There can be no doubt about it. The invitation is sent out to the four corners of the earth. Only then ‘the end will come’, according to Jesus.1 We are quickly approaching that moment, as a result of the worldwide proclamation of the Gospel through radio and television and other means of electronic highways in this wonderful age of social media and mass-communication! We are still living in the ‘time of grace over the Gentile world’. We are still able to come and take the ‘water of life’ (i.e. Jesus), freely,2 because He invites us to do so, in black and white, because He wants to give us the invitation to salvation. Then we become part of His bride, to be the Queen on His side. Or, to use another image/ picture: believers become members, limbs, bones of His body, the body of which He is the Head,3 indissolubly joined to Him. Or, to use yet another image/picture: believers are living stones of the New Jerusalem, a spiritual House.4 Or, to be together His Temple in which He lives. It is an awesome unity, being joined to one another, and joined together in and with Him. Scripture keeps silent about the actual consummation of the marriage by the bride and Bridegroom. It probably is the moment when you discovered for the first time that He loves you, and that you love Him, and then we meet with Him when He comes to us in Glory! The Bible talks about the wedding feast, the dinner, the marriage supper of the Lamb. This is what the guests have been invited to attend and they will sit at the places allotted them by the Bridegroom.5 He determines who sits where. Anyone not wearing a wedding garment is not allowed in.6 Many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.7 That will be at the beginning of the Messianic reign. He will then drink the fruit of the vine with His disciples once again.8 This will usher in the Messianic and theocratic Kingdom of a thousand years.9
The invitation to all the birds of Heaven to eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders of a thousand men and the flesh of mighty horses and their riders10 stands in contrast to the banquet on the occasion of the wedding supper of the Lamb. A greater contrast is unthinkable. It is remarkable that the Lord Jesus also refers to His disciples as wedding guests.11 He does not yet call them His bride. This is, as yet, before the cross, before His blood has been shed and the redemptive work of the cross has been completed, before His resurrection and Glorification, before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. They then also become part of His bride from that moment on. We must be cautious with all these pictures and comparisons, however. We should not overstress the meaning of ‘bride’, ‘wife’, ’wedding-guests’, and other pictures. Sometimes you hear a debate like: Is Israel the wife of God and the Church the bride of Christ? The comparison with using a word like ‘bride’ or ‘wife’ simply means that God and Christ love their ‘chosen people’ with an everlasting love, and that He married His wife/bride so that she can be sure that He pledged His vows and that He will be faithful to her forever. There is maybe a difference between the bride and the wedding guests. There is maybe a difference between the believers from Israel before and after the coming of Jesus. There is maybe a difference between Messianic Jews, Jewish Christians, and pious, faithful, orthodox Jews who have been slaughtered during the past two thousand years trusting in the Name as they went into the concentration camps and gas-chambers quoting and trusting the ‘Shema Israel’ from Deuteronomy 6:4. Because they were not yet given the revelation about Jesus. There is maybe a difference between believers in God from the nations and truly believing people in the One and Only God, the Creator in other religions, and hardened, strongly convinced unbelievers from those nations. There is maybe a difference between mankind before and after the Flood, before and after the giving of the Law on Sinai, before and after the Coming of Christ in Glory. How are things different? God alone knows. The picture of the woman, the bride, is not only used in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament as well. The Lord is married to Israel, He says. She is sometimes unfaithful, gives herself to strange men and even receives a letter of separation from the Lord.12 Can that breach be repaired? For adultery and separation is not yet divorce. Living apart for a while to give the marriage a second chance is not yet divorce. The breach is complete if husband or wife is marrying someone else. Indeed, even in spite of the letter of separation, the Lord still considers Himself married to Israel, and when Israel is converted, she will become His wife forever.13 Israel is even able to say: “My Maker is my Husband.”14 He created Israel, when Abraham was too old and Sarah was past the age of childbearing—created for His glory. “…whom I created for My glory, whom I formed and made.”15 And He will not leave unfinished what His hand began. This is true for Israel too. All God’s words are true, including what He promised Israel. How wonderful it is to have the Bible, with all those trustworthy words of God—for us as well, His Church consisting of Jews and Gentiles. Yes, Jesus invites you: Come to the feast!
• What love He has for us. Not only does He want to save people who are lost, and to give them eternal life, He wants to be one with them. His love dates from before the foundation of the world and He accepts nothing less than marriage. The Church is His bride, with whom He wants to be one ‘body’.
• Shema Yisrael (or Sh’ma Yisrael:”Hear, [O] Israel”) is a prayer. It is also the first two words of a section of the Torah, and is the title (better known as The Shema) of a prayer that serves as a centre-piece of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services.
• The first verse encapsulates the monotheistic essence of Judaism: “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is One” found in Deuteronomy 6:4. Observant Jews consider the Shema to be the most important part of the prayer service in Judaism, and its twice-daily recitation as a mitzvah (religious commandment). Also, it is traditional for Jews to say the Shema as their last words, and for parents to teach their children to say it before they go to sleep at night.
Bible References:
1.Matthew 24:14 2.Revelation 22:17; John 4:10–14, 7:37–39 3.Ephesians 1:22–23; 1 Corinthians 12:12–13; Colossians 1:15–18; Ephesians 4:12–13 4.1 Peter 2:5a; Ephesians 2:21–22; Revelation 3:12, 21:14 5.Luke 14:7–11 6.Matthew 22:1–14 7.Matthew 8:5–13 8.Matthew 14:25 9.Revelation 20:1–6 10.Revelation 19:17–18 11.Mark 2:19 12.Jeremiah 3:8; Isaiah 50:1 13.Hosea 2:13–22 14.Isaiah 54:5 NIV 15.Isaiah 43:7
