The bride’s white dress is made of fine linen, bright and clean. This is what she is dressed in. This is what she is cloaked in. This is the first thing people notice. We are clothed with Christ’s righteousness. The word, ‘righteousness’ was a word that hounded Luther. He knew that eternal damnation, hell, was waiting for him if he didn’t meet God’s standard of righteousness. And he knew that however much he did his best, it would never be enough. He knew he fell terribly short of God’s perfect holiness and that everlasting, hellish punishments awaited him. This made him deeply disheartened. However much he confessed his sins to his confessor, however much he chastised himself—even as far as drawing blood—he found no peace in his heart. He knew he was not reconciled to God until his eye fell upon this Bible text: “Deliver me by Your righteousness.” ”In Thy righteousness deliver me.”1
You are redeemed by God’s righteousness, not by your own righteousness. You are not redeemed by your own efforts and your good works; you are redeemed by God’s righteousness that He in His Grace imparted to you. What is God’s righteousness? It is the righteousness that Jesus earned on the cross. He bore God’s punishment of our unrighteousness on that horrible cross. He hung in the hellish loneliness of godforsakenness and, when it got dark on Golgotha’s hill, He cried out: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”2—so that we would never again be forsaken by God. The ‘Bride/Queen’ is cloaked with Christ’s righteousness. He has acquired her with His life. He adorns her. She is redeemed by Him, and she is redeemed in Him. Luther discovered that the just will live by faith in Christ and that ‘faith’ is a divine gift by ‘grace’!3
Faith is divine gift by grace. We read about Abram’s faith in Genesis 15:6: “Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it [this faith in the Lord, this total trust in Him] to him as righteousness.” This is stated again in Romans 4:3, Galatian 3:6 and James 2:21-23. Galatians 5:6 “For [if we are] in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but only faith activated and expressed and working through love.” This ’justification by faith’ produces something in believers. “Therefore, since we have these promises (among other things, of having the privilege of being Christ’s ‘bride’ and of being perfect in Him), let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.4
Her white wedding dress, the fine batiste linen, has been washed in the blood of the Lamb.5 It is with His perfection that she is covered and dressed. That is certain, unchangeable and will stand forever. As a result, the wife is able to live in this world, doing good6 in deeds and words. These are the fruits produced by the branch grafted into the True Vine.7 This is the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit: “…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no Law…8 These are works He does by the Holy Spirit through her, through you if you have faith in Christ. All glory to God for these works belong to Him. He did these things through you, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Nevertheless, these works constitute something that is accounted to you. Reward is waiting. Consider: “This is what He did for you. What are you doing for Him? Does He have full control of your life? Can He use you in the way that pleases Him? Are you an instrument in His hands, also in the darkness of the end-times?” “I have died with/in Him,” says Paul, “and the rest of my life in the flesh is for Him and through Him.”9 “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”10 “I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to Him.”11 The Church is Christ’s bride, whom He loves and with whom He becomes one flesh. Ephesians 5:30-32 NIV “…for we are members of His body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the Church.” Adam cried out ‘bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,’ when ‘woman’ was formed from him. He was fast asleep when that happened12 just as Christ was in the sleep of death. As Eve was made from Adam’s side – for this is the meaning of the word ‘rib’. In this way the spear in Christ’s side brought forth water and blood13 and the Church is born of water and Spirit,14 born again by the washing of water with the Word,15 born again by the blood of the Lamb, which the Spirit applies to human hearts.
• There are splendid examples, types of the ‘bride’, in the Old Testament. Rebecca16 was the future bride of Isaac, as yet unknown to her. The Holy Spirit— represented by Eliezer the servant—was going to secure her for him, on the instructions of Isaac’s father. Abraham is a type of the Father and Isaac, a type of the Son.
• Rebecca was a Gentile, just as a large part of the Church consists of people from Gentile nations.
• Asenath, the wife of Joseph, a type of Christ, was a Gentile too, as was Zipporah, the wife of Moses who himself is a type of Christ as the mediator of the Old Covenant. Ruth, the Moabite became the wife of the redeemer Boaz and the great-grandmother of King David. In Bethlehem, Ruth submitted to Naomi’s guidance to become the wife of Boaz. Their son, Obed, was the father of Jesse, and Jesse fathered David, Israel’s greatest king.
• Ruth is one of only five women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus Christ (along with Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba, and Mary) in Matthew 1:1-16.
• ‘Sola fide’ (Latin: by faith alone), also known as ‘justification by faith’ alone, is the Christian theological doctrine commonly held to distinguish many Protestant and Evangelical and Pentecostal Churches from the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. Although the ‘invisible’ Church is there present as well!
Bible References:
1.Psalm 31:1 NIV/NASB 2.Matthew 27:46 3.Romans 1:17 4.2 Corinthians 7:1 NIV 5.Revelation 7:14 6.Romans 2:7, 5:1–2; Luke 6:33–35; Galatians 6:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:13; James 4:17 (!); 1 Peter 1:13–23 and 2:13–25; 3 John 11 7.John 15:1–8 8.Galatians 5:16–25 9.Galatians 2:20 NIV 10.Philippians 1:21 NIV 11.2 Corinthians 11:2 NIV 12.Genesis 2:21–24 13.John 19:34 14.John 3:3–8 15.1 Peter 1:22–23 16.Genesis 24
