4. And now we are able to understand what is meant by the marriage of the Lamb. It is the final and perfect blending in one unity of the life of Christ and His people. Just as in an earthly union the two become one flesh, so with the great spiritual union Christ and His redeemed are brought together. They are brought
* C. Gore, St. PauVs Epistle to the EpJiesicms, 219.
* Marcus Rainsford, Lectures on Roinans vii., 28.
REVELATION xix. 9 263
together not in place, but in character. They are brought together completely. The Divine and the human cease to be divided. They are blended into one.
God from all eternity purposed to bring man into this deep union with Himself. A note of it sounds all down revelation. His people are betrothed to Him. They are, as we say, " engaged," but the engagement has never issued in marriage. What has hindered ? Sin. It is sin that has blinded love, that has obscured the true nature of the Bridegroom, and hindered the heart from full acceptance. But a time draws on when that unity of God and man whose reality Christ demonstrated will be accomplished in all His people. Now the engagement is postponed, or weakened, or broken off here and there. But a day is coming when that will all end ; when the eyes shall be opened to see the true Bridegroom, the King in His beauty ; when the perfected, completed union of Christ and His people, in will, in heart, in love, in life, shall be consummated, and God shall be all in all. That is the marriage of the Lamb.
If As in the old story, the prince who wooed and won his bride in the disguise of a beggar, brought her to the capital city and the king's palace, took leave of her on some pretext, and caused her to be led all shrinking and solitary into the chamber. When she looked she saw on the throne her lover, her husband, and all fear fled. So the Bride, the Lamb's wife, wooed and won by Him, being found in fashion as a servant, lifts up her eyes and sees on the throne the old face she has learned to love, and is very glad and confident. Her love is made perfect, she has boldness in the day of judgment, and goes to dwell with love for evermore.^
^ In the future world, as compared with this, we may suppose the presence of God will be as in our material world is the bright sunshine compared with the dim twilight. The sun, the more bright, and glorious, and gladdening, and life-elevating it is, is not necessarily on that account the only thing to be looked at and thought of ; it is seen in the light it gives, and thought of for the delight which it gives. So even in another world may it be with God ; the clearer we see Him, the better and the more rightly may we see and know all besides Him, all His creatures, and all that He had made. We have no reason to think that our fellow- beings will be less interesting to us, or less cared for by us, there than here. It is the nearer presence and the clearer view of Him
1 W. R. Nicoll, T?i^ Lamb of God, 96.
264 MARRIAGE SUPPER OF THE LAMB
which will be the source of the truer understanding of, and better sympathy with, them.^
11.
The Feast.
1. The language of Scripture referring to this great wedding feast is mystical, intensely spiritual, and offers nothing to gratify our curiosity, our love of literal detail. But is it not enough that this is revealed ? It is " the marriage supper of the Lamb." " The Lamb is all the glory of Immanuel's Land." Intimate, blessed communion is assured to all that Christ gathers around Him. Soul-satisfying fellowship with Father, Son, and Spirit. Perfect satisfaction of all our noblest, loftiest aspirations. " As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness : I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." To take part in such a celebration is to enter into fellowship with all blessed and redeemed spirits ; with all that has been gracious, and pure, and noble, in the generations of earth, and in the worlds that have never known sin.
^ The marriage feast has a definitely ritual aspect, since, by eat- ing together, bride and bridegroom, as well as their respective relatives and friends (or in some cases these alone), are bound together, or the feast is an outward expression of this union. [The Eoman rite of confarreatio and similar rites elsewhere, though not of the nature of a feast, express even more clearly the same idea of union.] In some instances the feast is almost the chief or the only rite of marriage ; but in any case it has a ritual aspect, though this tends to disappear in more advanced societies, where the feast is little more than an occasion of merry-making, ex- pressing, however, mutual friendliness. . . . Among the Greeks the wedding feast (yd/Mog) took place after the procession to the bridegroom's house, and it formed one of the most important parts of the proceedings, as there was no civil or religious ceremony. Women as well as men took part in it, though the women sat at a separate table. Among the Eomans, after the bride arrived at the bridegroom's house, he gave a feast to the guests, the coena nuptialis, and sometimes a second feast, the repotia, on the following day. . . . Although the Jewish con- tract of marriage is a purely civil one, in the sense that the presence of a Eabbi and its ratification in a synagogue are un-