The Invitation/ God's Quest for The Bride/ Perfected

God’s Divorce From His Unfaithful Wife

Jer 3:8 & Ezek 16 November 23, 2015

The parables and courtship of the bride cannot be told without first establishing the heartbreak God has endured as the often rejected suitor of Man. He has endured rejection from those He loved, far more than He has enjoyed submission or love requited. No one could endure the slightest fraction of the heartache which the Son of Man has endured in His quest for a true Bride. We all know that He was despised and rejected, mocked, beaten and killed by those who claimed they loved God. Even in this age of Grace, the age of the Bride, the time for her to come to Him, that Christ has suffered rejection a thousand times more often than he has received whole-hearted love. But the espoused husband endures and believes and hopes and bears all things for love’s sake that he might present unto Himself a perfect, spotless and holy Bride.

He has even endured the devastating heartache of divorce. It is clearly stated in a parable given to Ezekiel (the classic Son of Man representative among the prophets) how God divorced His Bride for infidelity and the most miserable form of adultery, idolatry. In spite of the modern day Christian who says God would never do or allow such a thing, His divorce is neither debatable nor questionable. Yet He has never thought that celibacy and being alone was the ultimate aim or the ultimate in holiness for man. The great mystery of Christ and the Church declares that Christ will have a holy Bride, one without spot or wrinkle. He will divorce the unfaithful woman and marry only one which is holy. It is simply not good for man to be alone; thus, the Bride is the only good thing for the Christ, but she must be pure and holy, without blemish. God declared that he would not stop at divorcing a wife who was committing fornication against Him.

And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of DIVORCE; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. Jeremiah 3:8

When decrying divorce among God’s people, Jesus Himself even recognized that fornication of any sort was one thing worthy of severing even sacred ties. “But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.” Matt 5:32 In His unrelenting quest for a worthy wife, God will not settle for anything but ‘perfection’. The perfection of the Bride of Christ will be brought about by His own means. It can only be consummated by a person’s fidelity and loyalty to His Spirit. Only God has the power to change a person through and through, only He is able to convert the soul and perfect a soul by giving a person a new Spirit and a new heart that can have love’s truth written upon it in indelible ink.

A perfect Bride can be raised up from sin’s darkness and ignorance, from an idolatrous heritage and from spiritual prostitution with other gods. God would not and will not accept anything less than a virtuous woman who will be a devoted, faithful wife. He has opened His heart to us, greeted us with the full emotion and wooed us with His love, especially concerning His desire for finding a Bride for His Son. In an extremely heart-wrenching parable God poured out His heart to the prophet Ezekiel concerning the betrayal and disappointment toward His unfaithful, betrothed. This letter of divorce not only tells us that God is looking for a wife but also the pain He is willing to endure in order to find a faithful and true wife and that He will only accept a perfectly faithful and devoted wife, the only acceptable standards worthy of the Messiah who would give up His life for her.

In the parable of the divorced wife, God declares that He had found her alone and abandoned in the gutter, covered in her own blood, unwashed, wallowing in filth. He picked her up, washed her and saved her from enslavement and a lonely death. He transformed her into the most beautiful of young ladies. He had lavished every beautiful gift upon her so she could become His beautiful Bride. He loved her with passion and purity. But she had turned on Him, despised Him for no reason other than to fuel her own lust, went looking for other lovers, and shamed Him with her open lewdness. She led a life of one continuous stream of adulteries, prostituting herself with every neighbor she could woo. In the parable of Ezekiel 16, God reveals His heartbreak to Ezekiel.

The prophet could understand the pain of losing the love of His life, for Ezekiel too had been required by God to suffer the loss of ‘the desire of his eyes’. The pain which Ezekiel was required to suffer (as a prophet must identify with some part or parts of the sufferings of Christ) was to show God’s willingness to cut off even the apple of His eye, the desire of His eyes, if she was discovered to be a harlot without true love for Him. His divorce of an unfaithful, inferior woman of infidelities proves in an antithetical way that God’s true intentions have always been to create a Bride for His Son Jesus Christ. It must be a faithful and perfect Bride. (See the Parable of Ezekiel 16 on this page)

Esther: Representative of That Bride of a Divorced King
The testimony of Esther also speaks of God’s determination to accept only a faithful wife. The king (obviously representing Christ) dismissed the outwardly beautiful Queen Vashti, banished her from his intimate presence, and sought for another bride that would be perfect. Esther, an orphan, stole his heart and was given the honor above all concubines and wives as being his special love.

God is willing, His quest for the perfect wife even demands that He suffer divorce from the fornicators of infidelity to marry a Bride of honor, a ‘virgin’ in spirit who is not an idolater of any sort, who refuses to ‘sleep around’ with other gods, who enthusiastically desires to be carefully prepared by the seven-fold ministers of the king (the seven-fold Holy Spirit of God) to enter His presence and have Him desire her continual companionship. The testimony of Esther reveals all this.

Why would God put himself through a divorce if He were not intent on the prime importance of not being alone but having a beautiful, perfect Bride for the Son of Man.

GOD’S DIVORCE – Ezekiel Chapter 16

Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,
And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.
And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all.
None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the loathing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born.
And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yes, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.
I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare.
Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine.
Then washed I thee with water; yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil.
I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk.
I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck.
And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head.
Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom.
And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord GOD. Shameful Ingratitude
But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and played the harlot because of thy renown, and poured out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.
And of thy garments thou didst take, and decked thy high places with divers colours, and played the harlot thereupon: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so.
Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them,
And tookest thy broidered garments, and covered them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them.
My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith the Lord GOD.
Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter,
That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?
And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood.
And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord GOD;)
That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street.
Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to everyone that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms.
Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to anger.
Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way.
Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied.
Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith.
How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord GOD, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman;
In that thou buildest thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thine high place in every street; and hast not been as an harlot, in that thou scornest hire;
But as a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband!
They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom.
And the contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms, whereas none followeth thee to commit whoredoms: and in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee, therefore thou art contrary.
Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the LORD:
Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them;
Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness.
And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy.
And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare.
They shall also bring up a company against thee, and they shall stone thee with stones, and thrust thee through with their swords.
And they shall burn thine houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot, and thou also shalt give no hire any more.
So will I make my fury toward thee to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry.
Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast fretted me in all these things; behold, therefore I also will recompense thy way upon thine head, saith the Lord GOD: and thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thine abominations.
Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter.
Thou art thy mother’s daughter, that lotheth her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, which lothed their husbands and their children: your mother was an Hittite, and your father an Amorite.
And thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand: and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.
Yet hast thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations: but, as if that were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways.
As I live, saith the Lord GOD, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters.
Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done.
Thou also, which hast judged thy sisters, bear thine own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable than they: they are more righteous than thou: yea, be thou confounded also, and bear thy shame, in that thou hast justified thy sisters.
When I shall bring again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, then will I bring again the captivity of thy captives in the midst of them:
That thou mayest bear thine own shame, and mayest be confounded in all that thou hast done, in that thou art a comfort unto them.
When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate.
For thy sister Sodom was not mentioned by thy mouth in the day of thy pride,
Before thy wickedness was discovered, as at the time of thy reproach of the daughters of Syria, and all that are round about her, the daughters of the Philistines, which despise thee round about.
Thou hast borne thy lewdness and thine abominations, saith the LORD.
For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant.
Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant.
Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger: and I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant.
And I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD:
That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord GOD. Ezekiel 16:1-63