I was having my quiet time in Revelation the other day, and found myself reading this particular passage:
Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:
“Hallelujah!
For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.
Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.”
(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.) (Revelation 19:6-8).
At this point in the book, Babylon, the great prostitute of chapters 17-18, has been overthrown, and all heaven is rejoicing. There is still genuine evil in the world, but the great corrupter of the world is no more. And now that Babylon has been overthrown, it is time to announce “the wedding of the Lamb.” The whore is destroyed; now comes the entrance of the bride.
The consensus of New Testament scholars is that the bride here represents the church, God’s holy people. And there is a very deliberate contrast between the prostitute Babylon, who was “dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls” (Revelation 17:4) and the bride, who is dressed in “fine linen, bright and clean.” The bride has “made herself ready,” while the prostitute had made herself “drunk with the blood of God’s holy people” (Revelation 17:6). The first woman corrupted the whole world; the second was without corruption.
The way the bride has made herself ready is with the “righteous acts” represented by her fine linen clothing. This scene, of course, is the vastly expanded fulfillment of Christ’s promise to the church in Sardis that those who have not defiled themselves will “walk with me, dressed in white” (Revelation 3:4), along with all those who overcome. At this point in the book, not just Sardis but the entire church, worldwide, is now enjoying the fulfillment of that promise.
And I can’t help but notice that the bride has no other clothing, just the white linen that represents “the righteous acts of God’s holy people.” There is also no reminder of sin, only the good deeds she was given to do. This is in no way saying that the bride’s salvation was due to her works. Just the opposite, in fact. The “righteous acts of God’s holy people” were the result of their salvation, not the reason for it. And, importantly, the Scripture does not say that the bride earned the right to be dressed in white linen, but that it was given to her to wear. It was God, in other words, who provided for his bride the righteous works in which she would be clothed. As the Scripture says:
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).
But this scene raises an interesting question; if we’re going to be clothed in nothing but the “righteous acts” God has granted us to do, how many of us will have nothing much to wear? It is, after all, the actual behavior of “God’s holy people” that is represented by the white linen. All of the righteous acts come from God, but God’s people are the ones entrusted with doing them. Have we, then, been faithful to actually do them? More specifically, have I been faithful to do everything God has given me to do? Not occasional good deeds, but have I been faithful to do the work God prepared for me? Maybe that’s something we should be thinking about. When the time comes for the wedding of the Lamb, will I be wearing a white linen tuxedo, or a white linen loincloth?