4.3 Spirit Bride
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Although much of what we will peruse in this lesson will be found in the concept of a Spirit Bride, we must first complete the concept of a Spirit Body.
In whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:21-22). We add to this verse its expansion in Ephesians 4:16. —Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
In the Spirit. Now, these are among the most incredible verses in the entire Bible. Yet they are found entirely inside of Ephesians 3:19 – that you might be FILLED with all the fullness of God.
Consider the short phrase in Ephesians 2:22, “a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” When we once read hurriedly, we seldom considered what “IN Christ” actually meant, and even less so, “IN the Spirit.” “In the Spirit,” “by the Spirit,” “of the Spirit,” “with the Spirit” are all phrases that are taking on for us now very specific and concrete realities, realities by which God is, literally and actually, building a House for Himself out from our life together as the Church.
Many Waters. Here is the reality of God’s voice being heard through our reciprocal sharing of word with word. – His voice as the sound of many waters (Revelation 1:15b).
Now, John is seeing and hearing Christ IN His Church, yet the symbol the Spirit uses for the church is the lampstand, meaning Himself. It is the anointing of the Spirit that causes the Church to be Jesus seen and heard. We have all experienced when it seemed that the same word was coming through different voices all at the same time. God speaking through many voices is not one individual who is “the man with the word.” Rather, it is the thread flowing through the words of many.
Nonetheless, the Church has not yet known this experience of being the very voice of God as God intends.
Not OF Us. Before looking at the Bible’s joining of Spirit and Bride, we need to consider a most critical requirement for God to be free to make Himself Heard and seen through our gathering together. That the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. This absolute is the key to God making Himself known.
In ourselves, we are an expression of our own unique persons, that is, Christ as us. But in the gathering together, we together become something far more than “Christ as us.” Through the gathering together, God in Person appears THROUGH our gathering to show Himself seen and heard. Thus for us, it’s all about Someone we know, love, and regard with all fervor, who now has the liberty to engage directly with His creation through our gathering together.
Another Image of “Christ.” Now, over the last 41 years I have been involved to some degree with more than three deeper truth streams of word. Let me define “deeper truth.” – Christ in us now, resulting in the manifestation of the sons of God setting creation free. –
And always, it has been some form of “the Christ within,” separate from Jesus and from Father (the big faraway Dudes who did something and now are expecting us to do something). And being “manifest” was always ruled by the image of powerful people as very solitary individuals performing many outward miracles on the one hand and exposing sin in false hearts on the other hand. Oh – and making everyone obey. Yet this image always places “others” as there for the exaltation of the “Christed one” and leaves Father out in the cold.
Two Views of the Same Gift. In the story I recently read, two “callers” were presented. These were individuals who had the gift of calling forth the invisible to be seen and heard by all. One viewed his ability to “control” the invisible realm as his own, under his control and serving his momentary purposes. The other knew she was only a channel, that she was the means through which other great personages, highly honored by her, could show themselves to the people of the kingdom.
When the showdown between the two callers finally came, the result was simple. The one who used his knowledge of the invisible realms for his own benefit had no power at all. The victor knew that none of it was of her or for her, yet she was highly honored, yet she never grasped for “control.”
God Himself. I include this story, because when I see a concept expressed inside a story, it becomes so real and practical to me. And I justify my use of so-called “new age” concepts because the work of the Spirit in the Church is just that. The difference for us, however, is that we maintain full Communion with a Personal God and we seek only to know what God means by what He says in His Word to us.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels SO THAT the power flowing through us is God Himself in Person; we’re just along for the ride. The sign of the manifestation of the sons of God is FIRST and FOREMOST love one another – a full, reciprocal love among many together – God Himself in Person.
The Feast. Setting our hope on the Feast of Tabernacles being fulfilled in the life of the Church, something that is at the door, is not an idea originating with me. It is, rather, a revelation of Jesus Christ coming through a very definite stream of Church history, of which I share the joy of being a part. What I have done is combine the meaning of the Third Feast fulfillment together with our present union with Christ.
Have you ever experienced God Himself flowing as Love between you and another believer who is equal in the full knowledge of God? Or among you and several? – Neither have I. Yet Jesus SAID – Love one another.
Seeing the Spirit Bride. With that thought, let’s turn our focus to a Spirit Bride. I can see that all of the Spirit ministries, Spirit fruits, and Spirit giftings fall into this larger concept of a Spirit Bride. But a Spirit Bride begins by our conception inside the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit inside of the Church. You and I were not “born again” as isolated sons of God. We were conceived inside of the Church inside of the Holy Spirit in exactly the same way that Jesus was conceived inside of Mary inside of the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.
The Bride is the Bride BECAUSE she is filled with the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who brings the Bride to the Groom. And a Bride is all about romance and marriage.
Married. Here is where a verse from Isaiah crowding into my thoughts for some time finds a place for itself. You must know that, although Paul’s gospel of our union with Christ is our rule over every word in the Bible, I take the seeing of Isaiah at a similar level as the seeing of John. It’s not that we stack one writer against another, but rather, as Paul said, rightly dividing the word of truth, meaning cutting a straight line, that is, correctly apportioning how each passage fits the larger whole. (Isaiah 62:3-5)
You (Jerusalem – the Church) shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord… For the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.
I Do. So shall your sons (that’s you and me) marry you, the Church of Christ. The signing of our name upon God and His upon us the fifth time is our saying, “I do,” in final and binding commitment. That’s when we go through the Veil, now our flesh, together with our Father to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ to His Bride. I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church (Colossians 1:24). You see, I’m not making this up.
And so it is my hope to fit a number of the love stories of the Bible into the reality of our life together in Community.
A Love Story. “Your land shall be married” is a love story. And the love story of God is found coming through One only. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts THROUGH the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Romans 5:5).
And here is where we place all the ministries of the Spirit, all the giftings of the Spirit, all the workings of the Spirit in the midst of the Church – they are a love story being told every moment between Christ and His Bride. Here is something else to consider. It’s not the girl who wins the love of the man; it is the Man who wins the love of His Delight.
Jesus MUST Win Her Heart. Now, the agony a young man endures in his desire to win the love of his intended is something I KNOW a good deal about.
The relationship between Christ and the Church is often portrayed as a commander giving orders and being obeyed, with the responsibility of love placed as a burden on the woman. Such a view comes from one place only – the curse of bullies. If Jesus fails to win the heart of His Bride, that’s His fault, not hers. Yet His Bride is a prostitute! Yet He MUST win her heart. Beating her with sticks in order to drive her from prostitution may result in changes in outward appearance, but it will never win her heart, for her heart remains unhealed.
It is the Spirit flowing out from us who wins her heart.
Romance. In my earlier letters (now in The Great Story of God) I made use of two modern love stories, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, and Sprig Muslin, by Georgette Heyer. I am certain these or stories like these will find their way into the meaning of a Spirit ministry inside a Spirit Church.
Here’s what I said before – Jesus will marry only a woman who knows that He has conformed Himself to her, that He loves what she loves, enjoys what she enjoys. It is not up to the woman to conform herself to the man; it is up to the man to conform Himself to His beloved. –
Yet the role of the Spirit inside the romance of this Love Story is a role that goes in both directions at the same time. You IN Me AND I IN you.
Jesus in Love. We are talking ENTIRELY about life together inside the Church, about every local Christian Community. And we are talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, revealing Himself to His intended through you and me, winning her heart for Himself.
When we make ourselves eunuchs for His sake, something that happens only by the practice of being the Mercy Seat, we find a transformation taking place inside of us. We find ourselves, in a moment of final decision, stepping out through the Veil, now Jesus Himself in love with His Church.
Knowing Jesus Sent – Being in love with the Church as all those who call upon Jesus inside the Holy Spirit – SAME THING!!!
My Agony. And now that I find myself, strangely in love with the Church as Jesus Himself, what agony grips my heart? I now know with all certainty that the Word that fills me full is His Word, the Seed of God. And I would plant that Word into her womb, the Word of Jesus her only life, that she, millions of Spirit-filled believers in Jesus, might bring forth the very LIFE of God inside this heaven/earth.
Here is my agony. For seven years, I knew that Maureen was given to me by my Father as my intended. Yet I could not speak to her. And through those seven years I watched other young men, win and then marry their beloveds – over and over. Yet I did not know how to speak to, let alone win, mine.
Waiting for Love. It was in a Christian Community school where I first visited with my beloved. It was in a Christian Community tabernacle where she walked down the aisle to stand by my side. I’m telling you, this whole thing is a Love Story.
Yet even then, as the Lord, through Maureen becoming my wife, showed me that He does what He says, there was another love inside of me, a deeper love, a love I could not name or even imagine winning such a love for myself. Even then, at age 33, I held in my heart the conviction that God would also bring me into a marriage union with a people who knew God as I would know Him, and that we would fall in love with one another, many together as one.
And from then until now, I have been waiting for Love.
God IS Love. God is NOT displays of miraculous power or laser beam eyes that see all hidden sin; God is NOT bright shining lights or dazzlingly perfect spiritual fireworks. God IS Love. And God cannot be seen as He is apart from LOVE flowing fully and freely among us in all reciprocity AND as we are “earthen vessels.”
This Love among us, Father, is all that Love is, from Love in word AND in deed, to Romance and Marriage, to the highest regard and the gentlest of tenderness. And when the people of this world see this love taking place among us, a love experience you and I have NEVER known, they will know they are seeing God.
There I Am. Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there I AM, in the midst of you (Matthew 18:20). – That in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ… (Ephesians 1:10). – Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (Revelation 21:2).
The experience of Pentecost was a radical transformation of individuals as believers as well as the gathering together. That transformation, though of the Spirit, was as a seed to be planted in the earth. The transformation of the Church in the experience of Tabernacles will be like that, only far more so. For Tabernacles is not the planting of one Seed, but the harvest of Many Seeds. The fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles in the life of the Church right here on this earth, right now in this age, is this Bride of Christ appearing out from the heavens and taking the form of dwelling together, LOVE among us, in Christian Communities across the entire planet.
The Romance of Love. And this Bride exists by the function and essence of the Holy Spirit filling all of the connections of her gathering together. – Not by inward ability nor by outward devices, but by My Spirit says the Lord (Zechariah 4). – It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh (is just a channel and not the source of anything), the Words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life.
You see, there is no Bride that is not one made up of many. And the reason God joins the metaphor of a Spirit Bride to the metaphor of a Spirit Body is to cause us to know that the essence of our gathering together is not functionality; it’s not outward doing; it’s not even setting creation free.
The essence of our gathering together is Love, the romance of Love – God seen and known as He is.