Only One Way Out

People ask all the time why Jesus had to die and then rise. The philosophical answer is real and worth keeping because at the cross, justice and mercy meet in one act. But there is a second question sitting underneath that one. Why did it play out this way, in Scripture's own terms? The full answer is many sided, but one piece of it became unmistakable to me once I started reading three things side by side. The covenant language of the Old Testament, the marriage language the prophets use for that covenant, and the marriage language Jesus uses for Himself.

First, The Big Picture

You may not realize this, but the old covenant was actually a marriage. Yep, you heard me right. God took Israel as His bride and although He "divorced" her it was only temporary. I'll break this down fully in a minute but just hear the premise first, pray on it and then decide for yourself.

First, since it's a marriage, and divorce was never what God wanted, the divorce He spoke over her (Israel) was disciplinary and told her to return (Jeremiah 3). He never stopped being her husband, and He never truly let her go. So the thing that could actually bring that marriage to it's perfect lawful end, and open a new one, was a death. We all know that Israel could not keep faith and constantly failed, so much so that God gave them ritual substitution sacrifices. But these were a never ending cycle, bandages laid over the wound, never the cure, a way to cover the bride's failures year after year without ever ending the marriage.

Second, since God's design for marriage is one husband joined to one wife as one flesh (Genesis 2:24; Deuteronomy 17:17; Matthew 19:5-6), He would not break faith with the bride He already had by opening a second, separate, world-wide covenant alongside the first while it still stood. So how does He save the wife He's currently married to (the descendants of Abraham) and spread His love to the rest of the world as He said He would (per Genesis 22:18)?

The permanent fix was for God Himself to step into the covenant and obediently let Himself be killed. Why? Because that is how God designed a perfect marriage come to its lawful conclusion. His death closed the old covenant, set the bride free, and made room for a new marriage covenant on the far side of the resurrection.

That is why Jesus fulfilled the Law (and did not abolish it). The marriage covenant the Law governed was brought to its lawful end, because the Husband had died. And it is why the nations had to wait for a cross. God was bound to the descendants of Abraham in covenant, and He would not open a new, universal marriage to the world until the first had reached its lawful completion. Once the first was finished, the way was clear to marry the whole world. When you see it, the pieces click into place in a way that is hard to unsee.

Let me open the text and show you where each piece of that comes from.

He called Himself her husband

Start with the claim that this was ever a marriage at all. We do not have to guess at it. God says so, in the words He chooses when the relationship is at its best and at its worst.

וְאָנֹכִי בָּעַלְתִּי בָם ve'anokhi ba'alti vam "though I was a husband to them." (Jeremiah 31:32)

The verb is ba'al, to be a husband. And when the relationship breaks, He reaches for the one legal act that can only apply to a marriage, divorce.

וָאֶתֵּן אֶת־סֵפֶר כְּרִיתֻתֶיהָ אֵלֶיהָ va'etten et-sefer kerituteha eleha "and I gave her the document of divorce." (Jeremiah 3:8)

You do not divorce a business partner or a vassal. You divorce a wife. The husband language and the divorce language are two witnesses to the same fact: God and Israel were married. Bible Odyssey notes that the term there, sefer keritut, is literally a scroll of cutting, the certificate a husband placed in his wife's hand to end the marriage.

Then the third witness, the one most people miss. Jesus picks up the same language and puts it on Himself. When asked why His disciples do not fast, He answers:

"Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them." (Matthew 9:15)

The word is nymphios, bridegroom. From His own mouth, Jesus is the Husband, and in the very same sentence He says the Husband will be taken away. The marriage thread that runs from Genesis to the prophets does not stop at the Gospels. It walks straight into them on two feet.

Death ends the marriage

So if it is a marriage, how does it end? Here is where the perfection of God changes everything.

Marriage as God originally designed it is permanent, one flesh for life, and divorce was only ever a concession to human weakness, never the pattern. Jesus permits it in the case of unfaithfulness but never commands it (Matthew 19:9), and Paul allows release when an unbelieving spouse walks away (1 Corinthians 7:15). Those are mercies God extends to our hardness of heart. We break, so He makes room for our breaking.

But God does not break. He handles His own marriage perfectly, the way marriage was always meant to run, which means He does the very thing we are called to do and so seldom manage. Even with an adulterous bride, He forgives her and will not give her up for good. He sent Hosea back to love a wife who kept betraying him, and told him exactly why.

עוֹד לֵךְ אֱהַב־אִשָּׁה אֲהֻבַת רֵעַ וּמְנָאָפֶת כְּאַהֲבַת יְהוָה אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל od lekh ehav-ishah ahuvat rea umna'afet ke'ahavat YHWH et-benei Yisrael "Go again, love a woman loved by another and committing adultery, just as the LORD loves the children of Israel." (Hosea 3:1)

That is how God loves, so the discipline of divorce was never allowed to be the last word. He would handle even a betrayed marriage the way it was always meant to be handled, by forgiving the bride and refusing to give up on her.

And that is precisely what leaves only one door open. Paul says it plainly.

"the married woman is bound by law to the living husband... but if her husband dies, she is free from that law..." (Romans 7:2-3)

Bound as long as He lives. Since God is perfect (and divorce was merely a concession, not the design) then the only way the marriage covenant can ever perfectly close (by design) is death.

So, He took the death on Himself

So, how does God handle this? The marriage required a death but God did not want the death to fall on His bride. So, He fulfilled the law's demand a different way. He took the death onto Himself.

γενόμενος ὑπήκοος μέχρι θανάτου, θανάτου δὲ σταυροῦ genomenos hypēkoos mechri thanatou, thanatou de staurou "becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." (Philippians 2:8)

Not killed against His will. Obedient unto death. He stepped into the covenant as the Husband and laid down His own life so the bride would not have to lay down hers. The death the marriage demanded was paid, and paid for by Him.

He planned it from the beginning

And this was never a rescue improvised at the last minute. He planned it from the start, and He left the picture of it at the very first cutting of the covenant.

In Genesis 15, God has Abram lay split animals in two rows with a path of blood between them. By the custom of the day, the two covenant partners would walk that path together, each swearing, let me be torn apart like these if I break faith. Both walk, both swear, but watch what happens.

תַנּוּר עָשָׁן וְלַפִּיד אֵשׁ אֲשֶׁר עָבַר בֵּין הַגְּזָרִים tannur ashan velappid esh asher avar bein hagezarim "a smoking furnace and a torch of fire, which passed between the pieces." (Genesis 15:17)

Abram is asleep. Only God moves down the path, as fire and smoke, and karat YHWH et-Avram berit, "the LORD cut a covenant with Abram" (Genesis 15:18). God walks both halves of the aisle Himself. He takes the oath that was His and the oath that should have been the bride's and folds them both into one body. As David Guzik observes, the covenant cannot fail, because it rests entirely on God and not on the man. From the very beginning, God was saying that if a death was ever required to honor this covenant, He would be the one to die. Calvary is simply the day He kept the oath He swore in the fire (and foreknew would be required).

The widow is free from the law

Again, look at Paul's language used in Romans 7

"So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter." (Romans 7:3-6)

Notice the language at the end is referring to the letter of the law. That the covenantal law the first marriage was built on the Jewish people had now been delivered from. In doing so and joining to their new bridegroom in the Physically Incarnated Son (2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5:25-32; Revelation 19:7), she could serve the Spirit and not the old letter of the law.

It's the same eternal Son who was always Israel's God, the One who was with them in the wilderness, now met in a wholly new way: incarnate, crucified, risen, and enthroned. He died as the Husband bound under the old covenant, and He rose as the incarnate Bridegroom of the new. The bride is free, and the betrothal has begun.

Which is why the nations needed it too

This is also why the gentiles needed the cross, not just the descendants of Abraham. While the old marriage stood, God was already bound in covenant to one bride, and He would not break faith with her by opening a separate, world-wide covenant alongside the first. He could not simply throw the doors open to the world without first bringing His marriage to its lawful conclusion. The death and resurrection He provided did just that. With the old covenant completed, the risen Bridegroom was free to take a new bride drawn from every family of the earth, exactly as wide as the promise to Abraham always reached (Genesis 12:3; Galatians 3:13-14).

The Recap

So lay the strands together. God called Himself a husband, He spoke of divorce, though never as the true end He intended. Jesus called Himself the Bridegroom and said He would be taken away. Paul showed that death of the husband is what frees the wife from the law governing the marriage. And in Genesis, while Abram slept, God walked both halves of the oath and pledged to be the one who would die. The cross is where He kept that pledge, and the empty tomb is the morning the new betrothal began, with the wedding day, the marriage supper of the Lamb, still ahead of us (Revelation 19:7-9).

When you see it, the pieces click into place, and honestly... it is the most incredibly, simple, beautiful story ever told. Ps, the origination of this thought came from a podcast by Josh Howerton where he spoke a bit about this.

"But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." 2 Corinthians 11:3

"At that time Jesus answered and said, "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes." Matthew 11:25

"He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:8

In part 2, I go over why we now are able to come our Lord... Father