JOEL 2.16 (BEEBE) 1/2

“Let the Bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.”

The first part of the chapter in which this text is found appears to be addressed more particularly to the Jews as a nation, yet it is evident that the text before us has a direct application to Christ and the church, and that the whole chapter has them in view, in its ultimate application. The closing up of the chapter is a language that embraces in itself the glory and power of the kingdom of Christ. In the first verse of the chapter it is said, “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain, let all the inhabitants of the earth tremble, for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand.” We understand the day of the Lord, which is here introduced, to be the same day which is mentioned in the thirty-first verse, and is there called the great and terrible day of the Lord. This subject is clearly explained by our Lord in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, and in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles; Peter has removed all doubts and successful disputes upon the point. 

On the day of Pentecost, when the apostles were filled with the Holy Ghost, and spake with tongues so that every man heard them in their own language wherein they were born, some were amazed, and inquired what those things meant; others mockingly said, These men (the apostles) are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and said unto them, These men are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, and then quotes the very language which is found in the close of the chapter, in which our text is contained. It is not possible therefore to miss the application, unless Peter erred in applying it where he did, and this we know was not the case. The expression in the last clause of the sixteenth verse is that which the Holy Ghost chose as a part of the language through which to describe the setting up of the gospel kingdom on the earth in union with Christ its King. 

With these invulnerable bulwarks around this idea, we hesitate not to apply the text directly to Christ and the church. The terms bridegroom and bride, when used in the Bible, very generally apply to this union. We learn from the Bible that the most solemn, binding, and endearing of all human ties, those of the bridegroom and bride, are borrowed from and represent the union of Christ and the church, and if we inquire why Ishmael was not an heir with Isaac, we shall discover that one very important reason was, that he was not a son of the bride, and had no vital relationship with her. God is not the author of confusion and discord, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. All the amalgamation and means of men can never add anything to the body of Christ, for nothing can be added to it, which was not originally in it. If we refer to our first parents after the flesh, for a figurative illustration of this point, we shall there discover that Eve was in Adam, until she was developed as his bride. 

We should particularly note the fact that the bridegroom was not made for the bride, but the bride was made for the bridegroom. In relation to Christ and the church in their vital relationship they are co-equal, although the development of the bride was subsequently to her vital existence in him. In relation to this union, and the manifestation of it, God was pleased to establish the titles Bridegroom and Bride and apply them to the Head, and the body, which is the church, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. Our text has to do with this Head and body, in life and death, in doctrine, ordinances, and gospel, or church organization. The time was appointed by the eternal Father for this manifested union, and his command in the text is, “Let the Bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.” Christ Jesus, the Lord, and Mediator of the new covenant, had long been made manifest to the faithful, through representations, types, and shadows, but all these types and shadows declared that their substance, that which is perfect, had not yet come. Jesus was represented by the spotless lamb offered by Abel. Abel is dead, yet in that offering, he now speaks. The law was a schoolmaster. At the time appointed of God, Jesus Christ came into the world to swallow up types and shadows in himself, and to remove the ceremonies which pointed to him, to fulfill all that had been written of him, and that had been represented in offerings and ceremonies. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.” Who was under the law? The bride, the Lamb’s wife. 

Why then was not the law executed upon her, and she consigned to everlasting woe? She has a Mediator who appears as her husband, and Paul said, The law knoweth not a woman which hath a husband, and what the Scriptures before us point to, is the full manifestation that Christ is the Husband, or Bridegroom of the church, which is composed not of Jews only, but of Gentiles also; and God hath visited the Gentiles to take out from among them a people for his name. The church is not composed of all of either, but of a people out of both, and Jesus appears in the flesh between the two; at the end of the Jewish world or economy, and in the beginning of the Christian, when the Gentiles are called and the church is gathered under the latter. “That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one, all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him.” 

That consolidated lady is the election of grace, and figuratively speaking is the bone of Christ’s bone, and the flesh of his flesh. We here find a bride who was in Christ before the world began. Having thus found a bridegroom and bride, we will attempt to follow them in their nuptials and fellowship. David is presenting in the most clear and beautiful manner, the setting up of the gospel kingdom on the earth, and in presenting Christ, his doctrine and ordinances, as taught by the apostles, and his manifested union with the church as the Bridegroom, breaks forth in strains almost seraphic, thus, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth thy handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them, he has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.” Here the most stupendous, beautiful, and amazing glory ever seen by the natural eye, is brought forward as a comparison of the glory of Christ in the church, in their union as bridegroom and bride. The heavens with their constellations, which declare the wisdom, power, and glory of the creating God, are referred to, and they are but feeble figures, to portray the glory of God, in the church, through Christ Jesus our Lord. Age after age rolls on, and in all the multitude of planets, sun, moon, and stars, no jargon nor failure occurs. Each one travels onward in its allotted path and owns and proclaims the sovereign hand of God, which not only created them, but also bears them up, in their onward march, and in the performance of the affairs for which they were severally created. 

The life and light of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and all Christians, dwell in Christ the Sun of righteousness. What power in earth or hell, can retard the march of the sun, or frustrate the office work of his glory, or who, or what can resist the effectual and all-powerful action of his rays? He rises in the east to perform the office of the day, and no earthly power can stop him. Until man can do this, let him not think that he can master or resist Christ, the sun’s maker; for Jesus is no less powerful in one thing than he is in all things. The sun is brought forward as the strongest figure in the creation of God, by which to represent the glory and power of Christ in the church, as her never-failing fountain of light and warmth to every branch and a member thereof. As all the smaller lights and planets are dependent for their light on the sun, so is all the church dependent on Christ, who as a bridegroom cometh out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. “Let the Bridegroom go forth of his chamber.” Here we must receive the word chamber in a figurative sense, and consider it in that sense in which the spirit of inspiration has used it. We are not satisfied from the Scriptures, that it is applied to any one act of Christ, or that he should here be separated from the entire race of his Mediatorial goings forth, but rather a place of rest from his goings forth of old, and his work under the law, and that place of rest from whence he comes forth to preside manifestly as Head in the church; for we are not only told of the eternal purpose of God in Christ Jesus our Lord but we are also informed as to the consummation of it. “To the intent that now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

To what then does this manifold wisdom and purpose refer? To the salvation of the church, which is composed of both Jews and Gentiles, which was not known in other ages, that the Gentiles should be made fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his power in Christ, by the gospel; but when Christ came this truth was made manifest, and he took the church out from among both Jews and Gentiles and into a manifested union with himself. But when was the appointed time for this wedding, as our Lord in one of his parables calls it? The time came on the death of the law, the first husband, and then Christ “the Bridegroom went forth of his chamber,” and we are now introduced to the doctrine of Christ, and the ordinances of the Christian, or gospel church. The Bridegroom not only came in accordance with the purpose and covenant of God, but in that purpose and covenant was embraced the appointed way in which he should come, and when and how this manifested union should be consummated. By referring to the Levitical priesthood, we may, perhaps, find some figurative opening to the chamber, and the Bridegroom in his coming forth of it. “For these Levites, the four chief porters were in their set office, and were over the chambers and treasuries of the house of God, and they lodged round about the house of God, because the charge was upon them, and the opening thereof every morning pertained to them.” We read also in the gospel, of a porter who opened to Christ. 

As the priesthood made is changed, there is also of necessity a change of the law, and as Christ is the High Priest over a different house, which has different laws, so are all things pertaining to it different. New laws and new ordinances are instituted, and Christ, or the Bridegroom, comes forth in these and was preceded by the friend of the Bridegroom, even the porter who opened to him, and Jesus was baptized of John the Baptist, in the river of Jordan, and the Bridegroom established this as an ordinance through which believers pass into the visible church here below. We deem the conclusion tenable that this chamber has some reference to that doctrine and those ordinances in which Christ and the church came together in union and fellowship, as Bridegroom and bride. We believe also that the parable of the ten virgins has an application here. “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins which took their lamps and went forth to meet the Bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five of them were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.