FINDING
THE BRIDE OF CHRIST
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
The Old Testament is described by Paul as full of ‘types
and shadows’ of New Testament realities; and it seems hardly probable that the Holy
Spirit would occupy a lengthy chapter of Genesis with elaborate details of a
family marriage, if it were not a lovely symbol - as it is - of the great
Marriage of Eternity expressed for ever in the words,-
“The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king that made a
marriage for his son” (Matt. 22: 2). So we find it set in the suited
background. Genesis 22 is Isaac, the son of Abraham, offered
up as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah, and - the Holy Spirit says in Hebrews (11: 19)
- received back in resurrection: so now, after Calvary, the risen Son is to
have a Bride; and chapter 24. is not only a
wonderful revelation of divine guidance, but an extraordinarily exact
photograph of that seeking and finding of Christ’s Bride which has been
going on for two thousand years.*
[* NOTE.
In Gen. 24, the bride for Isaac is
selected from amongst family members. “You will
not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites … but
will go to my country and MY OWN
RELATIVES to get a wife for my son Isaac,” (veres 4); “the Lord has led me on the journey to
the house of my father’s relatives” (verse
27); “go to my father’s family
and to my own clan, and get a wife for my son,” (verse38); “theLord …
will send his angel with you … so that
you can get a wife for my son from my own clan and from my father’s family”
(verse 40). Therefore the Bride who will rule with
Christ during the Kingdom Age, cannot include all the regenerate, but a
selection
only – “those who are considered
worthy of taking part in that age” (Luke 20: 35).]
THE
BRIDE
Far away from Abraham. and Isaac -
the Father and the Son - is the distant Bride. The Mystical Christ is hidden among all
nations, and veiled - like Eastern women - amongst all classes and ages; and the
Servant who is sent out to seek her has to have the assurance of supernatural
guidance, as he travels out into unknown lands. “And Abraham said unto him, He shall send his angel before
thee, and thou shalt take a wife for my son from thence” (Gen. 24: 7). Long before the
discovery and call of Rebekah, Abraham administers an oath that a bride shall
be chosen and brought to his son: even so, God has chosen us “before
the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:
4); and John the
Baptist,* seeing Christ, instantly identifies
Isaac – “He that hath the bride is the bridegroom” (John 3: 29).
[* NOTE. A willingness on the part of
regenerate believers to obey the Christian rite of baptism - which was the
first command by John the baptiser, the Lord Himself, and His apostles after
him - now appears to be a pre-requisite to those who will be
judged “accounted worthy” to reign
with Him during the Kingdom Age and “taking part in the resurrection [out] from
the dead” (Luke 20: 35). Cf.
Phil. 3: 11; Rev. 20: 4). ]
THE SERVANT
Now we get a typical photograph of the soul-winner. The entrusted embassy is given to a
nameless servant; throughout the whole chapter he is never once named: a nameless servant because it can be any servant,
and therefore it can be every servant.*
“I have found,” says the Bishop of Dornokal, “that the
simple witness of an untrained and unpaid lay person carries far more
conviction to a heathen than the sermon of a Bishop.” Yet when we learn the name (Gen. 15: 2) it is equally suggestive:- Eliezer,
‘one whom God helps’. Throughout
the whole winning of the Bride, while he is never named, invariably throughout
he is helped. Being drawn in a
carriage up a hill towards home, Mr.
Spurgeon noticed a man lighting the lamps. One by one the lights were kindled,
until the man reached the summit and disappeared. “Thus,”
said Mr. Spurgeon, “would I have my life to be;
lighting lamps up the hill of life; that when presently I disappear into the
eternity beyond, I may leave others to be lights in this poor dark world, and
to shine for God.”
Nevertheless, the name Eliezer has blazed for three thousand years: so “they
that turn many to righteousness”** shall shine “as the stars for ever and ever”.
How blessed that every one of us can be Eliezer! A rescued Indian girl once said:- “Last night I thought I was going to heaven, and I
was so glad to go. But I was
suddenly sorry. I thought all the
angels would look at me, and there would be tears in their eyes, because I had
loved our Lord Jesus so long, and I had not brought one to Him.” So long
then meant a year and nine months, and she had, though she did not know it,
brought at least one to Him.
IDENTIFICATION
But Eliezer is now troubled by the thought - as we all are -
what if we fail to win the Bride, what if our wedding invitation meets with no
response? Very beautifully Abraham
replies:- “If the woman be not willing to
follow thee, then thou shalt be clear from this my oath.” Do your part, and God will do His; you
cannot convert, all you can do is to carry the message; and if you have done all that is possible to
you, no blame attaches for an undiscovered Bride. So Eliezer asks for explicit guidance in
the identification of the Bride. He
says:- “0 Lord,
send me, I pray thee, good speed this day.”
Then he suggests an identification proof. “Let it come to pass that the
damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I
pray thee, that I may drink, and she shall say, Drink: let the same be she that
thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac.”
Let me know her by her instant response. “It has
been my privilege,” says Hudson
Taylor, “to know many Christians - I am
speaking within bounds when I say a hundred - who have accepted Jesus Christ
the first time they ever heard of Him.”*** “And it came to pass, before
he had done speaking” - before he
had finished his prayer – “that, behold, Rebeckah came out.”
Her delightful hospitality at once makes Eliezer certain that he has
found the Bride. “And the
man bowed his head, and worshipped the Lord, and said,
The Lord hath led me in the way.”
RESPONSE
So now we have the crucial test. The Servant reveals the Father and the
Son, in the first speech recorded in the Bible; and lo, the soul that responds
is the Bride. She reveals
herself. No conceivable test could
be better. Eliezer does not ask for
some magical sign, such as her stumbling as she approaches him, or the
alighting of a bird on the shoulder of the selected maid: he asks, as a sign, a
responding heart, that will thus
reveal God as the Worker already
there. And the immediate response
proves him correct. After he has
explained the whole matter to Laban - the wealthy
Father, the sole Son and heir, the wanted Bride – Rebekah’s family,
having heard all, ask her:- “Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will
go.” The Bride consists of all who respond to the
call. The testimony of the Servant has so
sunk into her heart that she is willing to leave all and join
Isaac for ever.* “As
many as were ORDAINED TO ETERNAL LIFE believed” (Acts 13: 48).
There are some wonderful Eliezers in the
world. An aged Christian now alive
in the United States, 79 years old, in the last 60 years has handed from door
to door 500,000 Gospel tracts, in 42 States of the Union, and hopes to finish
the last 6 States before he dies.
[*
ENDOWMENT
Eliezer now brings forth a ring of gold, and bracelets of
gold; and he clasps them on her hands as the betrothed of Isaac: so
immediately, in the Upper Room, the moment the Bride had appeared, the
disciples were “enriched with all utterance”, with the jewels of miracle and
inspiration placed on the neck of the Bride. Jesus never sought his Bride for the portion
she could bring Him - so far as we know.
Rebekah left her home penniless:
nay, Christ’s Bride owed ten thousand talents, and her Lord had first to
pay her debt: He sought her because He loved her; and He endows her with all
His goods – “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”
TEN
DAYS
All this time Rebekah has accepted a Bridegroom whom she has
never seen; but she had believed the report, and what she heard of Him was
enough for her heart – “whom, not having seen, ye love” (1 Pet. 1: 8); and ten days intervene before she
starts to meet him. Ten is always
the number of responsibility: ten commandments to be
obeyed; ten talents to be used; ten virgins commanded to watch; ten lepers
responsible to confess. So now the
whole epoch intervenes of Christian responsibility, during which, by a thousand
methods, that is being prepared which must come at long last – “a glorious church [i.e an ‘out-calling’], not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (Eph. 5: 27). *
* The Bride, in her Millennial
aspect, provides her own trousseau – “for
the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints” (Rev. 19: 8); but in her Eternal aspect she is all the saved, in this dispensation- “they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life”
(Rev. 21: 27); and in either case suffering
- voluntary or else penal - fits the Bride for the Bridegroom. In the words of Mrs. Sarah F. Moore:- “John, the seer of
THE
MARRIAGE
So at last the wedding takes place. As the evening shadows
fall - as the sun of our dispensation is sinking - Isaac comes forth into the
field – “the field is the world”, and the pavilion of cloud where
Christ and the Church meet is part of this earth; and he takes her into his
mother’s tent - the
DECISION
How unutterably solemn this makes our hearing of the Gospel! God’s servant - it matters not who
he is, he is nameless - presses, as a God-entrusted suitor, for instant
decision. He who takes the
Bridegroom’s name - and becomes a ‘Christian’ by that fact -
proclaims the wedlock: he disengages himself from all rival suitors - the
world, the flesh, the devil - and engages himself to Christ for time and
eternity. On the other hand,
absence of response is fatal: a soul not the Bride could have the greatest evangelist plead with him or her
for a thousand years, with no result: that soul is not the Bride.
Tersteegen voices the heart of the Bride:-
There made
ready are the mansions Glorious, bright, and fair;
But the Bride, the Father gave Him,
Still is wanting there.
Who is
this that comes to meet me On the desert way,
As the Morning Star foretelling God's unclouded
day?
He it is
who came to win me On a cross of shame,
In His glory I shall know Him Evermore
the same.
He who in
His hour of sorrow Bore the cross alone;
I, who through the lonely desert Trod
where He had gone:-
He and I
in that bright glory One great joy shall share-
Mine, to be for ever with Him, His,
that I am there.
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