In the Old Testament, Israel was God’s wife (see Ezekiel 16:32; Jeremiah 31:32), but in the book of Hosea we see that God divorced her due to her unfaithfulness:

Yet later in the same chapter the prophet writes:

Peter uses the same language when describing the church, showing that it is through the new covenant with the church that God has fulfilled the prophecy in Hosea and in doing so betrothed to Himself both Israel and the Gentiles:

Paul confirms this in Romans where he says:

Therefore, both Peter and Paul show that it is the church that God has chosen to be His bride now (this is not replacement theology; read Delivered From Delusion to see why both replacement theology and dispensationalism have missed the mark and the truth that is somewhere in-between). Paul also talks at some length about the church being the bride of Yeshua in his letter to the Ephesians:

The New Jerusalem further points to the church being the bride. In Revelation 21:9–10 the New Jerusalem is described as being “the bride, the Lamb’s wife” and in verse 14 we see that she is built on the foundation of the twelve apostles. In Ephesians 2:19–20 Paul describes the church as being built on the foundation of the apostles. The church, therefore, is the bride of Christ.

Not everyone in the church will be chosen to be Christ’s bride, though. The church is also the body of Christ, and just as Adam’s bride was taken out of his body, so too will Christ’s bride be taken from His body.

In the letters to the seven churches it is only the overcomers within the church that receive the promise of becoming Christ’s bride. Revelation 3:12 says, “I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name.” In Revelation 21:2 and 21:9–10 the New Jerusalem is shown to be the bride of the Lamb. Traditionally the bride takes the name of her husband, which is also what we see promised to those who overcome. Another promise to the overcomers is that they “shall be clothed in white garments” (Revelation 3:5) which will be fulfilled at the marriage of the bride: “And to her [the bride] it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints” (Revelation 19:8). These passages give substantial weight to the fact that it is the overcomers within the body of Christ—and only them—who will become His bride. Conversely those who are not overcomers will have their names blotted out of the Lamb’s book of Life (see Revelation 3:5).

From the previous article it should be evident that as the male child was also equated with the overcomers that the bride is also the male child. Now, it might be tempting to presume that because the bride is a woman she can’t be the male child. This would be an incorrect presumption to make because it would be based on mixing metaphors. Consider Jeremiah 3:14 where God says, “‘Return, O backsliding children,’ says YHWH; ‘for I am married to you.’” If it’s okay for God to be married to his children, there is no reason to suppose that the male child cannot also be the bride. Because two different metaphors don’t mix is not a sound basis for rejecting an interpretation!

Now that we know who God’s bride is going to be, in the next article we’ll take a look at who the virgins are.