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The Wife of the Lamb

Week 3 of 4 in The Bride · next: The New Jerusalem

The Bride of Christ follows the wedding pattern as far as the Father's house. Revelation keeps going. At the moment the marriage comes, John gives her a new name: the Lamb's wife. A bride is promised. A wife belongs, and everything that is her husband's is hers.

In one sentence: When the marriage of the Lamb comes, Scripture begins calling the bride His wife, and a wife shares what is her husband's: His rest, His reign, His inheritance, His family and, at the last, His face.

Key Takeaways

(This section follows the Key Takeaways format — see that page for what each part is for.)

Types & Prophecy

Hosea prophesies a day when Israel will call the LORD "My Husband" (Hosea 2:16, ESV), and Isaiah promises her land a new name, "Married" (Isaiah 62:4, ESV). Those promises are Israel's, and they are still ahead of her: "in this way all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26, ESV). The church's marriage is announced first, in heaven: "the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready" (Revelation 19:7, ESV). Both peoples end in one city, and the angel calls that city "the Bride, the wife of the Lamb" (Revelation 21:9, ESV).

Lessons about Jesus

  • Jesus is the husband the prophets named. The LORD called Himself Israel's husband (Isaiah 54:5), and the Lamb has a wife (Revelation 19:7). Scripture gives Jesus the title God kept for Himself.
  • Jesus shares what is His. His reign — "if we endure, we will also reign with him" (2 Timothy 2:12, ESV) — and His name, written on your forehead (Revelation 22:4).
  • Jesus is the one you will see. "They will see his face" (Revelation 22:4, ESV).

Memory verses

✝️ Revelation 19:7 (ESV)

7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready;

✝️ Revelation 22:4 (ESV)

4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

Be Transformed

  • Think. At the wedding you become His wife, and what is His is shared with you: His rest, His reign, His inheritance and His name (Revelation 22:4).
  • Attitude. Hold Israel with gratitude. The God who is winning back His wife Israel (Hosea 2:14-16) is the same God who keeps you.
  • Do. Name one thing you are straining after that the wedding will end. Set aside one evening this week to stop it, read Revelation 21:1-7 aloud, and thank Jesus for the rest you will share with Him: "whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works" (Hebrews 4:10, ESV).

Prayer

Lord Jesus, Lamb of God, you bought us and you are coming for us. Thank you that your Father keeps every promise He made to Israel, and every promise He made to us. Teach us to rest in you now, to endure until we reign with you, and to long for the day we see your face. Let your Spirit and your bride say, "Come."

In Jesus' name. Amen.

Study outline

Bride, then wife

Two nouns, and where John uses them

Greek has two nouns here and John uses both. νύμφη (nymphē, G3565) is the bride; γυνή (gynē, G1135) is the woman or wife.

νύμφη occurs eight times in the New Testament, and the lexicon splits them. Three carry Louw-Nida 10.60, daughter-in-law — Matthew 10:35 and Luke 12:53 twice, all of them Jesus quoting Micah 7:6 on a divided household. The other five are 10.57, bride: John 3:29, and then four of the five in Revelation — 18:23, 21:2, 21:9, 22:17. Paul never uses the noun of the church at all.

Set Revelation's four side by side:

  • 18:23 — over Babylon: "the voice of bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more" (ESV).
  • 21:2 — the new Jerusalem, "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."
  • 21:9 — "Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb."
  • 22:17 — "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.'"

Revelation 19:7 prints "Bride" for a word that means wife

At Revelation 19:7 the ESV prints "his Bride has made herself ready," and the Greek behind "Bride" is ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ (hē gynē autou) — his wife. There is no νύμφη in that verse. Two chapters later the angel says "the Bride, the wife of the Lamb," and there the Greek has both nouns in one phrase: τὴν νύμφην τὴν γυναῖκα τοῦ Ἀρνίου (tēn nymphēn tēn gynaika tou Arniou, 21:9). The Legacy Standard Bible footnotes the word at 19:7 in two words: "Lit wife."

So Scripture gives her a second title, and gives it at the point the marriage comes. Revelation 19:7 announces that the γάμος (gamos, G1062) has come and calls her His wife in the same sentence. From there both names are hers — νύμφη at 21:2 and 22:17, γυνή at 19:7, and 21:9 setting the two side by side in one phrase. She keeps the bridal name the way a bridegroom keeps it, with a wife's standing under it. This shows that God means His people to belong to Him the way a wife belongs to her husband: by covenant, in love, for good.

One city, and every people in it

Revelation's last vision puts Israel and the church in one city with God, and each keeps its own name there.

Israel is the LORD's wife, and He is bringing her home

Israel was God's wife long before the church existed. "Your Maker is your husband" (Isaiah 54:5, ESV). She was unfaithful, and the prophets call that adultery. God's answer is to court her again: "I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her" (Hosea 2:14, ESV). He makes "the Valley of Achor a door of hope" (2:15, ESV). Isaiah promises the same: "For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you" (Isaiah 54:7, ESV). Her land gets a new name: "Married" (Isaiah 62:4, ESV).

The name she calls Him (Hosea 2:16)

Hosea says what changes when she comes back. "In that day, declares the LORD, you will call me 'My Husband,' and no longer will you call me 'My Baal'" (Hosea 2:16, ESV). The two Hebrew words are אִישִׁי (ishi, "my man," H376) and בַּעְלִי (baʿli, H1180), and בַּעַל (baʿal, H1167) is the ownership word — master, possessor, and the name of the Canaanite storm god she had been chasing. Isaiah uses the same root affirmingly, calling the LORD בֹּעֲלַיִךְ (boʿalayik), "your husband" (Isaiah 54:5), so the root itself is not the problem. The next verse gives the reason: "I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth" (Hosea 2:17, ESV). The ESV Study Bible reads the change as separating the LORD's name from Baal's, since Israel had fused the two (note on Hosea 2:16-17). The CSB footnotes "My Master" and the LSB "Lit my master, my Baal", so many also hear a move from the title of a proprietor to the name of a person. On both readings Israel will call God "My Husband," and He seeks faithful communion with His people.

Hosea sets this "in that day" (2:16), beside a covenant in which God will "abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land" (2:18, ESV). A dispensational reading puts that day at Israel's national turning, when Christ returns and "all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26, ESV). The ESV Study Bible takes "in that day" as describing what Israel's return will be like, with no time fixed (note on Hosea 2:16-17). On either reading the one addressed is Israel, and the promise is hers. Israel and the Church sets out what is still ahead for her.

This shows that God keeps a marriage covenant after His wife has broken it. Paul borrows Hosea's words for the Gentiles: "Those who were not my people I will call 'my people'" (Romans 9:25, ESV). He applies Hosea's pattern to you and leaves Hosea's promise with Israel.

The church is the Lamb's bride

The church is a second company, betrothed in this age: "I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:2, ESV). Her marriage is announced in heaven at Revelation 19:7. Only after that does heaven open for the rider on the white horse (19:11). On the pretribulational reading this site holds, the church is already with Christ when the marriage is announced. Israel's turning comes when He rides out, when "they look on me, on him whom they have pierced" (Zechariah 12:10, ESV). Two events, in that order, each with its own people.

That is one Husband with two covenanted peoples. The Son is the LORD who married Israel, so the distinction lies in the two peoples and their two relationships to Him: Israel restored as the LORD's wife, the church married as the Lamb's bride. Readers who hold one people of God read Revelation 21:9-14 as a single bride instead.

The city carries both names

The angel promises "the Bride, the wife of the Lamb" and shows John a city (Revelation 21:9-10). Three companies appear on it and around it:

  • On the gates, "the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel" (21:12, ESV).
  • On the foundations, "the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (21:14, ESV) — the apostles the church is "built on" (Ephesians 2:20, ESV).
  • Around it, the nations: "By its light will the nations walk" (21:24, ESV).

Israel, the church and the nations carry the same three names Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 10:32: "Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God" (ESV). In Paul's verse the Jews and Greeks still stand outside the church; in John's city all three are redeemed. Israel and the apostles are named on it, and the nations walk in its light.

The voice from the throne quotes the covenant promise, "you shall be my people" (Leviticus 26:12; Ezekiel 37:27, ESV), and changes one word. The Greek of Revelation 21:3 in the SBL Greek New Testament reads λαοὶ αὐτοῦ (laoi autou), "his peoples", plural. The CSB prints "his peoples"; the ESV prints "his people", and the CSB footnotes that other manuscripts have the singular. On the plural reading, the nations of 21:24 belong to God as fully as Israel does, and every people in the city is His.

Hebrews names who lives in "the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (Hebrews 12:22, ESV): "the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven" and "the spirits of the righteous made perfect" (12:23, ESV). Many dispensational readers take those as two companies, the church and the Old Testament saints. The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible takes them as one group (note on 12:23), so this is contested. Abraham is in the city on either reading. He "was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God" (Hebrews 11:10, ESV).

Grafted in, and the Jerusalem above

Paul draws the same picture as a tree. Gentile believers are "a wild olive shoot ... grafted in among the others" who "now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree" (Romans 11:17, ESV), and the natural branches will be "grafted back into their own olive tree" (11:24, ESV). One tree, two kinds of branch, each kept distinct: the same shape as the city whose gates carry Israel's names and whose foundations carry the apostles'. Paul says where the tree is heading: "all Israel will be saved" (11:26, ESV). Israel and the Church works through the olive tree in full.

Paul also names the city. "The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother" (Galatians 4:26, ESV). Then he quotes Isaiah 54:1: "Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear ... For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband" (Galatians 4:27, ESV). That is the chapter in which the LORD tells Israel, "your Maker is your husband" (Isaiah 54:5). Paul applies Isaiah's pattern, God giving children to the barren, to the children born through the gospel, the way he applies Hosea at Romans 9:25. Israel keeps her own promise in the same chapter: "with great compassion I will gather you" (Isaiah 54:7, ESV).

Read Galatians 4 on its own terms. Of Hagar and Sarah Paul says, "these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery" (4:24, ESV). The contrast is law and promise, and it runs through both peoples: Paul, a Jew, writes "we are not children of the slave but of the free woman" (4:31, ESV), and "you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise" (4:28, ESV). The ESV Study Bible reads 4:26-27 as making all believers "the true Israel" (note on 4:26-27). That is the reading of those who hold one people of God. This site reads Israel in Romans 11 as the nation, as Israel and the Church argues.

This shows that God builds one household without erasing a name. Every child of promise has the Jerusalem above for a mother, and Israel's own branches are waiting to be grafted back in.

Why the whole city is called the bride

Revelation 21:2 answers with a simile: it comes down "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (ESV). On the dispensational reading the church is the bride, the city is her home, and she shares it with Israel and the nations. The ESV Study Bible reads the tribes and apostles as "the unity of OT and NT believers" (note on 21:12-14). Both readings put every redeemed person in one city, with one God and one Lamb. They differ over whether the names on the gates still mark distinct peoples, and the plural of 21:3 fits the reading that says they do.

One verb runs through the preparations. Jesus said, "I go to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2, ESV). Hebrews says God "has prepared for them a city" (11:16, ESV), of Abraham and the patriarchs. The city comes down "prepared as a bride" (Revelation 21:2). The bride "has made herself ready" (19:7). All four use ἑτοιμάζω (hetoimazō, G2090). Three of them prepare the home, and the fourth prepares the bride who will live in it. Reading John 14:2's "place" as this city is the dispensational reading, and an inference. The same verb gives Israel her own refuge in the tribulation, "a place prepared by God" for the woman in the wilderness (12:6, ESV). It is a common verb, forty times in the New Testament, so the link is in what God prepares: a place for each people He has promised to keep.

This shows that God keeps every promise He made, to every people He made it to. Israel gets back the Husband she left. The church gets the Husband who bought her. You will live in a city whose gates carry Israel's names, and you will be glad of every one of them.

What a wife shares

Once she is His wife, what is His is hers. Much of it she shares with every people in the city — the reign, the service, the sight of His face. What is hers is to receive it as His wife.

The rest that is left over

Hebrews 4 argues through a chapter on rest using κατάπαυσις (katapausis, G2663), and switches once. "So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God" (4:9, ESV) is σαββατισμός (sabbatismos, G4520), a word that occurs nowhere else in the New Testament and nowhere in the Greek Old Testament. One occurrence, in the whole Bible, and the author spends a chapter getting to it. A Day Is as a Thousand Years works the word and its Sabbath-millennium reading through in full.

A bride's twelve months were occupied (m. Ketubot 5:2); the marriage is where the preparing stops. Hebrews says the same of you: "whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his" (4:10, ESV).

And then the instruction: "Let us therefore strive to enter that rest" (4:11, ESV). The striving is to get in, and what you get in to is the end of striving. God calls you to enter His rest and live with Him free from striving.

Reigning with Him

συμβασιλεύω (symbasileuō, G4821), "to reign together with," occurs twice in the New Testament and nowhere in the Septuagint. The promise is at 2 Timothy 2:12: "if we endure, we will also reign with him" (ESV). The other occurrence is Paul being sarcastic with Corinth — "would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you!" (1 Corinthians 4:8, ESV) — aimed at a church that thought the reigning had already started.

Revelation puts the reign where Paul does, in the future: "they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years" (20:6, ESV), and past that, "they will reign forever and ever" (22:5, ESV). The song in heaven has it in the future too — "they shall reign on the earth" (5:10, ESV), in the Greek text the ESV follows; the SBL Greek New Testament reads the present, "they reign".

A wife shares her husband's house, his name and his standing; that is what a marriage was for in the culture the image comes from, and Revelation 22:4 puts His name on their foreheads. God intends His bride to share His kingdom. Second Timothy 2:12 calls believers to endure until that reign.

The inheritance, and whose it is

Ephesians 1 says it three times and turns it round once. "In him we have obtained an inheritance" (1:11). The Spirit is "the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it" (1:14). And then: "what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints" (1:18, ESV) — where the inheritance is His, and you are it.

Ephesians 1:14's "possession" is περιποίησις (peripoiēsis, G4047), five New Testament occurrences, and Peter uses it of you: "a people for his own possession" (1 Peter 2:9, ESV). The Greek Old Testament has it three times, and one of them is Malachi: "They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession" (3:17, ESV).

So the inheritance runs both directions. She receives his estate; he receives her. Peter states your side plainly — "an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:4, ESV) — and Paul states the terms: "heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him" (Romans 8:17, ESV). You receive God's promised inheritance and become His people; the Spirit is your pledge of what is to come.

Family as well as marriage

Scripture calls the church a bride, a body, a building, a flock, a priesthood and a household. Two of them sit right beside the bridal language in Ephesians.

Adoption. υἱοθεσία (huiothesia, G5206) occurs five times, all in Paul, all at Louw-Nida 35.53: Romans 8:15, 8:23, 9:4, Galatians 4:5, Ephesians 1:5. Romans 9:4 gives adoption to Israel, so the word is not a church-only term. And Romans 8:23 has it still future — "we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies" (ESV) — which is the same already-and-not-yet shape the betrothal has. You are adopted; you are waiting for your adoption. You are betrothed; you are waiting for your wedding.

Household and family. "You are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" (Ephesians 2:19, ESV), and God is the one "from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named" (3:15, ESV). "Family" there is πατριά (patria, G3965), built on πατήρ (patēr, G3962) — a word the Greek Old Testament uses 174 times of a clan traced to its father, and which appears only three times in the New Testament.

The bride language answers what you are to Christ: chosen, bought, covenanted, coming. The family language answers what you are in the house: named, placed, heir. Ephesians 5:31 gives the end of the first one by quoting Genesis 2:24 — "the two shall become one flesh" — and Paul says that sentence has always been about Christ and the church. Paul writes the same union without the wedding at 1 Corinthians 6:17: "he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him" (ESV). This shows that God wants you both ways: loved as a bride, and placed in His house as a child and an heir.

Looking at His face

Revelation ends by naming all of it at once: the throne of God and of the Lamb is there, "his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads" (22:3-4, ESV). Bought, betrothed, married, homed, resting, reigning, inheriting, and looking at His face — and the last invitation in the Bible is hers to give: "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come'" (22:17, ESV).

flowchart TD
    M["The marriage of the Lamb<br/>Rev 19:7 · γυνή gynē, 'his wife'"]
    M --> R["Rest<br/>σαββατισμός sabbatismos<br/>Heb 4:9"]
    M --> K["Reign<br/>συμβασιλεύω symbasileuō<br/>2 Tim 2:12 · Rev 20:6"]
    M --> I["Inheritance<br/>both ways<br/>Eph 1:11, 14, 18"]
    M --> F["Family<br/>υἱοθεσία huiothesia · Eph 1:5<br/>πατριά patria · Eph 3:15"]
    R --> E["His face<br/>Rev 22:4"]
    K --> E
    I --> E
    F --> E

That face is where the whole story ends, and you will see it.

Discussion Questions

  1. The language. At Revelation 19:7 the ESV prints "his Bride has made herself ready," and the Greek behind "Bride" is ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ (hē gynē autou), "his wife." From that verse on she carries both names. What does the second name add to the first?
  2. The text in its context. Hosea promises, "you will call me 'My Husband,' and no longer will you call me 'My Baal'" (Hosea 2:16, ESV): אִישִׁי (ishi) in place of בַּעְלִי (baʿli). What would "My Baal" have meant on the lips of an Israel that had been chasing the Canaanite storm god?
  3. Christ. Paul writes, "if we endure, we will also reign with him" (2 Timothy 2:12, ESV). He uses the same verb, συμβασιλεύω (symbasileuō), for Corinth's premature reign: "would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you!" (1 Corinthians 4:8, ESV). What does the order of 2 Timothy 2:12 tell you about how Jesus shares His reign?
  4. The hard part. The city's gates carry "the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel" (Revelation 21:12, ESV), its foundations "the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (Revelation 21:14, ESV), and Paul says of the Jerusalem above, "she is our mother" (Galatians 4:26, ESV). How do you read the two sets of names on Revelation 21's walls alongside Galatians 4:26?
  5. Family. Paul says God "predestined us for adoption" (Ephesians 1:5, ESV), and also that we "wait eagerly for adoption as sons" (Romans 8:23, ESV). How does being a child in God's house sit alongside being the Lamb's bride?
  6. Be transformed. Hebrews tells you to "strive to enter that rest" (Hebrews 4:11, ESV), and names it σαββατισμός (sabbatismos, Hebrews 4:9), a word found nowhere else in the New Testament or the Greek Old Testament. What in your week is effort the wedding will end?
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Group study · 40 minutes

The Wife of the Lamb

Revelation 19:7-9; Revelation 21:1-14

The point When the marriage of the Lamb comes, Scripture begins calling the bride His wife, and a wife shares what is her husband's: His rest, His reign, His inheritance, His family and, at the last, His face.

0–5min

Ask: what comes to mind when you hear The Wife of the Lamb? Hear a few answers before anyone reads.

5–12minRead it aloud BSB

Revelation 19:7-9 7Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him the glory. For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready. 8She was given clothing of fine linen, bright and pure.” For the fine linen she wears is the righteous acts of the saints. 9Then the angel told me to write, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

Revelation 21:1-14 1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. 4‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’ and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.” 5And the One seated on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” Then He said, “Write this down, for these words are faithful and true.” 6And He told me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give freely from the spring of the water of life. 7The one who overcomes will inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he will be My son. 8But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.” 9Then one of the seven angels with the seven bowls full of the seven final plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, 11shining with the glory of God. Its radiance was like a most precious jewel, like a jasper, as clear as crystal. 12The city had a great and high wall with twelve gates inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, and twelve angels at the gates. 13There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south, and three on the west. 14The wall of the city had twelve foundations bearing the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

12–25minLook closer
What does it say?
What did it mean to them?
What does it mean for us?
Page 1 of 4 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

The Wife of the Lamb

The study in brief
  1. Bride, then wife. The two Greek nouns, and the verse where the new one arrives.
  2. One city, and every people in it. Israel as the LORD's wife and the name she will call Him, the church as the Lamb's bride, the olive tree, and the city that carries both names.
  3. What a wife shares. Rest, reign, inheritance and family.
  4. Looking at His face. Where Revelation ends.
Notes
Page 2 of 4 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

The Wife of the Lamb

12–17minStep 1 · Bride, then wife

1The language. At Revelation 19:7 the ESV prints "his Bride has made herself ready," and the Greek behind "Bride" is ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ (hē gynē autou), "his wife." From that verse on she carries both names. What does the second name add to the first?

17–26minStep 2 · One city, and every people in it

2The text in its context. Hosea promises, "you will call me 'My Husband,' and no longer will you call me 'My Baal'" (Hosea 2:16, ESV): אִישִׁי (ishi) in place of בַּעְלִי (baʿli). What would "My Baal" have meant on the lips of an Israel that had been chasing the Canaanite storm god?

3The hard part. The city's gates carry "the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel" (Revelation 21:12, ESV), its foundations "the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (Revelation 21:14, ESV), and Paul says of the Jerusalem above, "she is our mother" (Galatians 4:26, ESV). How do you read the two sets of names on Revelation 21's walls alongside Galatians 4:26?

26–35minStep 3 · What a wife shares

4Christ. Paul writes, "if we endure, we will also reign with him" (2 Timothy 2:12, ESV). He uses the same verb, συμβασιλεύω (symbasileuō), for Corinth's premature reign: "would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you!" (1 Corinthians 4:8, ESV). What does the order of 2 Timothy 2:12 tell you about how Jesus shares His reign?

5Family. Paul says God "predestined us for adoption" (Ephesians 1:5, ESV), and also that we "wait eagerly for adoption as sons" (Romans 8:23, ESV). How does being a child in God's house sit alongside being the Lamb's bride?

Step 4 · Looking at His face
Page 3 of 4 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

The Wife of the Lamb

35–40minBe transformed

6Be transformed. Hebrews tells you to "strive to enter that rest" (Hebrews 4:11, ESV), and names it σαββατισμός (sabbatismos, Hebrews 4:9), a word found nowhere else in the New Testament or the Greek Old Testament. What in your week is effort the wedding will end?

  • Think. At the wedding you become His wife, and what is His is shared with you: His rest, His reign, His inheritance and His name (Revelation 22:4).
  • Attitude. Hold Israel with gratitude. The God who is winning back His wife Israel (Hosea 2:14-16) is the same God who keeps you.
  • Do. Name one thing you are straining after that the wedding will end. Set aside one evening this week to stop it, read Revelation 21:1-7 aloud, and thank Jesus for the rest you will share with Him: "whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works" (Hebrews 4:10, ESV).
Memory verse

Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready;

Revelation 19:7 (ESV)
Pray together

Lord Jesus, Lamb of God, you bought us and you are coming for us. Thank you that your Father keeps every promise He made to Israel, and every promise He made to us. Teach us to rest in you now, to endure until we reign with you, and to long for the day we see your face. Let your Spirit and your bride say, "Come."

In Jesus' name. Amen.

Notes
The whole study, with every verse a tap awayhttps://the-way.lewy.au/israel-and-church/wife-of-the-lamb/
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Group study · step by step

The Wife of the Lamb

Revelation 19:7-9; Revelation 21:1-14

Open Ask: what comes to mind when you hear The Wife of the Lamb? Hear a few answers before anyone reads.

Read it aloud Revelation 19:7-9; Revelation 21:1-14

Step 1Bride, then wife — The two Greek nouns, and the verse where the new one arrives.

1The language. At Revelation 19:7 the ESV prints "his Bride has made herself ready," and the Greek behind "Bride" is ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ (hē gynē autou), "his wife." From that verse on she carries both names. What does the second name add to the first?

Step 2One city, and every people in it — Israel as the LORD's wife and the name she will call Him, the church as the Lamb's bride, the olive tree, and the city that carries both names.

2The text in its context. Hosea promises, "you will call me 'My Husband,' and no longer will you call me 'My Baal'" (Hosea 2:16, ESV): אִישִׁי (ishi) in place of בַּעְלִי (baʿli). What would "My Baal" have meant on the lips of an Israel that had been chasing the Canaanite storm god?

3The hard part. The city's gates carry "the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel" (Revelation 21:12, ESV), its foundations "the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (Revelation 21:14, ESV), and Paul says of the Jerusalem above, "she is our mother" (Galatians 4:26, ESV). How do you read the two sets of names on Revelation 21's walls alongside Galatians 4:26?

Step 3What a wife shares — Rest, reign, inheritance and family.

4Christ. Paul writes, "if we endure, we will also reign with him" (2 Timothy 2:12, ESV). He uses the same verb, συμβασιλεύω (symbasileuō), for Corinth's premature reign: "would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you!" (1 Corinthians 4:8, ESV). What does the order of 2 Timothy 2:12 tell you about how Jesus shares His reign?

5Family. Paul says God "predestined us for adoption" (Ephesians 1:5, ESV), and also that we "wait eagerly for adoption as sons" (Romans 8:23, ESV). How does being a child in God's house sit alongside being the Lamb's bride?

Step 4Looking at His face — Where Revelation ends.
Be transformed

6Be transformed. Hebrews tells you to "strive to enter that rest" (Hebrews 4:11, ESV), and names it σαββατισμός (sabbatismos, Hebrews 4:9), a word found nowhere else in the New Testament or the Greek Old Testament. What in your week is effort the wedding will end?

  • Think. At the wedding you become His wife, and what is His is shared with you: His rest, His reign, His inheritance and His name (Revelation 22:4).
  • Attitude. Hold Israel with gratitude. The God who is winning back His wife Israel (Hosea 2:14-16) is the same God who keeps you.
  • Do. Name one thing you are straining after that the wedding will end. Set aside one evening this week to stop it, read Revelation 21:1-7 aloud, and thank Jesus for the rest you will share with Him: "whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works" (Hebrews 4:10, ESV).
Page 1 of 2 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

The Wife of the Lamb

The point When the marriage of the Lamb comes, Scripture begins calling the bride His wife, and a wife shares what is her husband's: His rest, His reign, His inheritance, His family and, at the last, His face.

The whole study, with every verse a tap awayhttps://the-way.lewy.au/israel-and-church/wife-of-the-lamb/
Page 2 of 2 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

Ancient sources

  • Mishnah Ketubot 5:2 (the twelve-month preparation period, for both parties), quoted from "Mishnah Yomit" translated by Dr. Joshua Kulp, licensed CC-BY, retrieved through references/build/sefaria.py from the Sefaria-Export dataset.

Study Bibles, translations and text data

  • MACULA Greek/Hebrew morphology and Louw-Nida semantic domains (open license) — domain and occurrence data for νύμφη (nymphē), γυνή (gynē), γάμος (gamos), σαββατισμός (sabbatismos), συμβασιλεύω (symbasileuō), υἱοθεσία (huiothesia), περιποίησις (peripoiēsis), πατριά (patria) and ἑτοιμάζω (hetoimazō); the SBL Greek New Testament text of Revelation 21:3 (λαοὶ αὐτοῦ). Septuagint lemma data for περιποίησις at Malachi 3:17, and the absence of σαββατισμός and συμβασιλεύω from the Septuagint altogether.
  • unfoldingWord ULT interlinear alignment (open license) — used to establish that Revelation 19:7 reads ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ (hē gynē autou) where English versions print "Bride", that Revelation 21:9 carries νύμφη and γυνή together, and the Hebrew of Hosea 2:16 (אִישִׁי, ishi, against בַּעְלִי, baʿli) and Isaiah 54:5 (בֹּעֲלַיִךְ, boʿalayik).
  • Legacy Standard Bible (The Lockman Foundation / Three Sixteen Publishing) — its translators' footnote at Revelation 19:7, "Lit wife," quoted with attribution as independent corroboration of the γυνή reading above.
  • ESV Study Bible (Crossway) — verse text (ESV) and notes on Hosea 2:16-17 and Revelation 21:12-14, quoted briefly with attribution.
  • CSB Ancient Faith Study Bible (Holman) — its CSB text of Revelation 21:3, "his peoples", and the translators' footnote that other manuscripts read "people".
  • NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible (Zondervan) — note on Hebrews 12:23, cited for the one-company reading.

On this site

  • The Bride of Christ — the betrothal pattern this study continues from.
  • Israel and the Church — the three-group reading of 1 Corinthians 10:32, and what Romans 11 says is still ahead for Israel.
  • A Day Is as a Thousand Years — σαββατισμός (sabbatismos) at Hebrews 4:9 worked through in full, with the Sabbath-millennium reading this study only points at.