Featured The Bride of Christ is NOT the Church!

I think you are mistaken. There is the Church Universal. You seem to agree a lot with administrator TCassidy. Read his post, #52. And then tell me if you agree with him. Read his other post explaining his basis for determining Scriptural truth.

 

The Church Universal is made up of all of the saved in history, both now in heaven and here upon the Earth, and in the new Jerusalem, ALL of us will be gathered together as the full bride of Christ!

 

The church is the bride and body of Christ, so only saved persons are in her, and that would include the living and dead in Christ!

 

If the Church is not the Body and Bride of Christ, then what is it?

 

You are being over-literal in your interpretation of Revelation where the visions are signified.

We need to understand the visions, which are given to as by one who is our companion in tribulation. And our understanding has to make sense with Scripture revelation.

Y1 quoted below takes a very simple view that fits perfectly with Scripture.

God frequently expresses his relation with his redeemed people by the expression e.g:

Lev 26:12 - I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.
Jer 31:33 - “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Zec 2:11 - “Many nations shall be joined to the LORD in that day, and they shall become My people. And I will dwell in your midst. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent Me to you.
Heb 8:10 - “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says theLORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Rev 21:3 - And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.​

To underline Zechariah 2, God's call to Abram declared a blessing for all nations, through his Seed - Jesus Christ. Genesis 12, Galatians 3 so that Paul asserts:

26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.​

Scripture uses the husband-wife (bride) relationship between himself & his people in many places. It is the closest personal relationship, & expression of shared love. It is used to illustrate his relationship with his redeemed people. It is in a wonderful way our present relationship that we experience imperfectly but then when Jesus returns in glory with those who sleep in Jesus we will be caught up with them & be ever with the Lord.

The heavenly city of Revelation 21 is people - my people - and just as the New Covenant temple is being built with living stones so the holy city is built with God's people.

Notice how Leviticus 26:12 is echoed in Revelation 21:12

The city is made up of the redeemed people of God. Our personal relationship with God is a spiritual husband/wife relationship. The vast city full of God's redeemed people is compared to a wedding, where the relationship of all of us to God is husband/wife, & with each other in glory is to rejoice as fellow guests with the others as his bride.

It's wonderful, but essentially a very simple doctrine.

 

The city contains of all of the faithful, the Bride, the family of God. Filipe DENIES this.


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Well, the scriptures state that we are though!

 

I read, well perhaps skimmed, your opening post. While I instinctively disagree, since without study, I had accepted that the bride of Christ referred to everyone transferred into Christ and therefore in union with Christ.

Revelation 3:12 - He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; 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 out of heaven from My God, and My new name.

Those that overcome are those born anew in Christ, thus the group is comprised of called out ones, the church. It does not seem much of a stretch to say as a pillar is figuratively part of a temple, we could be seen as part of the city of God. So when the city building structure comes down, might not it be filled with "pillars?" Thus we would be identified as the bride of Christ.

 

I did not interpret it as saying the city was the church, only that the city included the church as inhabitants.

I did not spiritualize Revelation 21:9-10, the city coming down includes the structure and the inhabitants in my view.

 

Agreed, it is sound to avoid adding to scripture by making assumptions. Keep questioning the assertions of others, be as the noble Bereans, make sure what is asserted actually comes from scripture. iron sharpens Iron. (Proverbs 27:17)

 

In general, it is best to take the Bible at face value. But there are sections which contain a lot of symbolic language. The parts of the Bible which probably are the most "symbolic" are visions. The whole book of Revelation is full of visions.

I applaud Filipe for his willingness to think outside the box and for his desire to interpret the Bible as much as possible "at face value". However, the book of Revelation is one of the few parts of the Bible where interpreting it simply "at face value" may lead to many wrong interpretations.

On this particular issue, I think that the Bride of Christ does indeed refer to the church.

However, in terms of applying the Book of Revelation to our lives, I don't think we have to get the details of interpretation correct to get very important applications. Of course we should work to be as correct as possible, but we can get important life lessons without knowing the precise meaning of the many symbols and visions of Revelation.

I wrote about this in another thread, here:

The Book of Revelation is Practical and Applicable