, let us thank God that it is our privilege to take their back tracks, and by keeping the commandments of God be restored to that city and that inheritance with a right to the tree of life.
We leave the reader with the benediction of the Son of God: "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." (Rev. 22:14.) Amen.
J. W.