Revelation 21:9; I Will Shew Thee the Bride, the Lamb’s Wife

Revelation 21:9 (KJV)  And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. 

The “bride” stands in conspicuous contrast with “the harlot” of Revelation 27:1 (cf. 19:7; 21:2). The city is also “a wife”, but this is proleptic in sense. The marriage of the Lamb has not yet taken place (Beckwith). Beginning here, the next twenty-four verses refer to the Lamb seven times. This name is increasing prominent as the end of the book approaches. [Robert L. Thomas]

The angel calls it “the Bride, the Lamb’s wife”. The heavenly city is Christ’s Bride, not on account of what makes it a city, but on account of the sanctified and glorified ones who inhabit it. Without the saints, whose home and residence it is, it would not be the Lamb’s wife; yet it is the Lamb’s Wife in a sense which does not exclude the foundations, walls, gates, streets and constructions which contribute to make it a city. Mere edifices and avenues do not make a city, neither does a mere congregation or multitude of people make a city. You cannot have a living city without people to inhabit it; and you cannot have a city without the edifices and avenues arranged in some fixed shape for the accommodation of those who make up its population. It is the two together, and the order in which the parts are severally disposed, the animate with the inanimate which constitute the city. And whilst this holy Jerusalem is the Bride and Wife of Christ with reference to its holy occupants, it is still those occupants as disposed and arranged in that city. So that the city as a city as well as its people as a people, even the whole taken together, is embraced in what the angel calls “the Bride, the Lamb’s Wife,” as she finally appears in her eternal form and completeness.

The description which the Apostle gives us of this city, though very brief, is very magnificent, and presents a picture which almost blinds us with its brightness.

[Joseph A. Seiss, The Apocalypse – An Exposition of the Book of Revelation, Kregel Publications, 1987, 496]