Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. - Gods Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery

What the biblical writers lacked in diplomacy they made up for in pungency. However indelicate the form of their accusations against the people of God, their bold vision matched the offence they aimed to expose. The people covenanted to God are guilty of spiritual adultery. The wife of God has become a whore.

Formerly a more prominent theme in theological discourse and pastoral ministry than it is today, discussion of the vision of God as the husband of his people, with all that such a relationship entails for them, has recently been reopened by Nelly Stienstra in her 1993 monograph, YHWH is the Husband of his People. The following study was initially prompted by her excellent work but soon struck off in its own direction as an exposition of the biblical theme of harlotry toward God. What begins as Pentateuchal whispers rises later to prophetic cries and is eventually echoed in apostolic teaching. That message proclaims that, if Yahweh is the husband of his people, then their lapses from faithfulness to him may properly be regarded as the moral equivalent to whoredom. Such an analysis is not pleasant to the sensibilities. It may at first seem a strident exaggeration; but is is clearly declared in Scripture and offers a searching assessment of the nature of human sin which our own age has largely overlooked or even forgotten. Alternatively, the marital nature of the covenant intimates depths of communion with God for which the human soul yearns amid the barrenness of the modern world.

In order for unfaithfulness to God, branded as whoredom, to be meaningful, it is necessary to begin this study by setting forth the logic of human marriage as explained by Scripture. This understanding of the human marital bond provides the covenant community with the premise and ideal standard from which they may extrapolate in their thinking about their relationship with God. If a proper marriage makes visible nothing less than a one flesh union, and if the covenant communitys relationship with God is of a marital nature, then failure to live out complete union of the soul with God may be regarded as whoredom. Chapter 1, therefore, will expound Genesis 2:23-24, the foundational passage explaining the principial essence of human marriage.

Chapter 2 will open up a most striking fact. As the Pentateuch unfolds, it portrays Israels relationship with God in terms which rely upon the desirability and moral authority of marital fidelity. The fact that God is the husband of his people is not yet fully disclosed; it is assumed. But the Pentateuch, flowing into the Deuteronomistic history, openly declares that, when the people of God share their devotion with any other than Yahweh, they commit whoredom.

What is suggested in the Pentateuch and historical books, then, is more fully and boldly developed by the prophets. Chapter 3 will expound the burden of Hosea 1 3 in this regard, and chapters 4 and 5 will survey other prophets.