Episode 20
A Tale of Two Feasts: The Lamb's Wedding and the Great Supper
The marriage supper of the Lamb serves as a pivotal moment in the unfolding narrative of the New Testament, connecting the events of the first century with the promise of a new age and the establishment of the New Jerusalem. In this discussion, we explore how this grand feast symbolizes not just a celebration but also the culmination of Christ's relationship with His people, following the significant tribulations and the destruction of Jerusalem. We dive deep into the imagery found in Revelation and the prophetic texts, unveiling how the metaphor of marriage illustrates God's enduring covenant, even amidst betrayal and calamity. It’s a story of redemption, where the bride, initially unfaithful, is invited back to a relationship of grace and glory, marking the beginning of a thousand-year reign with Christ. So, settle in as we unravel these intricate layers of history, prophecy, and divine love, all leading to the much-anticipated marriage supper that promises to be nothing short of extraordinary.
In this episode, we navigate the fascinating, albeit complex, topic of the marriage supper of the Lamb, an event steeped in biblical prophecy and historical context. The conversation unfurls the layers of meaning behind this supper, linking it to first-century events like the great tribulation and the burning of Jerusalem. We draw on Revelation 19, where the joyous occasion of the Lamb's marriage is set against the backdrop of divine judgment upon an unfaithful city. This duality paints a vivid picture of hope and consequence, where the saints are called to rejoice in their union with Christ, while the fate of Jerusalem serves as a stark reminder of the repercussions of spiritual unfaithfulness. Through our exploration, we highlight how the marriage supper not only marks a new beginning for the faithful but also serves as a crucial turning point in the narrative of redemption. The episode invites listeners to ponder the transformative power of divine love, the significance of covenant renewal, and the ultimate victory of good over evil.
Takeaways:
- The marriage supper of the Lamb signifies the culmination of God's relationship with the Jewish people after a period of trials and tribulations.
- Revelation's imagery of the bridegroom not only reflects Christ's love but also serves as a reminder of Jerusalem's historical unfaithfulness.
- The destruction of the old Jerusalem parallels the new covenant's establishment, marking a significant shift in God's plan.
- Understanding the betrothal customs of ancient Jewish culture adds depth to the concept of Christ's relationship with the Church.
- The marriage supper occurs after the fall of Jerusalem, emphasizing the transition from the old covenant to the new.
- The parables illustrating the wedding feast reveal God's invitation to both the initially invited and those outside the covenant at that time (cf. Eph. 2:12).
Transcript
Good day to you and thanks for joining us in the study.
Speaker A:We have been talking about the coming of Christ as it's referenced in the New Testament.
Speaker A:Today we want to talk about the marriage of the Lamb.
Speaker A:One reference to his coming is as a bridegroom.
Speaker A:Revelation 19, verses 6 through 16 gives us a wonderful example of it.
Speaker A:This bridegroom who has a wedding garment with the name written on it that reads King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Speaker A:But I think to appreciate this marriage and its significance in the events of the last days, we must focus first on his first marriage.
Speaker A:The king's marriage to Israel.
Speaker A:His bride was his first marriage.
Speaker A:It is reflected in Psalm 45 in which is given a beautiful description of God's desire to have a queen standing at his right hand side that will give him honor and reverence.
Speaker A:They would raise daughters who would rise to be a blessing to all nations.
Speaker A:Ezekiel describes God's marriage to old Jerusalem in the first eight verses of chapter 16.
Speaker A:When she was left for dead and abandoned her own blood, God gave her life.
Speaker A:He sustained her in his compassion and entered into a covenant of marriage with her when she was old enough for love.
Speaker A:He bathed her and clothed her in the finest linen, adorned her in costly adornment, so that she became not only very beautiful, but recognized as a queen.
Speaker A:Verse 13 and after her fame and beauty spread among the nations, verse 14, she began to play the harlot with all her lovers that passed her way.
Speaker A:This is no doubt a reference to the pagan influence of idolatry and the worship of other gods which the law was totally against.
Speaker A:God predicts that he'll gather her lovers together against her that would uncover her nakedness and suffer public shame for breaking wedlock.
Speaker A:She is also described as one that sheds blood, chapter 16, verse 43, especially the blood of saints and prophets.
Speaker A:Years later, Jesus applies it to the scribes and Pharisees of his day.
Speaker A:You will remember this in Matthew 23.
Speaker A:Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.
Speaker A:For you build the tombs of prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, if we lived in those days of our Father, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.
Speaker A:Thus you witness against yourselves that ye are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.
Speaker A:Fill up then the measure of your fathers, you serpents.
Speaker A:You brood of vipers.
Speaker A:How are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
Speaker A:Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barakiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.
Speaker A:Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Speaker A:Now this same preacher was being fulfilled.
Speaker A:In Revelation 17 we read in verse 16 beginning, it says, the beast will hate the prostitute, and they will make her desolate and naked and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire.
Speaker A:For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose.
Speaker A:And so that God would carry out his judgment against his people through foreign nations is not so unusual.
Speaker A:Where not really surprised to find the same method that was used in the past when God used the Roman Empire in 70 AD.
Speaker A:Here she arrogantly claims that she's still queen and is no widow.
Speaker A:Despite her claims and unwillingness to acknowledge her own condition, she will experience death and mourning and famine and will be completely destroyed by fire.
Speaker A:Revelation 18 beginning in verse 4 through 10 describes it.
Speaker A:The kings of the earth will stand looking at the destruction of the city at a distance, and they'll cry, woe, woe, the great city Babylon, the strong city.
Speaker A:For in one hour is thy judgment come.
Speaker A:We are sure of this city's identification.
Speaker A:John's prediction of a coming event was the fall of that great city where our Lord was crucified.
Speaker A:Chapter 11, verse 8 and verse 13.
Speaker A:The city city of Jerusalem was a type of Sodom.
Speaker A:According to Ezekiel's description, she was more corrupt than her older sister Samaria and her youngest Sister Sodom.
Speaker A:Verse 47.
Speaker A:And then if you'll return back to that church chapter verse chapter 16 and begin looking at verse 51 with me, listen carefully.
Speaker A:Verse 51 beginning reads, Samaria has not committed half your sins.
Speaker A:You have committed more abominations than they, and have made your sister appear righteous.
Speaker A:By all the abominations that you've committed because of your sin, in which you acted more abominably than they, they are more in the right than you.
Speaker A:So be ashamed you also, and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.
Speaker A:The several references to Sodom are given in the New Testament as an example of wickedness that led to their destruction, as is done by Peter in second Peter 2, 6 beginning Jude 7 or Luke 17.
Speaker A:In Luke 17 it is used as an example of the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
Speaker A:In a similar way, Revelation 17 predicts the judgment of the great harlot with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication.
Speaker A:She is full of abominations, and on her forehead is a name is written Babylon the great, the mother of prostitutes and of the earth's abominations.
Speaker A:And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
Speaker A:Now that which gave her glory is Jehovah's compassion.
Speaker A:You remember, he gave her majesty, robed her as a queen.
Speaker A:All that she was or ever would be is due to the great king Jehovah.
Speaker A:It is from this viewpoint that John sees this great city reigning over the kings of the earth in chapter 18 and verse 7.
Speaker A:And for that reason this great city reigns over the kings of the earth.
Speaker A:Inasmuch as Jehovah is ruler over all the earth, it is his city.
Speaker A:And one great testament to this truth is Nebuchadnezzar's acknowledgment of Jehovah's absolute dominion.
Speaker A:You remember, he had lost his kingdom for a while because of his claim to greatness.
Speaker A:And when he was finally, when he returned from his humiliation as an animal in the fields, he praises Jehovah, acknowledging that all the inhabitants of the earth, or as nothing when compared to him.
Speaker A:Daniel 4:34 35 when the word became flesh and dwelt among us, it was as if God was personally confronting his adulterous wife.
Speaker A:Even though he allowed her to repent, had come in fulfillment of prophecy to be her anointed king, the Messiah, she made no changes.
Speaker A:One who was greater than all who had gone before him had finally arrived the Messiah.
Speaker A:But his people rejected him.
Speaker A:He came to his own, John1 says, but his own received him not.
Speaker A:When Jerusalem and her lovers conspired to kill Jesus, they provided the proof that they were just like their fathers.
Speaker A:Historically, the most extreme way to get rid of a spouse is murder.
Speaker A:And when the disciples prayed that after Peter and John were released from the Sanhedrin, they quote Psalm 2.
Speaker A:There it speaks of the rulers gathered together against the Lord and his anointed in the city of Jerusalem.
Speaker A:Luke identifies them as being Herod, Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel.
Speaker A:Acts 4:27.
Speaker A:Peter had said that the men of Israel crucified and killed Jesus by the hands of lawless men.
Speaker A:Chapter two, verse 23. Who were they?
Speaker A:They were her Gentile lovers.
Speaker A:His death at their hands terminated their marriage contract.
Speaker A:We find In Romans, chapter 7, verses 1 through 6.
Speaker A:As Paul notes, the marriage bond to illustrate the relationship between God's people and the law of Moses.
Speaker A:And like the attitude of Ezekiel's description of her refusal to mourn, John's description in Revelation 18 in verse 7 is the same.
Speaker A:You'll recall that the Sanhedrin had brought Peter and John before them, angered that they were accusing them of killing Jesus.
Speaker A:That's in chapter 5 and verse 28.
Speaker A:At that time they refused to accept any responsibility for his death.
Speaker A:But it would not end there.
Speaker A:There would be a day in which the truth would certainly be revealed.
Speaker A:When Jesus returned as he had promised to take vengeance upon Jerusalem for her sins against God and man, there could be no denying, there could be no doubting that this marriage was now dead.
Speaker A:Not only had the husband been murdered, but he arose from the dead and returned on the clouds of judgment to destroy her.
Speaker A:All of this was done within 40 days.
Speaker A:And of course this had never been done before.
Speaker A:It's an exceptional case because the first one who died is alive forevermore and he has the keys of death and Hades.
Speaker A:Revelation 1 teaches.
Speaker A:And the second one suffers death without any hope of eternal life.
Speaker A:It's a sort of double whammy.
Speaker A:You've got death on both parties.
Speaker A: o live forevermore in Ezekiel: Speaker A:God had promised a new and everlasting covenant through the prophet Ezekiel.
Speaker A:And even though the first covenant was nailed to the cross, the Hebrew writer, when speaking of the old and new covenants, he says, but that which is becoming old is nigh unto vanishing away.
Speaker A:At the time of that writing it had not yet, but it was vanishing away.
Speaker A:And so during that 40 year period between the deaths of Christ and physical Israel with her city Jerusalem, these two covenants coexisted in the same way.
Speaker A:John the immerser and Jesus coexisted for a time.
Speaker A:Both John and the first covenant with ancient Israel was decreasing.
Speaker A:You remember, John says that he was decreasing, but the Messiah would increase.
Speaker A:The same is said in Hebrews 8:13.
Speaker A:With regard to what is old, that is the old law is nigh unto vanishing away.
Speaker A:The second was increasing in a similar way.
Speaker A:David had been anointed by Samuel long before he actually took the throne.
Speaker A:Long before Saul's rule had ended, David had been anointed king.
Speaker A:And these illustrate, I think, that the old had not fully vanished away, but it was near its end, both in time and in purpose.
Speaker A:And so when the blood of the Lamb had been slain to purchase the new Jerusalem, that covenant was ended.
Speaker A:That is the old.
Speaker A:He was not unfaithful to her, but his death ended that marriage.
Speaker A:But when he died and rose as the Lord, Savior of the new people, this new covenant was not yet consummated.
Speaker A:They were only betrothed to him.
Speaker A:For the Lord, the day of his reappearing was the one thing that prevented the marriage of the lamb.
Speaker A:He would return.
Speaker A:He said he would in John 14.
Speaker A:He would go to prepare a place for her.
Speaker A:He would return, destroy his murderous, unfaithful spouse, and vindicate the souls under the altar who had died for the sake of Christ by taking vengeance on his unfaithful spouse.
Speaker A:But once Jerusalem was destroyed with its temple, which, as the Hebrew writer says, was a sign representing that present age, once that was destroyed, it was forever gone, and it opened up the way for the new covenant.
Speaker A:Look at Hebrews 9:8.
Speaker A:Make a special note and read it carefully.
Speaker A:By this, the Holy Spirit indicates that the way under the holy place is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing.
Speaker A:Now listen carefully.
Speaker A:Which is symbolic for the present age.
Speaker A:Notice, please, that the temple and old Jerusalem were symbolic for that present age.
Speaker A:As long as Jerusalem was still standing and the temple still standing, that present age had remained and the new wood could not be opened.
Speaker A:Yet you see, the difficulty in comprehending the marriage of the Lamb and determining when the new covenant began is due to the difference in the marriage cultures of that day and our day.
Speaker A:Jewish culture entered a binding contract of marriage called a betrothal.
Speaker A:Many customs were followed before the actual wedding ceremony.
Speaker A:One significant custom was the bride price.
Speaker A:This was given by the groom to her father.
Speaker A:It represented her value to him.
Speaker A:And once that covenant was sealed, it could only be broken by a handwriting of divorce.
Speaker A:Even though the wedding day was still in the future, it was during this period the groom would be gone to prepare a place for her at his father's house.
Speaker A:John 14:1 4 depicts this perfectly.
Speaker A:And when he was ready, the groom would come.
Speaker A:It would be a festive occasion, a momentous event, as there would be occasion of dancing and great rejoicing.
Speaker A:The groom would be accompanied to the bride's house, her father's house, to be taken to be with him and in his father's house.
Speaker A:And so, in the same way, a covenant is made possible by the death of Christ, where he pays the bridal price with his own blood and enters a marriage covenant, a betrothal.
Speaker A:Too many people assume that this compares to our custom where we enter the covenant of marriage and consummate that relationship the same night.
Speaker A:But that's not the case here.
Speaker A:Starting at Pentecost in Acts 2 and the 40 years following it.
Speaker A:God's covenant with New Jerusalem was a time of preparation.
Speaker A:Christ had gone to prepare a place.
Speaker A:It was a betrothal period in which the groom had gone to prepare for his bride.
Speaker A: n, or, as is noted in Matthew: Speaker A:Either way, it has to occur within the same generation to complete the sense of their wedding.
Speaker A:The groom certainly intended to return before the death of the bride.
Speaker A:He intended to consummate the marriage and to start his own household in that generation.
Speaker A:The common interpretation of the Lord's return among today's teachers has the bride waiting for her beloved to return for her.
Speaker A:But he never comes.
Speaker A:She wonders what's taking him so long.
Speaker A:She waxes old and dies without ever seeing him again.
Speaker A: where he's been for the last: Speaker A:You see, this idea destroys the image of the bride marriage motif.
Speaker A:It defies all logic.
Speaker A:It makes no sense.
Speaker A:And so, to summarize, the two covenants coexisted for about 40 years.
Speaker A:Well within a generation, the blood of the Lamb purchased a people for his own possession.
Speaker A:Revelation 5:9.
Speaker A:But that marriage could not be consummated, and thus was only a betrothal, not a marriage.
Speaker A:Furthermore, as long as the first temple was standing, the second marriage couldn't begin.
Speaker A:It was a sign of that age that it still existed.
Speaker A:The heavenly temple in the new Jerusalem couldn't be open while the earthly temple was still standing.
Speaker A:That's what the Hebrew writer says.
Speaker A:And for that reason, the marriage of the Lamb is presented as taking place immediately after the burning of Jerusalem.
Speaker A:That's what the revelation of Jesus Christ teaches.
Speaker A:You see, adulterers were grad.
Speaker A:Generally they were stoned and burned with fire.
Speaker A:Leviticus 20, verse 10, beginning Deuteronomy 22, verses 22 through 24.
Speaker A:Josephus description of Stones weighing a hundred pounds were hurled from the sky at the Roman siege in AD 70.
Speaker A:These engines, as they call they were called, were 300 catapults that were brought to Jerusalem.
Speaker A:And after the stoning, Jerusalem would then be burned.
Speaker A:God didn't waste any more time coming for his bride after Jerusalem's burning.
Speaker A:It was immediately after.
Speaker A:So in the parable, the burning of the city precedes the marriage feast, just as John's vision of the burning of the harlot city precedes the marriage supper of the lamb.
Speaker A:Interesting, isn't it?
Speaker A:Look at it.
Speaker A:Revelation 19, verse 9, verses also in the parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22, Jesus says, but when the king heard about it, he was furious, and he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.
Speaker A:And he said to his servants, the wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.
Speaker A:Therefore, go into the highway, and as many as you find invite to the wedding.
Speaker A:So Revelation 18:9 tells us that the kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her, they'll weep and lament for her when they see the smoking of her burning.
Speaker A:And the very next chapter opens up in preparation for the festivities of the marriage, in praise of God for his judgment against the great harlot and because he avenged the blood of the servants.
Speaker A:Verse 6 then opens with the voice of a great multitude.
Speaker A:What were they doing?
Speaker A:They were praising God because the marriage of the lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready.
Speaker A:You see, the time had come for the celebration and the consummation of that marriage.
Speaker A:This corresponds to another vision of John, who sees the prophets and the saints rewarded immediately after the fall of the great city where the Lord was crucified.
Speaker A:Revelation 11, 8.
Speaker A:Look at verse 13 and verse 18.
Speaker A:In addition, his promise to return to gather the elect immediately after the tribulation of Those days, Matthew 24 says, was a prophetic utterance expected to be fulfilled in that generation.
Speaker A:So this language fits the description of the events of the last days of this era of the Jews, this Jewish system.
Speaker A:The Jews had rejected the Christ, and those that rejected the invitation were slaughtered, and their flesh became now a feast for vultures, while the festivities of the marriage of the lamb was being offered to others who had not preached previously been invited.
Speaker A:These two feasts are mentioned and described very differently.
Speaker A:In Revelation 19, verses 9 through 21, he writes of the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Speaker A:And in verse nine, beginning, it's a description of the great supper or the supper of the Lamb.
Speaker A:And then in verse 17, you have the great supper of God.
Speaker A:Question is, is this one and the same supper, or is this two different aspects of the same?
Speaker A:In other words, is it the two same supper, or is it two distinct suppers?
Speaker A:That's the question.
Speaker A:If it was two distinct suppers, they certainly would have been back to back in time.
Speaker A:Not too much not talking about A different era or a long period of time?
Speaker A:Or are we just simply talking about the very same?
Speaker A:The parable of the marriage feast speaks of only one marriage feast.
Speaker A:Of course, there is another feast.
Speaker A:I would like for you to consider the possibility if in fact it was just one marriage supper.
Speaker A:You have the carnage of dead bodies after the Roman siege, and the destruction would result in an abundance of food butchered in preparation for the supper of the Lamb.
Speaker A:The righteous saints are bidden to partake in this great supper.
Speaker A:And in this parable, the oxen the fatlings made ready for this feast were metaphors for those men and horses that John Saul butchered for the great supper of God.
Speaker A:But it's also likely, certainly within the possibility, that John is discussing two very distinct suppers.
Speaker A:The Jews who were initially invited rejected the king's invitation, and thus other guests were invited to take their place.
Speaker A:And the Jews who rejected him were then slaughtered, and their flesh became the feast for the vultures.
Speaker A:So you've got two feasts.
Speaker A:The great supper of God that describes the the slaughter and the vultures that eat the flesh of those slaughtered, and the great invitation of the bride and groom.
Speaker A:In that case, the terrestrial Great Supper of God ought to be distinguished from this celestial and festive occasion that celebrates the marriage of the lamb.
Speaker A:Either that or these two aspects of the same supper.
Speaker A:One is terrestrial, the other celestial.
Speaker A:It's difficult to know for sure, but seeing that the faithful saints who partake of the marriage feast are arrayed in white linen, it seems rather inconsistent to visualize them as unclean vultures feeding upon rotting corpses and the great supper of God.
Speaker A:And for that reason, it is my opinion, and only my opinion, that these two are distinct sufferers that coincide in time.
Speaker A:The first being the great supper of God that is linked to the destruction of the harlot.
Speaker A:And the second is the marriage supper of the lamb.
Speaker A:And that's what I want to talk about next.
Speaker A:We'll introduce it and perhaps come back to it in next week in the parable of the marriage feast in Matthew 22 certainly presents the initial invitation given to the Jews.
Speaker A:To support our previous section, this text shows that there is some time between the invitation and the wedding, but it's reasonable to assume that it would appear in their lifetime.
Speaker A:It would be unreasonable to send an invitation to people who were expected to be dead before the event.
Speaker A:The day before delivering this parable, Jesus makes his triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
Speaker A:He goes into the temple and drives out all that sold and bought in the Temple.
Speaker A:And the following day When Jesus delivers this parable, the chief priests and the elders asked him, by what authority do you do these things?
Speaker A:The parable of the marriage feast was one of those three parables that he gave that day.
Speaker A:The one previous to it was about the wicked husbandmen.
Speaker A:And when Jesus asked them what the master of the vineyard should do to those wicked husbandmen who abused his faithful servants and killed his master's son, they correctly said, he will miserably destroy those miserable men and let out the vineyard to other husbandmen.
Speaker A:And even though they had answered correctly, they were indicting themselves and perceived that he had spoken about them.
Speaker A:Whether they perceived or not, Jesus parable was often addressed to them.
Speaker A:The Jewish leaders who were representatives of the first covenant were a people that rejected him.
Speaker A:The parable of the marriage feast is similar to the parable of the wicked husbandman.
Speaker A:After receiving the invitation, they had abused and killed the faithful servants who invited them as guests.
Speaker A:And the king was angry, and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
Speaker A:And in Matthew 22, verse 7 it reads, now the king was angry.
Speaker A:He sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire.
Speaker A:And he said to his slaves, the wedding feast is ready.
Speaker A:But those who were invited were not worthy.
Speaker A:You'll remember in the parable of the ten virgins, Jesus had predicted the destruction of Jerusalem in Matthew 24.
Speaker A:And then this parable falls right in line with that same period and same context.
Speaker A:It depicts the gathering of the elect immediately after the great tribulation suffered by Jerusalem and the surrounding cities of Jerusalem, the cities of the Jews there in that area, you'll remember the five virgins that were wise had prepared for the coming of the groom.
Speaker A:They would be allowed to celebrate the festivities of the feast.
Speaker A:But the foolish virgins, they were left behind on the outside of a closed door.
Speaker A:The five wise who were found blameless at the coming of the Lord were translated into life.
Speaker A:No doubt in the same way Enoch was translated in 1st Corinthians 15.
Speaker A:We're told that there will be a resurrection, and that they would precede those that are alive.
Speaker A:Not all of them would be sleep, he says in First Corinthians 15.
Speaker A:But they will all be changed.
Speaker A:And so consequently the judgment of Matthew 25 that starts in verse 31 ought to be identified with the same judgment referenced in Revelation 11, where Jesus tells John what would happen, what would shortly take place According to Revelation 1, and followed the fall of that great city where our Lord was crucified.
Speaker A:Chapter 11 and verse 8 beginning.
Speaker A:So this opened up the heavenly temple.
Speaker A:Hebrews 9:8 another fact regarding the timing of these events concerns the apostles and their redemption.
Speaker A:We will pick up to talk about that beginning in Matthew 10 and pick up with this thought next week.
Speaker A:Well, our time is up.
Speaker A:I thank you for joining me in this study.
Speaker A:I hope you have a good day and a very pleasant week.
