T[ " The Marriage of the Lamb " is a subject that can easily be vulgarized. It can be vulgarized for the same reason that the finest poems make the finest parodies. The higher you climb the deeper you fall. The subject is one of profound delicacy. Let us put the shoes from off our feet, for the place where we tread is holy ground.^
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1. For the first time in the Apocalypse we read here of the marriage of the Lamb; and for the first time, although the general idea of supping with the Lord had been once alluded to, we read of the marriage supper. The figure indeed is far from being new. The writers both of the Old and of the New Testament use it with remarkable frequency. But no sacred writer appears to have felt more the power and beauty of the
1 R. Waddell, Behold the Lamb of God ! 262.
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similitude than St. John. In the first miracle which he records, and in which he sees the whole glory of the New Testament dispensation mirrored forth, He who changed the water into wine is the Bridegroom of His Church ; and, when the Baptist passes out of view, in the presence of Him for whom he had prepared the way, he records the swan-like song in which the great prophet terminated his mission in order that another and a higher than himself might have sole possession of the field : " Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom : but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice : this my joy therefore is fulfilled."
2. Now, what is the significance of this figure of the marriage relation between God and man which we find running all down revelation ? It is not difficult to get hold of the central idea of it. What is marriage ? It is the coming together of two lives in the deepest possible unity. It is the surrender of separate indi- viduality and the mingling of each in a common stream. This is the ideal marriage. When we turn to the Word of God, and ask what marriage is, we find this idea of the unity of two lives expressed in the strongest possible terms. In marriage, in the ideal marriage, the two become one flesh. It does not rest on a civil contract like a business partnership. It rests on a mysterious change affecting the very substance of their body and blending two lives into a physical and spiritual oneness. The man and woman who love one another delight in all that is or seems to be most beautiful and good. It is even a kind of joy to know each other's troubles and to bear each other's faults. They find comfort and hope and strength in their mutual affections. Their very trials bring them closer. They learn to suppress self, to think how they can do and be the very best for each other. That is the ideal, and in many marriages it is realized.
3. Marriage in this ideal sense is used in the New Testament as a symbol of Christ and His relation to the Church. While St. Paul is dictating these wonderful words in the Epistle to
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the Ephesians which declare the mysterious unity of life that marriage creates, "I think," says Dr. Dale, "I see a look of dreamy abstraction come over his face, showing that his thoughts have passed from earthly to heavenly things. He is in the presence of the transcendent unity between Christ and His redeemed. He is thinking of how Christ forsook all things that He might make us for ever one with Himself, that our earthly life might become His, His heavenly life ours. Forgetting for the moment that he was writing about marriage, he exclaims, ' The mystery, the secret of the unity of Christ and His people, the Divine purpose which from all ages had been hid in God, but was now revealed. The mystery is great.* " This is the groundwork of earthly marriage. This is the background from which its light and lifting come. This is what redeems it, and purifies it, and exalts it. It is meant to lead up to, and lose itself in, and be fulfilled by, the Divine eternal life of Christ. It is an image, a shadow, a symbol, of that.
^ The spiritual union of Christ and His Church, though it is perfect in the Divine intention from the first, is in fact only consummated at the point where the Church is freed from the imperfection of sin and has become the stainless counterpart of Christ Himself. The love of Christ — the removal of obstacles to His love by atoning sacrifice — the act of spiritual purification — the gradual sanctification — the consummated union in glory: these are the moments of the Divine process of redemption, viewed from the side of Christ, which St. Paul specifies.^
^ Let faith ring these bells of heaven for our joy. Married to Christ. Himself the measure of our responsibilities ; Himself the fulness of our capabilities; Himself the possessor of our hearts' afifections; Himself the security of our hopes; Himself the well-spring of our fruitf ulness ; Himself the law of our hearts, our glory, and our crown. Blessed are they that are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.^