St Jerome's Missing Bride
Whether you aspire to Calvin or Arminius, Augustine or Erasmus, whether you belong to the Sovereign Grace stream of theology or the Human Freewill brigade when pushed into a corner you have to admit that upshot, the logical conclusion of what you believe is that on that great and terrible day of final judgement when final destinies are decided BILLIONS and BILLIONS of human souls must be consigned to eternal separation from God and must perish everlastingly.
This cannot be right.
In ancient Latin and Aramaic texts we read in Matthew 25
Then shall Kingdom of Heaven be compared to 10 maidens who took their lamps and went to meet the Bridegroom and the bride
Now when St. Jerome came to translate this in the 4th century Latin Vulgate he had a problem for in his mind he had already identified the faithful, the church in the 5 wise maidens in the story. We know that of the 10 5 were wise and the others not so much and he also knew that in scripture the church is the spouse, the bride of Christ. You can't have 2 churches depicted in the same parable.
So he omitted the bride.
That solves Jerome's dilemma but it forever alters the true meaning of the parable.
Now the bride is still there, made conspicuous by her absence, down through the centuries every translation of the bible has followed Jerome in omitting the bride.
But the bride is not her bridesmaids nor will she ever be required to knock in order to seek entrance to the feast which is given in her honour.... will she.
So who are these 5 maidens for they do find an entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. I say they represent a much WIDER MERCY that is generally preached and believed in by Evangelical Christians.
