To Prepare the Bride as the Counterpart of the Bridegroom (1) The Readiness of the Bride

Prophecy note, 12 February 2017
The direction of the Lord’s move today
is to prepare the bride
as the counterpart of the Bridegroom
for the eternal marriage
of the redeeming God
with His redeemed.

The marriage of the Lamb
is the issue of
the completion of
God’s New Testament economy,
which is
to obtain for Christ
a bride, the church,
through His judicial redemption
and by His organic salvation
in His divine life.

The Lord’s recovery
is for the preparation of the bride,
who is composed of
all His overcomers:

All the overcomers
will be the New Jerusalem,
as the bride of Christ
for one thousand years,
in its initial and fresh stage.

Eventually,
all the believers
will join the overcomers
to consummate and complete
the New Jerusalem
in full
as the wife of Christ
in the new heaven and new earth
for eternity.

The readiness of the bride
depends on the maturity in life
of the overcomers:

In the maturity of the divine life,
the lover of Christ
becomes the Shulammite,
signifying that she
has become
the reproduction and duplication
of Christ
to match Him
for their marriage.

In the New Testament
the word mature
is used to refer to
the believers’ being full-grown
and perfected
in the life of God,
indicating that we
need to grow and mature
unto perfection
in the divine life.

We need to continue to grow
until we are matured
in the divine life
to become a full-grown man,
arriving at
the measure of the stature
of the fullness of Christ.

We need to learn
of the apostle Paul
to pursue
the growth and maturity
in the life of Christ.

A mature believer
knows the Body,
cares for the Body,
and honors the Body,
being Body-conscious
and Body-centered.

The overcomers
who constitute the bride
are not separate individuals
but a corporate bride;
for this aspect of the bride,
building is needed:

The overcomers
are not only mature
in life
but also built together
as one bride.

The central and divine thought
of the Scriptures
is that God
is seeking a divine building
as the mingling of Himself
with humanity;
He is seeking
a living composition
of living persons
redeemed by
and mingled with Himself.

The principle of God’s building
is that God
builds Himself
into man
and builds man
into Himself;
God mingling with man
is God building Himself into man,
and man mingling with God
is man being built into God.

God’s building
is the corporate expression
of the Triune God.

To be built up
with fellow believers
is the Lord’s supreme and highest requirement
of His faithful seekers
according to one of the divine attributes
—the divine oneness.

As the bride,
the counterpart of the Bridegroom,
the church
needs beauty:

“Your eyes
will see the King
in His beauty”
(Isa. 33:17a);
“the King
will desire
your beauty”
(Psa. 45:11a).

In the corporate constitution
of the Body of Christ,
there is
much beauty, excellency, and virtue.

The virtues
manifested by us Christians
should be
the manifestation of the glory and beauty
in the divine attributes;
a Christian
is one
who has divinity
as his element and reality,
from which the divine glory and beauty
are expressed
through the human virtues.

The beauty of the bride
is for the presentation of the bride
to Christ
as the Bridegroom:

The beauty of the bride
comes from the Christ
who is wrought
into the church
and who is then expressed
through the church.

Our only beauty
is the shining out of Christ
from within us.

What Christ appreciates in us
is the expression of Himself.

According to Revelation 19:11-21,
Christ
will come
as the fighting General
with His bride,
the overcoming believers
who are His army,
to fight against Antichrist,
the kings under him,
and their armies
at Armageddon:

When Christ comes
with His army
to fight against Antichrist
and his armies,
He will come
as the Son of Man,
and as the Son of Man,
He will need
a counterpart, His bride,
to match and complete Him.

Before His coming back,
Christ will have a wedding,
uniting His overcomers
to Himself as one entity:

Christ will marry the one
who has been fighting the battle
against God’s enemy
for years.

In Revelation 19
Christ
will marry the overcomers,
who have already overcome
the evil one.

After His wedding
Christ
will come with His bride
to destroy Antichrist.

The wedding garment
—Christ lived out of us
as our subjective righteousness—
qualifies us
not only to attend the wedding
but also to join in the army
to fight with Christ
against Antichrist
in the ultimate war
—the war at Armageddon.

Day 5
Rev. 19:7-8
Let us rejoice and exult,
and let us give the glory to Him,
for the marriage of the Lamb
has come,
and His wife
has made herself ready.
And it was given to her
that she
should be clothed in fine linen,
bright and clean;
for the fine linen
is the righteousnesses
of the saints.

The growth in Ephesians 4
is for the function of the new man,
whereas the beauty in chapter 5
is for the presentation of the bride.
…When Christ
presents the church to Himself,
the church
will not be a strong man;
she will be
a beautiful bride.
Christ is
the universal Man.
As this universal Man,
He needs the church
to be His bride
to match Him.
In order to be
the bride of Christ,
the church
must become beautiful
and have all the spots and wrinkles removed.

This union,
the life union of
Christ and His Body,
is a great mystery
in the universe.
This mystery
is the processed Triune God
being joined and mingled
with the regenerated and transformed tripartite man
to become
a universal couple.
This is
the ultimate point
of the mingling of God and man.
God is
the principal character,
and man is
His counterpart.
The two
share the same nature;
they live and walk together.
In other words,
divinity is living in humanity
to become the reality of humanity,
and the human virtues
are living out the divine glory and beauty
to become
the expression of divinity.
Divinity and humanity
are mingled
as one.
Divinity is
the content and the reality within,
and humanity is
the manifestation and beauty without.
The virtues
manifested by us Christians
should be
the manifestation
of the glory and beauty
in the divine attributes.
…A Christian
is one
who has divinity
as his element and reality,
from which the divine glory and beauty
are expressed
through the human virtues.
This is
the expression of God.

One day
the church
will be not only clean and pure
but also without blemish, without mixture.
The church
will be the expression of God Himself
mingled with a resurrected, uplifted, and transformed humanity.
This is
the glorious church,
the church
that is
holy and without blemish.

The spots and wrinkles
do not affect
the function of the church.
However,
they very much detract
from the beauty of the church.
The church
as Christ’s bride
must be beautiful.
When Christ
presents the church
to Himself,
the church
will be
a beautiful bride.
…In order to be
the bride of Christ,
the church
must become beautiful
and have all the spots and wrinkles removed.

Surely
at the time of her presentation to Christ,
the bride
will not have
any wrinkles or spots.
In His bride
Christ will behold
nothing but beauty.
This beauty
will be the reflection
of what He is.
The beauty
of the bride
comes from the Christ
who is wrought into the church
and expressed through the church.
Our beauty
is not our behavior;
our only beauty
is the reflection of Christ,
the shining out of Christ
from within us.
What Christ appreciates in us
is the expression of Himself.

Today
we must prepare ourselves
to be the bride
by taking in the element of Christ’s riches
as our nourishment.
Christ is
the food
for the church.
Therefore,
as she prepares herself
to be presented to Christ,
the church
must eat Christ.
There is
no other way
to be prepared.
Eating Jesus
is the way.
By eating Him
we become
a beautiful and even glorious bride.

First,
Christ must come into us
and then
be assimilated by us.
Then
He will be able
to shine out of us.
This shining
is the glory of the bride,
the manifestation of divinity
through humanity.
Real beauty
is the expression of the divine attributes
through humanity.
Nothing in the universe
is as beautiful
as this expression.
Therefore,
the beauty of the bride
is Christ
shining out of us.
It is
a matter of divinity
expressed through humanity.

Day 3
Col. 1:28
Whom we announce,
admonishing every man
and teaching every man
in all wisdom
that we
may present every man
full-grown
in Christ.

John 14:20
In that day
you will know
that I am in My Father,
and you in Me,
and I in you.

The apostle’s ministry,
whether in announcing Christ
or in admonishing and teaching men
in all wisdom,
was altogether to minister Christ to men
that they
might become perfect and complete
by maturing with Christ
as the element of the divine life
unto full growth.

To practice the truth
is to take care of the Body.
Sometimes the Body is strong,
and sometimes the Body is weak,
but it is still the Body.
If we
come back to the truth
and take care of
the proper order in the Body,
the Body
will immediately become stronger.
All the problems
are due to one thing:
not seeing,
not knowing,
and not caring for
the Body.
We have to honor
the Body.

We
need to be adjusted
in our thinking.
If we trace
the history of the thought
concerning the heavenly mansions,
we will find
that it comes from
the teaching of Roman Catholicism
based on superstition.
We do believe
that there is a Paradise
prepared by God,
but we
must realize and remember well
that the divine thought
in the entire Scriptures
is not that God
is seeking a physical habitation.
A physical habitation
can never satisfy God.
The central and divine thought
of the Scriptures
is that God
is seeking a divine building
as the mingling of Himself
with humanity.
He is seeking
a living composition
of living persons
redeemed by
and mingled with Himself.

After His creation,
God
began
and is still carrying out
the work of
the divine building.
Even today
God is doing
the work of
the divine building,
which is
to mingle Himself with man.
We preach the gospel
not merely to win souls
or save souls from hell
but to minister God Himself
through the Spirit
to man
so that God
can be mingled with man.
In this way
we gain the materials
for the divine building.
Likewise,
we minister Christ
to the saints
so that they
can be mingled
and built up together
with Christ.
This is
the basic and central thought
behind what we do.

The principle of God’s building
is that God
builds Himself into us
and builds us into Him;
that is,
God mingles
Himself with us,
divinity with humanity,
as one building.
To create
is to bring something into existence
out of nothing.
Building,
on the other hand,
means that two things
that are already here
are put together.
God is here,
and man is here,
but now
there is
the need of some work
to bring God together with man
as one
and to bring so many persons together
as one
in God and with God.
This is the work of building.

Now
we know
the principle of God’s building,
and we know
what God’s work is
in these days,
the period, the age, of building.
What God always has been doing,
and what He still is doing,
is working Himself into us,
working us into God,
and bringing all of us together
as one
in God and through God.
We may illustrate this
with concrete.
God is the cement,
the Spirit is the water,
and we are the stones.
When the cement
is put into the water
and the stones
are put into the cement,
the stones
are bound together
by the cement and water.
The result
is a building of concrete.

God
first carried out
His building work
by coming
as the divine person
to be incarnated into humanity
to build
a man with God,
that is,
to build
a God-man.
In the four thousand years
from the time of Adam
to the time of Christ,
there were
many millions of people,
but not one of them
was a building
of God with man.
Before the incarnation,
God was God,
and man was man.
God and man, man and God,
were never mingled
as one
until the day
that God Himself
was incarnated
to be born
in a manger
as a man.
This man
was a unique man,
God mingled with man,
a man with God,
a God-man.
What God did
to work Himself into man
and work man into Himself
was the beginning
of the divine building.

Day 1
John 3:29
He
who has the bride
is the bridegroom;
but the friend of the bridegroom,
who stands and hears him,
rejoices with joy
because of the bridegroom’s voice…

Rev. 21:2
And I saw
the holy city, New Jerusalem,
coming down
out of heaven
from God,
prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband.

The direction
of the Lord’s move today
is…to prepare
His bride, the church,
as His (the Bridegroom’s) counterpart
for the eternal marriage,
the universal marriage,
of the redeeming God
with His redeemed people.
This universal marriage
was typified by
the union of the people of Israel
with their redeeming God
and is clearly revealed
in the New Testament.

In Revelation 19:7 and 8
we see
that Christ
and His counterpart, His bride,
will be married
at His coming back.
Verse 7 says,
“Let us rejoice and exult,
and let us give the glory to Him,
for the marriage of the Lamb
has come,
and His wife
has made herself ready.”
The marriage of the Lamb
is the issue of
the completion of
God’s New Testament economy.
God’s economy
in the New Testament
is to obtain
for Christ
a bride, the church,
through His redemption and divine life.
By the continual working
of the Holy Spirit
through all the centuries,
this goal
will be attained
at the end of this age.
Then
the bride
will be ready.

As the Lamb,
Christ
needs a wedding.
The Gospel of John
reveals
that Christ
is the Lamb
who came
to take away sin
and also the Bridegroom
who came
that He
might have the bride.
Christ’s goal
is not to remove sin;
His goal
is to have the bride.
In the book of Revelation
we see
that Christ
is the Lamb
and the coming Bridegroom.
As the Bridegroom,
He must have
a wedding.

We need to emphasize
the marriage
of Christ and His bride
so that we
may know
that our position
is that of the bride
and the position of the coming Christ
is that of the Bridegroom.
We are on earth
preparing to become the bride
to meet Him,
and He is
on the throne
in the third heaven
prepared to come
as the Bridegroom
to meet us.
Therefore,
He is coming
as the Bridegroom,
and we are going
as the bride.
When we meet Him
at His coming back,
we shall have
a wedding.

What God wants
is the New Jerusalem,
which will be
the totality of
what the overcomers are.
Eventually,
all the overcomers
will be the New Jerusalem,
as the bride of Christ
for one thousand years,
in its initial and fresh stage.
These one thousand years
will be counted
as one day, the wedding day.
This will be
the initial and fresh stage
of the New Jerusalem
as the bride of Christ.

The overcomers
will also be
the New Jerusalem
as the present Paradise of God
in the millennial kingdom.
This bride
will be the Paradise of God.
The three things
are one:
the bride,
the city,
and the Paradise
of God.

Eventually,
the New Jerusalem
will be consummated and completed
in full,
as the tabernacle of God
and the wife of Christ
in the new heaven and new earth
for eternity.
In the kingdom of one thousand years,
the New Jerusalem
will be composed
only of the overcomers.
Besides the overcomers
there will be
a great number of immature saints,
but after the thousand-year kingdom,
all the believers
will be matured.
The Lord
has a way
to cause all the believers
to be matured.
If we
do not get matured
in this age,
we will be matured
in the next age.
The process of being matured
in the next age,
however,
will be very severe.
Eventually,
all of the believers
will join the overcomers
to make the New Jerusalem
larger than it was
in the thousand-year kingdom.
That will consummate and complete
the New Jerusalem
in full,
as the tabernacle of God
and the wife of Christ
in the new heaven and new earth
for eternity.