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Like a Bride
Revelation 21:1-2
Brides are really careful with their dress. If you’ve ever watched a bride on the day of her wedding, she is watching like a hawk to make sure no little kids, no one, stains her dress. She wants that dress to remain pure and white. She wants to look her best for the bridegroom. John saw an image coming down out of heaven in the book of revelation, chapter 21.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, because the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. And the sea no longer existed. 2 And I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Revelation 21:1-2)
John saw a fantastic representation of the church, this new Jerusalem, that’s all who believe in Jesus the Savior. And he specifically saw that she was adorned, dressed, as a bride for her husband. So that image of the bride dressed in a white dress is very fitting for Christians to consider. If you then are a bride, figuratively dress for Jesus the bridegroom, how careful have you been with your dress?
I know that I have often rolled around in the mud of sin with my lies, my laziness, my greed, and smeared myself with the mud of those sins. It’s just like Isaiah said, all of us have become like one who is unclean.
Notice in the image, though, that John saw the bride is adorned for her husband. Something has happened. If we were to read more of the book of Revelation, we would see that this New Jerusalem, the people that belong to the church, have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.
The bridegroom sacrificed himself, shed his blood to cleanse the bride of all of her sins. That’s what Jesus was doing on the cross. He was taking the grime of your sins and actually claiming it as his own. Suffering and pouring out his blood in payment to cleanse you from all your sins.
So now God has a challenge for you. And that challenge is not to dwell on your sins, not to see yourself with all of your guilt, but to keep your eyes fixed on the bridegroom, Jesus the Christ. To see yourself as he sees you. Washed clean in his purifying blood.
Then you can be confident that you are part of this new Jerusalem. You are the bride adorned for the husband.
Your sins are forgiven because Jesus has washed them away in the flood of his blood. May God bless you and increase your faith so that you live out your life as the Bride of Jesus, the Christ in His name. Amen.
