The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

Blessed are they which are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb.—Revelation 19:9.

1. With the beginning of this chapter we enter upon the fifth great section of the Apocalypse, which extends to chap. Revelation 20:6. The object of the section is to bring before us the triumph and rest of the faithful disciples of Jesus after their conflict is over. They have had to contend alike with the world and with the degenerate Church. They have been separated from both; and both have fallen. There is no more struggle for them now. The first notice of this happy state is presented in the song of thanksgiving over the destruction of Babylon, sung by the heavenly hosts and by the redeemed from among men.

The song is new, celebrating, not merely judgment on foes, but the full taking possession of His Kingdom by the Lord. Up to this time the actual marriage of the Redeemer to His people has not taken place. The two parties have only been betrothed to one another. At length the hour has come when the marriage shall be completed, the Lord Himself being manifested in glory and His bride along with Him. The Lamb is come to claim His bride, and “his wife hath made herself ready.” Through storm and calm, through sorrow and joy, through darkness and light, she has waited for Him, crying ever and again, “Come quickly.” At last He comes, and the marriage and the marriage supper are to take place.

2. Such is the moment that has now arrived, and the bride is ready for it. Her raiment is worthy of our notice. It is “fine linen, bright and pure”; and then it is immediately added “for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.” These acts are not the imputed righteousness of Christ, although only in Christ are the acts performed. They express the moral and religious condition of those who constitute the bride. No outward righteousness alone, with which we might be clothed as with a garment, is a sufficient preparation for future blessedness. An inward change is necessary, a personal and spiritual meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light.

Thus “made ready,” the bride now enters with the Bridegroom to the marriage feast; and, as the whole of her future rises before the view of the heavenly visitant who converses with the Seer, he says to him, “Write, Blessed are they which are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” Once before, St. John had heard a similar, perhaps the same, Voice from heaven, saying, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth.” Then we believed; now we see. The clouds are dispelled; the veil is rent asunder; we enter into the palace of the great King. There is music, and festivity, and joy. There is neither sin nor sorrow, no privilege abused, no cloud upon any countenance, no burden upon any heart, no shadow from the future to darken the rapture of the present. Here is life, and life abundantly; the peace that passeth understanding; the joy unspeakable and glorified; the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading.

“The Marriage of the Lamb” is a subject that can easily be vulgarized. It can be vulgarized for the same reason that the finest poems make the finest parodies. The higher you climb the deeper you fall. The subject is one of profound delicacy. Let us put the shoes from off our feet, for the place where we tread is holy ground.1 [Note: R. Waddell, Behold the Lamb of God! 262.]

I

The Marriage

1. For the first time in the Apocalypse we read here of the marriage of the Lamb; and for the first time, although the general idea of supping with the Lord had been once alluded to, we read of the marriage supper. The figure indeed is far from being new. The writers both of the Old and of the New Testament use it with remarkable frequency. But no sacred writer appears to have felt more the power and beauty of the similitude than St. John. In the first miracle which he records, and in which he sees the whole glory of the New Testament dispensation mirrored forth, He who changed the water into wine is the Bridegroom of His Church; and, when the Baptist passes out of view, in the presence of Him for whom he had prepared the way, he records the swan-like song in which the great prophet terminated his mission in order that another and a higher than himself might have sole possession of the field: “Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled.”

2. Now, what is the significance of this figure of the marriage relation between God and man which we find running all down revelation? It is not difficult to get hold of the central idea of it. What is marriage? It is the coming together of two lives in the deepest possible unity. It is the surrender of separate individuality and the mingling of each in a common stream. This is the ideal marriage. When we turn to the Word of God, and ask what marriage is, we find this idea of the unity of two lives expressed in the strongest possible terms. In marriage, in the ideal marriage, the two become one flesh. It does not rest on a civil contract like a business partnership. It rests on a mysterious change affecting the very substance of their body and blending two lives into a physical and spiritual oneness. The man and woman who love one another delight in all that is or seems to be most beautiful and good. It is even a kind of joy to know each other’s troubles and to bear each other’s faults. They find comfort and hope and strength in their mutual affections. Their very trials bring them closer. They learn to suppress self, to think how they can do and be the very best for each other. That is the ideal, and in many marriages it is realized.

3. Marriage in this ideal sense is used in the New Testament as a symbol of Christ and His relation to the Church. While St. Paul is dictating these wonderful words in the Epistle to the Ephesians which declare the mysterious unity of life that marriage creates, “I think,” says Dr. Dale, “I see a look of dreamy abstraction come over his face, showing that his thoughts have passed from earthly to heavenly things. He is in the presence of the transcendent unity between Christ and His redeemed. He is thinking of how Christ forsook all things that He might make us for ever one with Himself, that our earthly life might become His, His heavenly life ours. Forgetting for the moment that he was writing about marriage, he exclaims, ‘The mystery, the secret of the unity of Christ and His people, the Divine purpose which from all ages had been hid in God, but was now revealed. The mystery is great.’ ” This is the groundwork of earthly marriage. This is the background from which its light and lifting come. This is what redeems it, and purifies it, and exalts it. It is meant to lead up to, and lose itself in, and be fulfilled by, the Divine eternal life of Christ. It is an image, a shadow, a symbol, of that.

The spiritual union of Christ and His Church, though it is perfect in the Divine intention from the first, is in fact only consummated at the point where the Church is freed from the imperfection of sin and has become the stainless counterpart of Christ Himself. The love of Christ—the removal of obstacles to His love by atoning sacrifice—the act of spiritual purification—the gradual sanctification—the consummated union in glory: these are the moments of the Divine process of redemption, viewed from the side of Christ, which St. Paul specifies.1 [Note: C. Gore, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, 219.]

Let faith ring these bells of heaven for our joy. Married to Christ. Himself the measure of our responsibilities; Himself the fulness of our capabilities; Himself the possessor of our hearts’ affections; Himself the security of our hopes; Himself the well-spring of our fruitfulness; Himself the law of our hearts, our glory, and our crown. Blessed are they that are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.2 [Note: Marcus Rainsford, Lectures on Romans vii., 28.]

4. And now we are able to understand what is meant by the marriage of the Lamb. It is the final and perfect blending in one unity of the life of Christ and His people. Just as in an earthly union the two become one flesh, so with the great spiritual union Christ and His redeemed are brought together. They are brought together not in place, but in character. They are brought together completely. The Divine and the human cease to be divided. They are blended into one.

God from all eternity purposed to bring man into this deep union with Himself. A note of it sounds all down revelation. His people are betrothed to Him. They are, as we say, “engaged,” but the engagement has never issued in marriage. What has hindered? Sin. It is sin that has blinded love, that has obscured the true nature of the Bridegroom, and hindered the heart from full acceptance. But a time draws on when that unity of God and man whose reality Christ demonstrated will be accomplished in all His people. Now the engagement is postponed, or weakened, or broken off here and there. But a day is coming when that will all end; when the eyes shall be opened to see the true Bridegroom, the King in His beauty; when the perfected, completed union of Christ and His people, in will, in heart, in love, in life, shall be consummated, and God shall be all in all. That is the marriage of the Lamb.

As in the old story, the prince who wooed and won his bride in the disguise of a beggar, brought her to the capital city and the king’s palace, took leave of her on some pretext, and caused her to be led all shrinking and solitary into the chamber. When she looked she saw on the throne her lover, her husband, and all fear fled. So the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, wooed and won by Him, being found in fashion as a servant, lifts up her eyes and sees on the throne the old face she has learned to love, and is very glad and confident. Her love is made perfect, she has boldness in the day of judgment, and goes to dwell with love for evermore.1 [Note: W. R. Nicoll, The Lamb of God, 96.]

In the future world, as compared with this, we may suppose the presence of God will be as in our material world is the bright sunshine compared with the dim twilight. The sun, the more bright, and glorious, and gladdening, and life-elevating it is, is not necessarily on that account the only thing to be looked at and thought of; it is seen in the light it gives, and thought of for the delight which it gives. So even in another world may it be with God; the clearer we see Him, the better and the more rightly may we see and know all besides Him, all His creatures, and all that He had made. We have no reason to think that our fellow-beings will be less interesting to us, or less cared for by us, there than here. It is the nearer presence and the clearer view of Him which will be the source of the truer understanding of, and better sympathy with, them.1 [Note: G. Grote, in The Contemporary Review, xviii. 139.]

II

The Feast

1. The language of Scripture referring to this great wedding feast is mystical, intensely spiritual, and offers nothing to gratify our curiosity, our love of literal detail. But is it not enough that this is revealed? It is “the marriage supper of the Lamb.” “The Lamb is all the glory of Immanuel’s Land.” Intimate, blessed communion is assured to all that Christ gathers around Him. Soul-satisfying fellowship with Father, Son, and Spirit. Perfect satisfaction of all our noblest, loftiest aspirations. “As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.” To take part in such a celebration is to enter into fellowship with all blessed and redeemed spirits; with all that has been gracious, and pure, and noble, in the generations of earth, and in the worlds that have never known sin.

The marriage feast has a definitely ritual aspect, since, by eating together, bride and bridegroom, as well as their respective relatives and friends (or in some cases these alone), are bound together, or the feast is an outward expression of this union. [The Roman rite of confarreatio and similar rites elsewhere, though not of the nature of a feast, express even more clearly the same idea of union.] In some instances the feast is almost the chief or the only rite of marriage; but in any case it has a ritual aspect, though this tends to disappear in more advanced societies, where the feast is little more than an occasion of merry-making, expressing, however, mutual friendliness.… Among the Greeks the wedding feast (γάμος) took place after the procession to the bridegroom’s house, and it formed one of the most important parts of the proceedings, as there was no civil or religious ceremony. Women as well as men took part in it, though the women sat at a separate table. Among the Romans, after the bride arrived at the bridegroom’s house, he gave a feast to the guests, the coena nuptialis, and sometimes a second feast, the repotia, on the following day.… Although the Jewish contract of marriage is a purely civil one, in the sense that the presence of a Rabbi and its ratification in a synagogue are unessential, yet the occasion is one of profoundly religious import. Marriage being a Divine ordinance, wedding festivities must in the nature of things also bear a decidedly religious character.1 [Note: Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, v. 802, 803, 807.]

2. We dare not say that the feast is a promise that our Lord will love us more than He loves us now, but He will indulge His love for us more; He will manifest it more, we shall see more of it; we shall understand it better; it will appear to us as though He loved us more. He will lay open His whole heart and soul to us, with all its feelings, and secrets, and purposes, and allow us to know them, as far at least as we can understand them, and it will conduce to our happiness to know them. The love of this hour will be the perfection of love. This marriage-feast will be the feast, the triumph, of love—the exalted Saviour showing to the whole universe that He loves us to the utmost bound love can go, and we loving Him with a fervour, a gratitude, an adoration, a delight, that are new even in heaven.

I may think shame to take heaven, who have so highly provoked my Lord Jesus: But seeing Christ’s love will shame me, I am content to be ashamed. My desire is that my Lord would give me broader and deeper thoughts, to feed myself with wondering at His love; I would I could weigh it, but I have no balance for it. When I have worn my tongue to the stump in praising of Christ, I have done nothing to Him; I must let Him alone, for my withered arms will not go about His high, wide, long, and broad love. What remaineth then, but that my debt to the love of Christ lie unpaid for all eternity?2 [Note: Letters of Samuel Rutherford (ed. 1894), 257.]

3. When we think of this marriage supper of the Lamb, we cannot but return to that supper in the upper chamber of Jerusalem which occupies so strikingly similar a position in the life of Jesus. There Jesus said, “Take, eat: this is my body, which is for you”; “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” That was a feast in which He gave Himself to be for ever the nourishment of His Church. And, in like manner, in the marriage supper of the Lamb, the Lord, who became dead and is alive for evermore, is not only the Bridegroom but also the substance of the feast. In Him and by Him His people lived on earth; in Him and by Him they live for ever.

The Lord’s Supper is something more than a “sign,” a picture setting forth certain facts and truths so that everyone may see them. It is also a “seal,” a personal pledge and token of understanding between Christ and the Christian heart. It is a particular stamp and plain handmark set down on the offer of Jesus in the Word. As a seal it has, no doubt, also a public side. The seal may be worn as a ring on the finger (in the East, on the arm) as well as against the heart (Song of Solomon 8:6), telling everyone that the wearer has received it. Coming to the Lord’s Supper is a badge and profession of following Christ, as truly as wearing scarlet is a badge of being in the Queen’s service. Anyone who cares to look can see the red mark on the letter of invitation which you carry in your hand as you go to the Table. But the seal has a private and secret side. Anyone may see the seal on the letter: no one may break it and tell the contents but the receiver; anyone may see the ring on your finger, but none but the wearer can say what attachment it conveys, or whether there is any attachment conveyed at all.1 [Note: R. W. Barbour, Thoughts, 65.]

III

The Guests

1. Who are “they which are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb”? As we raise the question we are reminded of the mysterious doctrine of election, and of the distinction which Jesus Himself made: “Many are called, but few are chosen.” And we tremble as we think how Jesus warned His hearers of the scrutiny to which all are subjected.

But let us remember for our comfort that marvellous parable of grace which tells of the householder who, when they that were first bidden to his feast treated with indifference and insult the invitation of their friend, sent forth his servants to the streets and lanes of the city, and then to the highways and hedges, to compel the very vagrants and beggars to come in that the wedding feast might be furnished with guests. Jesus compared the Kingdom of Heaven to that generous host and his generous, over-flowing hospitality.

The invitation, when despised by those to whom it was originally addressed, was conveyed to those who could least of all anticipate any such communication. The class of outcasts described in the Parable of the Great Supper is recognizable at all times. They are those who seem to be beyond help and hope—the maimed, the blind, the vagrant, the destitute, the criminal. Such descriptions are self-interpreting. Whoever finds himself in a wretched and abandoned condition is taught here that God invites him to His table. He who cannot discover in his condition one hopeful symptom; he who is crushed and defeated; he who has been maimed in the service of sin, and has laid himself down by the hedgeside, to let the busy stream of life run past without noticing him; he who is utterly weary and heart-broken, and knows not how he can ever be restored to virtuous and serviceable living—to him comes God’s invitation to the utmost of His bounty. The servants were sent to invite promiscuously every one they found; bold sinners in the streets, secret and shamefaced sinners in the lanes, proud sinners in the highways, and woebegone sinners by the hedges; wherever they found a man, wherever human life yet stirred the mass of filthy rags, that they were to bring to the feast. Such persons were to be compelled to come in. The servants were not to let them away to dress themselves under promise of coming in an hour. They were to bring them. And if the lame gave as an excuse that they could not go, or if the blind said they would have been glad to go had they been able to find their way, the servant was to become eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame; he was not to think he had cleared his conscience by giving them the invitation, but was to see them inside the guest-chamber. Such is the freedom and such the urgency of the Gospel of Christ.1 [Note: Marcus Dods, The Parables of Our Lord, ii. 101.]

One of the greatest of French preachers—Massillon, to wit—has a marvellous sermon entitled, “On the Small Number of the Elect”; but, in spite of much that is solemn and true in the discourse, I cannot agree with the sentiment implied in its title. Hitherto, indeed, in the world the Church of Christ has been in the minority; but when the supper of the Lamb shall be celebrated above, it shall not be so. The saved shall vastly, and many times over, outnumber the lost, and the house of God shall be filled. Whether we be saved or lost shall make little difference, so far as the furnishing of heaven with guests is concerned; but it will make an awful difference to us. We shall not be missed, amid the numbers without number that people heaven, but oh, how much we shall miss! God’s purpose shall be accomplished, whether we accept the invitation of the gospel or not. If we accept His grace, it shall be accomplished in our salvation; but if we ignore His invitation, it shall be accomplished in our everlasting exclusion from the feast.1 [Note: W. M. Taylor, The Parables of Our Saviour, 303.]

2. To the question, Who will be at the wedding feast? the whole Bible is an answer. Everyone who accepts the invitation. All mankind is invited. The invitation is as wide as the human race. No man will be left out in the darkness because he did not receive an invitation. Many times at wedding feasts in this world there are jealousies and heart-burnings because only a limited number can be invited. But there will not be in all the universe one soul that can say: “I was shut out into the outer darkness because I never received an invitation to attend the marriage feast of Jesus Christ.” If anyone asks, Who will be shut out from the feast? the answer is just as plain and simple. Only those who refuse the invitation. It is impossible that they should be there. That they are not there is not God’s fault. He does everything that He can do to bring them there. It can be the fault only of the man or woman who refuses the invitation to come. It is not the arbitrary decree of God that a man who will not accept Christ, who refuses His friendship and His mercy here on earth, shall not enjoy the pleasure of heaven. It is simply that in the very nature of things he cannot.

“Blessed are they which are called unto the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.” This beatitude is specially vouched for as a true saying of God, and baptized Christians have received the call; yet so long as mortal life endures each soul must use all diligence to secure the blessing, probation rendering every promise contingent. The two Divine Parables of the Great Supper and the Marriage of the King’s Son warn us that the call of grace condemns whom it does not save.2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, The Face of the Deep, 439.]

There are two different invitations to the marriage supper of the Lamb. One is to be issued from the throne of judgment; and the date will be the last day. The other is issued from the throne of grace; and the date is to-day. It is the former of these that the Apostle specially refers to in the text,—when Jesus, after the transactions of that grand assize are over, will turn round to those on His right hand, and say, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world”: come away with Me to the marriage supper of the Lamb. This invitation will be addressed only to the people of God, the saved. The other invitation is addressed to all men, and the date is—now. The command of the King to His servants as they go to invite the guests is, “As many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.” Shall we not all gladly welcome and eagerly accept the invitation to-day? And shall we not make it the one great object of our desire, the one grand effort of our life, that we may form part of that glorious and blessed company?1 [Note: J. Kelman, Redeeming Judgment, 194.]

From the dust of the weary highway,

From the smart of sorrow’s rod,

Into the royal presence,

They are bidden as guests of God.

The veil from their eyes is taken;

Sweet mysteries they are shown.

Their doubts and fears are over,

For they know as they are known.

For them there should be rejoicing

And festival array,

As for the bride in her beauty,

Whom love hath taken away—

Sweet hours of peaceful waiting

Till the path that we have trod

Shall end at the Father’s gateway,

And we are the guests of God.2 [Note: Mary Frances Butts.]

3. Whilst the scope of the invitation to the marriage supper may be wide, the context makes it clear that Christ must not only be on us as a robe, but also be in us as a life, if we are to have the hope of glory. To say this in no way interferes with our completeness in the Beloved alone, or with the fact that not by works of righteousness that we have done, but by grace, are we saved through faith, and that not of ourselves; it is the gift of God. All our salvation is of Christ, but the change upon us must be internal as well as external. The idea suggested in the verse following the text, that the raiment in which the ransomed saints shall appear at the marriage supper of the Lamb will have been woven out of the deeds done in the body, imparts a new and quite transcendent value to our earthly life. It sets the vanishing present in causal relation to the eternal future, and stamps the homely duties of our common days with an incalculable worth. Although God may be said to clothe the soul in fitting raiment for the marriage supper of the Lamb, He certainly does not do so mechanically from without, but vitally from within. Character must ever be the determining factor of destiny. That character we are weaving now, and it will be the garment of the soul through its eternal years. The possibility of a wedding garment has been placed within easy reach of all by the royal grace of the King. That possibility lies in the acceptance of His will as the rule of our life. Immediately upon its acceptance that will becomes within us the force of a new life-principle, conforming us to the mind of God, and forthwith assimilating to itself a body after its kind. Behind this veil of flesh sits this mysterious principle, throwing its invisible shuttles, and investing the soul with the garments in which it must finally stand in the bridal-hall of the King.

What the guest wanted who lacked the wedding garment was righteousness, both in its root of faith and its flower of charity. He had not, according to the pregnant image of St. Paul, here peculiarly appropriate, “put on Christ”;—in which putting on of Christ both faith and charity are included,—faith as the investing power, charity or holiness as the invested robe. By faith we recognize a righteousness out of and above us, and which yet is akin to us, and wherewith our spirits can be clothed; which righteousness is in Christ, who is therefore the Lord our Righteousness. And this righteousness by the appropriate and assimilative power of faith we also make our own; we are clothed upon with it, so that it becomes, in that singularly expressive term, our habit,—the righteousness imputed has become also a righteousness infused, and is in us charity or holiness, or more accurately still, constitutes the complex of all Christian graces as they abide in the man, and show themselves in his life.… We may affirm of the wedding garment that it is righteousness in its largest sense, the whole adornment of the new and spiritual man; including the faith without which it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6), and the holiness without which no man shall see Him (Hebrews 12:14), or shall, like this guest, only see Him to perish at His presence. It is at once the faith which is the root of all graces, the mother of all virtues, and likewise those graces and virtues themselves.1 [Note: R. C. Trench, Notes on the Parables of Our Lord, 241.]

In June, G. F. Watts wrote asking him to lunch any day at Little Holland House. He knew nothing of the work Shields was commencing, but said: “I should like to have an occasional chat about serious art. I wish you would kindly send me a line and tell me the correct colours for the draperies of Faith. I know you are an authority.” To which Shields replied: “For answer to your question and compliment, I am no ‘authority.’ I know none on the subject but the Authority of the Word revealed. Paul declares Faith is God’s gift. She is Heaven-born. She is the assurance of Heavenly things to mortals shut in by sensuous things, therefore the skies’ hue is hers, her mantle and her wings: and for her robe, white—unspotted. And this because they who seek righteousness by works fail of that which only Faith gives. The ‘fine linen of the Saints’ symbolizes their righteousness in the Apocalypse, and it is said that their robes were made ‘white in the blood of the Lamb.’ If I seek where alone I look to find, this is what is given me, and it is the best I can offer in response to your question. I bow to tradition only where it agrees with the written word.”1 [Note: The Life and Letters of Frederic Shields, 309.]

The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

Literature

Alexander (S. A.), The Saints’ Appeal, 1.

Banks (L. A.), John and his Friends, 273.

Gibson (E. C. S.), The Revelation of St. John the Divine, 217.

Gordon (A. J.), Ecce Venit, 249.

Howard (H.), The Raiment of the Soul, 1.

Kelman (J.), Redeeming Judgment, 182.

Maurice (F. D.), The Apocalypse, 365.

Milligan (W.), The Book of Revelation (Expositor’s Bible), 321.

Milligan (W.), in Popular Commentary on the New Testament, iv. 478.

Moberly (G.), Plain Sermons, 292.

Nicoll (W. R.), The Lamb of God, 91.

Rossetti (C. G.), The Face of the Deep, 437.

Smith (J. D.), The Brides of Scripture, 132.

Spurgeon (C. H.), My Sermon Notes: Romans to Revelation, 395.

Strange (C.), Instructions on the Revelation, 270.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), i. (1860), No. 264.

Waddell (R.), Behold the Lamb of God! 261.

Christian World Pulpit, lxiv. 59 (A. J. Mason); lxxxiii. 237 (H. H. Currie).

Church of England Magazine, liii. 256 (R. Thursfield); liv. 256 (T. Preston).

Church of England Pulpit, lvi. 122 (A. J. Mason).