Let me preface
this that this is just me “theologically spitballing.” I could be right, I
could be dead wrong. Just take it as it is.
There are, albeit very rare, instances of God making allowances to the receipt of ordinances. One example is that of John the Baptist who was baptised while still in his mother’s womb (for a discussion, see D&C 84:28 and the baptism of John the Baptist). With respect to the question of whether Jesus was married/sealed to a wife, let me make the proposal that, being the God of the New Covenant and the New Covenant People of God, Jesus’ marriage was another example of a special exception to the rule—He was/is sealed to a corporate entity. My proposal is that, just as John the Baptist, due to his singularly unique role in salvation history, received baptism while still in the womb (and, per D&C 84:28, was ordained to the priesthood at 8 days of age!), Jesus, who played tbe greatest role in salvation, was indeed married/sealed, but such was in an extraordinary manner due to his extraordinary (putting things very lightly!) role in salvation history.
In a section
entitled “The New Law Allows Jesus to Marry Israel,” one LDS author wrote:
Jehovah of the Old Testament died on the
cross so that the resurrected Christ would remarry His chosen people. Although
Jehovah divorced Israel, as long as the Mosaic Law remained in effect, He could
not remarry her. Moses decreed, “When a
man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favor
in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her; then let him write
her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his
house . . . Her former husband which sent her away, may not take her again to
be his wife” (Deut 24:1, 4). Jehovah assured Israel that despite their divorcement,
he would remember her: “Behold, I have
graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me” (Is
49:16). Not only would He fondly cherish the wife of His youth, but he would
retrieve her: “Behold, for your iniquities
have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away .
. .O house of Israel, is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem; or
have I no power to deliver?” (Is 50:2-3). The devil had kidnapped that wife
and held her captive in abuse and squalor, while enticing her to worship devils
through pagan practices and idolatrous worship. Jesus paid the ransom to free
His ex-wife, not with gold or silver, but with His precious blood, which flowed
from his side on Calvary’s tree.
Paul explained the law of remarriage: “For the woman which hath a husband is bound
b the law to her husband only as long as he liveth; for if the husband he dead,
she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband
liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but
if her husband be dead, she is free from that law” (Rom 7:2-3). Jesus’
death freed Israel from the Mosaic Law, which God had authored to return and
remarry its Redeemer. As preparation for her remarriage Jesus prepared a better
way through His gospel to de-program and rehabilitate His brainwashed love. The
new way is the ordinances of the New Covenant and not the procedures of the Old
Law.
Latter-day Israel is prepared for its
marriage to the risen Savior through the gospel ordinances. The celebration of
that marriage, the marriage supper, awaits the Savior’s return. In the gospel
ordinances latter-day Israel covenants with their risen Savior. The act of
baptism espouses the obedient to their Lord, which espousal is consummated in
the marriage that follows Jesus’ glorious descent in fiery chariots. The coming
bridegroom is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. He is not the deliverer
personified in Joshua, but the risen Savior – the new husband perfected by
total submission to the will of His heavenly Father. Like Jacob, who wed Leah,
who “was tender-eyed” (Gen 29:17), after
laboring seven years for his espoused wife, Rachel, even so, Jesus came in his
first advent and discovered that his wife was blind and could not recognize Him.
One application of tender-eyed is weak-eye, meaning dim-sighted, while
Rachel, is derived from the Hebrew word for ewe,
or female sheep. After Jesus died to
save his lost people, he rose on high, awaiting His second advent, His coming
in glory, in which the risen Jehovah is free to marry His transformed people –
His sheep who hear His voice (Matt 10:27). (Bob Moore, Hebrew Feasts in the Restoration [Independence, Miss.: Mooremark
Books, 2010], 34-35; on the “divorce” of Israel, see Jer 3:8; cf. Hos 8:8; Zech
10:9)
In the book
of Revelation, Jesus is said to have a bride/wife:
And the light of a candle shall shine no more
at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard
no more all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by
thy sorceries were all nations deceived. (Rev 18:23)
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour
to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself
ready. (Rev 19:7)
And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,
coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband
. . . And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials
full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will
shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. (Rev 21:2, 9)
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And
let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever
will, let him take the water of life freely. (Rev 22:17)
And after that cometh
the day of my power; then shall the poor, the lame, and the blind, and the
deaf, come in unto the marriage of the Lamb, and partake of the supper of the
Lord, prepared for the great day to come. (D&C 58:11)
Before I continue, even if one wishes to claim that all of these texts
are purely metaphorical in their use of bridal/wedding language, that is fine.
However, the very fact that the inspired author of the book of Revelation (whose
ultimate author is the Father through the Son [cf. 1:1]) would use a metaphor
of Jesus having a wedding and being a bridegroom and husband shows that the
theory that Jesus was truly married (even to a singular woman, not a corporate
entity merely) is not heretical. If
it were, it would mean that the Bible is using, in a positive context, a
metaphor whose (non-metaphorical) reality is an intrinsic evil! No one would claim that, as
homosexual activities is evil, does not mean that it can be used for Jesus in
the context of a positive metaphor, right? So if one holds, even on a personal
level, that Jesus was married is not, in and of itself, heresy.
Here are what some commentaries say about some of the above texts:
Rev 19:7
The primary focus surely is on the wedding
metaphor. The casting of Christ as a bridegroom and people of God as the bride
was well known in the early church (e.g., 2 Cor 11:2; Eph 5:25-32). At Matt
22:2, Jesus compares the reign of God to a wedding banquet that a king prepares
for his son. It is this same wedding that the earthly crowd now celebrates in
the only context (Rev 19:7, 9) where John deploys the term gamos (wedding). The Lamb is the risen, exalted Jesus. John
rekindles a touch of universalism when he later reveals that the bride, as the
people of God, symbolizes much more than the limited form of the church . . .
She is the new city of Jerusalem, “the renewed world of God” (Schüssler
Fiorenza, Vision of a Just World,
103).
John’s focus on God’s universal people as the
divine bride takes its cue from Old Testament depictions of Israel as the brie
of Yahweh (Isa 1:21; 54:1-8; Jer 2:2; 31:32; Ezek 16:8-14; Hos 2:5; Eph 5:32).
The reference to her prepared garments as a symbol of her readiness also has
strong Old Testament foundations (Gen 35:2; Isa 52:1; 61:10; Zech 3:4; see
Caird 234). John develops the metaphor for his own purposes with the language
of preparation in v. 7 and an explication of what the preparation means in v.
8.
Clearly, the bridge’s very identity as those
who witness to the lordship of God and the Lamb is a part of her preparation.
John’s heaviest concentration of the term gynē
(woman, bride) appears in the corresponding chapters 12 and 17. The woman
clothed with the sun, at once the people of God who give birth to the Messiah
(12:1-6) and the people of God who become the followers of that Messiah
(12:17), is positioned against the whore of Babylon/Rome, whose fornication
disrupts all the earth. In fact, except for several literal uses of “woman”
(cf. 2:20; 9:8; 14:4), John uses the word exclusively to counterpose one female
metaphor for people (opposed to God) with another (witnesses for God). Here, “woman”
as bridal witness is presented one
penultimate time before its climactic and definitive presentation at 21:9. It
is her witnessing that prepares her for marriage to the Lamb. No wonder, then,
that this “woman” witness is also termed the Lamb’s nymphē (bride) as 21:2, 9; 22:17. (Brian K. Blount, Revelation: A Commentary [NTL; Louisville,
Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009], 344-45)
the marriage of the
Lamb has come:
Israel as bride of Yahweh is a prophetic theme (Hos 2:16; Isa 54:6; Ezek
16:7–8). Jesus is represented as referring to himself as bridegroom (Mark
2:19–20; see Matt 22:1); Paul transferred the prophetic imagery to Christ and
the Church (2 Cor 11:2).The theme is further developed in Ephesians and
Revelation: Eph 5:25, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”; in
Revelation those who form the bride of Christ have been redeemed “by the blood
of the Lamb” (5:9; 7:14; 14:3–4).
his bride: It is quite in John’s
style to introduce the bride of the Lamb abruptly (see 11:7; 14:18); the image
will be explained in a later scene (21:9–14).
has made herself ready: The bride has donned
her wedding gown. In Eph 5:26–27 Christ has prepared his bride by washing her
in the bath of baptism and by making her immaculate. Here the situation is
quite the same. (Wilfrid
J. Harrington, Revelation [Sacra
Pagina 16; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2008], 186)
Rev 21:2, 9
The marital imagery in the contexts of the
Isaiah 52 and 62 allusions comes to the fore at the end of Rev. 21:2: the city
is now seen “as a bride adorned for her husband.” This is a third allusion to
the same Isaianic context. Isa. 61:10 LXX personifies Zion saying in the
prophetic perfect, “he adorned me with ornamentation as a bride” (Isa. 62:5
also uses “bride” as a metaphor for the people of Israel). Isaiah says in the remaining
five lines of the same verse that there will be rejoicing by those whom the
Lord will clothe at the time of Israel’s end-time restoration. The literal
meaning of the metaphorical clothing is explained as “salvation” and
“righteousness,” resulting in deliverance from captivity. The phrases in Isaiah
about the bridegroom and bride being clothed do not mean that Israel
accomplishes any part of its own salvific righteousness. They emphasize,
rather, what the reception of the coming salvation and righteousness from God
will be like: like a new, intimate marriage relationship in which bride and
bridegroom celebrate by donning festive apparel. The same point is
metaphorically affirmed in Rev. 21:2 and abstractly stated in 21:3 (4 Ezra
10:25–50 also equates a beautiful woman with the future Jerusalem that will be
established).
Rev. 19:7–8 has already alluded to the same
Isaiah passage to make a similar point about God’s intimacy with his redeemed
people. It thus clarifies further that the bride is a metaphor for the saints.
In particular, the wedding garments in 19:7–8 connote not only righteous acts
committed by saints but also their vindicated condition as a result of their
faithful acts (or their vindication as a result of God’s acts of judgment
against their oppressor, which is also a prophetic theme in the Isaiah
context). Throughout the Apocalypse ἑτοιμάζω (“prepare”) has been used of an event occurring
ultimately as a result of God’s decree and not human action (so 9:7, 15; 12:6;
16:12; cf. 8:6, where angels “prepared themselves to sound”). So also here in
21:2 the intimate union of God and his people, and possibly his vindication of
them, is a prophetic decree depicted as fulfilled in the future. Preparation of
the “bride adorned for her husband” conveys the thought of God’s
preparation of his people for himself. Throughout history God is forming his
people to be his bride, so that they will reflect his glory in the ages to come
(so Eph. 5:25–27), an idea developed in what remains of Revelation 21 (cf. 2
Cor. 11:2).
Isaiah’s prophecy of Israel’s final
redemption finds fulfillment in the church since Rev. 3:12 identifies both
Jewish and Gentile Christians in the church of Philadelphia with the “new
Jerusalem.” This is confirmed further by 21:10–14, which figuratively
identifies the names of Israel’s tribes and the names of the apostles as part
of the structure of “the holy city Jerusalem descending from heaven from God,”
which itself is equated with “the bride, the wife of the Lamb” (21:9).
Therefore, “the saints” wearing wedding clothing in 19:7–8 also represent the
multiethnic church.
The image of the city is probably figurative,
representing the fellowship of God with his people in an actual new creation,
though some see the new cosmos as merely an ethically renovated old earth. (G.K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A
Commentary on the Greek Text [New International Greek Testament Commentary;
Grand Rapids, Mich.: 1999], 1044-45)
2. the holy
city, new Jerusalem: Structurally, 21:1–2 is modeled on Isa 65:17–19: the
appearance of a new world, the disappearance of the former things, and the
manifestation of a new Jerusalem. See Isa 52:1, “Awake, awake, put on your
strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garment, O Jerusalem, the holy city.”
See Isa 61:10.
coming down out of
heaven from God:
A permanent attribute of the new Jerusalem; see 3:12. It is a city of heavenly
origin—originating in God’s true
heaven—a city “whose builder and maker is God” (Heb 11:10; see 12:22; 13:14).
See Gal 4:26, “the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother”; Phil 3:20.
like a bride adorned
for her husband:
See 19:7; 21:8–14; Isa 49:18, “You [Zion] shall put them on as an ornament, you
shall bind them on as a bride does”; Isa 61:10, “He has clothed me with the
garments of salvation … and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” The
double image of “city” and of “bride” is traditional. The image of “city” comes
from an apocalyptic strand going back to Ezekiel 40; the metaphor of “bride” is
common in Old Testament and New Testament (see Hos 2:16, 19; Isa 54:6; Ezek 16;
Tob 13:16; 2 Cor 11:2; Eph 5:25). John combines the images; already, in ch. 17,
the harlot is also the city Rome. In 4 Ezra 9:38–10:54 Ezra has a vision of a
mourning woman and, suddenly, “the woman was no longer visible to me, but there
was an established city.… This therefore is the meaning of the vision.… This
woman whom you saw, whom you now behold as an established city, is Zion”
(10:27, 40, 44).
(Harrington,
Revelation, 207)
As I said, I
am not saying this is dogmatic or that I am 100% confident in this proposal. I
could be wrong. Notwithstanding, I decided to create this post just to throw it
out there for fellow Latter-day Saints as food for thought and perhaps to hash
things out.
For previous
blog posts discussing the marital status of Jesus, see, for e.g.:
Anthony
Sweat on the Question of Whether Jesus was married
Excerpts
from Mark D. Ellison, “Family, Marriage, and Celibacy in the New Testament”
WasJesus a "Rabbi"? And if so, does that mean he was (1) married and (2)a polygamist?
The
Wedding at Cana was NOT Jesus’ Marriage
For
an interesting text on the debate about Jesus and whether he was married, see
Anthony Le Donne, The Wife of Jesus: Ancient
Texts and Modern Scandals
