And there came one of the seven angels which had had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, and spoke with me, saying, Come here, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.
Near the end of Revelation, an angel invites John to see the bride, the wife of the Lamb. Both the wording of that invitation and the messenger who brings it point back to an earlier vision in the same book.
He is one of the seven who poured out the last plagues. One of that same group had earlier shown John the judgment of Babylon, the false wife. Writers treat the repetition as a signal.
One great feature of the seven bowls was the fall of Babylon. That fall prepared the way for the marriage of the Lamb and the appearance of the bride. So the angels who poured out these bowls are fitting messengers. They were sent to show first the judgment of the false wife, and next the glories of the true... The similarity is not accidental. It shows a link that sharpens the contrast between the two things pictured.
The false wife made a claim she had no right to. The true one is everything Babylon only pretended to be.
Babylon had claimed to be the bride of Christ, but the claim was false. The angel had shown her in her true character, and the judgment from God that would finally overwhelm her. After her destruction the marriage of the Lamb took place in heaven. Now the true bride, the Lamb's wife, is shown in all her beauty. She expresses the thoughts of God, as Babylon had expressed the thoughts of man.
Verse 9 does not carry the story forward from verse 8. A new guide arrives, and the vision changes.
The scene and the person change suddenly. That shows this is not a continuation of the vision we have just been looking at. A new person comes as John's guide... This guide opens a new sight to him. He had already seen it in a general way in his vision of the eternal state. But now its detailed glories will be unfolded before his eyes.
Commentators differ on the exact period in view. Several read the section that follows as a picture of the city during Christ's thousand-year reign, not in the eternal state:
We are brought back from the eternal state to a long description of the bride, the Lamb's wife. Here we see her relation to Israel and to the world at large during the thousand-year reign.
She is not called the wife of the King or the wife of the Judge. The title points to His suffering.
The church is called the Lamb's wife, because He suffered for her. It is impossible without suffering to bring out the fulness and savour of love.
The verse uses two titles at once — bride and wife. The second says something about her own path, and about the order in which glory comes.
Both "bride" and "wife" appear in this same verse, and a careful look at the Scriptures helps us tell the two thoughts apart. As "wife" she stands related to Him as "the Lamb." As the Lamb He walked a path of humility and suffering, even to death. Now, in His exaltation, He will have at His side in the running of the kingdom one who is in every way morally fitted to share His throne. "The Lamb's wife" suggests that she has known the path of suffering herself, in sympathy with the One she loves. Scripture holds to a principle: suffering comes before glory.
The angel promises John a bride. The picture that follows is also a city.
As with Babylon, so here two symbols are brought together — a woman and a city. On the surface they look like a mismatch, but not once we come to their meaning. The one shows what the church will be to Christ; the other, what she will be for Him. As the bride, she is the object of His love. As the city, she is the centre from which His powerful rule will go out.
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The vision exists because Christ has an object of affection, and this is her.
As the Bride of the Lamb, the Church is viewed as wholly for Christ the object of His love, and care, and delight. It is this aspect of the Church that we desire briefly to consider. It is an aspect of the Church that, in a special way, brings into display the love of Christ, and for this reason appeals very directly to our hearts.
That love has not waited for the day of display to begin working.
The bride presents the church as the object of Christ's intimate love. As such He loved it and gave Himself for it. As such He has nourished and cherished it in tender love all through its wilderness journey. The church may be weak, failing, persecuted, scattered and broken. Yet it has never ceased to be the object of His love and affection.
- Contrast. One of the same seven angels who exposed the false bride now unveils the true one. Set the counterfeit beside the genuine, and the beauty of the genuine shows.
- Pause. Verse 9 does not advance the timeline; It goes back to fill in a city already seen in outline.
- Cost. She is the Lamb's wife because He suffered for her. Nothing but suffering could bring out love's full flavour.
- Fitness. She shared the path of suffering, so she is fitted to share His throne. Suffering comes before glory.
- Two words, two truths. Bride tells what she is to Him — His love's object; city tells what she is for Him — the seat of His rule.
And he carried me away in [the] Spirit, [and set me] on a great and high mountain, and shewed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God,
The last vision of the Bible opens with John lifted to a mountain-top. He sees a city coming down from God, and the angel showing it to him is one of the seven who had already shown him Babylon. That pairing raises the questions of this verse: why a mountain, why a city, and what John is really looking at.
Babylon and the bride are set side by side on purpose, and so are the places John saw them from.
Babylon claimed to be the bride of Christ, but the claim was false... Now the true bride, the Lamb's wife, is shown in all her beauty — the expression of the thoughts of God, as Babylon had been the expression of the thoughts of man. To view Babylon, John was carried in spirit into the wilderness, a scene of moral drought and desolation. To see the holy city Jerusalem he was carried away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain. Moses looked out over the promised inheritance from Mount Pisgah. In the same way John is allowed to see promise and prophecy fulfilled in this glorious city, from the high place where the angel set him.
Throughout this book John's standing place always suits what he is about to see.
It is striking how different the standpoints are from which John views each vision as it passes before him in this book. Each place suits what he sees. He stands on the "sand of the sea" to see the beast rise "out of the sea"... The "wilderness" is a fitting place from which to see the symbolic Babylon, drunk with the blood of saints and martyrs of Jesus.
The mountain is not only scenery. It pictures the state of soul needed to take in what is shown.
It takes no great moral height to spot and name evil. A man of the world can go far in condemning the corruptions of Christendom. But the natural mind is completely unable to enter into the things of God. Even true believers will only value the coming glories of "the bride, the Lamb's wife" as they are lifted above the things of earth and walk apart from the corruptions of Christendom.
Older English versions read "that great city, the holy Jerusalem."
As far as the bride of the Lamb is concerned, "the great city" is left out by everyone who claims to give the best reading from the most ancient authorities. They read Revelation 21:10 as "showed me... the holy city Jerusalem." It is not a question of greatness for her even when glorified, but of holiness. What Babylon aims at and wins — at the cost not only of herself but of truth, grace, and Christ Himself — is present earthly greatness.
The angel promised John a bride and then showed him a city. The two are not separate things.
It seems clear that this New Jerusalem is not a real city. It is described not as the home of the bride, but as the bride herself, and her marriage to the Lamb has already been celebrated in heaven. Its shape too, shown in the verses that follow, is a beautiful symbol of the divine symmetry of the true Church. But no real city could have that shape.
Others see the vision covering both the people and the place they will live.
We judge from many a detail that it is not solely a symbol of the saints themselves, but rather a symbolic description both of the Church in glory and of her eternal home.
The two images — woman and city — say two different things.
The one sets out what the church will be to Christ. The other sets out what it will be for Him. As the bride, she is the object of His love. As the city, she is the centre from which His powerful rule will go out.
Every word of the city's origin is deliberate.
"Holy" describes its state. Then other marks follow. It "descends out of heaven" — its source stamps its character — "from God." It might have been from God, and earthly. It might have been heavenly and angelic. It was neither. It descended out of heaven from God.
She comes down, but she never lands.
This heavenly Jerusalem — the bride, "descending out of heaven from God" — does not come to the earth. She is let down so that the earth may see her glory, the glory of God displayed in her.
- Lifted. The wilderness showed Babylon; the mountain shows the bride. God gives the standing place that matches the sight.
- Separated. Condemning corruption needs no height; seeing the coming glory does. Only souls raised above earth take this vision in.
- Holy. The better text drops "great." Greatness was Babylon's ambition; holiness is the bride's character.
- Bride. The angel promised a bride and showed a city — not her address, but herself: love's object, and the centre of Christ's rule.
- Descending. Not from earth, not from angels — out of heaven from God, and let down near enough that the earth can see the glory shining in her.