Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Sinful, pain-laden time will not go on and on for eternity. There will be an "end of the world" and a return of Jesus as He promised, "I will come again" (Matt. 24:3; John 14:1-3). It is commonly understood that the last "sign" of His coming will be the "gospel ... preached in all the world ... and then shall the end come" (Matt. 24:14). Is that a physical task completed--the printing press turning out a sufficient number of books or tracts, or electronic broadcasts reaching a sufficient concentration?
A parallel "sign" is when the Lamb's "wife hath made herself ready" for "the marriage of the Lamb" (Rev. 19:7, 8). We've been through the childish stage of thinking that means a material city, the New Jerusalem, spontaneously erects itself; now it appears we understand that by "city" the Lord means its inhabitants.
An unusual word is used there--the "righteousness" that becomes the bride's wedding dress is "the righteousness of saints" (dikaiomata in the Greek instead of dikaiosune, Christ's righteousness!). For once in the history of the world, hallelujah choruses proclaim in heaven, "His wife has made herself ready." And we lay aside our joking and our levity and our self-righteousness. At last Christ's righteousness becomes more than merely legal, imputed objectively, and it becomes subjectively imparted. He will have a people who honor Him and glorify Him before the world and before the universe.
As Isaiah says, their "righteousness is of [Him]" (54:11-17), but now there is the intimacy of a wedding night; both the Bridegroom and the bride contribute to the union.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: February 23, 2005.
Copyright © 2011 by "Dial Daily Bread."
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