The Harlot and the Groom

Marriage points to a lasting reality: Christ and His church. Though she has been spiritually adulterous, He has made a new covenant by His blood. He has bought her, and she is His in life and in death.

Luther exults in this:

Here this rich and divine bridegroom Christ marries this poor, wicked harlot, redeems her from all her evil, and adorns her with all his goodness. Her sins cannot now destroy her, since they are laid upon Christ and swallowed up by him. And she has that righteousness in Christ, her husband, of which she may boast as of her own and which she can confidently display alongside her sins in the face of death and hell and say, “If I have sinned, yet my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned, and all his is mine and all mine is his.”

He has done all this, for He is the true Bridegroom. Let all those who have never known a marriage bed say, He is the One we have longed for, and in Him we will never feel deserted again.

He is the true Bridegroom. Let those in the happiest marriages say, He is the One we have longed for, and all the best marriages in this life are but pale shadows of Him.

Soon Christ will come, and the Bride will see Him Who gave Himself up for her. She will have made herself ready. She will be without spot or blemish, standing in a righteousness not her own. He will wipe every tear from her eyes.

This is what the first marriage only approximated, even at its best moments. This is the reality, unsullied by the Fall and by History, anticipated by the Prophets. This is what we have waited for.

The first time the first groom saw the first bride, he laughed out a love song. Now what will happen when the True Groom sees His Bride?

Come, Lord Jesus.