Why is Christ called the bridegroom?

*** Marriage

Symbolic Uses. Throughout the Scriptures, Jehovah speaks of himself as a husband. He considered himself as married to the nation of Israel. (Isa 54:1, 5, 6; 62:4) When Israel rebelled against Jehovah by practicing idolatry or some other form of sin against him, this was spoken of as committing prostitution like an unfaithful wife, providing cause for his divorcing her.—Isa 1:21; Jer 3:1-20; Ho 2.

In Galatians chapter 4 the apostle Paul likens the nation of Israel to the slave girl Hagar, the concubine of Abraham, and the Jewish people to Hagar’s son Ishmael. Just as Ishmael was the son of the secondary wife of Abraham, so the Jews were the children of the secondary “wife” of Jehovah. The tie binding Israel to Jehovah was the Law covenant. Paul likens “Jerusalem above,” Jehovah’s “woman,” to Sarah, Abraham’s free wife. Of this free woman “Jerusalem above,” Christians are the free spiritual children.—Ga 4:21-31; compare Isa 54:1-6.

As the great Father, Jehovah God, like Abraham, oversees the selection of a bride for his son Jesus Christ—not an earthly woman, but the Christian congregation. (Ge 24:1-4; 2Th 2:13; 1Pe 2:5) The first members of Jesus’ congregation were presented to him by “the friend of the bridegroom,” John the Baptizer, whom Jehovah had sent ahead of his Son. (Joh 3:28, 29) This congregational bride is “one spirit” with Christ, as his body. (1Co 6:17; Eph 1:22, 23; 5:22, 23) Just as the bride in Israel bathed and adorned herself, Jesus Christ sees that in preparation for marriage his bride is bathed so that she is perfectly clean without a spot or blemish. (Eph 5:25-27) In Psalm 45 and Revelation 21 she is shown as being beautifully adorned for the marriage.

Also in the book of Revelation, Jehovah foretells the time when his Son’s marriage would draw near and the bride would be prepared, arrayed in bright, clean, fine linen. He describes those invited to the evening meal of the Lamb’s marriage as being happy. (Re 19:7-9; 21:2, 9-21) On the night before his death, Jesus instituted the Lord’s Evening Meal, the Memorial of his death, and instructed his disciples to keep observing it. (Lu 22:19) This observance is to be kept “until he arrives.” (1Co 11:26) Just as in ancient times the bridegroom arrived at the house of the bride in order to take her from her own parents to the home he had provided for her in the house of his father, so Jesus Christ comes to take his anointed followers from their former earthly home, taking them with him so that where he is they may be also, in his Father’s house, in heaven.—Joh 14:1-3.