Jesus’ Bride

It’s all the talk this week. Harvard professor Karen King has discovered a small scrap of papyrus that has been preliminarily dated to the fourth century. While there are only eight lines of text on the front (none of which are complete sentences), some believe this fragment suggests that Jesus was married and His wife was Mary Magdalene.

Really? It’s funny, albeit sad, how all these “scholars” refuse to take God as His Word (documented in thousands of manuscripts, fragments, etc. and corroborated in the Dead Sea Scrolls of Qumran), yet are quick to put their faith in a single piece of papyrus containing incomplete sentences.

So let’s set the record straight. Jesus does have a bride. But it’s not Mary Magdalene. It is the one holy Christian and apostolic Church. Jesus is the groom. The Church is the bride. It’s really that simple... and that profound!

I call as my first witness Saint Paul, who offers the following divine Word:

“For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” [2 Corinthians 11:2]

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of His body. ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” [Ephesians 5:25-32]

I call as my second witness Saint John, who adds the following divine Word:

“Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His Bride has made herself ready.” [Revelation 19:7]

“Then came one of the seven angels who ... spoke to me, saying, ‘Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.’” [Revelation 21:9]

Call me crazy. But to me, God’s holy and inerrant Word always trumps the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge (1 Timothy 6:20).

Let us pray for these scholars and all the people out there who have been led astray by the lies of the Evil One. May the truth of God’s Word, proclaimed by Christ’s bride, cause many to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing have life in His name (John 20:31)!