John 3:29 - "He that hath the Bride is the Bridegroom ... " The words of the text were spoken by the first Baptist, whose name was John, and I call your attention to the textual terms "Bride" and "Bridegroom", for the thrust of this message will be a consideration of the ecclesiastical Bride and her Bridegroom. There cannot be a fully orbed study of Christology without giving a large place to ecclesiology. Hence, the text necessitates a study of the Lord's church and her glorious head, Jesus Christ.
 Ecclesiastical scholarship so-called, in the majority part, agree that the terms "Bride" and "Bridegroom" used in our text are metaphoric references to Christ and His church. But in conceding this, they have bought no favor with God, for their notion as to what the Lord's church is, and what the Bible teaches it to be, is as far apart as the east is from the west, and is, therefore, a great detriment to church truth.
     Scholarship, no matter the science, must be anchored in truth. If not, it is scholarship falsely so-called. Many allow that Augustine, Luther, and Calvin were scholars in the science of soteriology, that is, in the way God saves His people. This I disallow, and to support my variance, I ask one question: "Why did they sprinkle infants and call it baptism?". The simple answer is: They believed in sacramental salvation, and sacramentalism is antithetical to the scriptural doctrine of salvation by the free and unmerited favor of God.
     The Lord's church and the Bride of Christ are one and the same. But in saying this, I haven't said very much, for all of professing Christendom gives unreserved credence to that contention. However, if you or I say: "The Bride of Christ is a Baptist Bride", we had better be equal to the test, for the ecclesiastics of the contrary part will turn on us with verbal slander, inspired of Satan.
     The Baptist contention that each local church was (is) an autonomous entity, and that scriptural baptism demanded immersion, brought the fury of the papal church upon them, and millions of them during the dark ages were viciously tortured and burned at the stake. When the so-called reformation came in the early 16th century, the Roman church was joined by Protestants in her effort to annihilate all Baptists. Both Romanism and Protestantism were permeated with the spirit of legalism, and Baptists suffered the two-pronged brunt of their unyielding intolerance.
     The riots in the German city of Munster (1535-6 A.D.) were provoked by Thomas Munzer, a militant leader of the peasants, who was a Protestant. He never claimed any ecclesiastical union with the Anabaptists. The tumult was more political than religious, for it primarily had to do with the unfair treatment of the peasants by the German government. It has never been denied by Baptists that there were Anabaptists in the city of Munster at the time of the riots, but Baptists deny the accusation that they took part in the peasants' insurrection against the German government. One reason among many is, the Anabaptists at the time had a strong aversion to war and getting their church involved in political or civil matters.
     To quell the riots in Munster, Catholic and Lutheran troops united and fought side by side in freeing the city from the fanatical Thomas Munzer. But along with Munzer and his followers, all Anabaptists in the city were to be destroyed, and so they were. (For an in-depth study of the Munster Anabaptists, see: A HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS, Vol. 1, Chapter 13, by J.T. Christian.)
     "Zwingli drowned Anabaptists at Zurich in horrible parody of their insistence about adult baptism." (CHAPTERS IN CHURCH HISTORY, Pg. 146, by P.M. Dawley). Contemporary "Protestant Popes" hate Baptist baptism as much as their militant predecessors, and if it were not for civil restraint, Baptist blood would once again redden the earth.
The Baptist Bride doctrine has its root or origin in the New Testament. Romanism, Protestantism, and Protestants with a Baptist name laughingly object to that statement, saying: "There was no such thing as a Baptist church before the fifteenth century. Moreover, the church is universal and invisible." I am caused to wonder how Rome and her daughters murdered fifty million invisible Baptists. The only thing I know about the invisible church is, that I know nothing about it. I know very little about invisible things, and nothing about that which has no existence.
     There is an adage that says: "You do not change the nature of a thing by calling it something other than what it is". Example: How many legs would a horse have if you or I called the horse's tail a leg? It would still have only four legs, because calling it something that it is not does not change the thing. Another example: Sprinkling is sprinkling, no matter how many people call it baptism. It is still what it was, and that is sprinkling. Rantizio will never become baptizio in any language.
      Baptist churches went by various names through the first fourteen centuries of their history, and most of these names were given them by their enemies, the purpose being to deride them. They have been called Montanists, Novationists, etc. The name that prevailed for the longest period was "Waldenses", but none of the names ever changed the fact that all the while they were Baptist churches.
     There are no five-legged horses, and there are no invisible brides. When the Lord comes for His Bride, He will find that she has persevered through time, and she is joyously ready for the consummation of her age long espousal to her loving Head and Bridegroom. I do not mean to imply that the rapture is split, but I do emphatically say: The Bride will be the first to welcome His coming, for she shares an intimacy with Christ that no other people can ever experience.
     While the heavenly Bride and Groom are not one and the same, there will not be a greater oneness in eternity, other than the tri-unity of the Godhead. So it is, the Bride of Christ is going to live closer to the throne of God in glory than any other people. James and John, the sons of Zebedee ( Matt. 4:21 ), will not sit the one on the right hand and the other on the left (Matt. 20:4); but they will sit very close to the throne of the Groom, for they are a part of His blood bought Bride (Acts 20:28).
The Bridalship of the Lord's church has no expiration date, for her heavenly Spouse has promised her that the gates of hell would not deter their betrothal, much less destroy it (Matt. 16:18). One of the pre-nuptial vows the Lord made unto His beloved Bride before He went away was, "I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also" (John 14:3). The long and many centuries wherein the Bride of Christ has atrociously suffered has not bedimmed her hope of His coming, nor put any wrinkles on her brow. She is as radiant today as when she walked with Him along the shores of Galilee and sat at His feet in the Mount. She is as faithful today as she was when He first went away, for she has never been identified with the harlot system, and she will, in due season, be presented to Christ "a chaste virgin, arrayed in fine linen, clean and white" (II Cor. 11:2; Rev. 19:8).
     The common vow which is most usually a part of marriage ceremonies in this world reads: "Til death do us part", but this vow cannot apply to the Bride and Groom of our text ( John 3:29 ); for the Groom (Christ) is "alive forevermore" (Rev. 1:18), and speaking of His Bride and the wedding in heaven, He says: "... His wife hath made herself ready" (Rev. 19:7). There is nothing that can in any degree inhibit the marriage of the Bride and Groom of our text. And in spite of Satan's efforts to adulterate the Bride, the Lord is going to present His Bride to Himself "not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing ...". (Eph. 5:27).
     "Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end" (Eph. 3:21). There are many God glorifying, Christ exalting, and church edifying truths in this brief text of Scripture, from which I will mention a few:
      1. Christ glorifies God by being the Head of the church.
      2. The church is edified by the unceasing presence of Christ with it.
      3. God's glory in the church is eternal, "Throughout all ages, world without end".
      4. The Bride of Christ is given a written guarantee from the pen of Divine inspiration, of an endless perpetuity, for Christ the Groom is ever present with her, and He has made the church the primary medium of God's glory in the world.