Wedding Covenant Theology, Pt. 2
Pulling Back Layers of Theology
We left off in part 1 talking about the resurrection and how the metaphors of the woman giving birth is in reference to the resurrection.
Isaiah 66:8 Who has heard of such as this? Who has seen such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be delivered in an instant? Yet as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her children.
This verse is verified by Isaiah 26:19, Isaiah 54, Isaiah 49:21, Isaiah 60 and then in the New Testament with 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4 & 5, Revelation 20, and so on. This is not a foreign, outside concept, it is a consistent theme that can be followed throughout the whole of scripture. The resurrection and the Kingdom on earth is literally the promise of the covenant and there are various metaphors used to paint this picture, including the city being personified as a bride given to Yeshua to rule. Yahuah says to the Son:
Isaiah 49:6 “It is not enough for You to be My Servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the protected ones of Israel. I will also make You a light for the nations, to bring My salvation to the ends of the earth.”
Psalm 2 “I have installed My King on Zion, upon My holy mountain.” I will proclaim the decree spoken to Me by the LORD: “You are My Son; today I have become Your Father. Ask Me, and I will make the nations Your inheritance, the ends of the earth Your possession.”
Zion coming to earth as Rev. 21:2 says is Messiah’s inheritance; Zion coming to earth as Rev. 21:9-10 confirms is Messiah’s possession; Zion is the bride, the Lamb’s metaphorical wife. The people, Israel, are the inhabitants of the city; the children of Zion; the adornment of the bride. (We will be connecting the concept of Zion as the bride and the land covenant in Part 3).
It’s really important to grasp this understanding because the bridal theology has redefined so much historical information. The romantic notion that the church is the bride has re-defined aspects of why Messiah had to die, and that is just not okay. I know that it’s completely unintentional- I'm guilty of these nuances too!- I was dead set on being the bride, I had blogs and content about it but the Father nudged me to look again; to read what it’s actually saying. Recently, I learned that there is a piece of this theology that says Messiah drinking the cup and being pierced in the side was Him as the husband taking the Torah judgment for the adulterous wife, where in Numbers 5 the wife would be brought before the priests, made to drink a mixture and if she was guilty her thigh would rot and belly would swell causing a curse in her inward parts. That is not at all what was happening when the Messiah was crucified on a pagan stake by Romans. None of that had anything to do with the Torah or a judgement given through the prescribed priesthood. That is an eisegetical idea which applies meaning where it does not belong. It’s like I explained in part one, all of these theologies have to layer theology to try to make it make sense. Attempting to use Torah to add meaning unto Jesus being pierced in the side, uses the Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theology in saying He took the punishment for the wife. That in and of itself is not Torah. No man can die for another man’s sins. Nowhere in Torah is there an allowance for a person to take the punishment for another- there is allowance for mercy and forgiveness for offence, but there is not any law that says the husband could accept the punishment for the adulterous wife. Ezekiel 18 is very clear on this:
Ezekiel 18:20 The righteousness of the righteous is upon himself and the wrongness of the wrong is upon himself.
Messiah allowed His life to be taken even though He was completely righteous, so that He could take it up again (John 10:18) and bear our sins as a High Priest making intercession forever (Hebrews 7:25)! We covered this in The Prophesied Job of The Messiah- His death was fulfilling prophecy, completing His obedience to death even death on the cross (Phil. 2:8) and getting Him to His prophesied position as high priest (Psalm 110). I stated in part 1 of this, that I am here to defend prophecy, THAT is the prophecy, there is NO prophecy that says He is a husband taking the judgement for our adulty. That’s completely eisegetical, inserting a presupposition onto the text.
Where does the “taking the place of” theology come from?
Where the wedding covenant theology actually begins is pretty interesting because just reading it, you wouldn’t come to that conclusion at all.
Genesis 15:9-18 And the LORD said to him, “Bring Me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a turtledove and a young pigeon.”So Abram brought all these to Him, split each of them down the middle, and laid the halves opposite each other. The birds, however, he did not cut in half. And the birds of prey descended on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and suddenly great terror and darkness overwhelmed him. Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will judge the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will depart with many possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a ripe old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, behold, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the halves of the carcasses. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”
The theory is that “the smoking firepot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the halves of the carcasses. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram” …was Yahuah passing between the offering symbolizing that He is taking responsibility for Abraham’s side of the covenant. It’s also implied that this is a picture of Yahuah walking down the wedding aisle. It doesn’t say that anywhere in the text. Abraham was making a proper altar sacrifice as a priest and prophet! Abraham was a Melchizedek. I know, we don’t get that directly from the canon of 66 but the Testament of 12 Patriarchs, Apocalypse of Abraham, and Jubilees go into much greater detail about the Melchizedek Order being passed from Adam to Noah to Shem to Abraham to Isaac, and the to Levi when the Priesthood was designated to continue specifically through Levi’s descendants. Remember in Hebrews it says the Melchizedek order is without mother without father- that’s because it goes to the most righteous ruler, it’s not based on genealogy. Abraham was the son of Terah, an idol maker from Ur. But He was found to be righteous and we do see Genesis tell us that he made sacrifices in multiple places, not just this one time in Genesis 15. When we read this same account in Jubilees it actually gives a few more details about the specifics of this particular sacrifice-
Jubilees 14:10-13 And he took all these in the middle of the [third] month and he dwelt at the oak of Mamre, which is near Hebron. And he built there an altar, and sacrificed all these; and he poured their blood upon the altar, and divided them in the midst, and laid them over against each other; but the birds divided he not. And birds came down upon the pieces, and Abram drove them away, and did not suffer the birds to touch them. And it came to pass, when the sun had set, that an ecstasy fell upon Abram, and lo! a horror of great darkness fell upon him.
Abram made a proper sacrifice on the altar with the blood poured out. He didn’t decorate a wedding aisle with dead animals. We also get a really cool time qualifier- in the middle of the third month. The middle of the third month is when Shavuot is celebrated, the Feast of Fruits! Abraham was making a proper First Fruits offering!! It goes on to say:
Jubilees 14:17 And he awoke from his sleep, and he arose, and the sun had set; and there was a flame, and behold! A furnace was smoking, and a flame of fire passed between the pieces. . . 20 And on that day we made a covenant with Abram, according as we had covenanted with Noah in this month; and Abram renewed the festival and ordinance for himself forever.
That’s so stinking cool! Noah also celebrated Shavuot! And nobody thinks the covenant with Noah was some sort of wedding ceremony.
Jubilees 6:1-5 And on the new month of the third month he went forth from the ark, and built an altar on that mountain. And he made atonement for the earth, and took a kid and made atonement by its blood for all the guilt of the earth; for everything that had been on it had been destroyed, except those that were in the ark with Noah. And he placed the fat thereof on the altar, and he took an ox, and a goat, and a sheep and kids, and salt, and a turtle-dove, and the young of a dove, and placed a burnt sacrifice on the altar, and poured thereon an offering mingled with oil, and sprinkled wine and strewed frankincense over everything, and caused a goodly savior to arise, acceptable before YAHWEH. And YAHWEH smelt the goodly savior, and He made a covenant with him that there should not be any more a flood to destroy the earth; that all the days of the earth seed-time and harvest should never cease; cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night should not change their order, nor cease forever. 'And you, increase you and multiply upon the earth, and become many upon it, and be a blessing upon it. . . .14-21 And for this Torah there is no limit of days, for it is forever. They shall observe it throughout their generations, so that they may continue supplicating on your behalf with blood before the altar; every day and at the time of morning and evening they shall seek forgiveness on your behalf perpetually before YAHWEH that they may keep it and not be rooted out. And He gave to Noah and his sons a sign that there should not again be a flood on the earth. He set His bow in the cloud for a sign of the eternal covenant that there should not again be a flood on the earth to destroy it all the days of the earth. For this reason it is ordained and written on the heavenly tablets, that they should celebrate the "Feast of Weeks" in this month once a year, to renew the covenant every year. And this whole festival was celebrated in heaven from the day of creation till the days of Noah -twenty six jubilees and five weeks of years and Noah and his sons observed it for seven jubilees and one week of years (350 years), till the day of Noah's death, and from the day of Noah's death his sons did away with it until the days of Abraham, and they eat blood. But Abraham observed it, and Yitschaq and Yacob and his children observed it up to your days, and in your days the children of Yisrael forgot it until you celebrated it anew on this mountain. And do you command the children of Yisrael to observe this festival in all their generations for a commandment unto them: one day in the year in this month they shall celebrate the festival. For it is the "Feast of Weeks" and the "Feast of First Fruits:" this feast is twofold and of a double nature: according to what is written and engraved concerning it, celebrate it.
For context sake- Jubilees is the only account actually claimed to be written by Moses, this is him hearing the history, orders, and laws dictated by the angels on Siani. Which is why it says in your days the children of Yisrael forgot it until you celebrated it anew on this mountain. That directly tells us that Siani was Shavuot and a covenant renewal- yes, it was a covenant agreement!!
Exodus 19:7-8 So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the LORD had commanded him. And all the people answered together, “We will do everything that the LORD has spoken.” So Moses brought their words back to the LORD.
But absolutely nowhere does it say that Siani was a ketubah/ a Hebrew wedding model. That is a tradition of Judaism and is used to explain the divorce language in Jeremiah…but you know what else Jeremiah 3 says:
Jeremiah 3:19 Then I said, ‘How I long to make you My sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations!’ I thought you would call Me ‘Father’ and never turn away from following Me.
Absolutely nowhere in Genesis, Jubilees, or other citations of the history does it say Yahweh took Abraham’s place in the covenant, that doesn’t even make sense! But this is what is eisegetically imposed to say that Yahweh came in the flesh to die as the Son in order to nullify Abraham’s part of the covenant …WHAT!!!??? This is exactly what I’m talking about with layers of theology completely re-defining scripture. Even if you don’t think of Jubilees as scripture, you still can’t justify that line of thought with the actual text of any of the rest of scripture.
So going back to the fire passing between the pieces, is that the only place in scripture where we see fire coming down on an offering? NO!
Leviticus 9:23 Fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar.
Judges 6:19-24 (an angel of God gave Gideon an order of things to offer), he did so and fire flared from the rock and consumed the meat and unleavened bread.
2 Chronicles 7:1-3 When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple.
These are examples of the people, specifically the priests and prophets, making proper sacrifices in accordance with the law of the covenant- upholding their side of the covenant. And when they did what they were supposed to, the consuming fire of Yahuah showed up to accept it. This is exactly what the situation was with Abraham in Genesis 15!
I mentioned above that this tradition of the wedding covenant is rooted in Judaism to explain the divorce language in Jeremiah. We are going to break down Hosea and Jeremiah in part 3 but I want to quickly express that scripture needs to be defined by scripture. Saying that Mt. Siani must be a ketubah because hundreds of years later Yah is speaking of a divorce, is not the proper or logical way to interpret scripture. We look at the definitions from the beginning and carry them throughout the whole scripture. Coming up, we will look into what the divorce language was actually in reference to, according to the covenant for the land- the covenant of land defined from Genesis-Joshua. Part 3.
Additional Study: The Bride of Messiah: The Inheritance of Israel