Discover Who Is The Bride Of Christ?

 The Bride of Christ knows Jesus.

Jesus knows the Bride of Christ

The Bride of Christ chooses to do the will of God, setting aside any inhibitions that stand in the way of the Bride’s relationship with Jesus.  Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” –Matthew 7:21-23.

Jesus is referring to people who do not listen to Him. The original Greek meaning of lawlessness is to voluntarily make a choice to break God’s law, to go against His will, and it includes the end result of disobedience, where God will have a negative view of you if you do not get right with God before you die.

Jesus said, “And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.” –John 12:47 Many people take this verse out of context, using it as an example that Christians are not supposed to judge other people, but you must finish that thought.

Jesus continued, “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.” Jesus uses the exact same word for judge 4 times here, emphasizing what He means.

This word Jesus used for judge means to separate, like separating the grain from the chaff, the wheat from the tares. Jesus will let every person alive grow up together in life and see what happens at the end by a person’s choices because Jesus said He came to save the world. By saving the world, Jesus means to rescue, to deliver out of danger and into safety. This word for save has always primarily meant God rescuing believers from the penalty and power of sin.

Paul wrote it best in Romans 1:1 when he wrote, Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God….

Bondservant is a Greek word that was always used with the highest dignity. It does not mean a slave in the sense that most people today think it means. Bondservant means a person who willingly submits to another as a bride submits to her husband, and they become one body.

Jesus Himself is our best example of the Bride of Christ. Jesus willingly submitted to the Father, being obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8), something no one else has ever been able to do. Jesus’ obedience to the Father gave us the ability to become the Bride of Christ, to be separated from the rest at the end of our life by the choices we make while we are alive on earth.

By Paul saying he is a slave of Jesus Christ, he is actually declaring himself to be the Bride of Christ. Jesus only has one bride. Jesus only has one type, and that is the type who does the will of God.

The Bride of Christ get their oil from God, not from other people, as Jesus talked about in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. True, we can gain insight from other people’s revelations the Holy Spirit has given them, but in the end, if you never got any revelations from God yourself, He never knew you, and you never knew him.

Back to lawlessness, the only way to overcome lawlessness according to the original language and context is living by faith, which comes by hearing and obeying the voice of God. Faith is shown in Scripture as the solution to lawlessness, which comes by hearing God’s voice and responding to it.

Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” –John 10:27 To truly understand how the Bride of Christ was understood in Paul’s day by the word bondservant, you must understand how slavery worked under Roman law.

A free laborer under Roman law made 1 denarius a day and worked 6 days a week, which equaled about 313 denarii a year and about 280 of that was spent on food, clothing and housing, which didn’t leave much left for anything extra.

A slave under Roman law had food, shelter and clothing given to them, plus many made at least 5 denarii a month besides, which actually gave a slave a month’s more salary, about 27 denarii a year, more than a free laborer.

Most slaves were better off than free men under Roman law and a freed slave could choose to voluntarily remain a slave forever.

Slavery was a symbol of wealth in Roman times and many slaves were like heads of corporations, some making 20,000 denarii a year or more running companies and even cities, but slaves were still the property of their owners. A nice town home in the middle of town in Roman times cost around 800,000 denarii, 40 times the yearly salary of one of the highest paid slaves.

Being a slave to Christ is actually the only way to be free.

When a person makes a choice to follow Jesus, the person begins the journey to be free from sin. This voluntary willingness to belong to Jesus comes with benefits a slave to sin cannot get from Jesus.

Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [wealth].” –Matthew 6:24 Jesus then went on to say God will take care of those who seek the Kingdom of God first. Those who do not know God worry about how to get the things those who know God receive freely.