We see in the vision at the end of the New Testament a vision with many elements brought together, indeed fused together. The plan of God has reached its end, attained its goal, accomplished its purpose. All the prophecies are fulfilled. All the types and symbols find full realization. Everything is now brought to completion.
It is first of all the establishment of the human race as God has intended it to be. Redeemed human beings constitute the new Jerusalem, the city where all those who belong to Christ the Son of God enter and keep festival, celebrating the goodness of the work of God. They are in full covenant relationship with God. He is their God and they are his people. They are his sons and daughters and his heirs. They have received the full inheritance, the blessed life that is a share in his own blessedness.
The whole earth, the whole of material creation, is now renewed, brought to life and fully manifesting the goodness and greatness of its Creator, fully deified. It is gold, refined from any admixture and purified from any uncleanness, shining with the glory of God. And it belongs to the sons and daughters of God. They reign over it, tending the new paradise, rejoicing in its goodness, no longer needing to guard it from evil.
The glorified sons and daughters of God experience the fullness of his presence. They are filled with him, fully spiritualized in his Holy Spirit, formed fully into his image in his Son. In seeing him face to face, not only do they see him as he is, but they see all of creation in the light of him, coming from him and going toward him.
They have his law fully written in their hearts by the glory of God within. Sin no longer dwells within them and the curse is gone. His glory has entered into them in such a way that their obedience to him is an expression of the fact that they fully want what he wants. They and all creation with them have entered into the full freedom of glory of the sons and daughters of God (Romans 8:21).
In this vision, we can see all the stages of God’s plan brought to consummation. Paradise is restored. The blessing of Abraham is given to all the nations. The old covenant is completed in the new. God’s people have reached the end of their exodus journey and been given their true inheritance, the land of the living. The kingdom of God is on earth as it is in heaven. Every spiritual blessing is given in the heavenly places. Heaven has come to earth.
We can, however, see something more. To see that, we have to look at some of the details of the vision. The sun and moon are gone. So is the sea. So is the night. To understand why, we have to return to the first chapter of Genesis.
In order to create the world, the light had to shine into the darkness on the first day (Genesis 1:3–5; 2 Corinthians 4:6). This darkness covered everything and perhaps symbolized nothingness, the nothingness that would give birth to corruption and death, the nothingness that surrounded the light and threatened to extinguish it. The light was uncreated light, the light of God’s presence in the midst of the darkness, and from that light God began his work of creation. He divided off the light from the darkness and then he separated the waters of the abyss so that there was a clear space, heaven. In that space he formed material creation, the earth, covered with vegetation.
He then populated his creation. He put the lesser lights in the sky (sun, moon, stars) to rule the day and night. He put birds in the air, fish in the sea, and animals on the earth. Then he established the human race, his son, made in his image and likeness, to bring the material creation to its purpose, made male and female to share the nature of the animals and so to reproduce and to develop into a race that could make the earth into a garden of delight, a paradise.
Now, after the Fall, after the dominion of darkness (Colossians 1:13–14), the rule of the dragon, Satan, has been destroyed (Ephesians 6:12; Revelation 12; 20:1–3, 7–10). The darkness has failed to overcome the light (John 1:5). The prince of this world has been cast down and cast into the lake of fire (John 12:31; Revelation 12:9; 20:10). The human race has been brought into the kingdom of God and reigns with God over all of his creation. That which was opposed to his purpose, seeking to establish a world different than what God wanted, is defeated.
The final vision in Revelation seems to tell us that all that is more than defeated. It is gone. The waters of the sea that once overwhelmed much of the earth in the Flood, and have threatened to do so again, are gone. The sun and moon are no longer needed because the light of God’s glory fills all of his material creation completely. They too are gone. Night and darkness have vanished.
Strictly speaking, darkness has never existed. It is the absence of light. Strictly speaking pure formlessness has never existed. It is the absence of that which makes every definite thing possible. Strictly speaking nothingness has never existed. It is the absence of positive being. But we are looking at a book filled with images, where the incomprehensible is expressed in the form of material pictures and analogical descriptions. And we are looking at a history in which God has been resisted by the dominion of darkness, but now we are foreseeing his absolute victory.
If light has replaced darkness, if form and order have replaced formlessness, if being has replaced nothingness, that can only mean that God’s work of creation is now fully established and complete. It is no longer threatened by lapsing into non-being. It is no longer endangered by nihilistic forces opposed to God and his plan. That which could destroy has been banished, made to be without force, made to be of no effect, made to be no longer a threat.
Creation has been brought to completion and will now unfold its full power and beauty, not static, but moving harmoniously to tell the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). Some Christian teachers hold that when the new Jerusalem is established on earth, creation will have reached its final form. Others have held that at that point, creation has gotten through its birth pangs and will begin to develop to more and more glorious forms. Either way, the creative or beginning work of God is finished, and God can enter his rest, the eternal sabbath, which is the age to come, whose glories can only be expressed to us dimly and weakly, but which are of surpassing excellence.
All this is the work of the Spirit of God who moved over the waters in the beginning, who was at work in the kings, and priests, and prophets of the old covenant, who was poured out on God’s sons and daughters on the day of Pentecost, and who will bring about the new heaven and earth. All this is the work of the Word of God through whom all things were created, in whose image the human race was formed, who entered his creation as a human being to save it and to reopen paradise, and who will come a second time to bring it to completion. All this is the work of him who sits upon the throne and whose complete will and good pleasure will be brought to pass by the ways of his incomparable and inscrutable wisdom. He spoke and it came to be. He commanded and it stood forth (Psalm 33:9).
And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place. And behold, I am coming soon.”
“Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”
Revelation 22:6–7
“Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”
Revelation 22:20
Special Exegetical Discussion: The Marriage of Christ and the Church
The consummation of the marriage of Christ and the Church is an image of the fulfillment of the covenant commitment, not of romantic or erotic ecstasy.
Marriage is used as an analogical description or image of the relationship of God to his people in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Because we live in a romanticized and eroticized culture, this image is frequently over-emphasized. Some teachers even say that “the Scriptures use this image more than any other” for God’s relationship with humanity,1 although this is manifestly inaccurate. The image of the king and his subjects (see for example Revelation 4–5; 21:5; 22:1), and the image of father and son (see for example Galatians 3:26; Revelation 21:7) are both much more common than husband and wife. All three images – a king and his subjects, a husband and his wife, a father and his son – are of a God who loves human beings (Titus 3:4), even though contemporary people with a prejudice against monarchy cannot easily conceive of a king who loves, that is, cares for, his people out of dedication, and are losing the experience of fathers and sons who love one another throughout all of their lives.
To round out the picture, the image of the warrior who slaughters the enemy is even more common than the image of husband and wife. It is not accidental that Christ is portrayed at the end of the book of Revelation both as a warrior rescuing his people and as a bridegroom taking his wife (both are to be found juxtaposed in chapter 19). This is now even more foreign to our culture, although history gives us many examples of fighters who have given their lives to destroy enemies, thereby saving others from oppression – and our own time does as well.
In the Scriptures the analogical description or image of marriage is probably always used for the relationship of God to a body of people, not to an individual. Of course, the two are connected. If Christ unites himself to his Church and shares his life with his Church, he also thereby unites himself to the individual members of his Church and shares his life with them. Likewise, if individuals join the Church, a body of people united with Christ, they too are thereby united to Christ. Nonetheless, marriage is used in Scripture for the relationship of Christ to a body of people, the Church, and when the New Testament speaks of the relationship of God to an individual, the analogical description of sonship, often adoption, is primarily used.
But more important, the marriage image is often misunderstood in modern Christian teaching. Images are applied in an analogical manner. Marriage as we know it is between two human individuals, a man and a woman. The marriage of Christ and the Church is applied to the glorified Son of God and a body of people, his followers. It is applied because there is some similarity between the two analogues, but we need to be able to see the point of similarity in order to interpret it well and not read something into it that is not there.
The image of marriage in regard to the relationship of Christ and the Church is not used in Scripture as the image of a romantic relationship, but as an image of covenant and covenant commitment. It was probably first used as an image of God and Israel in Hosea, where Hosea was told by God to marry a prostitute – not someone he married because of romantic attraction – and predictably she committed adultery. The marriage relationship in Hosea is the image of human breaking of the covenant with God and of God’s unfailing commitment to the people he is in a covenant relationship with. It is a commitment expressed in severe judgment (not just tender wooing) but then in restoration. It was used in a similar way in other prophets (Isaiah 54; 62; Jeremiah 3; 31; Ezekiel 16; 23). Paul used the image in a similar way as well in Second Corinthians 11:2 to warn the Galatians that they were betrothed to Christ and now needed to be faithful to him.
The image of the marriage of Christ and the Church was used in the book of Revelation to refer to the Second Coming. The bride had already been betrothed to him. She then was “taken” to him in the marriage. As a result, she lived with him and received every spiritual blessing from him – the Lord God will be their light, they shall see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads (Revelation 22:4–5). The image is still not of romantic love but of covenant relationship and commitment. The commitment has already been made. Christ can be relied on to come to fulfill that commitment by establishing the full union of living together, and we will not be able to sue him for breach of promise. The Jewish marriage process provides an apt image for a two-step process of entering into a union based on a covenant relationship.
Ephesians 5:31–32. One of the more important passages that sees the New Testament as a fulfillment of the Old Testament and is based on the marriage analogy is Ephesians 5:31–32. It bears on the discussion of the marriage of the Lamb in the book of Revelation. The full passage reads as follows:
“Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church, because we are members of his body. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”
Ephesians 5:22–33
Three things are helpful to note as we examine the passage. First of all, it is not primarily about Christ and the Church, but about husbands and wives and how they should relate to one another. Wives should be subordinate to their husbands, and husbands should care for their wives. Christ and the Church are given as a model for husbands and wives to imitate, and therefore the passage does not attempt to provide a complete view of the relationship of Christ and the Church.
Second, the husband is exhorted to love his wife, but he is not exhorted to love her in a romantic, emotional way, as some interpret the passage. The two, of course, can be combined, but the question here is what is being presented in the text. The husband is exhorted to care for his wife, even at personal cost. This is especially clear with the second example, the way a man loves his own body. Hopefully he does not love his own body in a romantic or erotic way, but he always cares for it well if he can. The passage is not speaking against a man loving his wife in a romantic way, but the passage is not written to encourage romantic love but faithful care.
Third, each time the passage mentions the relationship of Christ and the Church, it says something about the relationship, but sometimes what is said does not apply to the husband and wife relationship. Probably this happens because the relationship of Christ and the Church is the main subject of the Letter to the Ephesians. In other words, the passage is using Christ and the Church as a model for the husband-wife relationship, but it also provides an opportunity to say something more about Christ and the Church at the same time.
The first development of the Christ–Church analogy is that Christ is the savior of the Church and gave himself up for her in his death on the Cross that he might make her holy by purifying her from sins. Most scholars think that washing of water with the word is a reference to Baptism, which is possibly here seen as an analogy of the purifying bath a wife undergoes in the Jewish marriage ceremony. The fact that Christ saves the Church indicates that Paul is not thinking that the husband should care for his wife just the way Christ cares for the Church. The husband is not the wife’s savior, and he does not cleanse her from her sins, much less baptize her into himself. Rather, Paul is using what Christ does for the Church as a model of service love.
We can see the same truth expressed in First John 3:16 where it says, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” The text then goes on to explicate the kind of love it has in mind by warning against having the world’s goods and seeing his brother in need, yet closing his heart against him. In other words, the love that Christians are being exhorted to when they imitate the Lord in laying down his life is providing for the needs of their fellow Christians. The Lord himself said, love one another as I have loved you (John 15:12), and went on to refer to his death on the Cross as an example. In a similar way, the husband’s love for his wife is to be a love that provides for her.
This raises the question of how what Ephesians says about Christ and the Church relates to what Revelation says about the marriage of the Lamb. In particular, when does Christ present the Church to himself in splendor(possibly: in glory)? Two answers are given. One is that he does so in the first stage of the new covenant. This would fit well with the possible reference to Baptism and to what Paul says in Second Corinthians 11:6. The other answer is that he purifies the Church from sin here and now so that she will be clothed with … the righteous deeds of the saints (Revelation 19:8) and so be prepared for the Second Coming when he can present her to himself and take her as his wife. This fits better with the picture of the Church as a pure bride in the second step of the Jewish marriage ceremony.
It is the second development of the Christ–Church analogy in the passage that is of most significance to the New Testament interpretation of the Old Testament. In verse 31, Ephesians says, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh,” quoting Genesis 2:24 after the creation of Eve. The Ephesians passage then goes on to say, This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church. In other words, the account of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 has something to do with Christ and the Church.
Mystery in Pauline writings often has the meaning of something that was hidden and now has become known (e.g., Ephesians 3:8–10; Colossians 1:26). So to say that the phrase about the joining of man and woman (in this case Adam and Eve) in Genesis is a mystery is probably to say it has a meaning no one could see before the coming of Christ, because it is only revealed in him. Adam and Eve prefigured Christ and the Church. Just as Adam needed to have a wife to bring into existence the human race, so the new Adam, Christ, needed to have a wife, the Church, to bring into existence the new human race. He needed, as Ephesians 5:30 put it, members for his body.
Over the centuries, Christian teachers have developed this typological understanding of the Church. The Church was created out of Christ’s side, so she shares his nature, but as his partner (Genesis 2:21–22). She is his helper (Genesis 2:18). He is the savior who offered himself in sacrifice that his people might be cleansed of their sins, but she, the Church, is the mother of all living (Genesis 3:20), who, along with him, brings to birth the truly living. She is united with him even now and will be fully united with him in the age to come. In other words, the end brings the beginning to completion. What Adam and Eve began but failed to accomplish well, Christ and the Church will bring to full completion at the end.
This article, The Vision of the Completion of the New Covenant: Christ’s Second Coming – Part 2, © 2017 by Stephen B. Clark is excerpted from Reading the Old Testament in the Light of the New: The Stages of God’s Plan, Chapter 11, published by Emmaus Road Publishing, Steubenville, Ohio, USA.
- The Completion of the New Covenant: Christ’s First & Second Coming – Part 1
- The Vision of the Completion of the New Covenant – Part 2
- The Beginning and the End – Part 3
Top image credit:
1 Christopher West, The Theology of the Body Explained: A Commentary on John Paul II’s “Gospel of the Body” (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2003), 12.
Steve Clark has been a founding leader, author, and teacher for the Catholic charismatic renewal since its inception in 1967. Steve is past president of the Sword of the Spirit, an international ecumenical association of charismatic covenant communities worldwide. He is the founder of the Servants of the Word, an ecumenical international missionary brotherhood of men living single for the Lord.
Steve Clark has authored a number of books, including Baptized in the Spirit and Spiritual Gifts, Finding New Life in the Spirit, Growing in Faith, and Knowing God’s Will, Building Christian Communities, Man and Woman in Christ, The Old Testament in Light of the New.
- See articles by Steve Clark in Living Bulwark Archives