What is the marriage supper of the Lamb?

Question 10112.

The marriage supper of the Lamb is the wedding feast celebrating the union of Jesus and his church, announced in Revelation 19 immediately before he returns in glory. The bride is the church, the Lamb is the Bridegroom, and the feast marks the point at which the long betrothal is finally consummated in public.

It is one of the happiest scenes in the Bible, and it sits in a chapter that also contains a battle and a bird summoned to a rather grimmer supper. John puts the two side by side deliberately, and the contrast is worth feeling rather than tidying away.

Where the announcement comes

Revelation 19 opens with worship in heaven over the fall of Babylon, and then the voice of a great multitude cries that the Lord our God the Almighty reigns, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure, and the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

Then the angel says, write this: blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he adds, these are the true words of God, which is the sort of thing you say when the news is almost too good to accept.

So the marriage supper is announced in heaven before the Second Coming, and the very next scene is heaven opening and the rider on the white horse going out with the armies following him.

The Jewish wedding background

First-century Jewish weddings had three stages, and the pattern maps onto redemptive history with startling neatness. There was the betrothal, a legally binding contract with a price paid by the bridegroom. There was the interval, during which the bridegroom went to prepare a place in his father’s house while the bride waited, not knowing the day.

Then came the fetching of the bride, usually at night, with a shout and a procession, followed by the wedding feast, which could run for a week.

Put John 14 alongside that and you can hear Jesus using the language of a bridegroom. I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come again and take you to myself. The Rapture is the fetching of the bride, and the marriage supper is the feast that follows.

Who is the bride?

The church. Paul tells the Corinthians he betrothed them to one husband, to present them as a pure virgin to Christ. He tells the Ephesians that Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, to present her to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle.

Israel in the Old Testament is described as the wife of the Lord, unfaithful and then restored, which is a different image and a different relationship. I hold that Israel and the church remain distinct, so I do not collapse the two brides into one.

That distinction actually enriches the scene rather than dividing it. There is room at a wedding feast for more than the bride, which brings us to the guests.

Who are the guests?

The angel pronounces a blessing on those invited to the marriage supper, and it would be odd to pronounce a blessing on the bride for being invited to her own wedding. So the invited are a distinguishable group.

Most dispensational writers take the guests to include Old Testament saints and Tribulation saints, those who belong to God but are not part of the church age. John the Baptist described himself as the friend of the bridegroom who rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice, which fits exactly.

That gives us a picture of the whole redeemed family present, with distinct roles and undivided joy. Nobody is standing outside with their nose against the glass.

When and where does the marriage supper happen?

The marriage itself is announced in heaven before Revelation 19:11, so the wedding takes place in heaven after the church has been caught up and assessed at the judgement seat of Christ. That is why the bride is already clothed in the righteous deeds of the saints when the announcement is made.

The feast is a different question. Many hold that the supper itself takes place on earth at the beginning of the millennial kingdom, and I find that persuasive. Jesus said he would not drink again of the fruit of the vine until he drank it new in his Father’s kingdom, and the parables of the kingdom feast are set in the kingdom.

So the sequence runs: Rapture, Bema seat, marriage in heaven, Second Coming, and then the feast as the kingdom opens. I would not be dogmatic about the last step, but it hangs together well.

The parables that prepared us for it

Jesus told a story at Matthew 22:2 about a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and the invited guests would not come. He told another about ten virgins waiting for a bridegroom, five with oil and five without, and the door shut. He told another about a man without a wedding garment, thrown out into the darkness.

The Greek word for the feast in these parables is deipnon, the main meal of the day, the same word John uses in Revelation 19. Jesus had been talking about this occasion for a long time before John saw it.

The warnings in those parables are not decoration. Attendance depends on the invitation being accepted and on being clothed in a righteousness that is given rather than manufactured.

The other supper in the chapter

A few verses later an angel standing in the sun calls the birds to gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings and captains and the mighty. It is deliberately shocking, and it is meant to be read against the marriage supper.

Two suppers, two invitations, two outcomes. You are at one table or you are on the menu at the other, and there is no third option in the chapter. I have never found a gentle way to preach that, and I do not think John intended one.

Revelation is a book of stark alternatives, and this is the starkest pair in it.

What the marriage supper tells us about God

It tells us that the goal of redemption is a relationship rather than a transaction. God could have saved us and left it there, with the debt cleared and the account closed. Instead the story ends with a wedding.

It tells us he is not ashamed of us. A bridegroom does not hide his bride. The church, with all its present shabbiness, will be presented in splendour, and the presenting is his work rather than ours.

And it tells us that joy is the final note. The last book of the Bible has judgement in it, and plenty of it, but the destination is a feast.

Living now as the betrothed

Paul’s anxiety for the Corinthians was that as the serpent deceived Eve, their thoughts might be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. Betrothal implies faithfulness during the interval, and the interval is where we live.

That is the practical use of this doctrine. The bride has made herself ready, and readiness is made now, in ordinary weeks, in what we watch and how we spend and whether we keep our promises.

The Lord’s Supper is the small weekly rehearsal, and Jesus attached the promise to it directly. We proclaim his death until he comes, and then the bread and wine give way to the marriage supper itself.

I find that connection changes how I take communion. A piece of bread and a sip of wine in a plain hall on a Sunday morning does not look like much, and it is not meant to. It is a token payment against a feast, the way a betrothed couple might mark an anniversary of the engagement. The smallness is part of the point. What we are doing is remembering a death and rehearsing a wedding at the same table, and one day the rehearsal stops and the thing itself begins.

So, now what?

If you are a Christian, let this lift your head. History is not drifting; it is heading for a wedding, and you are not a spectator at it.

If your church feels small and unimpressive this week, remember what she will look like on the day. He is not marrying what she is now but what he will have made her.

And if you have never accepted the invitation, notice how the parables handle that. The refusals are always polite and always about something else, a field, some oxen, a marriage of one’s own. Nobody in the story says they hate the king. They simply have other plans that week. What is yours?

And the angel said to me, Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Revelation 19:9, ESV