The Bride of Jesus

One of the many lies in Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" was that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. "The early Church needed to convince the world that the mortal prophet Jesus was a divine being. Therefore, any gospels that described earthly aspects of Jesus' life had to be omitted from the Bible...one particularly troubling earthly theme kept recurring in the gospels. Mary Magdalene...more specifically, her marriage to Jesus Christ." (p244) There are two ways that we know this assertion is a lie. First, there is no historical evidence of this marriage. No gospels, no history, and no church father recorded or even discussed a marriage of Jesus. It's part of the fiction of his book. Second, there is a theological problem. Now I've heard some theologians say that if Jesus were married, that would be no big deal. In particular, Darrell Bock, a professor at DTS, has said "...if Jesus had been married it wouldn't touch the theology one bit. Jesus is 100 percent human. Had he been married and had he had children, all it would have done would have been to reflect his engagement with his humanity--but I just don't think historically there's any evidence that Jesus was married." I was talking about this point with Pastor Gilbert last week, and he brought up an excellent point. Jesus could not have been married to Mary Magdalene. Why not? Because he's already got a bride!

Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, Write, Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, These are true words of God. (Rev 19:7-9 NASB95)

The bride of Jesus is his church, the one he is sanctifying to present to himself without spot or wrinkle (Eph 5:26-27). If Jesus had married, he would have been a polygamist. But he wasn't. He's waiting for me!