Married, Divorced and Now Engaged

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When a young man entered adulthood, parents, grandparents, other family members and peers would encourage him to settle down, get married and start a family. No doubt Jesus received the same pressure. But for Him, marriage was not an option. Jesus had already been married—in fact, He was divorced!

Scripture reveals that the One who became Jesus Christ—the Rock of the Old Testament (I Cor. 10:4)—was once married to ancient Israel, the physical “church in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38). But the tribes of Israel—the northern kingdom of the house of Israel and the southern kingdom of the house of Judah—were unfaithful to their Husband. They rejected His divine protection, guidance and instruction, and entered into socio-political/religious alliances—spiritual adultery in God’s eyes!—with nations that worshipped idols.

“They say,” the prophet Jeremiah wrote, recording God’s words, “If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? Shall not that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to Me, says the Lord” (Jer. 3:1).

Jer 3:8-10 states, “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. And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks [idols]. And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned unto Me with her whole heart, but feignedly, says the Lord.” (Also read Isaiah 50:1 and 54:4-8.)

God used the ancient Assyrians to conquer and deport en masse the house of Israel into national slavery for their habitual unfaithfulness. The Babylonian Empire did the same to Judah decades later, but the Jews were eventually allowed to return to their homeland.

Only upon Jesus’ death was He legally free to marry another. When He returns to establish God’s kingdom on the earth, Christ will marry spiritual Israel, His Church (Rev. 19:7-17).

“I Change Not!”

Again, the Bible does not give explicit details of Jesus’ life from age 12 to the start of His ministry. But piecing together Scripture, history and the customs and practices of the day provides a fuller and better picture of what Christ must have been like as a youth and young adult.

This we do know: Jesus Christ and the Word are the same (John 1:1-2, 14). He declares, “For I am the Lord, I change not” (Mal. 3:6). He is “the same yesterday, and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). The God of the Old Testament laughed, grieved (Gen. 6:5-6), was broken-hearted (Ezek. 6:9).

He felt anger, suffered long with the failing of others, was gentle, astonished by men’s behaviour (Jer. 32:32-35; I Kings 21:25-29), and was forgiving.

Jesus lived His physical life in the same manner.

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