speaks is the word that washes us; this does not refer to logos, the
C. Christ is a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to the remnant of His
people—Isa. 28:5:
1. A crown is like a hat or turban, whereas the diadem is the headband as the most beautiful, glorious part of the crown—Exo. 28:36-39; 29:6; Isa. 62:3. 2. We need to continually behold the beauty of the Lord in the church as the house of His beauty so that we may be transformed from glory to glory, beautified by the Lord, to become His beautiful bride with Him as our diadem of beauty—2 Cor. 3:18; Rev. 19:7-9; Isa. 28:5; Psa. 27:4; Isa. 60:1, 7, 9, 13, 19; 62:3; Rev. 21:11. ‹‹ Day 3 & Day 4 ›› II. The Lord's primary work in the recovery is His genuine work to prepare us to
be His glorious bride; apart from the continual, dispositional sanctification spoken of in Ephesians 5:26, there is no way for the bride to be prepared and, hence, no way for Revelation 19:7-9 to be fulfilled:
A. The church is being beautified through the process of sanctification by Christ
as the life-giving Spirit cleansing us by the washing of the water in His word —Eph. 5:26-27:
1. This indicates that in the word of Christ is the Spirit as the water of life; the words that He speaks to us are spirit and life—John 6:63. 2. As the life-giving Spirit, Christ is the speaking Spirit; whatever He speaks is the word that washes us; this does not refer to logos, the constant word, but to rhema, which denotes an instant word, the word that the Lord presently speaks to us—Matt. 4:4; John 6:63; Rev. 2:7; 22:17a; cf. Isa. 6:9-10; Matt. 13:14-15; Acts 28:25-31. 3. Christ's speaking is the Spirit; His speaking is the very presence of the life-giving Spirit—John 6:63; Eph. 6:17. 4. The indwelling Christ as the life-giving Spirit is always speaking an instant, present, living word to metabolically cleanse away the old and replace it with the new, causing an inward transformation. B. Through such a washing process we are saturated with Christ and beautified
by Christ to be His holy, beautiful, God-expressing bride, a bride without blemish or imperfection—Rev. 19:7; cf. S.S. 6:13; 8:13-14. C. Christ as the life-giving Spirit sanctifies the church by cleansing her
according to the washing of the water in the word; according to the divine concept, water here refers to the flowing life of God typified by flowing