A friend of mine asked me about the use of the Bride and Bridegroom in the Bible, and God showed me much more than I thought when I started to answer.
All of this rests on the concept of covenant - fundamental, absolutely fundamental to understanding our salvation and relationship to God.
A covenant is the most binding form of a contract. It can be between two people, two nations, or between God and man. God makes several covenants with Israel through specific people (Noah - won't flood the earth again; Abraham - you will be the father of many nations; Moses - the promised land; etc.) God makes an everlasting covenant with Israel and, in essence, ties himself to Israel forever - for better or worse. It would be similar to becoming blood brothers or getting married. You agree to become one in a way that cannot be broken.
One way a covenant was marked in the Old Testament was that three or four sacrificial animals were cut in two. The two halves of each animal were laid opposite from each other forming a path in the middle. The two people making the covenant would walk through the dead animals - as if walking into death and coming back changed/one. When God made the covenant with Abraham, God chose this way and himself walked through the animals.
Genesis 15 - God's Covenant With Abram
1 After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:
"Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward."
2 But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."
4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." 5 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
6 Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
7 He also said to him, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it."
8 But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?"
9 So the LORD said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon."
10 Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. 11 Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."
17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates- 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."
After that, God and Israel were one - married, as God chooses to refer to His relationship with Israel throughout the rest of the Bible.
Isaiah 54
2 "Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame.
Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated.
You will forget the shame of your youth
and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.
5 For your Maker is your husband—
the LORD Almighty is his name—
the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
he is called the God of all the earth.
6 The LORD will call you back
as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—
a wife who married young,
only to be rejected," says your God.
7 "For a brief moment I abandoned you,
but with deep compassion I will bring you back.
8 In a surge of anger
I hid my face from you for a moment,
but with everlasting kindness
I will have compassion on you,"
says the LORD your Redeemer.
Isaiah 62
4 No longer will they call you Deserted,
or name your land Desolate.
But you will be called Hephzibah (My Delight is in You),
and your land Beulah (Married).
5 As a young man marries a maiden,
so will your sons marry you;
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
so will your God rejoice over you.
In Hebrew culture, a "redeemer" was a man who agreed to take a woman in as a wife and provide her food and shelter. When a woman's husband died, usually his next of kin would be her redeemer. (This is why Boaz redeemed Ruth.) This is key to understanding the concept of "redemption" in the New Testament and for understanding Jesus as our Redeemer, often called our "Kinsman Redeemer." More of the marriage metaphor.
In the Old Testament, Israel behaves like an unfaithful wife, choosing other gods/husbands/providers before God, time and time again. But God is the faithful husband that never gives up on Israel. As the Old Testament (a better translation would be the Old Covenant) draws to a close, it is clear that Israel cannot/will not keep the covenant as it stands. Israel does not keep the law, does not love God, and is perpetually in sin. So God institutes a New Covenant that will allow Israel (or God's children) to return to Him as a faithful wife in good-standing.
In the Old Testament/Covenant, Israel could only be cleansed of sin through the system of sacrifices at the Temple. As a nation, on one day of the year only, the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies (where God's presence was) and offer a blood sacrifice (animal) for Israel's sins. (This is what Zacharias was doing when God told him that he would have a son, John the Baptist). This Day of Atonement is still celebrated by the Jews as Yom Kippur.
In the New Covenant, God fulfilled the temple sacrifice once and for all. Instead of an animal sacrifice by the High Priest, Jesus was the High Priest and He sacrificed Himself - a final and everlasting forgiveness of sin by a High Priest that was one in the same with God. When He was crucified, the curtain in the temple, that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple (and everyone but the High Priest) and from God, split in two. As Christ's body was symbolically split in two (or was torn during the crucifixion, represented physically by the curtain splitting), the veil between us and God split in two. Like in the Old Covenant concept, we walk through the divided pieces of the torn curtain, of the sacrificed body - we must come "through Christ" to God. When we do this, we are entering into an eternal covenant with God - we become the everlasting Bridge to the eternal Bridegroom.
In communion, we drink the cup that Christ says is filled with His blood, the blood of the new covenant. That ought to blow your mind next time you take Communion - a "remembrance (do this in remembrance of me)" of the our covenant with God!
I Corinthians 11
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is [broken] for you; do this in remembrance of me." 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the blood of the new covenant; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
The idea of coming to God "through Christ" also explains why Jesus is the only way to God (John 14:6 "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.") As I understand this, it explains why other religions can accurately describe aspects of God, aspects of morality, even aspects of salvation, but none of them provide the means to salvation/redemption/covenant in the way that God has laid out as His way in the Old Testament.
One of the things I'm learning right now (being blown away by) is how absolutely crucial the Old Testament is for the New Testament to make any sense. In some ways, the New Testament is like a text message - filled with shorthand and symbols that the reader is supposed to understand. However, I've found that in the American church we've almost come to believe the shorthand is the longhand and we've forgotten, or never learned, the foundation that will make our faith make sense. There is much we will never understand and will remain mystery. However, God revealed Himself, particularly His plan for our salvation, in a way that we can comprehend, that works for our rational brains. I think because we know so little of the Old Testament that the New Testament doesn't always make sense, and we've begun to take pride in a "blind faith" when God is asking us to open our eyes to His Word.
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My friend particularly asked about the reference in Mark 2:19.
19 Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them." 20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
In this passage of Mark, Jesus is really answering legal questions about what people can and can't do when. In these verses, Jesus is responding to someone's question about why the Pharisees and their disciples are fasting (as, according to Jewish law, they should be) but Jesus' disciples aren't fasting. His answer is interesting because in it He alludes to who He is and that He will die. They most likely don't pick up on that because this early in Mark, Jesus has not identified Himself. He is, in effect, saying to the Jews that their laws and practices are all observed as they wait for Messiah but that Messiah is here.
It is interesting that in the first chapter of Mark, the demons do recognize who Jesus is.
21 They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. 22 The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. 23 Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, 24"What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!"
19 Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them." 20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
In this passage of Mark, Jesus is really answering legal questions about what people can and can't do when. In these verses, Jesus is responding to someone's question about why the Pharisees and their disciples are fasting (as, according to Jewish law, they should be) but Jesus' disciples aren't fasting. His answer is interesting because in it He alludes to who He is and that He will die. They most likely don't pick up on that because this early in Mark, Jesus has not identified Himself. He is, in effect, saying to the Jews that their laws and practices are all observed as they wait for Messiah but that Messiah is here.
It is interesting that in the first chapter of Mark, the demons do recognize who Jesus is.
21 They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. 22 The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. 23 Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, 24"What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!"
