Thursday

Related Verses
Rev. 19:7
7 Let us rejoice and exult, and let us give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.

Col. 1:18
18 And He is the Head of the Body, the church; He is the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, that He Himself might have the first place in all things;

Heb. 6:1
1 Therefore leaving the word of the beginning of Christ, let us be brought on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith in God,

Eph. 4:13
13 Until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

Eph. 5:24-25, 31-32
24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also let the wives be subject to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her
31 For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh.
32 This mystery is great, but I speak with regard to Christ and the church.

S.S. 1:10-11
10 Your cheeks are lovely with plaits of ornaments, Your neck with strings of jewels.
11 We will make you plaits of gold With studs of silver.

Related Reading
We need to pay attention to the phrase His wife has made herself ready. Matthew 25:1-13 speaks of the parable of the ten virgins. In this parable the prudent virgins who took oil in their vessels—who had the Spirit of God filling and saturating their souls—were those who “were ready” and thus went in with the bridegroom “to the wedding feast,” into the enjoyment of the marriage dinner of the Lamb at His coming back (v. 10). This indicates that God’s work throughout the generations is to build Himself into man…When He builds Himself into us, He constitutes the nature of God and the element of heaven into us. The more we allow Him to work Himself into us, the more we will have the element of God and the element of heaven in us…When we submit to the Holy Spirit, allowing God to work Himself into us, we have the presence of God and the taste of heaven within us. We can grow as God builds Himself into us. God’s building and our growth are for the preparation of the bride…The bride having made herself ready means that the church has been completely built up and has grown to maturity. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 4323) 

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To be ready in Matthew 25:10 [cf. 24:44] means that the bride has made herself ready, that God has completed His building work in man, and that we have grown and matured in the Lord’s life…These three matters are actually one matter. 

The church today is a miniature of the glorious New Jerusalem in the future, and it will continually grow until the day that it is fully grown. We grow through God’s continuous building work in us. The more God builds Himself into us, the more we grow…Our growing is actually God’s building (Eph. 4:12-13). 

There is no doubt that Revelation 19 will be completely fulfilled…The bride, however, cannot be prepared quickly. This preparation is a gradual work that takes place over a period of time…This preparation involves the work of a corporate building. Those who make up the bride must not only be mature in life; they must also be built together as the one bride. The primary work of the Lord in His recovery is to prepare His bride. In His recovery He is calling out a remnant of those who love Him and who are faithful to Him. He is sending out the call to overcome the degradation of Christianity so that a number of those who seek Him may be prepared as His bride. 

The bride, the wife, of Christ will be prepared in full by Him for His wedding as His pleasure and satisfaction. The preparation of the bride is by Christ’s redemption, organic salvation, and the intensified work of His organic salvation. Revelation 19 says that the bride is prepared fully by being properly adorned. Christ is now adorning us to make us His bride. Christ’s pleasure and satisfaction are His bride, prepared, adorned, in full. The coming of the marriage dinner of the Lamb in Revelation 19:7 refers to Christ’s marrying the New Jerusalem as His bride in the millennium. 

God in the beginning was merely God. He was alone. But it is not good for God to be alone (Gen. 2:18). He desires a counterpart. Jesus came not merely to be the Redeemer but to be the Bridegroom, and as such He needs a bride (John 3:29). Paul says that he had betrothed the Corinthian believers as a pure virgin to Christ (2 Cor. 11:2). Ephesians 5 reveals that the church is the wife of Christ, and Christ is the Husband. Then in the book of Revelation we are told that the wife has made herself ready and that the marriage of the Lamb has come (19:7). This will be a universal marriage in which the overcomers will marry Christ, our God. From that time God will never be alone. Our God will be a married God. He will marry the holy city, the New Jerusalem, as His bride. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 4323-4325) 

Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 424