Q. W. S. It is commonly held that the Body of Christ is also the Bride. Can you prove me this from Scripture, etc.?
A. There is no doubt that the Body of Christ and His Bride are both names used for the Church. At the same time it is to be understood that there is an earthly Bride of the Canticles (Song of Solomon) — the Jewish remnant of the last days. In Ephesians 5, while Paul is exhorting husband and wives, his mind cannot pass on without thinking of Christ and the Church. He quotes the passage (Gen. 2:23,24) referring to Adam in Paradise, and Eve taken out of the man — bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh — while he slept, and then the statement, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh,” used in Ephesians 5 to convey the union of Christ — the second Adam — and the Church; the Eve, so to speak, for the Paradise of God. “We are members of his body; we are of his flesh and of his bones.”
There is no allusion in Romans 7 as to union with Christ, or to the Church at all. It refers to the law and a risen Christ, and the impossibility of having rightly to do with both together, as for a woman rightly to have two husbands. The word “married” is not in the original at all (Rom. 7:4).
In 2 Cor. 11:2, the Church is espoused to one husband, that she may be presented as a chaste virgin unto Christ.
In Revelation 21:9-27, 22:1-5, the Church is distinctly named the “Bride, the Lamb’s wife.” Babylon, the whore, said she sat as a queen, and was also described under the figure of a city, or polity; so is the Bride. She is looked at here as a polity or center of administration of the kingdom in heavenly glory. It is not the Father’s house, but the displayed glory, in the light of which the saved nations walk (Rev. 21:24).
In Revelation 22:17, “The Spirit and the Bride say, come.” The Spirit dwelling in the Church produces bridal affections in her, and she invites Christ while He is absent, as the Morning Star (vs. 16).
There is an earthly Bride, of which the Song of Songs speaks — the elect remnant of the Jews.
Words of Truth 6:158-160.