In our previous post we categorized seven gifts that will be given to the bride of Christ in the world to come. Next is a list (13 items here) of what the Bible mentions about her privileges.
1. The bride's biggest privilege will be the privilege of never having to endure the all-out worldwide wrath of God, and of missing all the tribulation trauma that will come upon the entire world. Revelation 3:10: “I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is coming upon the whole world.” The bride does not have to go through the tribulation. Period. That should be enough to keep the bride singing with everlasting joy—even if there were no other gifts and no other privileges.
2. The privilege of first arrival: Out of all of the different destinies and people groups that God will establish and settle forever, the bride gets the whole package first. She gets her body united with her spirit, fully transformed, and enfolded in the robes of Christ, her head. The gift of the Holy Spirit was the deposit, the down payment, the guarantee of the full salvation to come—the privilege of the bride, first and forever. This mystery was planned from before the foundation of the world (see Ephesians 1:4).
3. The privilege of making the first celestial request: There is an urgency in the bride's request to call for someone to open the seal judgments and begin the commencement of the end of the ages. No one else makes such a request. And no one else sees it granted like the bride does, when her groom shows up, Himself, to open the seals, in response to His newly acquired wife's desperate plea (Revelation 5:2-5).
4. The privilege of sitting on His throne: Revelation 3:21: “I grant the right to sit with Me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with My Father on His throne.” From thence we will reign for 1,000 years—and not just those 1,000 years (Revelation 20:4 and 6) but for eons of time henceforth into eternity (see Daniel 7:27 and Ephesians 2:6). This is a shared throne—an extended and enlarged throne with our Maker—enhancing our oneness (John 17).
5. The privilege of a SOON immortality: We will be given new bodies at the beginning of the Tribulation (1 Corinthians 15:53), with no need to wait seven years now, nor 1,000 years later, as multitudes of others will still have to weather mortal bodies with their attendant frailties and will have to wait an impossible length of time managing bodily frustrations and limitations (implied in Isaiah 65:20). Hence the need for leaves from the Tree of Life for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2). Instead, bodily perfection will illuminate the bride.
6. The privilege of longevity: We get to live the full day. The Apostle Peter wrote that 1,000 years is as a day in God's sight (2 Peter 3:8). Adam, dying at age 930 (Genesis 5:5), didn't make it to the full day; the bride does make it to the full day.
7. The privilege of becoming God's army: From the ancient past, Enoch saw this hand-picked bridal army coming with Christ at His second coming to earth. Jude 14: “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” This will be like a Levitical army of kings and priests, as no sword will be raised but justice will roll down. The bride will then be like those Levites who preceded the army around Jericho and sang before going into Israel's additional battles.
8. The privilege of invitation: Revelation 22:17: “The spirit and the bride say `Come.’ ” The bride gets to cohost the invitation to come out of Babylon and join Christ.
9. The privilege of seeing her groom honored: This wedding is the marriage supper of the Lamb. The emphasis is on the Lamb of God, not the bride (Revelation 19:9). He is comely. Handsome. Triumphant. Valiant. Unsurpassed in glory. When we see Him, we shall not be ashamed (see 1 John 3:2). The understatement of eternity!
10. The privilege of personal honor: The bride is the Lord's hard-won prize, paraded now in honor. Pleasing to Him. His jewel. His eternal treasure. His forever lover—always and ever faithful to Him, of her own free will.
11. The privilege of being the New Jerusalem: The bride IS the New Jerusalem (the temple of God not made with hands) and she lives IN the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21). The millennial saints and the tribulation saints will live on the new earth and come in and out of the New Jerusalem gates, visiting or doing business (otherwise, who would be coming and going between there and earth, and what need would there be for a new earth and why is it described as Eden-like), but the bride LIVES there—and IS the temple/city, itself.
12. The privilege of eating the fruit of the Tree of Life: The bride eats its fruit, but the rest of the saints partake only of the holy/healing leaves (Revelation 22:2).
13. The privilege of bearing light: The bride emanates luminosity—the light of the holy city—with her husband (inferred from Daniel 12:3; she wouldn’t be judging angels if she weren’t wise, 1 Corinthians 6:3). Moses, Paul and Stephen all had faces so lit up from being with God that they were beacons of glory light, even on earth, but the rest of the saints living on the new earth, now an Eden-like, renewed earth, live in the light of her light—like living in the holy shadow/shades/spotlight of the New Jerusalem.
Conclusion: All this is told to the bride in the holy scriptures to increase her betrothal faithfulness while on earth, and to delight her—to take her breath away at her increasing future destiny.
