The Bible Answers Short Questions From Our Readers
Plain Truth Magazine
December 1964
Volume: Vol XXIX, No.12
Issue:
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The Bible Answers Short Questions From Our Readers
Plain Truth Staff  

   "Why didn't Jesus Christ ever marry?"
H.F., Vass, North Carolina

   Jesus Christ did marry! Your Bible says so! It even names His wife. It tells us when and where and why He married.
   Shocking? Yes! But it has been in your Bible all these years!
   Jesus was a strong, virile, thoroughly masculine young Jew, with every natural attraction to the opposite sex. Yet during His 33 1/2 years in human flesh, He never married. The reason?
   Because He was ALREADY MARRIED!
   Open your Bible. See this amazing truth with your eyes!
   Jesus Christ is the Father's Spokesman — the Word of the God Family. Jesus is the LORD of the Old Testament — the One Who did the speaking at Creation. God the Father planned the Universe. Jesus spoke and it was done by the power of the Spirit of God.
   Notice the proof: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made (John 1:1-3).
   Jesus — the Word — created everything. He created Man male and female. He established the marriage relationship (Gen. 2:21-25).
   Two of the Ten Commandments specifically govern the marriage union, and insure the proper family relationship. Jesus also performed the first marriage.
   Many years later this same Jesus, who ordained marriage, was Himself married. Here is what happened.
   Jesus, the LORD of the Old Testament, spoke the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai (Ex. 20:1). It was not the Father who spoke these words. No man had heard the voice of the Father or had seen His shape, said Jesus in John 5:37.
   At Mt. Sinai, Jesus — the LORD — also made a covenant with the nation Israel. In the New Testament Scriptures, this covenant is referred to as the Old Covenant. It was based on the Ten Commandments and on God's statutes and judgments.
   That covenant was a MARRIAGE AGREEMENT — a marriage covenant. But who did ancient Israel marry' With whom did the nation of Israel make this agreement? The LORD Jesus! In Jeremiah 3:14 the LORD of the Old Testament commands Israel, His wife: "Turn, O backsliding children... for I AM MARRIED UNTO you!"
   There you have it. Jesus was married to the nation Israel!
   Israel married the God of the Old Testament — Jesus Christ before His human birth!
   Some ministers claim Israel was married to the Law! Not so. Individuals don't marry a code of laws — individuals marry other individuals! Every marriage is based on law — else it would not be legal. The Commandments, God's statutes and judgments, were only the terms and conditions — the basis — of that marriage contract.
   As the Eternal (LORD) of the Old Testament, Christ — the Husband — promised to provide for and protect the nation or congregation of Israel. The nation Israel, in turn, agreed to remain faithful always to Him. He agreed to perform the duties of a husband, to provide for and bless her. Israel, as a nation, accepted the role of a wife, to obey her Husband.
   But ancient Israel was not faithful to her part of the marriage contract! They turned from worshipping God, and followed the customs of the heathen — serving other gods. They broke their part of the marriage covenant by committing spiritual "adultery."
   God is holy. He does not "co-exist" with sin. Therefore He was forced to separate His "wife" from Himself (Isa. 50:1).
   Notice what God says to Jeremiah, "Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? She is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree and there played the harlot.... 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" (Jer. 3:6, 8).
   It was Israel's sins that separated between her and God (Isa. 59:1-2).
   Even though Israel had committed spiritual adultery, God was not free to marry again! Adultery is not a cause for divorce and remarriage! (See our free booklet Divorce and Remarriage.) That's why the Eternal said, "Turn, O backsliding children... for I AM MARRIED UNTO YOU!" (Jer. 3:14.)
   The God of the Old Testament — the Jesus Christ of the New — was still bound to keep His part of the conditions in the marriage contract.
   These conditions, however, are limited by DEATH. Only the death of one of the partners of a marriage contract can sever the marriage relationship. Marriage is binding until death!
   The marriage covenant Jesus made with ancient Israel before His human birth was binding until the death of one of the contracting parties. As long as the LORD Jesus was living — whether as the Eternal of the Old Testament or as a human being — He was still married to Israel! As a human being He couldn't have married another during the 33 1/2 years of His earthly life.
   Jesus Christ's death on the stake at Golgotha freed Him from His first marriage contract to physical Israel. It also freed Israel. Now He is free to marry a repentant, forgiven, sin-free "spiritual Israel" — the New Testament Church soon to be born again into the Kingdom of God!
   When Jesus Christ returns, He WILL MARRY AGAIN!
   Notice the words of the apostle John preserved in the book of Revelation:
   "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).
   Jesus Christ is corning again. He is free to marry. Whom will He marry? His wife! — ancient Israel who was once married to Him, but did not keep the conditions of the covenant — God's law. When Christ returns He promises to make a NEW covenant — a NEW MARRIAGE AGREEMENT. That new marriage contract will be made with "spiritual" Israel — God's New Testament Church — born again.
   This time the wife will remain faithful. Why? Because she will have received God's HOLY SPIRIT and, at the resurrection, will have been born as a perfect spiritual nation — into the Kingdom of God. God's spirit enables one to keep God's laws — the terms and conditions of the New Covenant.
   The time of this wedding is very soon indeed! John wrote, "Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb" (Rev. 19:9). Will you be among them?
   Remember, also, that Jesus, as a human being, left an example for us to follow.
   Most people don't know when and under what circumstances one ought to marry!
   Had Jesus been free to marry during His short human lifetime, there were a great many good reasons why He would not have.
   In Matthew 8:20, Jesus said, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head."
   What kind of life could Jesus Christ have provided for a wife? He had to be constantly on the move, never able to settle down in one place and establish the proper home environment a wife needs. For three and one-half years Jesus dedicated every waking hour to the vital ministry God had called Him to perform.
   Too many young men give little heed to whether or not they can adequately provide for a wife and family if they marry. Today, hurried courtships and "quickie" marriages are the rule rather than the exception. People should remember the example of Jesus Christ!
   At the end of His public ministry, Jesus knew he was to die a bloody death at the hands of brutal Roman soldiers. He told His disciples, "The son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and the chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised again the third day" (Luke 9:22).
   Christ knew it was unwise to marry for just a short time and leave a young widow and possibly children to face the howling mobs of His tormentors after the crucifixion. Jesus was too kind, and loved too deeply to put any woman through such an ordeal.
   In the same way, anyone who today marries while his life is in imminent danger — as in wartime marriages — is thinking only of himself!

   "Is God fair? Why would a loving God send the whole English-speaking world into national captivity just for our sins? Sure, many have sinned and perhaps deserve to be punished. But aren't there many very fine people who go to church regularly each Sunday? They are sincerely doing what they think is right. Would God punish those who have not sinned along with those who have?"
J. D., California

   God is fair. God is love.
   God is also just. He hates sin. Sin is what brings us suffering, misery, heartache, woe and war and death. God loves us enough that He wants US to quit sinning! To learn, instead, the way to peace, happiness and eternal life.
   Surely, the people are usually sincere in doing what they think is right. Chamberlain of England was sincere when he made the Munich agreement with Hitler. The result? World War II.
   It is not a matter of sincerity alone. One can be sincere and still be wrong. God loved us enough that twice He inspired in Scripture: "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Prov. 14:12; 16:25). Sin is doing what we think is right, when God says it is wrong!
   The allied English-speaking peoples have witnessed the rise of Germany in two World Wars. But we close our eyes to the facts. We stubbornly refuse to learn the lessons of history. What are we doing now? Doing what seems right — rebuilding Germany again!
   Notice what God says of man's attempts to achieve world peace: "... and the way of peace they have not known" (Rom. 3:17).
   Man has rejected the ways of God. He has brought the world to the brink of cosmocide.
   For nearly 6,000 years God has let the world go its own way. Now God must step in to save it from itself. He is now warning the world with words. But the people aren't heeding. Notice the prophecy of Amos:
   "Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, and shall not the Lord DO SOMETHING? [see margin] Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He reveals His secret unto His servants the prophets" (Amos 3:6-7).
   The warning God promised to send is TODAY being sounded through the WORLD TOMORROW broadcast and The PLAIN TRUTH magazine. Your eyes are reading it this moment! If you really and sincerely want to obey and serve God, then believe Him, repent, and you WILL BE DELIVERED!
   "If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, HE SHALL SURELY LIVE, he shall not die..." (Ezek. 18:21-25).
   God is not unjust! He says, "Behold, all souls are mine... the soul that sinneth IT SHALL DIE. But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right.... Hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God" (Ezek. 18:4-9).
   But the wicked — the many who hear the warning and do not turn from their ways — WILL GO INTO NATIONAL CAPTIVITY! That is the only way sincerely stubborn people will learn the lesson!
   Some people claim God is unfair — instead of being thankful for the warning and DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
   "Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, everyone according to his ways, saith the Lord God, Repent and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.... For I have NO PLEASURE IN THE DEATH OF HIM THAT DIETH, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves and LIVE YE" (Ezek. 18:30-32).
   God has provided a way of escape for you.
   If you have not yet done so, write in immediately for our reprint article: "There Is a Way of Escape." And also ask for the booklet on the Ten Commandments. Both are free!

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Plain Truth MagazineDecember 1964Vol XXIX, No.12