Among primitive peoples, as among the Jews, no indignity could equal the refusal of a proffered guest-welcome, in a rude trampling on the blood of the threshold sacrifice, instead of crossing over it reverently as a mode of its acceptance. Hence the peculiar force of the words of the Jewish-Christian writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, concerning the mistreatment of God’s threshold sacrifice, in the Son of God offered as our passover: “A man that hath set at nought Moses’ law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath _trodden under foot the Son of God_, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified [separated from the outside world], an unholy [a common] thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?”[587] 3. BRIDEGROOM AND BRIDE. All through the New Testament, Jesus, the outpouring of whose blood is “our passover” welcome from the Father, is spoken of as the Bridegroom, and his church as the Bride. His coming to earth is referred to as the coming of the Bridegroom–as was the coming of Jehovah to the Virgin of Israel in Egypt. He likened himself to a bridegroom. And his coming again to his church is foretold as the meeting of the Bridegroom and the Bride. John the Baptist, forerunner of Jesus, speaking of his mission as closing, and that of Jesus as opening out gloriously, says: “Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but, that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.”[588] Jesus, referring to the charge against his disciples, that they did not fast, as did the disciples of John, said: “Can the sons of the bride-chamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then will they fast.”[589] Paul repeatedly refers to this relation between Christ and his church: “The head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.”[590] “The husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church.... Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it.... He that loveth his own wife loveth himself: for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church; because we are members of his body. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh. This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church.”[591]