Revelation 19:9; What is the Marriage?

Revelation 19:9  And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God. 

Here again we must be satisfied with very imperfect information. John did not see the marriage, neither was it explained to him. He only heard the heavenly rejoicing that the time for it had come, the the Bride had prepared herself, and that he was to declare the blessedness of those who are called to the banquet then to be spread. That the marriage and the supper are not one and the same thing, the nature of the case, as well as the manner in which they are referred to, would seem to make evident. The marriage is accompanied with a becoming feast, but the feast is one thing and the marriage is another., though occurring at the same time and most intimately correlated.

It is the scene taking place in the heaven, after the resurrection of the saints, and ere Jesus and His risen ones are manifested to the earth, as heaven is not opened till the marriage has occurred. The blessedness of it is not inaptly described by Lange to be “the reciprocal operation of a spiritual fellowship of love.” It is Christ in the character of the Lamb, the mighty Goel, formally acknowledging and taking to himself as copartners of His throne, dominion, and glory, all those chosen ones who have been faithful to their betrothal, and appear at last in the spotless and shining apparel of the righteousness of the saints, thenceforward to be with Him, and share with Him in all His grand inheritance, forever.

Just what the ceremony of this marriage is we are nowhere told. Some have thought that it is the first opening of the city of god, the New Jerusalem, to the footsteps of the redeemed. Jesus says that He is now preparing a place for us.

John 14:1-4  Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

The ancient saints looked for a city whose maker and builder is God. That city John saw and describes in a subsequent chapter. That city was shown him as the Bride the Lamb’s Wife, so called on account of those who inhabit and dwell in it. The placing of the redeemed with their Redeemer in that sublime and eternal home necessarily involves befitting formality. Nor is it fare-fetched to connect that first formal entrance into that illustrious heaven-built city with the ceremonial of what is described as the marriage of the Lamb. When the sacred tabernacle was first opened and used it was with great solemnities, which God Himself prescribed, and in the observance of which there was also a marked coming together of God and His people. By visible manifestations of Deity a point of union and communion was then and there established between man and Jehovah, so direct and close that the holy prophet could say of Israel, “Thy Maker is thy Husband.” And the fact that God ordered and honoured the occasion is ample warrant for taking it as the type of a corresponding formality in the heavens, answering to the coming together of the Lamb and His affianced people for the first time in that glorious city, which even the great voice from the throne called “THE TABERNACLE OF GOD.” (Revelation 21:2-3).

[Joseph A. Seiss, The Apocalypse – An Exposition of the Book of Revelation, Kregel, 1987, 430-431]