Engaging the Doctrine of Marriage. Matthew Levering

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СКАЧАТЬ at Sinai between God and Israel by throwing the sacrificial blood of animals upon the altar and upon the people (as noted above). In addition, Jesus’ talk of “the new covenant in my blood” alludes to the covenant promised by Jeremiah 31, where, as Pitre has already pointed out, God refers to himself as Israel’s “husband.”

Along these lines, the New Testament scholar Joseph Fitzmyer observes in his commentary on Luke 22:20 that “[t]he ‘new covenant’ is an allusion to Jer 31:31, the promise made by Yahweh of a pact that he would make with ‘the house of Israel and the house of Judah.’”127 Fitzmyer grasps the cultic or sacrificial implications of Jesus’ words, but he does not make the connection that the purpose of the sacrificial action (the spilling of Jesus’ blood) is to establish once and for all the covenantal marriage of God and humanity. Instead, Pitre draws upon a book published in the 1930s that makes the point that Passover itself was nuptial and therefore Jesus’ Passover action is intended to be nuptial as well, with respect to the marital union of God and his people.128

In addition to the Synoptics’ Last Supper accounts, Pitre has recourse to the parable of the Sons of the Bridechamber, found in Matthew 9, Mark 2, and Luke 5. In Mark 2:19, Jesus responds to the people who question him about why his disciples do not fast: “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.” The same point is made in this parable in Matthew and Luke. Jesus adds that “[t]he days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day” (Mark 2:20). This, too, is a clear reference to the future events that will happen to Jesus. Pitre cites the New Testament scholar Adela Yarbro Collins to argue that Jesus intends to make clear that his very presence among his disciples means that there is preparation for an imminent wedding.129 Pitre also clarifies the meaning of οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ νυμφῶνος, which the RSV rather misleadingly translates simply as “wedding guests.” The literal translation of this phrase is “sons of the bridechamber,” an expression that is not found in the Old Testament but that appears in Rabbinic texts. The “sons of the bridechamber” are not simply all invitees to the wedding, but rather they are particular friends of the bridegroom who help to prepare him for the wedding and who attend upon him at the wedding. If the wedding of God and Israel has finally arrived in the Bridegroom Jesus, then it makes sense that Jesus’ disciples do not perform the normal fasting required by Jewish law or custom.

Why should we think that Jesus, in describing himself as the “bridegroom,” has in view a marriage of God and his people consummated on his Cross? As we have seen, Pitre has already suggested that this is the implicit meaning of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper about “the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). Admittedly, examination of the passages in the Old Testament that explicitly foretell a Messiah indicates that (in the words of the New Testament scholar Morna Hooker) “[t]here is no precedent in the Old Testament for referring to any ‘messianic’ figure as a bridegroom, but the image is used of God (Isa. 54.4–8; 62.5; Ezek. 16.7ff.).”130 Pitre’s point about the Messianic “bridegroom,” however, holds firm when the explicitly Messianic passages are canonically combined with the passages that depict the restoration of Israel in terms of God’s promise fully to establish the covenantal marriage of God and his people. In claiming for himself the status of the “bridegroom,” Jesus in the Synoptic accounts of this parable also points toward his Cross, through his reference to the day when the “bridegroom” will be “taken away” from his disciples. Pitre unpacks the connection of the day of the Cross with the day of the consummation of the marriage between God and his people. Specifically, Pitre states that during the seven-day wedding celebration that was characteristic of Jewish culture at this time, “[o]n the night of consummation, the bridegroom would leave his friends and family and enter into what was known as the ‘bridal chamber’ . . . in order to be united to his bride, not to emerge again until morning.”131

The high point of the seven-day wedding feast, then, was when the bridegroom left his friends; and this is precisely what Jesus says that he will do. Thus, Pitre concurs with the New Testament scholar Craig Keener’s remark (about Matthew 9:14–17) that “Jesus is the groom of God’s people in the coming messianic banquet. . . . The ‘taking’ of the bridegroom, of course, is a veiled reference to the impending crucifixion.”132 The bridal chamber of the marriage of God and humanity, therefore, is the Cross, where Jesus spills his “blood of the covenant.” By means of this action, Jesus renews and perfects the covenantal marriage of God and his people that was sacrificially sealed at Sinai but to which Israel could not live up. In this action, Jesus takes on the role of Israel’s bridegroom, a role that only God can truly have. Pitre cites Joseph Ratzinger on this point: “Jesus identifies himself here as the ‘bridegroom’ of God’s promised marriage with his people and, by doing so, he mysteriously places his own existence, himself, within the mystery of God.”133 As Pitre observes, this is one of Jesus’ clearest claims to divinity. Jesus Christ is God come to consummate his marriage with humanity. In making this argument, Pitre includes smaller details such as the crown of thorns (Mark 15:17; Matt 27:29; Luke 22:11) that Jesus wore on the Cross, since a Jewish bridegroom wore “a crown on his wedding day.”134 The fact that on the day of his crucifixion, according to John 19:23, Jesus was dressed in a seamless robe also relates to Jesus’ status as Israel’s bridegroom. In accord with the covenantal signification of marriage, a Jewish bridegroom dressed like a priest, and the high priest’s robe was seamless (see Exodus 28:31–32).

If Israel could not live up to the demands of this marriage—namely the demands of holiness—how can Christ’s bride the Church live up to these demands? On the one hand, humanly speaking the members of the Church are sinners and cannot live up to the demands of holiness. But on the other hand, Jesus’ sacrificial blood on the Cross accomplishes the forgiveness of sins and provides an ongoing fount of reconciliation for his people. Furthermore, as Pitre remarks, the “blood and water” that come forth from the crucified Jesus’ side in John 19:34 has been read as a parallel with the coming forth of Eve from Adam’s side; and the Church comes forth from Christ’s side when from Christ’s side symbolically flow the mysteries of baptism and the Eucharist. Pitre finds, therefore, that the Church is permanently married to Christ in holiness precisely insofar as Christ is continually giving the Church “supernatural life.”135

Similarly, although the New Testament scholar Raymond Brown thinks there is likely no connection to the Genesis account of Eve coming forth from Adam’s side—and although he considers that baptism and the Eucharist likely are only a secondary symbolic meaning of the text—Brown agrees that the water and blood symbolize supernatural life. In light of John 7:37–39, the water stands for the “living water” that is the Holy Spirit and that is poured out only when Jesus has been “glorified” by shedding his blood on the Cross for the forgiveness of sins.136 It is evident that for John, as for the Letter to the Ephesians, the Church has its origin and its sustenance in nuptial holiness in Christ the Bridegroom’s sacrificial dying for his Bride: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her” (Eph 5:25–26). In light of Ephesians 5, Pitre concludes that “the day of Jesus’ crucifixion is his wedding day”—the prophesied marriage of the divine Bridegroom with his Bride “in an everlasting marriage covenant.”137

Pitre adds that the wedding, while begun, is not yet complete, since the Bride is not yet fully perfected and the full number of the elect has not yet been gathered. The Cross of the risen and ascended Lord continues to wield its saving power in the world, sanctifying believers. As Pitre says, not only will many persons continue to come to faith while the world endures, but also “those who have come to faith in the Bridegroom and become members of his bride have often ‘soiled’ their wedding garments through sin and acts of spiritual infidelity.”138 In this light, Pitre points out that the end of the world should be viewed not merely as a cataclysm but as the joyful fullness of the marriage between God and humanity made possible by Christ and his Spirit.

Lest the analogy of marriage seem to break down here—since Christ either consummated it on the Cross or he did not—Pitre notes that in ancient Judaism “one of the duties of the bridegroom was to prepare a home for his bride, so СКАЧАТЬ