Two Garments Prepare the Bride
Revelation 19:7 declares, “Let us rejoice and exult, and let us give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.”
Verse 8 continues, “And it was given to her that she should be clothed in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteousnesses of the saints.”
The Scriptures reveal that there are two kinds of garments for Christians. One is the Lord Jesus….The other is the fine linen garment, bright and clean, spoken of in verse 8. Whenever we come before God, the Lord Jesus is our garment….On the other hand, when we are presented to Christ, we must be arrayed with fine linen, bright and clean. This is the righteousnesses of the saints. “Righteousnesses” means a succession of righteous deeds, one after another. All of these righteous deeds together are our fine linen garment.¹
These two garments are also in Psalm 45. Verse 13 describes the a woven garment with gold and verse 14 mentions an embroidered garment. These two garments are further described in a footnote on Revelation 3:5:
Every Christian needs two garments. The first is the garment of justification for our salvation, signifying Christ, the Christ whom we received, as our objective righteousness (Luke 15:22; 1 Cor. 1:30). The second is the garment of approvedness for our acceptance, signifying Christ, the Christ whom we live out, as our subjective righteousness (Phil. 1:21; 3:9).²
The righteous deeds do not originate from ourselves but from Christ living in us and through us. We need more daily experiences of living Christ. The “brightness” and “cleanness” of Christ lived out today will increase to the brightness and cleanness of New Jerusalem.
¹ From chapter 5 of The Glorious Church by Watchman Nee, published and © by Living Stream Ministry, available at www.ministrybooks.org/ and www.livingstream.com/en/the-church/8012401-glorious-church-the.html.
² A portion of footnote 2 on Revelation 3:5 in the Recovery Version Bible, published and © by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim CA, 2003.
Photo courtesy of pixabay.com.
Bible verses quoted in these posts are from The Holy Bible, Recovery Version, published and © by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim CA, 2003. The New Testament of this Bible, with its outlines, is at online.recoveryversion.org; this too is © by LSM.
