Friday, March 15, 2024

THE MIDNIGHT HOUR

 

Jesus spoke in parables to make Himself clear to those who followed Him. Many followed Jesus but were not ‘married’ to Him.

Think not of marriage, in this case, as a union of two peoples of the opposite genders, but several people, men or women, engendered by Jesus; that which Jesus called “born again” (John 3:7). The meaning of which is engendered from above (Strong 2006), or reproduced, in a sense, by God.

In the beginning, mankind was made in the Image of God. That divine Image was ‘Selem’ in the Hebrew. Adam was a ‘Shadow’ of God, or God in Phantom. His flesh was material, but inwardly, Adam was the Glory of God of immaterial substance. The original sin was to “come short of the Glory of God” (Rom 3:23), and mankind, to this day come short of the Glory of God.

Marriage, in the parable, was “made whole’ again like the woman with the issue of the blood (Mat 9:22).

The Church represents the ‘Bride’ and Jesus the ‘Bridegroom’ (Mat 25:6). However, ‘bridegroom’ is simply ‘nymphios’ in the Greek whose root noun is ‘veil’ (Douglas Harper 2001-2023).  In a sense, the bride is the veiled ones and Jesus the one who reveals the persons behind the veils.

Of course, the brides in the parable meant that they were strictly veiled, and in the dark so that their appearances were concealed. The lanterns were there for them to be revealed to the bridegroom as He lifted the veils to indubitably discover who the intended bride might be.

Russians performed a similar ceremony for their ‘Caesars,’ the Tzars. It was a bridal show for the Tzar, the bridegroom, to whom the brides (nymphs) would be revealed. Each time those brides who showed flaws were eliminated until the bride intended by God was revealed. Usually, the groom would select the finalist himself, but often a malefactor would create rumors or induce sickness in the bride-to-be to promote their own relative as the bride. A Tzar would not select a sickly bride or non-nobility; those with a blood issue, so to speak. At one time, Russian brides had to be Russian by blood to be wives of the Tzars.

In the parable, the brides are not revealed. Someone, or perhaps themselves, saw them as fit to be brides of Jesus.

The role of the Bridegroom was to lift the veils, but the nymphs would shine their own lights for the revealing. They would endeavor to show their glory to the bridegroom.

There was a problem in the parable: Some took oil for their lamps to light while others failed to do so.

Oil, in scripture, represents the power of the Holy Spirit. As such, only five of the nymphs were worthy of being the brides of the ‘Caesar,’ Jesus.

Caesar was king of kings and as the Pontifex Maximus, they were Lord of lords as well. With that background, Jesus was a type of ‘Caesar.’ Let’s call Him ‘Tzar’ for a moment, a Russian version of Caesar. The parable was a ‘bridal show’ as it is considered in Russia.

The Orthodox Church in Russia requires that the bride and the groom would be of different genders each of which compliment the other in spirit.

For the Jewish wedding, think of the ‘bride’ who would be unlike Jesus in the flesh but much like Him in the Spirit. Do not think of the bride as women and Jesus as the Man, but the spirits in each of them.

When the veils would be lifted and the lanterns lit, their Images within would be revealed. Jesus was not interested in their faces or the purity of their fleshes, but the gloriousness of their souls. Remembering that there is no marriage in Heaven (sexual coupling), this marriage would be a spiritual coupling. Jesus was not looking for Himself a bride, but to provide for the worthy brides a Husband — Himself the ‘Husbandman.’

Note that it was not their performance that would make them worthy, but the glory in their souls.

God, before the wedding, planted His Divine Seed in some of the women and not the others. The foolish brides were those who had no Image of God within them; they had failed to prepare for the wedding by spiritual rebirth to change their natures. God had not engendered them, not because He would not, but because they failed to prepare for the wedding. The neglect was on them.

All ten were virgins (parthenos; Mat 25:1) who had never had intercourse with a man. However, some had had ‘intercourse’ with God. Not sexual intercourse, but a union with God when He had implanted in them the very Image of Himself. He had imbued five of the ten with His Holy Spirit. They all performed the bridal duties, but only five of the ten had the oil, or Spirit of God, within.

Oil symbolizes the Holy Spirit. Samuel had taken the horn of oil and anointed King David with it and the Spirit of the Lord came onto David (1 Sam 16:13).

For five of the ten, they had had the Spirit of the Lord come onto them. God had prepared them for the wedding. It was not so much that their lamps were empty of oil but that their own vessels were empty of it. As Jesus would say, their cups were empty, meaning that it was not their purposes to be brides; that the Lord had prepared the brides for His Son as was the case even in Russian Orthodoxy.

The Tzar, however, would have only one bride for his carnality to be appeased. Jesus was not the groom in the fashion of the Tzar. He could have many brides because they would always remain His virgins, in a spiritual sense in the manner of David who retained the Spirit of God forever; theirs would remain forever unless they became carnal.

Many compare Galilean weddings for guidance about the meaning of this passage in scripture. I have taken the liberty of comparing it to a royal Orthodox wedding with its ‘bridal show.’

Of course, Jesus is not marrying anyone for the pleasure of it, but to save those who the Lord had already engendered.

The Orthodox of Russia were always certain that the brides-to-be were truly virgins; they examined the evidence of a hymen. Jesus looked beyond their physical attributes, lifted the veils — the very doors to their souls — and examined them inwardly. Only those who had known God were to be the brides of God.

Ugly people can make beautiful brides for the Lord. Sometimes the ugliest face has the most glorious soul. God never examines His ‘brides’ by their outer appearances, but the true beauty that God had endowed unto them to even come to the marriage.

In the bridal show for Jesus, Satan had somehow gotten five of his daughters through the door to the bridal chamber, just like Satan had gotten unrighteous daughters past the door of the Noah’s Ark before God closed the door forever. Yes, Noah and the Ark was very much of a bridal show in the same manner as the parable, and some of the eight souls that got into the Ark were impure.

In the case of the parable, that ‘bridal show’ is how the Lord ensures that none that are unworthy, by His standards, get in. They must have been born again and imbued with the very Image of God to be worthy brides of God.

Like the bridal show in the parable, the Church has many who are there, but many are not worthy of union with Jesus. God must prepare the brides, for if they are not begotten of Him, then they are not worthy of the Son.

Behold your own church. Many of us look pious and righteous; some of the most beautiful people in the church look like holy angels, and some have been called that. Thankfully, the Lord does not look for outward beauty, but the glory within. It is not of ourselves, but beauty imbued within us by God in preparation for the ‘wedding.’

With that said, born again is preparation for the wedding, and a requirement for the Church. Many have got into the Church because their veils have not been lifted and they are empty of the ‘oil’ of God.

We all like to think that we are worthy, but Jesus is the judge of that; all the veils that conceal our souls will be lifted for the judgment day. Unlike five of the virgins, come prepared by knowing God before the midnight hour!



 

 (Picture credit; "Russian Bridal Show;" Atlas Obscura)

 

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