Revelation 19:8 Commentary and Bible Study

The bride of the Lamb, the church is now to be presented to him in all her beauty. Human husbands are to imitate Christ in his behaviour towards his church. She has longed for this moment, as he has, and she now comes fitly adorned. We are justified by faith alone by which we receive Christ’s perfect righteousness imputed to us. But the new birth also marks the beginning of the work of sanctification, and that work will finally reach its completion when the saints will not only be justified by faith, but made holy in God’s sight in themselves. The word translated ‘righteousness’ is the word for ordinance. It can mean the decree of God or the righteous requirement of the law. ‘The word is then used for a “right action” in fulfilment of a legal requirement’ (Kittel). Here the word is plural and refers to the righteous acts of the saints. The fine linen which she wears represents her righteous acts. But this is cause for wonder when we remember her origin. How is she clothed in fine linen representing righteous acts of the saints when each member of the church was born with a sinful nature and guilty of condemnation, and many had explored the depths of sin? The explanation is that it is by the grace of God that she should be presented in this way. ‘It was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen.’ Included in that statement is all the work of sanctification which the Spirit has carried out in the life of every saint. They are what God has made them. But in his grace they are now viewed as righteous, with all their sinful deeds taken away, and only their righteous deeds visible. They are of course justified by the blood of Christ, but God has allowed that even their imperfect acts of obedience carried out on earth are treated as if they were blameless. The bride of Christ may have had no beauty when she was first called out of this sinful world, naked and bare and polluted in her blood, but by the day of her wedding, she will be transformed into a being of incomparable beauty.