Tagged: return of Christ
Our Marriage to Christ
This is another in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon.
Heaven is not our final home; it’s the intermediate state between physical death and future glorification, which is pictured in the third and final act of ancient Jewish wedding ceremonies.
Nissuin
We’ve examined the shiddukhin, or marriage contract, and the erusin, or engagement. Now, we come to the nissuin, or marriage. This Hebrew word is derived from naso, which means to lift up. At this time, there’s great fanfare as the groom fetches his bride and escorts her to his father’s house. The couple again enters the huppah, recites a blessing over a cup of wine – a symbol of joy – and finalizes their vows.
At last, after a year of separation, the husband and wife enter the bridal chamber and consummate their marriage. A friend of the groom waits outside until he’s informed that the new couple has engaged in marital relations for the first time. The friend announces this to the guests and, with resounding joy, the marriage feast begins. Often, the celebration lasts for days, as we see in the wedding at Cana, where Jesus performs his first miracle (John 2:1-11).
Continue reading The Parable of the Ten Virgins
This is another in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon.
In the previous post, we looked at the contract that plays a vital role in a Jewish wedding. Now, we see how Jesus illustrates the erusin in his parable of the ten virgins.
In the parable of the ten virgins, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to this special time at the end of erusin, when the groom comes for his bride (Matt. 25:1-13). It’s a riveting story, which begins with ten virgins (or bridesmaids, likely twelve to sixteen years of age) taking their lamps and going out to meet the groom.
By most accounts, these lamps resemble torches, with oil-soaked cloth on the end of poles. Jars of olive oil are carried along as well, with bridesmaids dipping the fabric end of the poles in oil before lighting them. Five of the bridesmaids take extra oil along with their lamps, since the typical oil lamp would burn for only about fifteen minutes without additional fuel. So, the bridesmaids bring their lamps, but only half of them are adequately prepared.
Continue reading Our Betrothal to Christ
This is another in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon.
In the last post, we began to look at the ancient Jewish wedding as a parable for God’s work of redemption in Christ. We continue this study now.
After the shiddukhim, the second element of ancient Jewish weddings is engagement, or betrothal, known as erusin in Hebrew. After their immersion in the mikvah, the bride and groom enter a shelter known as the huppah, or marriage canopy. This symbolizes the couple entering into a contract to establish a new household.
Beneath the canopy, the groom offers the bride money or a valuable object such as a ring, and the couple shares a cup of wine to seal their vows. This parallels the cup Jesus and the apostles share in the last supper as a sign of the new covenant. As Matthew records:
Then he [Jesus] took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them and said, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. But I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom (Matt. 26:27-30).
Later, Paul writes that, in the Lord’s Supper, we remember Christ’s death until he comes again (1 Cor. 11:23-26).
Continue reading The Restoration of Eden
This is another in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon.
Old Testament scholar Sandra Richter writes:
[E]verything that lies in between Eden’s gate and the New Jerusalem, the bulk of our Bibles, is in essence a huge rescue plan. In fact, we could summarize the plot line of the Bible into one cosmic question: “How do we get Adam back into the garden?” In Genesis 3, humanity was driven out; in Revelation 21-22, they are welcomed home.
The Garden of Eden is a temple where humans enjoy face-to-face friendship with their creator. The Fall results in human banishment from Eden and a divinely prescribed distance between holy God and sinful people. Even Moses, the great lawgiver, is forbidden to see the face of God because God has declared, “No one may see me and live” (Exod. 33:20 NIV). Moses is allowed only to see God’s back as he passes by (v. 23). In the ancient world, criminals are banished from the presence of the king and not allowed to see his face, an apt picture of our separation from God (Esth. 7:8; cf. 2 Sam. 14:24).
John asserts that no person has seen God at any time. Even so, Jesus has declared God as deity veiled in human flesh (John 1:18). Jesus teaches that only the pure in heart will see God (Matt. 5:8). So, consider the transformation that takes place when the redeemed in eternity see God face-to-face and become like him (1 John 3:2).
Continue reading Lifting the Curse
This is another in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon.
In the midst of John’s blissful vision of the new heavens and earth, he records these simple but profound words: “and there will no longer be any curse” (Rev. 22:3). What’s the curse to which John refers? And who or what causes the curse to end?
John’s reference to the curse takes us back to Genesis 3 and the Fall. There, Adam’s sin plunges all creation into a morass of death and decay. John also whisks us through the pages of the Old Testament, where we see the parallel tracks of sin’s destruction and God’s promise of a virgin-born redeemer.
And he reminds us of the New Testament truth that Jesus of Nazareth burst onto the scene two thousand years ago, divinely conceived, perfect in humanity, and sent into a world sagging beneath the weight of sin. The Messiah’s sinless life and finished work on the cross conquer Satan, sin, and death, and his promise to return enables us to rest in the certainty that the curse cannot last forever.
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