So, I ask this question to all:
There seems to be this common belief that the bride of Christ is "the church"
The bride of Christ is the church as well as NJ.
Christians are the bride:
Eph 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
Eph 5:24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Eph 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
Eph 5:27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Eph 5:28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
Eph 5:29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
Eph 5:30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
Eph 5:31
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
Eph 5:32 This is a great mystery: but
I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Here we are told plainly that the example of a man and his wife being of one flesh is about Christ and the church.
Rom 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ;
that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God
Here again it is Christians that will marry Christ who was raised from the dead.
2Co 11:2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for
I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
Spoken to Christians, the church, being presented as Virgins in a spiritual sense.
Rev 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Rev_17:18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
If a woman "Babylon" also called a city can represent a group of unsaved people then certainly the bride of Christ, a group of saved people, can be represented as a city "New Jerusalem" as well.