The Mature Bride of Christ

Post 344

Have you ever contemplated what it would mean to be the bride of Christ the Son of God?
I don’t mean the girlish Cinderella fairytale of escapism in blissful romance and magical castles far away where all is perfect and no one ever disagrees; I mean the day to day reality of living as the spouse of God long after the bloom falls from the rose and the once blushing bride who marveled that the Prince chose her, gets used to the power and authority that comes with the name and she begins to feel her Lord’s equal in rights and opinions and will. The “ever after” of Eternity is a very long time.

Speaking of eternity, do you imagine that there is no time in eternity? Do you imagine that eternity is a state of nothingness and nowhere at no time because those cannot exist in eternity? Do you imagine that you never change or learn as events are experienced because you are locked in a perpetual state of being perfectly eighteen in body and mind? You would be mistaken.
Eternity is eternity only because of the passage of time and things and events to mark its passage. Without time and events to measure it eternity has no substance.
So what does the bride of Christ do for eternity? Even BonBons would get tiresome eventually, not to mention the whole “harps on clouds” bit. How long can you be content sitting around in beautiful gowns doing needlework as a virgin in waiting? (Matthew 25:5).
Do you imagine that Cinderella never matures past the youthful beauty of her photogenic point in time when she gets her first kiss from the Prince to “live happily ever after”? What happiness does “ever after” have in store for her as she matures from young bride, to mature wife in the kingdom of her Great Prince? Does she play any factor in that happiness or is she just a victim of fortunate circumstances for all eternity thereafter? Is marriage to the Lamb of God the end of it all, or is it perhaps the beginning of it all? Like our temporal typology of marriage; doesn’t that answer depend on your perspective of “it all”?

I ask all these questions for you to contemplate because the strained fairytale of a happily-ever-after marriage today refuses to examine beyond the glorious off-white gown and “I do”s. It refuses to look, because the overwhelming evidence is very disheartening and destroys the happy dream; “Let me have my happiness in this moment of bliss and I will worry about the misery when it comes.”
Isn’t that even biblical?:

…“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” Matthew 6:34.

It might be… if it didn’t follow the preceding verse in context:

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”… Matthew 6:33.

So if we are going to apply the first read verse in this way then we must also apply the second in the same way: Seeking implies something not yet attained. Why seek for things to be acquired later if the very next verse tells us not to worry about it?
No, the passage plainly tells us that there is a distinction to be made regarding what we should and should not be concerned about. Seeking both the kingdom of God and his righteousness are clearly commanded.
So Cinderella focuses on that far away kingdom in hope and preparation, and the troubles of this life don’t so dramatically affect her focus of attention as she faces them. In fact, as painful as they are to experience, she rejoices that these trials come, because they put her faith’s prepared righteousness to the test for perfecting it (*1). Her focus on seeking that kingdom and applying the righteousness of that kingdom’s lord is her secret to being Cinderella through her trials. Without the trials and her righteous responses, Cinderella is a non-story.
In all truth, these two things commanded are all that she needs to be attentive to. The happily-every-after is simply a guaranteed result.
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BUT.
What if Cinderella stops short of the full command and only seeks the kingdom of God? What would Cinderella look like if she failed to seek the righteousness of her lord? What attraction would she have for the prince if she acted like all the other ladies in waiting hoping to be the one to reach that kingdom? What compatibility does the handsome prince have with the wicked stepsister?
Cinderella believes in the handsome prince and his kingdom, she earnestly wants to be the bride of the prince. Isn’t that earnest desire enough to guarantee success? It wasn’t enough for the wicked stepsisters who felt the same way:

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” James 2:19-20.

“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” Matthew 7:21.

So in the old fairytale written to make a point, the princess-in-making has been given the nature of a princess of that kingdom even before she meets the prince. How did she get that nature, was she just born lucky?
In the old fairytale of long ago that part was not necessary to explain because even very young girls not yet personally committed to Jesus Christ were already being raised in the discipline to seat the characteristics of that kingdom, yet they also experienced the wicked nature of the flesh in their fallen humanity. The fairytale, by a vision of something far off to be attained, encourages her to supplant her dark nature of the wicked stepsisters with the characteristics of a princess that would be attractive to the prince and naturally welcome in his kingdom. As long as she put on and maintained the garments of righteousness as a nature in the longing to be counted a worthy citizen of that kingdom and delight to the prince, Cinderella need not worry about the details of the happily-ever-after: she would be ready and able to play her part in making it a long-term reality.

But let’s also contemplate the idea if the wicked stepsister succeeded in keeping Cinderella locked up, and was therefore the one to catch the prince’s eye and win his heart with her beauty.
Such a thought is naturally repulsive to us even today, because we see that she is very ugly where ugliness is undesirable. We can grasp that her physical ugliness represents her personal ugliness and we easily see that her personality and his are utterly incompatible. There is just no chance that the handsome prince could be persuaded to marry the ugly stepsister.
But now let’s go further in our contemplations; Let’s assume that after locking Cinderella in the tower, the ugly stepsister is the best looking thing at the ball and somehow she persuades the prince to marry her in his great kingdom and introduce her to his father the king; her new father in law. What natural reaction would the kingdom of happily-ever-after have with this new “woman of the house” long waited for in hope and expectation? Can you picture her walking the streets of gold, meeting the inhabitants, and implementing the power of her position as bride of the prince? Without the need of explanation we can easily see that her self-centered power-hungry ugly nature would desire to make servants of the inhabitants and consume the kingdom and its wealth for her glory and pride, even against any earnest efforts to be “a good wife” (*2). These results are the very nature and motive behind her earnest desire to marry the prince and attain the kingdom:

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, […] and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33 slightly abridged by perception of focus.

Can you see now how important it is to include the second half of the command?

“[and his righteousness;]”

God the King has made perfectly clear that nobody naturally has the appropriate nature of the kingdom. All of us are born wicked stepsisters; it’s in our very nature of fallen humanity:

“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one” Romans 3:10.

Therefore we must choose to seek after the righteousness of the prince of the righteous kingdom of which we want to be citizens who need not be ashamed there as here (II Thessalonians 3:14). We are talking about laboriously exchanging our natural nature for another. We are talking about becoming “somebody else” by efforts of refinement.

“Be not deceived: evil communications (G3657 companionships) corrupt good manners. Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some (of you Cinderella wanna-bees) have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” I Corinthians 15:33-34.

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” II Timothy 2:15.

“Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” II Corinthians 10:5.

The very next verse speaks of a future state and purpose that the simple Cinderella of pure heart working on her here-and-now nature in preparation need not concern herself with greatly. Yet it reveals to us a bit of the part we will play in maintaining the happily-ever-after:

...“and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled” II Corinthians 10:6.

Until our obedience is fulfilled, we are unworthy to seriously contemplate the other. So we work on our obedience; our application of his righteousness; our new nature. We focus on becoming Cinderella while we wait for the Prince.
Who doesn’t think that beautiful, kind, loving, patient, forgiving, captivating, endearing Cinderella does not have the nature and experiential evidence to rightly revenge all disobedience? What do you imagine Cinderella does to the Stepsisters after she becomes princess; does she let them continue in their hurtful wickedness’s? No; because she is kind and cannot abide such in her kingdom. But is she cruel in her righteous revenge? No; cruelty is not in her Lord's righteous nature, which she has adopted as her own. Though justice is.

As we contemplate Cinderella and her life as an easy-to-comprehend likeness of the Christian, we see that there are two simultaneous endeavors going on within her. One: to be united with the prince, and Two: to be counted worthy of him. Seek the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.
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OK, but now let’s imagine the better educated wicked stepsister after the ball, wisely imitating righteousness in the desire to win the prince’s kingdom by forcing the slipper to fit. By our analogy that beauty=goodness we understand that the ugly stepsister cannot be otherwise than ugly. She has a wicked heart and she has no intention of changing it.

“The desire of the righteous is only good: but the expectation of the wicked is wrath” Proverbs 11:23.

But you know? Some shoes can be made to look like they fit while hiding the painful truth, and lipstick really does change the initial appearance of the pig. Well, that and a fine dress of righteousness and some deceitfully dirty glasses (I Corinthians 13:12). Today even boys can be made to look like very beautiful young women by their trappings. But a pig is still a pig no matter what you do to alter it.
Yet what great damage can be done by deceiving a righteous young man into being genuinely attracted to another young man that he thinks is a woman! Upon discovery the destruction of confusion is unspeakable, even if no lines of righteousness were crossed by the honorable young man, who was deceived because he wouldn’t cross those lines!
Similar is a wicked woman dressed in robes of righteousness (Proverbs 11:22). Today the art of lipsticking pigs is on the verge of magical (Proverbs 11:16a+18a+19+Matthew 24:24=Hebrews 3:13-14).

Our world is growing up quickly as it reaches its final stage of preparation and the lessons of experience are teaching the wicked in their wickedness at the same rate they are teaching the righteous in their righteousness. The wicked are likewise learning the power of righteousness, or at least the appearance of it. Criminals are now dressing in fine suits and good manners. Evil seducers are learning how to sweet talk with class and feigned morals. Prostitutes are now called Escorts, and they are being taught refinement and style in order to be able to play the illusionary part more convincingly. And in kind, the wicked are infiltrating the church to practice their deceitful craft of illusionary godliness (II Timothy 3:5-7).

So if they are both earnestly seeking the kingdom, and if they are both applying robes of righteousness to look the part, what really makes the difference between Cinderella and the wicked stepsister in this advanced age of Adamically fallen women?
In today’s advanced wickedness’ we need to discern WHY she is seeking the kingdom. Does she love the prince and his kingdom or is she just a Gold-digger looking to chew up some heavenly asphalt to the diminishment of the kingdom and be served as a queen in the process? To massage a coined term: Motive is nine-tenths of the ends.
Nobody even thinks to question Cinderella in her motives; which are obviously righteous and above reproach. But what if someone does? What are Cinderella’s motives for wanting to marry the prince? Suddenly even Cinderella herself begins to question her motives, that, before the question was presented, were as pure and true as the driven snow. But in attempting to answer the question, they begin to look like desires of selfishness. Does she want to escape the suffering? Sure. Does she want to be loved by the prince? Yes. Does she want to experience the majesty of the great kingdom with all its glory? Absolutely. So is she self-focused?

“Why I, I, I don’t know! I suppose I am. Oh dear!”

But is she? Of course not! She is the prince’s dream girl. and if you would just stop trying to complicate things you could see it as clear as polished glass. How do we know? Because she has sought after the kingdom of heaven and the prince’s righteousness her whole life in hope and longing and laborious efforts to be counted worthy of him, though she knows she is not. It’s not her own righteousness that she has been applying to herself. In her eyes this is not about her but about HIM!
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Two great Commands in a unified singular goal:
This is a repeating primary concept in the kingdom of heaven. The concept is best and most easily expressed by the word Marriage; The union of two very different elements into a singular whole greater than its parts. This is the reason why it is so important to maintain the Holy sanctity of marriage as God ordained it, and why the wicked are so diligently subverting its Typology.
This kingdom concept of marriage is again expressed to us by the two very distinct tables of the Commandments. Did you even know that the Law and Commandments were given in two stone slabs?

“And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written” Exodus 32:15.

Is that important to know? Not necessarily, but the knowing helps us understand the Typology and engine of function. As we explore the Ten Commandments we can identify a distinct difference in nature between the first four and the last six, with the fifth being an authority transition between them and therefore easily grouped as five on each table. The first group outlines our relationship with divine authority: God, which can be summed up like this:

“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment” Matthew 22:37-38.

The second group of Commandments outline our relationship with our fellow man, which can be summed up like this:

“And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” Matthew 22:39-40.

Imagine then if we choose to apply only half of the twin great commandments. What can we expect would be the result if we focused only on our love for God but failed to consider our fellow man? In all well-meaning and good intent we would become Tyrannical to our fellow man in our attempt to please God by application of his first table of laws. This is imaged in our previous discussion as seeking the kingdom of heaven without seeking God’s righteousness. We saw this historically acted out in the conduct of the ancient Jews in their growing plethora of silly rules as extensions of the law to ensure compliance, and again today in the Islamists that follow Mohammadism killing and subjugating all the infidels. “The Law of protecting the kingdom of God must be applied without mercy or pardon.” Such can be described as the Masculine approach to governance.
But the other approach is likewise imaged in our discussion as seeking his righteousness without concern for God or his kingdom. “Forget God and religion; be nice to your fellow man is what’s really important.” We see this acted out in the overthrow of the law by Democracy. Historically Democracy is in earnest a relief of the oppressed people and a ready answer for Despotism, but, as exampled by the historical Roman Catholic Church and today’s abortion laws, always soon ends in far greater blood and a more desperate Tyranny than what it overthrew by subversion. Such can be described as the Feminine approach of governance.
By realizing there is a very important reason for the order of first and second with its related designations of chain-of-command authority, as well as the simultaneous dual application of both portions of the singular Commandments, we see that there is a very complex result that is far greater than its parts.

As we now understand by prophecy that humanity is in its last age of experiential preparation before that kingdom’s Prince comes for Cinderella, we can see that the masculine approach of the guiding Law had to come first, then became tyrannical by corruption, and thereby caused need for the Democracy of deliverance to come next, to likewise fail in its turn by corruption; each corruption brought on by a failure of tempering the one with the other, which were both given at the beginning in the genders of Adam and Eve as a married couple.
Today near the end of the human timeline, we are seeing the glorious early maturity of Democracy in liberation from the Law before it implodes by its very nature of lawless laws. This is most easily described as applying self-righteousness while casting disdain for the Lord of the kingdom we hope to acquire. “You can’t get his stuff if you don’t marry the man.” So the last Church of the Revelation 3 order of history does what she has to do to get his name and therefore his stuff by power and authority of bearing his name. She has no real interest in the Prince himself, but only what association with him can do for her: “It’s all about ME.”
It’s the wicked stepsister locking away the real Cinderella and standing in her stead hoping to win the prince by dressing like her because she has learned that that’s what he likes.
But a pig is still a pig.
The prince is looking for his princess, with a bigger picture of reasoning in mind. That union is only the beginning of something that needs such a union. We are talking about The Kingdom of Heaven, which Christ told us to preach to those who knew the basics (Matthew 10:6-7, 22:9), and to preach the basics as the gospel of salvation to those who didn’t (Mark 16:15-16). They go together, one before the other, as a set for a single purpose far greater than the parts. Of course!
So how long have you been a Christian focused only on acquiring the kingdom by the basics of salvation as the end of it all? By not focusing on seeking the king’s righteousness as commanded, such limited vision remains existentially focused and is strangled to fruitlessness by the thorns and thistles of this earthly life.
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(*1) “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into diverse temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting (G3007 lacking) nothing” James 1:2-4.

(*2) “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” Matthew 7:22-23.
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