The third step in the marriage was the “marriage supper,” actually a seven-day wedding feast took place to which guests had already been called and assembled. Once the marriage had been consummated by the bride and groom, that same night the wedding guests would begin to feast and make merry! They often celebrated these feasts twice a day during those seven days. The feast was the part of the “marriage” that Jesus attended in Cana of Galilee when He turned water into wine. And this is also the scene at the “marriage of the Lamb” in the Revelation! It is called the “marriage supper” or marriage feast of the Lamb. This is not espousal, but the time of union. “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage (union) of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready (for this union). And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb!”
If we stand back and get a correct perspective of the sweep of the entire picture I think we will understand it. You go back to the very beginning — marriage was the first institution that God made for man. And it was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself (the Word, the Voice of God) that brought the first woman to the first man. He introduced them and performed the marriage for them and made them one. In that far-off beginning, at the dawn of human history, the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him” (Gen. 2:18). What fathomless and holy truth lies buried in this remarkable statement! While God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone,” I would like to give another rendition and it goes like this: “It is not good that GOD should be alone.” You see, my beloved, God’s creation is the mirror, the reflection, and expression of God’s own personal character and state of being. How can we know this? Because God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). Would you like to know what God is like? You can see it in man! God did not create just a man! “Male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply…” (Gen. 1:27-28). The message is just this: If it was not good for man in the image of God to be in that image alone, if the man needed a wife to complement him and reproduce their life in the world, then it was likewise not good for GOD to be alone! That is the mystery! It takes the mind of the Spirit to understand that when God saw Adam in his loneliness and said, “It is not good that the man should be alone,” God was expressing the great mystery of His own Being within Himself. God had need for companionship. God had need for a union of love! This divine need is expressed by the apostle Paul in these words of revelation and truth: “According as He hath chosen us in Himself before the foundation of the world, that we should be…before Him in love: having predestinated us…according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:4-6).
God’s ultimate desire and need was for the companionship of beings like unto Himself, of His own kind, with whom He could share His mind and heart, and through whom He could expand Himself, incorporating them into the outworking of His own eternal purposes. As we view from the Father’s heart it becomes obvious that God in His social and paternal nature has “marked out for Himself” a vast family which shares His own life, nature, mind, spirit, purpose, and power. I do not believe that any creature or entity that existed before man either in the heavens above or on the earth beneath, even came close to providing what God needed. This is the condition which prompted God in that long ago beginning to issue the wonderful fiat, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion…” (Gen. 1:26).
Little wonder, then, that we read from the literal translation of the Hebrew text these remarkable words: “And Jehovah God saith, Not good for the man to be alone, I do make him an helper — as his COUNTERPART” (Gen. 2:18, Young’s Literal). The Goodspeed translation reads, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I must make a helper for him WHO IS LIKE HIM.” Another interesting translation says, “…and God made for Adam a COMPARABLE helper.” There we have the very first symbolism of the bride of Christ! God made for Adam someone with whom he should have complete and total correspondence and intimacy. This only mirrored the desire within God Himself, so we find that He came in the cool, or spirit of the day, as it reads in the original, to fellowship with this man and woman made in His image and likeness. The message is just this — if the Christ is to have a bride then the bride must be COMPARABLE to Christ! She must be HIS COUNTERPART! She must be one who is in every respect LIKE HIM! And that’s awesome, isn’t it! But how could Christ become intimate, on all the levels that intimacy implies, with anyone who is not comparable to Him? A human would not marry a monkey, a horse, a dog, or a chicken. There is no correspondence! There are no grounds for union of mind, desire, emotion, knowledge, understanding, body, or love. And even within the same species, not everyone is suited for the marriage union. Would Christ become intimate with a little girl who is not mature and cannot comprehend the ways of love or responsibility? Would He share all that He is and has with a child who is physically and emotionally incapable of returning mature love, relating to His deepest thoughts and heart, or participating in His divine activities and purposes?
Preston Eby
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