Does God have a wife?

They provoked Him by making cakes to the queen of heaven. They had fallen in with the worship of a female idol, so common among the idolatrous nations that surrounded them — the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Babylonians. The Babylonian Venus, Ishtar, was called by them the queen of heaven. The Assyrians called her Beltis, the female form of Baal; they placed a star over her head in the sculpture and called her "the mistress of the heavens." The Phoenicians worshipped this "queen of heaven" under the name of Ashtoreth or Astarte.

Man has projected an imaginary being, the creation of his own mind, the personification of the qualities he finds in himself — has clothed it with power beyond his own, has deified and worshipped it. In the end he has worshipped himself, or a demon behind himself.

On the mercy seat there was no representation of God. "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24). How completely in keeping with all His truth it is that, in those days of partial revelation, of type and shadow, God should have jealously guarded the idea of His infinitely glorious being from any likeness or representation such as was universal among the heathen.

There can be no question that the relationship of husband and wife is used in many passages of the Old Testament figuratively to express the grace of Jehovah to the remnant of His ancient people. Nothing can be more touching than the variety of ways in which He seeks to win their hearts for Himself, to express the place they have in His heart, and His unchanging faithfulness to His promise and purpose for them, however sad their course has been… "your Maker is your husband" (Isa. 54:5), and He can call her "a wife of youth."

There will also be a union in a future day between Jehovah and Israel. There has been the putting away: Jehovah has said, "She is not my wife, neither am I her husband;" but a day is coming when she will say, "I will go and return to my first husband." Jehovah answers, "You shall call Me Ishi," that is, "husband"; "and you shall call Me no more Baali," that is, "master." "I will betroth you to Me for ever." Hosea 2:2-20.

In Isaiah 54:5, and Hosea 2:19, and many other Old Testament passages, we have Israel presented in the mystic relationship of wife, as in Revelation 21 we have the Church. But the difference between the two is immense… The former is earthly; the latter heavenly… The Church is called "the Bride, the wife of the Lamb." As to the terms "Bride" and "Wife," they set forth a positive relationship between the Lord and His heavenly and earthly people. It may be said that they set it forth mystically or figuratively; but they do set forth a real relationship, with its holy affections and privileges.

We must keep Israel and the Church separate in our thinking. The former is earthly, an earthly Bride for Jehovah, a Bride for time, and the millennium brings that to a close; the latter is heavenly, a heavenly Bride, and that for eternity. And let us not literalise to the point of saying that the Head and the Body are one entity, and the Bridegroom and the Bride are two entities. Let us be content to grasp the moral meaning behind the symbolism.