Great rejoicing has broken out in heaven, in response to the heavenly voice’s command to be glad over God’s judgment. As John witnessed the throngs of heaven give praise, the same angel who had been speaking to him throughout chapters 17 and 18 now told him to write down how blessed those are who have been invited the wedding banquet of the Lamb, and to reassure John everything the angel had told him was truthful, from God.
Historicist
Scholars view this scene as all the true church celebrating the triumph of the God’s judgment on the apostate Roman church. The transliterated word “Alleluia,” sung four times in this passage—in Hebrew, the word is “Hallelujah”—perhaps indicates there will be many Jewish converts, recently joined from earth.
The marriage of the Lamb might be the future state of the church once the Roman church is no more, or it may be the true church now, but arrayed for a more intense union with Christ in that future time. The bride of the lamb, adorned in the radiant purity of righteousness, stands in contrast to Babylon, the unholy city arrayed in her wantonness and barbarity.
The angel’s rebuke to John, who had fallen in spontaneous homage, is a reminder to every believer not to worship heavenly beings (as these commentators claim the Roman church promulgates with the veneration of saints and iconography), or anything else, but to worship God alone.
Preterist
A comparison is drawn between the final verses of Revelation 11 and the first verses of this passage.
| Comparison | Revelation | |
| 1. | Loud voices in heaven | 11:15; 19:1 |
| 2. | Proclamation of the commencement of God’s reign | 11:15, 17; 19:1, 6 |
| 3. | The twenty-four elders fall prostrate and give homage/worship to God | 11:16; 19:4 |
| 4. | The vindication of the blood of God’s own is declared | 11:18; 18:24; 19:2 |
| 5. | Mention of God’s own who reverence God, both small and great | 11:18; 19:5 |
| 6. | Loud sounds including thunderings | 11:19; 19:6 |
| 7. | The opening of the heavenly temple with the wedding feast of the lamb | 11:19 with 19:7, 9 |
With so many points of contact between these two chapters, the opening of the temple appears to be equivalent with Christ’s marriage feast, marking the establishment of the New Covenant.
The putting away of the unfaithful harlot in 70 CE, as Babylon is depicted and Jerusalem implied, is the conclusion of the Old Covenant, ushering in the age of the New Covenant, God’s union with the church.
The Bride of the Lamb
Of particular importance is the bride having prepared herself for this day. Paul wrote of this day in his letter to the believers in Ephesus,
Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind, so that she may be holy and without blemish.
Ephesians 5:25-27 (NRSVUE)
Paul used similar imagery when he wrote with great concern about their own preparation to meet Christ their bridegroom to the assemblies in Corinth.
I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
2 Corinthians 11:2-3 (NRSVUE)
The bride’s preparation is twofold.
Raiment of Righteousness
Her bridal raiment is a gift from God, the radiant purity of righteousness, though her righteousness is in preparation for her to live out her faith in righteous deeds. Paul explained the gift and the commission when he wrote,
… by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them.
Ephesians 2:5-10 (NRSVUE, emphases added)
Preparing Herself with Good Works
All the apostles spoke of preparing ourselves, but perhaps Peter said it best when he wrote,
Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct, for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
1 Peter 1:13-16 (NRSVUE, emphasis added)
Futurist
There is nothing in Revelation that would have led up to the Lamb taking a bride, or especially that this would be the climax of the book, but Jesus did speak of himself as a bridegroom, and John the Baptist spoke of Jesus in the same way.
And Jesus said to them, “The wedding attendants cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”
[The parable of the Wedding Banquet] “… The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son….”
[John the Baptist comparing himself to Jesus] “He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled.
Matthew 9:15, 22:2 and John 3:29 (NRSVUE)
There is some disagreement as to whether the bride will be apostate Israel returned to her Lord or the church prepared to be united with Christ. There is also some discussion over who the invited guests will be and who the bride will be, if the bride is the church. There appears to be some consensus that the guests will be the faithful of old, who were obedient to God and put their hope in Messiah before Jesus’s time. Others posit believers as both the bride and the invited guests.
The angel’s message to John that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of the prophets means that all prophecy is about Jesus.
Spiritual
This is the fifth time, so far, in Revelation where the end of the story is the return of Christ. Just as the wanton harlot is compared to the righteous bride in the first ten verses, so is the wedding banquet of Christ in the first half of this chapter compared to the judgement of the beast’s followers in the second half of Revelation 19.
The feast is the culmination of the wedding practices of Jesus’s day, beginning with the betrothal and signing of the contract, moving to a period of preparation, then the bridegroom’s procession, leading the bridal party from her home to his, and finally the consummation of their union, begun at the feast. Spiritual interpretation understands the feast to be the event of Christ’s second advent, his return to earth to retrieve his own.
This in Revelation 19:9 is John’s fourth beatitude. The first three are:
- Blessed is the one publicly reading this aloud, and the ones hearing the words of this prophecy and keeping the things having been written in it, for the time is at hand. (Revelation 1:3)
- Blessed are the dead, who from this moment on are dying in the Lord. (Revelation 14:13)
- Blessed is the one who is alert and watching and guarding their clothing, in order not to be naked and [others] see their shame. (Revelation 16:15)
Jesus’s parables about wedding days make it clear that the bride and the guests are interchangeable, for both represent those who have responded to Jesus’s invitation. As one, the church is the bride, and as individuals, each believer is a guest.
The angel’s final remark can be understood as Jesus’s testimony being the word the Holy Spirit gives to prophets to say.
The four perspectives taken from Revelation: Four Views A Parallel Commentary, edited by Steve Gregg
Sister Joanne-in-Christ Jesus,
Immediately what comes to my mind is the simple fact that the Church as referred to here in general terms is so fragmentary and in disarray as to really be in a state of pandemonium! Deceased Jim Jones with his People’s Temple fraud cult church is just one example of how insanely diffused and lost many so called members or Christian churches have and are running afoul of God’s intent as directly handed to Peter from Jesus Christ Himself!
Matthew 16:17-19 “And Jesus answering said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. 18And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.”
But from the Calvinist’s to the Martin Luther Reformation movement many are proclaiming to be of the Church and are absolutely running off the rails or actually blaspheming God Almighty, and are not of the Church but are man-made cults!~
Catholicism is the original church or pre-denominational, which now is in the neighborhood of 45,000 denominations globally and over 2000 separate offshoots here in America alone, with people like Joel Osteen, Mike Murdock, TD Jakes, John Piper, Steven Furtick, Joyce Meyer, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Bill Johnson, Todd White, Creflo Dollar, Hillsong, Carl Lentz, Brian Houston, Joseph Prince, Chad Veach, Judah Smith, Mike Winger that are all operating cults and not serving Jesus Christ! Say the way Thomas Aquinas, or author of “My Imitation of Christ,” Thomas à Kempis, both of which had their faith deeply rooted in the Catholic Church and did follow their faith religiously as true servants of God Almighty through Jesus Christ within the Catholic Church! And as any number of bona fide saints like saint Lawrence or saint Joan of Arc who were both roasted alive proclaiming their devotion to Jesus Christ; while many false prophets like those mentioned in the preceding list and countless others around the planet are light-years away from this servitude and devotion to Christ Jesus! God wants saints, and these two I mention were absolute examples from God’s will, to demonstrate to all true believers; what it takes to resist Satan and truly follow Jesus Christ!
Ephesians 5:2-3 “and walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God. 3But among you, as is proper among the saints, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed.”
The long list of false prophets some of which I stated here is enormous and they run totally contrary to Christ’s teachings and actually what the true Catholic Church devoid of any of its corruption within teaches, yes the Devil wants to destroy the Catholic Church and has a leg up, but, as Jesus Himself proclaimed, it will prevail over the “gates of hell itself!”
How long was People’s Temple around or all the other fly-by-night countless churches; while the Catholic Church still stands in testimony through the millennia from the beginning! No we don’t all need to burn at the stake to prove ourselves, but, many will suffer to hold true to the faith with the actual Church Jesus established with Apostle Peter and thus be slaves of Christ; not serving this world in any way, thusly true “martyrs and saints” who should be venerated as such powerful inspirational examples for our own improvement; not all of these false prophets running around proclaiming, here, look here and follow my brand of church! Some of these are absolutely “wolves in sheep’s clothing!”
Matthew 7:14-16 “But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it. 15Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?”
Of course all of this disarray is exactly what Satan wanted from the very beginning of the Church from it’s infancy in the “catacombs of Rome” the father of all lies was plotting and scheming all along, looking to derail God’s Church and His plan for it, that Jesus left Saint Peter the Apostle to establish and build.
“St. Vincent of Lérins classically expressed it, growth over time in the understanding of religion does not mean mutation or substantial change. Catholicism is a religion of faith and reason, where the one never contradicts the other.” thejosias.com/2018/11/02/vatican-ii-and-crisis-in-the-theology-of-baptism-part-i/
“The Catholic Church venerates at least 6,000 saints officially recognized as such (some would say over twice that many, depending on how you tabulate them). Each one of these saints is a masterpiece of God’s grace triumphing in the frailty and fracturedness of fallen human nature. Each one is a bright light in the encircling gloom. Each one tells us what the Christian is called to be and can, in fact, become by fidelity to Our Lord Jesus Christ. Each one gives the lie to fatalism, nihilism, and cynicism. And each one is an unanswerable argument for the truth of the Catholic Faith.” onepeterfive.com/seminarian-is-there-any-reason-why-i-should-remain-catholic/
Amen.
Brother-in-Christ Lawrence, I have heard the phrase “invisible church” to mean those who are truly the church, and the”visible church” as those who are associated with the church in some way but are not of it.
It is grave and mercy to us that judgment tests in the hands of the Lord, or Savior, who alone has that right and is for us (Romans 8). I think of the Spirit- filled brothers and sisters I’ve met over the years who worship in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant faith traditions, and though we may not see eye- to- eye on any number of biblical interpretations, or doctrines, on dogma we stand solidly together, beginning with Jesus is Lord. That is the beauty of the Nicine Creed (especially the original one, written in Greek).
Thankfully, God will judge us all aright!
Grace and peace, your sister-in- Christ, Joanne