Bible Study Seattle

God was a husband to Israel:

“For your husband is your Maker,
Whose name is the Lord of hosts;
And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel,
Who is called the God of all the earth.”  Isaiah 54:5

But he rejected her to chase a new husband:

“Contend with your mother, contend,
For she is not my wife, and I am not her husband;
And let her put away her harlotry from her face”  Hosea 2:2

“If then, you act with hostility against Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will increase the plague on you seven times according to your sins.”  Leviticus 26:21

“I say then, they [Israel] did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their [Israel’s] transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous.”  Romans 11:11

God sought a bride out of the Gentiles to make natural Israel jealous.  Israel’s marriage was ended when Jesus died.  But he rose from the dead!  Thus he will come back to remarry Israel after he has taken a bride from the Gentiles.  Hosea’s marriage illustrates this:

“Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.”  So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley.  Then I said to her, “You shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man; so I will also be toward you.”  For the sons of Israel will remain for many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar and without ephod or household idols.  Afterward the sons of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king; and they will come trembling to the Lord and to His goodness in the last days.”  Hosea 3

The ultimate expression of this reconstituted marriage is in Revelation:

“And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.”  Revelation 21:2-3