Please turn to Revelation 19. We will read from Revelation 19:5-10.
And a voice came out from the throne, saying,
Give praise to our God, all ye His servants, ye that fear Him, the small and the great.
And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunders, saying, Hallelujah: for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigneth.
Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready.
And it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they that are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are true words of God.
And I fell down before his feet to worship him. And he saith unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren that hold the testimony of Jesus: worship God; for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
May we commit His word to Himself.
Dear Lord, we do want to thank Thee that Thou hast gathered us together unto Thyself. We are here in Thy presence. We are here to hear what Thou hast to say to Thy people. Speak, Lord; Thy servants are hearing. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I was asked by the brothers to give an introductory word for this conference. The theme of this conference is found in Revelation 19:7: “His wife hath made herself ready.”
John, on the island of Patmos, was given a heavenly vision. In that vision, when we come to Revelation 19, he heard a voice coming out of the throne of God:
Give praise to our God, all ye His servants, ye that fear Him, the small and the great.
This voice from the throne was answered by another voice—a voice from all the servants of God and all who fear God. It was like the voice of a great multitude, the voice of many waters, and the voice of mighty thunders. That voice said, “Hallelujah! Praise be to the Lord, for the Lord our God, the Almighty, hath taken to Himself kingly power. Let us rejoice and exult and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb is come.”
This is a voice of victory, a shout of victory. It is an explanation of what the Lord has done through the centuries. Our God, the Almighty, has taken upon Himself kingly power. He has destroyed all His enemies, those that oppose His will and purpose, and He has accomplished all that He desired to accomplish in His own people. Everything that God planned from the very beginning has now come to fulfillment.
What is that for which God has acted throughout the ages? It is the marriage of the Lamb.
Brothers and sisters, even before the foundation of the world, God had a purpose in His heart. He loves His only begotten Son so much that He wants to give the best to His Son. Because of this, He created the universe.
But all these celestial and terrestrial beings in the universe are not His main objective. They merely form a background to that masterpiece which God was going to make. God’s masterpiece is the creation of man.
Now, brothers and sisters, man was created by God altogether differently from all other created beings. In Genesis 1:26, we are told:
And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.
God had never done that before. When He created the universe, He spoke the word, and it was done. Yet, in creating man, God had a counsel among the three Persons. The result of that counsel was, “Let Us make man.” And God made man in His own image, after His likeness.
Now, we all know that “image” here does not refer to outward appearance. Image refers to the inner character, the inner characteristics of the being. When God created man, He created man in His own image. That is to say, the very makeup of man is after the makeup of God.
Our God is Spirit. Because of this, when He created man, He breathed into the nostrils of man. In other words, He created man with a spirit—a spirit that can commune with God, who is Spirit; a spirit that has the capability and capacity of receiving the life of God; a spirit that can be in communion and also in union with God in life.
Our God is the supreme will in the universe, and when He created man, He created man with a free will—a will able to choose voluntarily life and God Himself. God created man with a mind, a mind that can understand God and appreciate God’s will. God created man with feeling, a feeling that can feel after God, love God, and receive God’s love. Furthermore, God created man with a body, a body that can carry out the will of God.
Our God is the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When God created man, He created man a tripartite being—a man with a spirit, a soul, and a body. Man is created in God’s image and after His likeness.
Of course, there are different opinions about what that likeness may mean. Some say it is simply an emphasis, the same as image. Others say that image refers to the inward makeup, while likeness refers to the outward appearance or outward form.
Brothers and sisters, we know that God is invisible; He is Spirit. Yet among the Godhead there is One who has a form: the Son. If you read Ezekiel 1, you find that Ezekiel saw a vision, and in verse 26 he saw something like the likeness of a throne. There was the likeness of a man sitting upon the throne.
In other words, among the Godhead there is One who does have a form, and it is the second Person of the Trinity. So we wonder whether man’s body may actually be formed after the likeness of the second Person of the Godhead. We are not too sure about that, but it is another opinion. In any case, we find that man is created special.
Now the question must be asked: Why is it that God created man in such a special way? The answer is not in man. The answer is in God’s Son.
Brothers and sisters, God loves His Son so much. He wants His Son to have a life companion. He wants His Son to be satisfied with one who is like Him. But this is a mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages.
We are told in Ephesians 3 that, one day, God revealed this mystery by His Spirit to the apostles and prophets. This mystery of God had been hidden in God Himself throughout the centuries, until at the very last He revealed it to us.
Why did God hide this mystery for so long? It is because the time had not yet come. Before the coming of the Bridegroom, there could not be the revealing of the bride. Christ, our Lord, must always have the preeminence. It is not man; it is not the church. It is Christ who has the preeminence.
Only after Christ came into this world was this mystery, hidden throughout the centuries, revealed. That is the reason why man was created special. Man was created for the very purpose of satisfying God’s beloved Son. Man was created for one purpose: to be His bride, His companion, His wife.
Before we go further, there is another thing we should notice. When God created man, He created man in such a way that, in the very creation of man, He had already painted a picture.
In Genesis 1:27, after God had decided to make man in His image and after His likeness, we read:
And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.
So, brothers and sisters, in the very creation of man, God shows that man is to be one in two, and two in one. They are two, and yet the two are one.
When you read Genesis 2, you find that God first formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and man became a living soul. Then God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.”
God brought all the creatures before Adam. Adam viewed every creature and gave them their names, but he could not find his counterpart. So God put Adam to sleep, and out of his side God took something. The Bible says that God took something from man, and with that something He built a woman.
When Adam awoke, God brought the woman to him. Adam looked at the woman and said:
This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
The two were joined into one. In the very manner of the creation of man and woman, God had already painted a picture. That picture is that one day His own beloved Son will have His life companion, and the two will become one.
When you read Ephesians 5, it tells us of the mystery of marriage. A man and a woman are made into one; that is a mystery. But that mystery is only a type, a representation of a greater mystery. The greater mystery is the union of Christ and the church.
Every time there is a marriage on earth, it is really a reminder that one day there will be that eternal marriage. There will be a marriage when God’s Son will have His bride.
Let us go back again to man. Man is created in God’s image and after His likeness. That is to say, man is created in such a way that he is able to receive the life of God into him, so that God’s life will become man’s very life. That life in man is to grow until it is conformed to the image of God’s own Son. That is the will of God.
Man has to grow. Man has to mature. Even though man is created in God’s image, there is only potential there, and that potential has to be developed into reality. Man has to be conformed to the image of God’s own beloved Son. Until that happens, the marriage has to be postponed.
Unfortunately, we find that man, by his free will, chose death instead of life. Our forefathers, Adam and Eve, rebelled against God’s word. They ate the forbidden fruit, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because of that, a great distance was formed between God and man.
It seemed as if God’s purpose in creating man for His Son was frustrated. Yet God can never fail. In the fullness of time, God sent His own beloved Son into this world, born of a woman, born under law, that He might deliver us out of the curse of the law and bring us into His sonship.
We do thank God that, even though man failed from the very beginning, God never fails. God never gives up. He continues to work until one day His Son came into this world. The incarnation: the Word became flesh, full of grace and truth.
Our Lord Jesus, when He was on earth, not only declared our heavenly Father to us, but He also demonstrated the Father’s love by going to the cross to bear the sin of the world. There, upon the cross, His blood was shed for the remission of sins. He gave His life that we might have life.
By His death and resurrection, we who believe in the Lord Jesus not only have our sins forgiven, but we have received a new life in us. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, we are told:
Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.
This new creation is not only an individual matter. When you come to Ephesians 2:14-15, you find that our Lord Jesus made both Jew and Gentile one. In Himself, He formed the two into one new man.
Our Lord Jesus came to restore the man that God had in His mind. While He was on earth, He was a man according to God’s own thought. He demonstrated to the world that there is such a man. But this man is not merely one individual; this man has to be two in one.
That is why He not only had to come into this world and show the world what that man ought to be, but He also had to die. He had to go to the cross in order to bring many into that one new man. Out of every nation, every tribe, every tongue, and every people, God has called a people unto Himself. This people is one day to be His bride.
Brothers and sisters, having His life is just the beginning. That life has to grow within us. That life has to grow to maturity, because if it does not grow to maturity and become conformed to the image of God’s own Son, it cannot be His wife, His bride.
Therefore, there is a process that has to go on. We who have His life in us also have His Spirit in us. Our Lord Jesus today is sitting at the right hand of His Father as our great High Priest, interceding unceasingly for us, because He is able to save us to the uttermost, to the very end.
As our Lord is interceding for us, the Holy Spirit, whom He has sent to dwell in us, is working. He is working within us to mature us, to bring us into the full stature of Christ, that we may be His life companion, His counterpart. This is the work that has been going on throughout twenty centuries.
Now, in Revelation 19, the Bible says, “His wife hath made herself ready.” In other words, this is not merely a work done upon the wife. It is a work in which the wife herself has to make herself ready.
What does that mean? According to 2 Corinthians 11, the apostle Paul said that he had the jealousy of God in him. He was jealous for the Corinthian believers, those who had received the life of Christ. He said:
I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
Brothers and sisters, we as believers have been engaged to one Person, our Lord Jesus. We are supposed to be chaste virgins, wise virgins. Because we are engaged to that Person, that Person should occupy our whole being, our whole heart.
What are we waiting for? What are we doing now? We are preparing for that day—the day of marriage with the One to whom we are engaged. That should occupy our whole being, our whole heart, our whole feeling, and our whole mind.
To a chaste virgin, there is no one and nothing in her mind or in her heart but the one whom she is to marry. Brothers and sisters, is that true with us today? How are we going to make ourselves ready? How ready are we?
If this readiness is left to us, I am afraid that the marriage will never come. Look at ourselves. How do we live day by day? What really occupies our hearts? Are we really looking forward to that day when our Bridegroom shall come and receive us to Himself? Do we live as chaste virgins?
Are we able to prepare our wedding garment? You know, every day and every hour is the time of weaving our wedding garment. Without that, there can be no marriage.
This wedding garment is not something that we put on outwardly. This garment is something woven inwardly. It is character. It is the character of Christ being woven into our very being.
Brothers and sisters, who is competent? Who is able to do this work? If it is left to us, we are all hopeless. But thank God, the reason why the wife has made herself ready is because she has been given a bright, pure linen garment, which is the righteous acts of the saints.
We were like the prodigal son. We wasted all that God had given to us. We were in starvation; we were nearing death. But thank God, His Spirit convicted us to return.
As we returned to God, what did we have upon us? Rags. Isaiah tells us that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. When we came to God, what could we bring to Him? All righteousness of our own is as filthy rags. It cannot cover our moral nakedness before God, and it is filthy in the sight of God.
But thank God, He took away our filthy rags and clothed us with the best robe. This best robe is Christ, our righteousness. We have no righteousness of our own, but God has clothed us with Christ as our righteousness. Because we are clothed with Christ as our righteousness, we have boldness to appear before God, to stand before God, and to be accepted.
If you read Psalm 45, this clothing is like a gold garment. Gold represents the nature of God. Therefore, we are clothed with Christ. He is our gold garment, and with that gold garment we can stand in His presence.
But, brothers and sisters, this is not the wedding garment. In Psalm 45, we are told that over and above this gold garment, there is raiment of embroidery. That raiment of embroidery is her wedding gown.
To embroider a garment takes much time and much patience. You have to do it stitch by stitch. When the needle goes through in every stitch, there is some pain, cost, patience, and love. Eventually, that raiment is ready.
Who is the weaver? You are not the weaver. I am not the weaver. We are not the weaver, because we love ourselves too much. Just a little pain, and we jump up and say, “No, no more.” Thank God, we are not the weaver, but we are to be woven.
The weaver is the Holy Spirit of God. Oh, brothers and sisters, I cannot thank God enough for the patience of the Holy Spirit. How patient He is with me. How often I cry out, “No, no more. Hands off.” But lovingly, He embraces me, comforts me, and continues with His work.
The Holy Spirit is weaving Christ, His character, into our very life. The life of Christ in us has to grow, but there is so much opposition and so much resistance. Our flesh is so strong. We often bemoan our weakness, but, brothers and sisters, it is our strength that is the problem.
How God, in His love, has to constrain us and break us down until we are willing to put ourselves in His hands and let Him do His weaving. He will do it. No matter how long it may take, He will finish it. That is the only reason why, one day, the bride has made herself ready.
Brothers and sisters, it is all of grace. The righteous acts of the saints are practical and real. They are the righteous acts of the saints. But do not think that it is our work and that we can boast. It is the work of God. It is the work of the Holy Spirit.
All we can do is cooperate, yield ourselves to His hand, and be willing to let Him work in us. God respects us so much. He will not do anything against our will. If we are not willing, He will wait. And how long He has waited.
Do you think we are waiting for Him? No, He is waiting for us. We cannot destroy His purpose, but we can frustrate Him. We can delay Him. That is the reason almost two thousand years have gone by, and there is yet no sight of the Bridegroom.
The responsibility is ours. The work is the Holy Spirit’s, but the responsibility is ours—each one of us. Are we willing to give ourselves completely to Him, to that piercing work? Like clay in the potter’s hand, will we allow Him to mold and fashion us according to His good pleasure?
He wants to incorporate Christ, His character, into us. When that is done, He has His life companion exactly like Him, so that He can come and receive her to Himself.
In Ephesians 5, we are told that Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. But that is not all. He nourishes and cherishes her. More than that, He sanctifies her, purifying her with the washing of water by the word, that He may present to Himself a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without blemish.
Dear brothers and sisters, the bride must be holy, must be glorious, and must be without spot or wrinkle. How many spots do we have—the outbreaks of our flesh? How many wrinkles do we have—getting used to traditions? Where is the glory?
Glory, as Brother Fox put it, is how it ought to be. When God looks upon us and says, “This is how you ought to be,” there is glory. When the Bridegroom looks at the bride and says, “You are bone of My bones and flesh of My flesh. You are Me,” that is glory.
That is the glorious church that the Lord is after. It is the eternal purpose of God for His Son. Thank God, we are involved. But how much are we really involved?
One day, our dear Brother Fox asked Brother Nee a question: “Which passage in the Scriptures is the most difficult to fulfill?” Our brother answered, “Ephesians 4.”
Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
Brothers and sisters, when will we arrive at the unity of the faith, that we may believe all the truth of God in the same way? When will we arrive at the unity of the knowledge—the epignosis, the experiential knowledge—of the Son of God, that we may experience the Son of God in the same full way?
Is it not that our different interpretations and understandings of truth divide us? Is it not that our various experiences of the Son of God separate us? When will we ever come to that unity, to the full-grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ? That is the most difficult passage to be fulfilled.
Many years ago, as a young Christian, I asked Brother Nee a question. My question was, “When will Christ have a glorious church as His bride?”
Even though I was young in Christ and still new in serving the Lord, when I looked at myself and looked at Christianity, the more I was involved and the more I observed, the less hopeful I became. It seemed that the church was getting worse and worse instead of better and better, farther and farther away instead of nearer and nearer to Him. So I wondered, “Will Christ ever be able to come back?”
My question was concerning Ephesians 5: How can that be fulfilled? Our brother answered me with one word: “Overcome.”
This is the principle of overcoming. So far as the general situation is concerned, we find that God’s people are falling away more and more. According to the word of God, there will be an apostasy, and it is upon us.
Yet, in this ruin, God is calling for overcomers. In Revelation 2 and 3, to every church there is such a calling:
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
He that overcometh—
Brothers and sisters, who are the overcomers? The normal Christians. We are just as weak, as feeble, and as fallible as anybody else. But when the Spirit is speaking to the church, we respond. He who responds to His call, responds to His heart, yields to Him, and allows Him to work it out.
Brothers and sisters, this will be His wife. His wife hath made herself ready.
I do not know whether this is the correct interpretation, but when I read the book of Revelation, I find that there are two occasions when it is said that the wife has made herself ready, or the bride has adorned herself for the wedding.
One is in Revelation 19, which we have already read, and the other is in Revelation 21. In Revelation 19, the marriage of the Lamb has come, and the wife has made herself ready. It was given to her to be clothed in bright, pure linen, which is the righteous acts of the saints.
This happens before the millennium. After God has judged His enemies, the age to come will be introduced by that marriage feast. All who are invited to the feast are blessed.
Then, in Revelation 21, upon the new earth and the new heaven, the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem, descends upon the new earth, and the bride has adorned herself for that union. We know that is after the thousand years.
So there are two occasions when the Bible says the wife or the bride has made herself ready, because the bride of the Lamb is the wife of the Lamb. Why two occasions? What is the difference?
My own understanding—I simply offer it for your consideration—is that the wife who has made herself ready in Revelation 19 is composed of the overcomers. They represent the whole church.
But after the millennium, in eternity, the bride, the wife of the Lamb, includes all the work of God. The whole Old Testament and New Testament work of God is summed up together to become that eternal bride of the Lamb.
Brothers and sisters, there is a thousand years’ difference. May the Lord help us. This is only an introduction, and we look to the Lord that all the brothers may be given a fuller understanding of what the Lord is really after and what He is really doing.
Dear heavenly Father, our hearts are full of thanksgiving as well as shame. We thank Thee that Thou dost never give up. We are ashamed of ourselves.
Lord, we do pray that Thy love will continue to pour forth upon us and constrain us to give in to Thee, and allow Thee, who hast begun the good work, to bring it to completion, to the satisfaction of Thy beloved Son.
Lord, we want Thee to have us for Thy Son. In the name of our Lord Jesus.