BE DRESSED: For the Bridegroom

By Eric Bardell

The times are urgent. The end-times clock is counting down. We must check our spiritual garments and ask ourselves, “Am I properly dressed?” Jesus is coming soon, and we know neither the day nor the hour. He will come when we least expect Him. It is the responsibility of the Bride of Christ to maintain her spiritual wardrobe and to be watching, dressed and ready for her Bridegroom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781644686218

Book preview

cover.jpg

BE DRESSED

For The Bridegroom

Eric Bardell

ISBN 978-1-64468-619-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64468-620-1 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-64468-621-8 (Digital)

Copyright © 2021 Eric Bardell

All rights reserved

First Edition

Departures from a Consistent Publishing Style

For the most part, for ease of readability, the author chooses not to capitalize the initial letters of words or pronouns referring or relating to God, but does capitalize in places to give honor, clarity, contrast, or emphasis. The initial letters of God’s names are, of course, always capitalized.

The author also chooses to emphasize some words in a few Bible verses to highlight them and bring them to the reader’s attention. No dishonor to God and His Word is intended, and the author does not assert copyright to verses so modified.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Table of Contents

Bible Version Acronyms

Spiritual Clothes Matter

Christ’s Swaddling Clothes

Fitly Dressed

Clean Clothes

The Garment of Humility

Strange Apparel

The Garment of Cursing

The Garment of Deception

The Garment of Shame

The Attire of a Harlot

The Cloak of Zeal

The Keeper of the Wardrobe

The Garment of a Servant

The Garment of Hope

The Garment of Praise

Jonathan and David

The Garments of Salvation

Clothed with Power

Clothed with Joy

The Armor of Light

The Priestly Garments

The Robe of Righteousness

The Virtuous Wife

The Jewish Wedding

The Bride Has Made Herself Ready

Epilogue

Wedding Invitation

Appendix

Also by this Author

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version (NKJV), © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations or references marked AMP are taken from or refer to the Amplified Bible (AMP), © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org.

Scripture quotations or references marked AMPC are taken from or refer to the Amplified Bible (AMPC), © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org.

Scripture quotations or references marked CEB are taken from or refer to the Common English Bible, © 2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations or references marked ESV are taken from or refer to The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations or references marked EXB are taken from or refer to The Expanded Bible, © 2011 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations or references marked HCSB are taken from or refer to the Holman Christian Standard Bible, © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Holman Christian Standard Bible, Holman CSB, and HCSB are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Scripture quotations or references marked JBP are taken from or refer to The New Testament in Modern English by J. B. Phillips, © 1960, 1972 J. B. Phillips. Administered by The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England. Used by Permission.

Scripture quotations or references marked Moffat are from or refer to The Moffatt Translation of the Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments, ©1964. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton.

Scripture quotations or references marked MSG are taken from or refer to THE MESSAGE, © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Scripture quotations or references marked NIV are taken from or refer to The Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV), © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica Inc.

Scripture quotations or references marked NLT are taken from or refer to the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations or references marked TLB are taken from or refer to The Living Bible, © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations or references marked TPT are taken from or refer to The Passion Translation, © 2017, 2018 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.com.

Scripture quotations or references marked KJV and ASV are taken from or refer to The King James Version and American Standard Version, respectively, which are in the public domain.

Grateful thanks to BlueLetterBible.org for the numerical data given in chapters 15, 19 and 23. All rights reserved.

I dedicate this book to my wife LaVonne, truly my warrior bride, my best friend, and perfect life and ministry partner, whom I cherish and whose love, support, and encouragement I so thank God for.

And to my two fine sons, Greg and Warren, whom I love so dearly and of whom I cannot be prouder.

Of course, I honor first and foremost Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom, to whom I owe an immeasurable debt of love that I can never repay.

This life is a dressing room for eternity…

— Leonard Ravenhill

Buy your clothes from Me, clothes designed in Heaven.

—Revelation 3:18b (MSG)

Bible Version Acronyms

AMP Amplified Bible

AMPC Amplified Bible Classic Edition

ASV American Standard Version

CEB Common English Bible

ESV English Standard Version

EXB Expanded Bible

GNT Good News Translation

GW God’s Word Translation

HCSB Holman Christian Standard Bible

JBP The New Testament in Modern English by J.B Phillips

KJV King James Bible

MSG The Message Bible

NCV New Century Version

NIV New International Version

NLT New Living Translation

TLB The Living Bible

TPT The Passion Translation

1

Spiritual Clothes Matter

Introduction

God is intimately and deeply concerned about the nature, condition, and quality of your clothes—your spiritual clothes. We see this in the beginning and at the end of all things, in Genesis and in Revelation. In Genesis, God reveals his plan of salvation; and in Revelation, his plan is consummated.

In Genesis 3:7, Adam and his wife, Eve, are dressed in fig leaves that they themselves have sewn together; but in Revelation 19:8, the Bride of Christ finds herself dressed in the finest of wedding garments given by God for her to wear.

The fig leaves represent man’s own pathetic efforts to hide and cover up his sin and shame, but God is never impressed nor fooled by man’s attempts at this, which always and inevitably prove futile.

God takes it upon himself to redeem us and provide us with a new wardrobe that he expects us to keep clean and free from wrinkles.

God himself provides Adam and Eve’s covering. He substitutes for their fig leaves tunics that he himself makes from animal skins. Those skins he obtains by sacrificing innocent animals that he has created. God himself provides the sacrifice. Blood is shed, the blood of animals that he created and spoke life into.

But God breathed his life into us, for we are far more valuable than animals and very, very different. Human beings (Homo sapiens) are uniquely made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26, 2:7).

In Genesis 22, God again provides an animal sacrifice, when he tests Abraham’s faithfulness to him. Will Abraham choose to obey God and sacrifice his son of promise, Isaac, the son of his old age, for whom he had waited twenty-five years, himself a hundred years old when his son was born. Will Abraham prefer Isaac over God?

Isaac observes the wood and fire but asks his father, Abraham, Where is the lamb for the sacrifice? Abraham replies, My son, God himself will provide. And God does provide, just as he provided for Adam and Eve. He provides a ram caught by its horns in a thicket.

This whole drama, where God tests Abraham but stops him going through with the sacrifice of his only son, prefigures God’s sacrifice of His only Son, Jesus, upon the cross roughly two thousand years later. The three-day trip Abraham took with his son prefigured the three days that Jesus would spend in the heart of the earth and God’s sparing of Isaac foreshadowed Jesus’s resurrection.

Abraham made Isaac carry all the wood for the sacrifice to the top of the mount, which resonates with Jesus being made to carry the wood of his cross to the top of the mount of his crucifixion. John’s gospel indicates he did so completely unaided, while the other gospels say he had help from Simon of Cyrene. Clearly, Isaac had to be of an age and strength to carry such a load up a hill; and while Abraham calls him a lad in Genesis 22:5, the very same Hebrew word is translated young men or servants in the very same verse. It is a matter of debate but some say Isaac was a teenager; Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews, book 1, chapter 13, says he was twenty-five; while there is also authority in Judaism for Isaac being in his thirties. If indeed he was in his thirties, this clearly resonates with Jesus being in his thirties as he carried the cross.

God is again providing the sacrifice, the Lamb, His only begotten Son, Jesus, who too is captive, just as Isaac was bound by his father on the altar and just like the ram caught in the thicket. But this time, the Son is sacrificed and Jesus’s innocent, sinless blood is shed—blood far more precious than the blood of animals, for Christ’s blood does far more than just cover our sin. It washes it away, to be remembered no more.

Behold! The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29)

Animal sacrifices and animal skins are no longer needed. God’s earnest desire is to clothe us in Christ and dress us in wedding garments for our marriage to the Lamb at the glorious consummation of His amazing plan of salvation.

The Baptist identifies Jesus as the Lamb in John 1:29 and 1:36 and as the Bridegroom in John 3:28–29. Jesus identifies himself as our Bridegroom in Matthew 9:15, Mark 2:19–20 and Luke 5:34–35.

Just as God gave the first Adam a wife, Eve, to be his helper, so God has given the second Adam a bride—the church, the Bride of Christ—to be his helper.

Father God dresses her with garments that he himself provides, garments of fine linen, bright and clean, the finest of wedding garments.

So, in the beginning, fig leaves. At the end, fine linen, bright and clean, and much in between, for God makes many references to clothing throughout the Bible, often with spiritual or prophetic significance.

2

Christ’s Swaddling Clothes

One such profound and prophetically significant clothing reference is in the Christmas story that we know so well, or do we?

An angel suddenly appears to shepherds in the fields and tells them of the birth of the Savior, the Messiah, Christ the Lord. The angel says, And this will be the sign to you: You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger (Luke 2:12).

Why would this be a sign to the shepherds, and why were these shepherds chosen to be the first to hear the good news? Answer: These were no ordinary shepherds and no ordinary sheep. These were specialized generational shepherds of sacred flocks from which were taken male lambs for the Passover sacrifices by the priests in the temple in Jerusalem. They were variously called temple lambs, Passover lambs, or Paschal Lambs.

The pastures where such sheep were kept lay close to Bethlehem, below a watchtower known as Migdal Eder (meaning watchtower of the flock), which was used by these shepherds to keep watch over their sacred flocks, just as the shepherds in Luke’s gospel were doing.

And you, O tower of the flock,

The stronghold of the daughter of Zion,

To you shall it come,

Even the former dominion shall come,

The kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem.

(Micah 4:8)

There were caves near the watchtower into which the shepherds would take the ewes that were about to give birth. Firstborn male lambs were holy and immediately separated from their mothers, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and placed in mangers inside these caves for their protection. Why? Because Passover lambs had to be firstborn males in their first year without blemish, defect, or injury of any kind (Exodus 12:5a).

Some argue that the watchtower, made of stone, would have had a birthing room for the lambs inside its base and that Jesus could actually have been born in the tower itself and wrapped and placed in a manger inside there. If that were correct, well and good.

However, Justin Martyr (c. 100–165) wrote in his Dialogue with Trypho chapter LXXVIII, But when the Child was born in Bethlehem, since Joseph could not find a lodging in that village, he took up his quarters in a certain cave near the village; and while they were there Mary brought forth the Christ and placed Him in a manger, and here the Magi who came from Arabia found Him.

For the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. (Revelation 7:17)

Roman Catholics claim that the Church of the Nativity stands over this cave where Jesus was born, and it is noteworthy that the adjoining Church of Saint Catherine has a number of caves beneath it.

Also, Origen of Alexandria wrote around AD 248, In Bethlehem the cave is pointed out where He was born, and the manger in the cave where He was wrapped in swaddling clothes. And the rumor is in those places, and among foreigners of the Faith, that indeed Jesus was born in this cave who is worshiped and reverenced by the Christians (Contra Celsum, book I, chapter LI).

We can therefore advance the strong probability that Christ was born in a cave at Migdal Eder, no other accommodations being available to Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem itself, which was overflowing with people for the census. It is also highly probable that Christ’s swaddling clothes were simply taken from ones stored at Migdal Eder for these special temple lambs.

Micah 4:8 clearly highlights Migdal Eder in relation to the Messiah’s coming and the establishing of his kingdom, and there are no meaningless details in God’s Word.

Could the words the daughter of Zion and the daughter of Jerusalem in Micah 4:8 extend to Mary, the mother of Jesus? While Micah 4:10 refers to the Babylonian captivity, it also speaks of a woman giving birth, going forth from the city into the field and then unto Babylon, there to be delivered from the hand of her enemies and redeemed. With Babylon as a prophetic metaphor for a place of exile, verse 10 could extend to Mary’s flight from Bethlehem to Egypt to escape Herod’s infanticides (Matthew 2:13–15). The reference to her there being redeemed could simply be a doubling down on the success of her escape. Mary refers to her personal redemption in Luke 1:47.

What is abundantly clear is that there is absolutely no biblical support for the traditional nativity story that the Savior was born in a barn or stable. None whatsoever.

The shepherds were told that they would find the baby lying in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and it would be a sign to them. The swaddling clothes and manger were obvious signs to the shepherds of exactly where to go to find the baby. They needed no directions. They needed no star to follow. The place to go was their base of operations. It is said that these shepherds actually lived in the caves that were cool in the summer and cozy in the winter.

The shepherds undoubtedly failed to grasp the deeper, prophetic significance of this signposting, from the very moment of His birth, of the Father’s purpose and plan in His Son’s coming—the final, permanent, eternal sacrifice of the holy Lamb of God for the sins of the whole world.

No further sacrifice would be needed. The temple would fall redundant (Hebrews 10:11–12).

We can observe that the sacrifice of the holy Lamb of God bloodied the hands of the Jewish chief priests and elders, in particular the hands of the high priest, Caiaphas. Pilate publicly washed his own hands from blood guilt concerning Jesus, whereas the chief priests and elders in the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council, plotted to kill Jesus. They sought false witnesses. They paid Judas Iscariot. They sentenced Jesus to death. They stirred up the crowd against Jesus (Mark 15:11).¹

They pronounced the death sentence on Jesus, but they said it was not lawful for Jews to put anyone to death (John 18:31). The Talmud² records that some forty years earlier, the Romans had cancelled the Sanhedrin’s legal authority to exercise capital punishments, yet there seems to have been an exception for spontaneous mob actions. Stephen, the first martyr, was stoned to death, Jesus stopped the stoning of a woman caught in adultery, and an angry mob even tried to throw Jesus off a cliff!

Before Pilate, the chief priests and elders accused Jesus of sedition or treason against the Roman state, because blasphemy against the Jewish religion, without more, was unlikely to move Pilate enough to pass a death sentence. A Roman trial and crucifixion suited them very well. It overcame the illegality under Jewish law of having tried Jesus at night. They could use his crucifixion to trash his claims to be the Messiah, for Deuteronomy 21:23 declares that anyone hanged on a tree is cursed of God. It avoided they themselves becoming defiled and therefore excluded from eating the Passover (note John 18:28). It would also serve as a major deterrent to Jesus’s followers and any future would-be messiahs.

Whatever they were thinking, crucifixion by the Romans fell right in line with God’s salvation plan—Christ had to be made a curse for us all by being hung on a tree (Galatians 3:13).

Christ was crucified outside the walls of the then city of Jerusalem (John 19:20), which, then as now, is situated in a hilly or mountainous area, the land of Moriah, where God told Abraham to go and sacrifice Isaac on one of the mountains. He would tell him which one (Genesis 22:2). So why would God single out a particular mountain and not tell Abraham simply to choose one? Surely that mountain was Calvary. For the sacrifice of His Son and the foreshadowing near-sacrifice of Isaac both to occur on Calvary seems so in tune with Genesis 22:14. Abraham called the mount ‘The Lord will provide,’ which gave rise to a traditional saying in Israel that On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided. Jesus, the Lamb of God, was provided on Calvary. Adam Clarke agrees that it’s more than probable that Calvary and Abraham’s mount were one and the very same.

Jews believe that Abraham built his altar on Mount Moriah, aka the Temple Mount, on which the second temple then stood within the city walls; but 2 Chronicles 3:1 identifies the Temple Mount as significant only to David.

Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us. (1 Corinthians 5:7c, NLT)

John’s gospel has Christ crucified on the Preparation Day of the Passover (John 19:14), the very day prescribed for the slaughter of the Passover lambs in the temple. Slaughter aptly describes all that was meted out to Jesus that day.

Swaddled like a Passover lamb when newborn, the temple priests had Jesus killed as a Passover lamb when a man—firstborn, undefiled, the holy Lamb of God, the only begotten Son of the Father.

Born in a cave, He went into a cave in his death, a man-made cave, a hewn-out tomb. But praise God, Christ arose! Hallelujah!

---

¹ I assure that I am not anti-Semitic, but simply pursuing the prophetic significance of the swaddling clothes. I totally accept that the sins of both Jews and Gentiles, the sins of the whole world, necessitated Jesus going to the cross. He came to die for us all, and no one took His life from Him, but He willingly laid it down and took it up again.

² See footnote 21 on page # 230.

3

Fitly Dressed

Now, back up to Joshua, the high priest, in Zechariah 3:1–5.

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the

Lord

, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the

Lord

said to Satan, "The

Lord

rebuke you, Satan! The

Lord

who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?"

Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the Angel.

Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And to him He said, See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes.

And I said, Let them put a clean turban on his head.

So they put a clean turban on his head, and they put the clothes on him. And the Angel of the

Lord

stood by.

We see Joshua dressed in filthy clothes standing before the Angel of the Lord and Satan. Those filthy clothes, representing sin-defiled clothing, are taken off Joshua; and instead he is given rich robes, rich apparel (ASV), fine new clothes (NLT), fine garments (NIV), pure vestments (ESV), and a clean turban. Joshua is told, See, I have taken away your iniquity, your sin (NIV), your guilt (HCSB). He is also told that these things are prophetic of things to come. Such things have been fulfilled through Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, sacrificed for us.

And when He stepped out on the land, there met Him a certain man from the city who had demons for a long time. And he wore no clothes… Then they found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed [properly clothed (JBP), fully dressed (CEB)] and in his right mind (emphasis added) (Luke 8:27, 35).

Now let’s go back even further to Genesis 41. We see Joseph suddenly raised up from a dungeon to go before Pharaoh. Christ is raised upon a cross. He is gloriously raised from a tomb. He too was raised from a dungeon to go before Pilate (Isaiah 53:8). Joseph receives from Pharaoh new clean robes of fine linen and Pharaoh’s own signet ring; he is also given a gold chain to go around his neck (Genesis 41:42, NIV). Jesus is also given new clean clothes, which we will consider in the next chapter. The garment that had previously identified Joseph, a tunic of many colors, his brothers had dipped in goat’s blood (Genesis 37:31), prefiguring the goat’s blood of the sin offering that once a year atoned for the sins of all the people of Israel (Leviticus 16:15) and prefiguring also, of course, Christ’s rejection and his precious redeeming blood that has eternally atoned for the sins of everyone who will believe and put their trust in him.

Joseph’s old identity has gone. Now Joseph has a new identity, new clean royal garments of fine linen, and kingly authority. We too receive all these when we come to Christ to be saved. Just as all the nations of the earth came to Joseph in Egypt to be saved from a worldwide famine (Genesis 41:56–57), so all nations may come to Christ to be saved from the judgment that’s coming; for when he returns in his glory, all the nations of the earth will be gathered together and appear before him to be judged (Matthew 25:32). Joseph’s new robes and ring also resonate with Luke 15:22 where the father of the penitent prodigal dresses him in the best robe and gives him a ring.

In Exodus 28, Aaron, the first high priest, is given priestly garments of fine woven linen. God gives Moses very detailed instructions for their design and manufacture and supplies the wisdom and skills to make them.

These things are God-ordained for Aaron to wear in order to give him dignity and honor (Exodus 28:2, NIV), and they are for glory and beauty (NKJV). No fig leaves