This post continues a series of Christ-centered devotional meditations on Psalm 45. For the previous entries, click the links below:

“My tongue is the pen of a rapid writer”: Psalm 45, the church’s love song to Christ, part 1

“My tongue is the pen of a rapid writer”: Psalm 45, the Church’s love song to Christ, part 2

“My tongue is the pen of a rapid writer”: Psalm 45, the Church’s love song to Christ, part 3

“My tongue is the pen of a rapid writer”: Psalm 45, the Church’s love song to Christ, part 4

“My tongue is the pen of a rapid writer”: Psalm 45, a love song of Christ and His Church , part 5

Note: My reflections on this Psalm, unless otherwise indicated, will be from the Evangelical Heritage Version (EHV), simply because that’s what I had in front of me when I began writing the series.

In this section of Psalm 45, which began at v10, Christ is singing to His Bride, the Church. He sings to His Church of present blessings and future glory, to sustain her while she waits for their great wedding feast, and the consummation of their marriage in eternity.

Now, let us look at vv12-15. Christ sings to His Bride: Then the daughter of Tyre will come with a gift. Tyre was an incredibly wealthy pagan nation, and here stand for the nations who will be won to Christ and brought into the Church. That they are called the daughter of Tyre shows that their citizenship had been outside of the people of God, who were called the Daughter of Zion and Daughter of Jerusalem (Zechariah 9:9).

The King of Tyre gave gifts to King David’s son Solomon for his coronation, to help him build the Temple (1 Kings 5:1-12), which was a sort of foreshadowing of this word’s fulfillment. For St. Paul notes that those from the pagan nations who believed in Christ had themselves become the building materials for the temple of David’s Greater Son: So then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household. You have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the Cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you too are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit (Ephesians 2:19-22).

And this prophecy truly began to be fulfilled when Tyrians were among the first Gentiles to flock to Christ to hear His preaching and be healed (Mark 3:8). Likewise Christ entered Tyre, and was sought out by a Canaanite woman who lived there to heal her demon-possessed daughter (Matthew 15:21-28; Mark 7:24-30). Thus we see the Gentiles placing their faith in Christ, and Christ saving a daughter of Tyre.

Why did Tyre stand for all the pagan nations? Because she was the marketplace of nations. Her merchants were like royal officials, and her traders were honored around the world (Isaiah 23:1-8). Tyre represented success, productivity, and earthly dominance.

So what Christ is promising His Church is the conversion not only of the small, but of the great of this world. These will bring their gifts, their treasures, their talents, their brilliance, and their labor into the Church, for God’s glory and the good of His people. So God says through Isaiah that when the Tyrians are won to Christ: her merchandise and her wages will be dedicated to the Lord. It will not be stored away. Her goods will be for those who live in the presence of the Lord, so that they have enough to eat and clothing that will last (Isaiah 23:18). Such is the gift the daughter of Tyre brings to the Church.

Then, as if to affirm and assure His promise to His Bride of the nations joining her, and bringing precious gifts with them, Christ adds: The richest people will seek your favor. Isaiah 49:23 says: Then kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens will be your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground, they will bow down to you. In this way the nations will be conquered for Christ: Not with the sword of war and carnal conquest, but with the Word of the Gospel of Christ. So He commands His Church to be militant this way: Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation (Mark 16:15). And again: go and gather disciples from all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and by teaching them to keep all the instructions I have given you (Matthew 28:19-20). Indeed, Revelation 12:11 declares that the Church will be victorious over Satan himself, who has deceived the nations (Revelation 12:9), conquering him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony (Revelation 12:11 ESV). For it is Christ Himself who is working through our proclamation: Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will shepherd them with an iron staff. He himself is going to trample the winepress of the fierce anger of the Almighty God. On his garment and on his thigh this name is written: King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Revelation 19:15-16). This sword is His Word—His Law, but especially His Gospel (Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12-13; Romans 10:17).

And so, the Daughter of Tyre—the nations of this world—will be grafted into the Daughter of Zion—that is, the Church, the Bride of Christ. Thus the Lord declares:

I will register Rahab and Babylon among those who know me.

Look! Philistia and Tyre are there, along with Cush!

Of them I say, “This one was born there in Zion.”

And about Zion it will be said,“This one and that one were born in her, and the Most High himself will establish her.”

When he registers the peoples, the Lord will write: “This one was born there.”

Psalm 87:4-7

Even those who had once been the enemies of the Bride—represented by the Babylonians and the Philistines in Psalm 87—will be won to Christ and joined to the Bride, and shall bring their gifts and treasures to enrich the Church. Thus we read elsewhere:

“Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”

He carried me away in spirit to a great and high mountain, and he showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God. Its radiance is similar to a very precious stone, like crystal-clear jasper …

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God has given it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. There is no day when its gates will be shut, for there will be no night in that place. They will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.

Revelation 21:9-11, 22-26

Beloved, we have every reason to believe that the Church will be victorious, because our faithful Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, has promised us in many ways throughout the Scriptures that it must be so.

Christ, our Bridegroom King, beholds His Bride, and adores her beauty: The princess, who waits inside, is all glorious. The princess is the Bride, the Church, for we have already heard Christ the King of Kings tell us: Hear, O daughter, look and listen (v10). Again, Christ, God the Son, as God, is called Everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6). His love and care for us are so great that He must be said to love us with two kinds of love, for He nurtures and protects us both as a father and a husband.

To say that she waits inside, and is all glorious, means that the Bride of Christ is arrayed by Him in all beauty, clothed beautifully in His virtues, not only when she is in public, but as she dwells quietly “in her chambers” as it were. This loveliness is seen when there is harmony within the Church. When her members make it [our] ambition to live a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands (1 Thessalonians 4:11); when we: Make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3); when we: Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way fulfill the law of Christ; and when, as we have opportunity, we do good to all people, and especially to those who belong to the household of faith (Galatians 6:2, 10). This is a comfortable adornment, which we wear even on ordinary days, to the glory of Christ, our Bridegroom.

Then, He says: Her dress is interwoven with gold. In embroidered garments she is led to the king. The Church is clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and in virtues and good works borne of faith in Him. Thus, we go to meet Christ clothed in His perfection, which He beautifies even further with the proven character of your faith—which is more valuable than gold, which passes away even though it is tested by fire; and which produces praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed (1 Peter 1:7). When we go forth to our wedding feast, not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like we shall be! (Matthew 6:29 CSB) David’s Greater Son has provided much finer apparel for us. We shall have put on immortality and incorruptibility.

Next, our Royal Bridegroom sings to us: Virgins who follow her as attendants are brought to you. Christ Himself refers to those as virgins who await Him as a Bridegroom (Matthew 25:1-13). Likewise, Revelation 14:4 describes the faithful saints as virgins … which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth (KJV). This is speaking of the purity of heart with which we pursue Christ in faith, not giving ourselves over to lesser gods and lesser loves. And indeed, our Bridegroom will continue to purify and sanctify His Bride, so that when He comes, His Church will be given to Him as a pure virgin to one husband, Christ (2 Corinthians 11:2).

Now, beloved, I would have you hear that not only as a lofty aspiration you strive to attain, but as a promise the Lord will fulfill in you. For we all struggle with many sins, and find ourselves often flirting with, and even sometimes seduced by, those lesser loves. But Christ continues to intercede for us with the Father, so that we may be completely saved (Hebrews 7:25; 1 John 2:1-2). The prayer of St. Paul for the saints at Thessalonica may perhaps reflect our Bridegroom’s prayers for us, which He prays before the Father’s throne: May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).

Finally, Christ assures His Bride that the day of the wedding feast, and the consummation of their mare, draws nigh: They are brought with joyful celebration. They enter the palace of the king. Thus we of that great and glorious day, a herald of our blessed hope:

Alleluia!

For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.

Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory, because the wedding of the Lamb has come.

His bride has made herself ready, and she was given bright, clean, fine linen to wear.

(In fact, the fine linen is the “not guilty” verdicts pronounced on the saints.)

Revelation 19:6-8

We prepare ourselves for the coming of our Bridegroom by Faith, and she brings her twin sisters, Hope and Love. In hope, we eagerly await our Bridegroom’s arrival; and in love, we adorn our faith with good works.

And what awaits us at our wedding feast to Christ, on the Day the marriage is to be eternally consummated? Our Lord has spoken through the prophet Isaiah:

On this mountainthe Lord of Armies will prepare for all peoplesa banquet of rich food,

a banquet of aged wines, with the best cuts of meat, and with the finest wines.

On this mountainhe will destroy the shroud that covers all peoples,

the burial cloth stretched over all nations.

He has swallowed up death forever!

The Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face.

He will take away the shame of his people throughout the earth.

For the Lord has spoken.

On that day it will be said,“Look, here is our God! We waited for him, and he saved us! This is the Lord!We waited for him. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation!”

Isaiah 25:6-9

That mountain, is of course, the heavenly Zion in which the Bride, the heavenly Jerusalem, will dwell with her Bridegroom and Lord forever and ever.

There, Death will be destroyed, and the Lord who has bottled at cataloged all our tears and anxious fears (Psalm 56:8), will replace them all with joy and gladness in His presence. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices. Even my flesh will dwell securely because you will not abandon my life to the grave. You will not let your favored one see decay. You have made known to me the path of life, fullness of joy in your presence, pleasures at your right hand forever (Psalm 16:9-11). On that eternal Day, we will: Taste and see that the Lord is good forevermore. Therefore: Blessed is everyone who takes refuge in him (Psalm 34:8).