Copyright © 2022 Michael A. Brown
In Genesis
2:24, God shows us the essential, inward meaning of what it means to be
married:
‘For this reason a man will leave his father and
mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.’
The man
and woman are drawn together into a bond in which they become ‘one flesh’
together, i.e. they are bonded together in a deep and intimate, loving union in
which they become one in spirit with each other. This bond is not simply physical; a deep,
inward spiritual bond is formed between them.
This
understanding of marriage as a committed, spiritual covenant union in which two
people become one is emphasised by both the Lord Jesus and the apostle Paul (Matt.
19:4-6, Eph. 5:22-32). The concept
of covenant, as the unreserved and mutual commitment of two people to one
another, expressed and affirmed through the giving of vows, is the only
meaningful way of understanding and expressing what it means for two people to
become one in marriage.
The old covenant:
Israel as the wife of Yahweh
In the
Mosaic covenant, God gave a solemn vow to his people Israel and entered into a
covenant with them. He gave himself to
them, with the hope and intention that they likewise would give themselves to
him. In giving himself unreservedly to
his people in such a covenant relationship, God was drawing Israel into a deep,
committed and intimate relationship with himself which mirrored the marital
relationship:
‘I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a
covenant with you… and you became mine.’ (Ezek. 16:8)
‘For your Maker is your husband – the LORD Almighty
is his name…’ (Isa. 54:5)
‘I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a
bride you loved me and followed me through a land not sown. Israel was holy to the LORD…’ (Jer. 2:2-3)
‘As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your
God rejoice over you.’ (Isa. 62:5)
So the
Israelites were seen as being married to their God, Yahweh: he was their
husband, and they were his wife. They
belonged to him: he was their God and they were his people. Within this covenant relationship, God gave
his spouse Israel many promises, including the promises of provision,
well-being and healing. They were
married to their Provider, Jehovah Jireh; to their Healer, Jehovah
Rapha; to their Well-being and Peace, Jehovah Shalom, and to their
Righteousness, Jehovah Tsidkenu (Gen. 22:14, Ex. 15:26, Judg. 6:24, Jer.
23:6), etc.
If they
lived in obedience to God’s commandments, and if they loved him and walked with
him wholeheartedly, then he would meet all their needs (Deut. 6:1-8). They were married to (and therefore called to
live in close, intimate relationship with) the very One who would provide for
them as a faithful husband, who would heal them and give them good health, and
who would provide for their well-being.
However,
just how many Israelites actually experienced the fulfilment of God’s
covenanted intentions for them, I don’t suppose anyone really knows. This covenant was intended by him to
determine not simply how they should live in relation to him, but also how they
should live in relation to the surrounding nations. As we can see from the narrative, the
Israelites were generally unfaithful to this covenant, generation after
generation, although there were many notable exceptions among them. God saw them as an unfaithful spouse who was
committing spiritual adultery with the gods of the surrounding nations, and we
can see the yearning of his heart towards them expressed repeatedly through the
prophets, especially Jeremiah and Hosea (Jer. chs.2-3, Hosea chs.1-3). The Israelites ignored God’s warnings to them
and lived in disobedience, provoking him to jealousy:
‘Be careful not to make a covenant with those who
live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. Break down their altars… Do not worship any other god, for the LORD,
whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
Be careful not to make a covenant with those who live in the land; for
when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will
invite you and you will eat their sacrifices…’ (Ex. 34:12-15)
Because
of their obstinate unfaithfulness, God was eventually forced to separate the
Israelites of the northern kingdom away from himself by giving them a
certificate of divorce. His
covenant relationship with them failed, because they simply would not honour it. So he sent them away from their land into
exile.
The
Israelites of the southern kingdom imitated the evil ways of their northern
neighbours, and again God in love and faithfulness repeatedly called TO them through
his prophets to come back to himself. However,
although they too would end up being sent away from their land, yet God himself
would ultimately remain faithful to them and bring them back from exile:
‘I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce
and sent her away because of all her adulteries… “Return faithless people,” declares the LORD,
“for I am your husband.”’ (Jer. 3:8,14)
‘The LORD will call you back as if you were a wife
deserted and distressed in spirit.’ (Isa. 54:6)
The new covenant: God forming a bride for
his Son
The
problem with the old covenant was the lack of inward, personal, spiritual
empowerment that would cause the Israelites to be able to remain faithful to
their God (Heb. 8:8-12). So God promised
them a new covenant in which his Spirit would come and dwell within them to empower
them as his people:
‘The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will
make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah… This is the covenant I will make with the
house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write
them on their hearts. I will be their
God, and they will be my people.’ (Heb. 8:8,10)
‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit
within you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of
flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you
and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.’ (Ezek. 36:26-27)
As
Gentile believers, we are made partakers in this new covenant through
Christ. In this new covenant, our
relationship with God through faith in Christ is grounded in the power of God’s
own life within us (John 1:4, Col. 3:4).
Our spirit is regenerated by the power of God, and it is united with the
divine life of God himself through the Holy Spirit who is the seal of this new
covenant and comes to abide within us (John 14:17, Eph. 2:4-5). We are in Christ, and Christ is in us (Col.
1:27). To be a true Christian and to
live consistently filled with the Holy Spirit is to be living in empowered,
inner, spiritual union with Christ himself: we are one in spirit with him (1 Cor. 6:17).
In the
sense that we are drawn into covenant relationship with God, God’s essential
purpose for us remains the same as in the old covenant. However, God’s ultimate intention is
not simply to save us from sin and to bring us into new life in Christ, it is
to form us into a bride for his Son.
Again, just as with the old covenant, this new covenant mirrors the
marital relationship. So we are seen as
the bride of Christ, belonging to him, betrothed to him, united with him, and
one in spirit with him. We live in a
deep and intimate covenant relationship with him which is empowered by his own
divine life within us. Christ was sown
in death on the cross, so that his bride might come into being and be joined in
union with him through his resurrection, of which the creation of Eve was a
prophetic type (cf. Gen. 2:21-24).
‘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.’ (Rom. 7:4 AV)
‘He who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.’ (1 Cor. 6:17)
‘I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that
I might present you as a pure virgin to him.’ (2 Cor. 11:2)
‘Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved
the church and gave himself up for her…’ (Eph. 5:25)
So we
have been drawn into a deep, inner union and committed covenant bond with Christ. Again, we are married to the One who is our
Provider, who is our Healer, and who is our Well-being and Peace. It is through giving ourselves unreservedly
to Christ as our divine spouse and learning to live and walk in committed and
consistent intimacy with him, that his life empowers us from within. As A.B. Simpson emphasised, the
practical value to us of this covenant relationship with God in terms of experiencing
his provision and healing, depends upon our willingness to develop and grow in
the reality of the intimacy of our spiritual union with him.[1] So God intends that we live out of the
heart-warming love and power of this inner spiritual union: ‘My beloved is
mine and I am his.’ (Song 2:16). The
power of Christ’s life then animates, permeates and affects our entire being
for good – spirit, soul and body – and can also minister to others through us
(Rom. 8:2-11).
However,
the exhortations and statements of many verses in the New Testament show us
that, for one reason or another, not all Christians grow and mature spiritually
as they should. They do not learn to
walk in the loving intimacy of their spiritual union with Christ and, in consequence,
they do not discover in experience the potential and the power of these truths. For example:
‘Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship
of the world is enmity [with] God?
Whoever therefore shall be minded to be a friend of the world, is
constituted an enemy of God. Or do ye
think that the Scripture saith in vain, “The Spirit that He placed in us
jealously desireth us for his own?”’ (Jas. 4:4-5 Alford)
‘Do not love the world or anything in
the world. If anyone loves the world,
the love of the Father is not in him.’ (1 John 3:15)
‘You have forsaken your first love… Repent and do the things you did at first…’ (Rev. 2:4-5)
However,
it is clear from the above that, as we learn to walk closely and intimately
with God in surrender, love, obedience and faith, understanding his intentions
and purposes towards us, then there is no reason why we should not see the
fulfilment of the covenanted promises he
has made towards us as our divine spouse (cf. 2 Cor. 1:20). He is a faithful, covenant-keeping God!
Copyright Notice
THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL
VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by
permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations from The Authorized (King
James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are
vested in the Crown. Reproduced by
permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.
[1] Lindsay, G. (Ed.), The John G. Lake Sermons On Dominion over
Demons, Disease and Death, Chapter III, “The Value of a Covenant with God”,
p.30, no date.
No comments:
Post a Comment