10. A bride for the Son: the end of all things

Scripture names the end toward which all things move, and the end is a person. God's purpose runs "to an administration of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth, in him." (Eph 1:10). The summing up is located, not abstract: all things, in heaven and on earth, gathered in him. Colossians states the same end from the side of creation: "For by him all things were created in the heavens and on the earth, visible things and invisible things, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things have been created through him and for him." (Col 1:16). Romans ends its longest doctrinal argument with the threefold direction stated flatly: "For of him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen." (Rom 11:36). Of him is origin. Through him is course. To him is destination. Nothing in the three texts ends on the creation itself; every line terminates on Christ.

Within that end stands a presentation, and Ephesians gives it its fullest statement. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly 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 assembly to himself gloriously, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without defect." (Eph 5:25-27). The verbs run in one direction. Christ loved. Christ gave himself up. Christ sanctifies and cleanses. Christ presents. The assembly is the object of each verb and the subject of none. The presentation is "to himself": the one who gave himself up for her is the one to whom she is presented, and the terms of the presentation admit no remainder — no spot, no wrinkle, holy, without defect.

Paul then anchors the figure in Genesis and names its referent. "“For this cause a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife. Then the two will become one flesh.”" "This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and the assembly." (Eph 5:31-32). The apostle does not leave the leaving and the joining of Genesis 2 as a bare illustration. He states what the mystery concerns: Christ and the assembly. The union of husband and wife stands in the text as the figure; the union of Christ and His bride stands as the thing figured, declared great and declared plainly.

The assembly presented to the Son is, in John's Gospel, a gift before it is presented. "All those whom the Father gives me will come to me. He who comes to me I will in no way throw out." (John 6:37). The giving precedes the coming. Those given come, and no one who comes is cast out. In the prayer of John 17 the Son receives the gift as already transferred: "“I revealed your name to the people whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, and you have given them to me. They have kept your word." (John 17:6). They were the Father's. The Father gave them to the Son. The prayer's desire carries the gift to the same destination Ephesians names: "Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world." (John 17:24). Presence with the Son and sight of His glory: that is where the gift is headed, and the glory itself is given, resting on the Father's love before the foundation of the world.

Ephesians 1 fixes the gift's purpose with a threefold refrain. Favor in the Beloved is granted "to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved." (Eph 1:6). Those who first hoped in Christ stand "to the end that we should be to the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ." (Eph 1:12). The Spirit is given as "who is a pledge of our inheritance, to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory." (Eph 1:14). Three times the line ends at the same place: the praise of His glory. The people given are named, in the third occurrence, "God’s own possession" — held under pledge, awaiting redemption, and ordered at each point to the praise of the glory of God. The gift does not terminate on itself.

The gift thread ends at a wedding. "Let’s rejoice and be exceedingly glad, and let’s give the glory to him. For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready.” It was given to her that she would array herself in bright, pure, fine linen, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints." (Rev 19:7-8). Even the readiness is received: it was given to her that she should be so arrayed. The wife here is the assembly of Ephesians 5 — loved, sanctified, cleansed, presented without spot — now standing at the wedding of the Lamb, clothed in what was given to her, while the glory of the scene is directed away from her: "let’s give the glory to him."

Set in this order, the texts sustain one further sentence, and the sentence must be labeled for what it is. "The bride is the reason for history" is the Sustained Reality Model's synthesis of these passages; it is an inference drawn from them, not a text standing among them. It also stands beneath the declaration that rules the whole section: all things are of Him and through Him and to Him (Rom 11:36). The bride is not the final end in herself. The end is the Son, to whom all things are, and the bride is the Father's gift to Him within that end. Where the inference and the texts differ in weight, the texts carry the weight.

The closing visions show the presentation completed. "I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people; and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God." (Rev 21:2-3). The bride-city descends from God, prepared and adorned, and the announcement over her is not her glory but God's dwelling with people.

Inside that city the last state of the given people is described: "There will be no curse any more. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads." (Rev 22:3-4). The desire of John 17:24 — that those given to the Son be with Him and see His glory — stands fulfilled in the plainest terms: they see His face. Then the bride speaks, with the Spirit, in the Bible's final invitation: "The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” He who hears, let him say, “Come!” He who is thirsty, let him come. He who desires, let him take the water of life freely." (Rev 22:17). The one who was given, cleansed, presented, and adorned ends as a voice beside the Spirit, calling the thirsty to the water of life.

The outline closes where Romans 11 closed, on a doxology: "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and forever. Amen." (2 Pet 3:18). Both now and forever. The glory is His at the end of all things because all things were of Him and through Him from the beginning, and the bride — the Father's gift to the Son, presented spotless at the wedding of the Lamb — stands inside that "to him," not above it.