But we actually agree on this point. This world is but a type and a shadow. Once you accept this premise, then we must look at marriage in a different light.
Marriage is a type and shadow of a heavenly reality in two primary ways:
(1) Its 2-in-1 reality is reflective of a 3-in-1 reality in heaven. Two people as one on earth is reflective of three Personages as one in heaven.
(2) Our marriage on earth is but a foreshadow of the greatest universal covenant marriage of eternity--that of the Church to the Lamb. To know somebody intimately on earth, and commit yourself to that person in covenant for a lifetime, is meant to describe eternal life: "And this is eternal life, that you know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent." (John 17:3)
Here's another passage about our covenant commitment to knowing the Lamb: "For thy maker [John 1, Col 1, Heb 1 all says Jesus created us] is thine husband; The Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel. The God of the whole earth shall he be called. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God." (Is. 54:5-6)
"For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shally thysons marry thee; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee." (Is. 62:5)
Look, I am a Guy, and the idea of being someone’s bride, well, it’s not appealing, if that’s heaven, package me up and send me to hell.
If you don't want to call your everlasting relationship with the Lamb a "marriage," so be it. Call it an eternal covenant relationship. Call it one where you trust one another. Call it one where He loves you with a sacrificial love and you love Him with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Call it one where you intimately know and relate to Him daily (John 17:3). Call it one where you submit to him as Eph. 5:24-25 and other verses around there describe. In these phrases, I've essentially describes many of the most important things we do in our marriages on earth, anyway.
We should indeed have a relationship with him, but it is not that he will be my bridegroom, he is my savior, my God, not my husband.
All I ask is that if the Bible links these two concepts of Jesus as Savior and Jesus as Bridegroom in a very close manner, why are you so bent on separating them? (You know more than the prophet or the apostle who wrote them at God's beckoning?)
Allow me to repeat those linkages: "For thy Maker is thine husband; The Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer [Savior] the Holy One of Israel..." (Is. 54:5)
And also: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies...This is the great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the church." (Eph. 5:25-28, 32)
And: "Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife." (Rev. 21:9) [Lamb being the saving sacrifice]
So the first parable is about being prepared.
I agree. It is a parable about being prepared. But a parable about being prepared for what? A picnic in heaven, and there's not enough light there so enough oil has to be there in case the picnic runs late?
The oil represents the Holy Spirit who anoints us. If we are filled with His presence and light, it is His holy presence who makes us worthy to go live in a close, intimate relationship with the Bridegroom. What? You think Jesus just ran out of role descriptions He was to play upon His return and randomly picked that one out of the air--because, frankly, he didn't have to even use a virgin-bridegroom analogy to make the same point.
The Second parable is about being true to your covenants.
Yes. But what's the most important covenant we have? (Our relationship with him, both now and forever)
The third parable is about the patriarchal order of the family.
Yes. But what is the patriarchal order of the earthly family modeled after? (The patriarchal order of the heavenly family.) Our wives are subject to us just as we are subject to the Head of the Heavenly Family. We have been died for, just as the Lamb was sacrificed for us, the church.
The fourth is about the members being ready in the last days
Again, yes. But "ready" for what? A picnic stroll down Pearly Gate Lane? Haven't you ever noticed the great details a bride-to-be goes through as she readies herself for the wedding? How she readies herself to give herself in every way to her bridegroom? You think she wants an extra 10 pounds here and an extra 10 pounds there? You think she wants all these blemishes to just "beam" at her groom? (Obviously no. She is preparing for a special merging that can compare to nothing else)
The fifth Scripture is about Jesus’ second coming an him taking possession of the government.
Perhaps you can frame it that way but upon first glance using a government metaphor kind of leaves you colder than what John is describing in Rev. 21. Look again: "And I, John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God." (Rev. 21:2-3)
Haven't you ever wondered why the Bible, written over 2,000 years, begins with an earthly wedding merger ("Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh"--Gen 2:24) and ends with a heavenly wedding merger? The most important part is not the wedding, as Rev. 21:3 shows, it's the dwelling together in commitment and trust.
The sixth is one scripture about the church delivering living waters to any who thirst and is the only scripture in the whole chapter that uses the word bride.
Of course. (Ya wanna point me to a bride who if they've planned a mega wedding feast doesn't send out invitations?) We're so spoiled, we forget how special that offer is of water to a hot and thirsty world.
But, again, you reduce the impact of a wedding feast invitation by focusing on the invitational delivery of them. Yes, it's important they get there. I would say both the Honor of recognizing who the Bridegroom is [like how we would feel being specially invited to a Prince's wedding] as well as how we are going to be delivered to the wedding feast is the key.
Read the last phrase of Rev. 22:17 again: "And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Freely. Free. Gift. Grace. 100% Grace. Unearned. Unmerited. No Spiritual Boy Scout badges.
What? You think a bride has to "earn" her way into the Bridegroom's heart? You think she has to "service" him to get His attention? Do you think the guests of honor at a wedding must pay their way in? They've got to perform some great service to be invited? Is that the way LDS run their weddings? (Almost sounds like it, since you have to have a temple recommend to see your child's wedding; and to have a temple recommend requires surpassing a certain measurement of spirituality, including paying for that privilege via a tithe)
The Mormon Apologist will not be able to accept it though, because their mind is twisted toward works, not Grace, toward their ability, not God's Grace in Christ. Because they have not a relationship with Him, they cannot fathom His Grace toward them and must substitute their works to make them worthy.
Rather than their living being a gift back to The Father in Heaven because He is within them doing the work of His good pleasure to transform them, Mormons are taking Eve's posture, to take upon themselves the knowledge of what is right and wrong, seeking to establish a 'balance due' to them that God will honor. Islamism does the same thing and accentutates the process with five times per day requirement to bow toward Mecca ... BUT, 'faith is He that calleth you, for He will also do it.' Do what, we may ask the Mormon? And they will reply, 'Don't try to tell ME that I'm not worthy for Him to save me, I am a devout Mormon.' And He will turn to them in that day and say, 'depart from me, I never knew you.'
All the Apologist's twisting of scriptures has shown to me a sad fact about Mormonism, it is designed to blind the adherent from Grace, to be replaced with the pride of self instead of His declared status of our human spirit.
The Mormon is trained to ignore what God calls dead in trespasses and sins, to be replaced/covered over with 'if I do this according to Smithian doctrine another gospel, I can be as God, imbued with the power to define good and evil in my own godhood.'
But there is a hope in all of this: someone so involved in trying to please God in order to earn His Grace is one turned toward Him for fullfilment and thus ripe to hear, perhaps, that God does not expect them to earn that which is so valuable that it took the LIFE of Christ pour out on the Cross to purchase it for them. Such an great gift is always to be beyond their ability to earn it else scripture would not have stated so clearly, 'it is by Grace you are saved, that not of yourself lest any man should boast.'
Now, to read further ...