Congregation Shema Yisrael

When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD.” So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.” -Hosea 1:2-5

” ‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe” -safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD. -Jeremiah 7:9-11

If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. -1 John 1:6

Yesterday, I was directed to a blog with an article called Have you been cheating on Jesus? I was intrigued, particularly since the entire Bible is filled with marriage and infidelity metaphors describing the relationship, both between Israel and God and the Body of Believers and Yeshua (Jesus). In my thoughts, right before I clicked the link, I imagined what the write up would say (probably because I was imagining what I would say).

Alas, the actual article was way too short to do the topic justice (sorry, SoulSupply.com) but in that instant, my next article (this one) was born.

As I mentioned, the Bible is just loaded with marriage imagery describing God’s relationship with His people. It is either a very romantic and loving description or something rather grim. In the latter case, it’s usually because the “Bride”; people…the Children of Israel…Believers…us, have been amazingly unfaithful to the most faithful partner in the universe…God. In any human marriage between a man and a woman (yes, I know…I’m not politically correct), it is possible and even likely that both partners in the relationship will be flawed. It’s possible and likely that both partners in the relationship will fall down on their responsibilities from time to time. It’s even possible and in some cases likely, that at least one partner will be unfaithful to the other.

This can take the form of adultery, with one partner having extramarital relations, but as Yeshua told us, adultery isn’t always physical:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. -Matthew 5:27-28

Besides having sex with someone other than your spouse or compulsively looking at and lusting after women or men, there are other ways to “cheat”. Besides God, our spouse is supposed to be the most important relationship in the world to us. This is the way it was from the beginning.

They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” -Mark 10:4-9

Yeshua is quoting Genesis 2:24 to define the importance of a man and woman joining together: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh”. When we read this in the Torah, we know that in the beginning, there was God and there was Adam and Havah (Eve). At that moment in time, God sanctified their relationship, the first marriage ceremony on the face of the planet. The first man and woman had yet to conceive and bear children, so the roles became well established. It’s already been said, but the Torah formally forbids adultery; the breaking of what God has joined together.

You shall not commit adultery. -Exodus 20:14

This is part of the Ten Words or the Ten Commandments, and both Judaism and Christianity affirm this commandment of God to this very day. But what about being “married” to God?

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. -Exodus 19:16-19

Consider this the “wedding ceremony” between the Children of Israel and God. Sound fantastic? Not in traditional Judaism. In Exodus 19:10:13, God told Moses to command the Children of Israel to make themselves clean and to purify themselves for a three-day period in preparation for their meeting with God. In verse 9, God talks about coming in a dense cloud so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you. Why a dense cloud? Why cover the mountain and hover over all of the Children of Israel and the mixed multitude in the form of a cloud?

In a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony, the couple takes their vows under a Chuppah or “wedding canopy”. To quote my source:

During the Jewish wedding ceremony, the bride and groom stand under the Chuppah. Under the Chuppah, blessings are recited, the wedding ring is given, the Ketubah is read out loud, and the glass is broken.

The Ketubah is the wedding contract, or the statement of responsibilities each partner in the marriage agrees to fulfill for the other partner. Under God’s Chuppah, what was read? The answer is in Exodus 20: the Ten Commandments…the Torah…the Word of God, the Ketubah. Notice that the Ten Commandments are requirements for the “bride”; the Children of Israel. When they “signed on the dotted line”, they agreed to fulfill the Ketubah. In fact, they’d already signed before the wedding ever took place:

So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the LORD had commanded him to speak. The people all responded together, “We will do everything the LORD has said.” So Moses brought their answer back to the LORD. -Exodus 19:7-8

The Children of Israel swore to obey God and to fulfill the conditions of the Ketubah, even before the specific conditions were formally read to them by the groom in Exodus 20. We know that the Jewish nation would subsequently fail to keep up their end of the bargain on numerous occasions, resulting in several exiles, the most recent one lasting almost 2000 years. We also know that God swore by Himself to bring the Jews back to their Land and back to Himself and that is in the process of occurring now, at this very moment.

“For thus says the Lord GOD: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and I give them to you as daughters, but not on account of the covenant with you. I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord GOD.” -Ezekiel 16:59-63

The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited, and they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel. -Hosea 1:11

This is what the Sovereign LORD says:
“See, I will beckon to the Gentiles,
I will lift up my banner to the peoples;
they will bring your sons in their arms
and carry your daughters on their shoulders.
Kings will be your foster fathers,
and their queens your nursing mothers.
They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground;
they will lick the dust at your feet.
Then you will know that I am the LORD;
those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” -Isaiah 49:22-23

That defines the Jewish people. But what about the “Bride of Christ”? Christians have sometimes been rather critical of the Jewish people in the “bride” role and some have gone even so far to say that the church has replaced the Jews as the bride and have indeed been a superior bride, but have we? Can the groom have two brides?

“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ ” ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut”. -Matthew 25:1-10

This is among a number of parables told by the Master describing “the great and terrible day of the Lord”; the day when he will return. Who will be ready when he comes “like a thief in the night” and who will be asleep at the switch (or at least asleep with their lamps out of oil)? The idea behind these parables is that not all of us who “signed on the dotted line” will be alert and faithful in waiting for him. Many of us will get tired of waiting. Many of us will become distracted by competing priorities. Something will get in the way and stand between us and the groom, and that something, whatever it is, will become more important to us than our groom. For a lot of believers, it already has.

The original question asked at the SoulSupply.com site was, “Have you been cheating on Jesus?” Picturing Yeshua as our groom and the Body of Believers en masse as the bride, have we been faithful in waiting for him, or have we allowed ourselves to become distracted with other “lovers”? What are “other lovers”? Practically anything or anyone. Money, sex, booze, cars, houses, extra-Biblical theologies, you name it.

What other lovers have you been tempted with? Oh, admit it. You have temptations. We all do. Even Yeshua was tempted by the Adversary in the desert, the only difference being that he didn’t give in to temptation and become “an unfaithful lover”. We, on the other hand, must admit if we’re honest, that we have cheated and been unfaithful. You say you haven’t? Ever? Go look in the mirror and say it again and see if righteous conviction is in your eyes. Better yet, go say it before God and see if it’s true.

Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he added, “These are the true words of God.” -Revelation 19:6-9

(And the description you’ve just read sounds a great deal like the events at Sinai, thunder and lightning included)

As you can see, we’re not married yet; we are betrothed. We became betrothed to our groom when we accepted him as Lord, Savior, Messiah, and Master. We Gentiles were adopted into the Family of God as Sons and Daughters, and were grafted in as wild olive branches into the civilized olive tree; the root of Jesse, the Jewish people (no, we’re not “spiritual Jews”, we’re adopted…the same Bible applies, the same love applies, but distinctions in nature and ethnicity remain). Those natural branches became the bride the day they stood at the foot of Mount Sinai under the Chuppah and accepted the Ketubah read by God, through His Prophet Moses (the Voice of God being so powerful that the bride could not hear it and survive).

Every individual Jew in every nation and across all history is to consider himself and herself as having personally stood at Sinai and accepted the Ketubah under the Chuppah…accepted the Torah under the shelter of the Divine Presence. Those of us who are Gentiles had that same experience when we too accepted the Ketubah and were grafted in. We also became the bride and we await the groom. Having accepted the Ketubah, the Word of the Living God, although we await the groom, we are already bound by that Ketubah. Walking away from even it’s smallest stipulation is an act of unfaithfulness to the groom; an act of adultery. Even though the final wedding vows have yet to be exchanged before God and we are less than married, we are more than engaged.

My son is in the Marine Corps and he is currently deployed on a U.S. Naval vessel somewhere in the Pacific. His wife and infant son haven’t seen him in several months and like any bride of a deployed Marine, his wife waits for him. That wait is not easy and the burden is not light. Like her, our groom is also away from us and we shoulder his yoke, yet he has told us his yoke, his Ketubah, his Torah is light.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” -Matthew 11:28-30

In Rabbinic language, the reference to “yoke” in this context, is the “Yoke of Torah”, which we can also think of as our Ketubah. It’s the Ketubah read by God at Sinai, not the one laden with man-made rules, created by centuries of the teachings of man, both Jewish and Gentile Christian. Listen to the words of your groom and remain steadfast and faithful. I know it seems like he’s been gone a long time, but he left us a Comforter to help sustain us until he comes back himself. Believe the promise. Don’t be shaken in these troubled times. Keep the faith and stand firm. He’s coming back. He’s coming soon.

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Yeshua. -Revelation 22:18-20