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Sept. 25, 2020 - Jim Bakker Show
04:07
The Ultimate Romance - Joel Richardson
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The Marriage Vow Between God and Israel 00:04:07
I love how you, in your book, you pose this as the most beautiful love story.
So, can you tell us how this is the ultimate romance between God and Israel?
Yeah, so let's just begin in part one.
Okay, so as Christians, we often look at some of the covenants in the Old Testament.
We think of the Abrahamic covenant as those Christians that are pro-Israel, which I am.
You know, we love to quote Genesis 12.
I will bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you and this type of thing.
We love the, you know, the Noahic covenant.
The Lord put his rainbow in the clouds.
He promised never to destroy the earth again with a flood, this type of thing.
But we often look to the Mosaic or the Sionatic covenant, the covenant that God made with Israel.
And we often look at it negatively.
We say, well, that's the old covenant.
The new covenant is better than the old covenant, which, of course, it is.
But what we don't understand is that the way the Lord has framed the sinatic covenant and not just the sinatic covenant, but the whole Exodus itself is specifically as a betrothal ceremony.
It is a marriage covenant between God and Israel.
And if we don't understand this, if we don't understand this basic principle, we will not understand the return of Jesus.
We will not understand the Torah.
We will not understand its role in the life of Israel and in the life of believers.
We won't understand the marriage supper of the Lamb.
And so this really is the foundation.
And so in the first part of the book, I essentially show that the Exodus is a divine romance.
And I work through all of the symbols and the motifs.
Now, listen, the Jews are well aware of this.
You know, Jewish commentators, rabbis, sages, they are very familiar with this, that the Exodus is God's romance.
And it leads to and culminates with his betrothal or marriage ceremony with Israel at Mount Sinai.
But most Christians, we don't realize this.
And so there's so many elements there.
But just as an example, Torah itself, from a Jewish or a Hebrew perspective, Torah is the kettubah.
And the kettubah is the legal arrangement, the legal document, the agreement, the covenant between the bride and the bridegroom.
So in modern times, we simply refer to this as the marriage vows, the wedding vows.
But of course, these are very extensive.
It took them days just to read the whole Torah.
And this really is the legal agreement.
But now you think about this, you know, in modern terms, you wouldn't say like, oh, you know, honey, this is such a burden, keeping these marriage vows, keeping all of these wedding vows.
It's such a burden.
You know, I'm free.
I'm free of these things.
And yet, this is the way that Christians often do speak of Torah.
We think of it purely in negative terms, purely as a burden, purely as a curse and these type of things.
But we have to understand that these are the marriage vows, again, made between God and Israel.
I don't personally believe that Gentiles are obligated to keep every component of Torah.
I want to be very clear.
But we need to understand it through the lens of the beauty that it's presented in scripture.
And it's not just a curse.
It's not just a burden.
It's actually presented as the marriage vows.
And as such, it's important that we recover much of the beauty of these things.
But there's so much more there.
There are so many more elements that show and reveal the fact that this was, in fact, a romance.
It was a courting process that led to a wedding ceremony.
And it will ultimately lead to the ultimate marriage supper of the Lamb, the renewal of this covenant, to the final culmination and establishment of this covenant with God and his bride once and for all.
But not at Mount Sinai, but rather it will culminate at Mount Zion.
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