Engaging the Doctrine of Marriage. Matthew Levering

of biblical portraits of God, see Smith, The Early History of God; Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism. See also his more theological work, How Human Is God?, in which he argues that issues such as the divine anger (for example) are caught up in a paradox, rooted in the difficulty of speaking adequately about God and about God’s relationship to us in the midst of sin and suffering: “On the one hand, images of the violent and angry God suffer in their limitations as they partake of our human language. On the other hand, these images capture helpful dimensions of what the divine is about” (43). In response to David R. Blumenthal’s Facing the Abusing God, Smith suggests that we proceed by recognizing that what we see in the prophetic texts involves the people’s effort to understand their intense sufferings during the conquest in relation to the covenant to which God remains faithful. He states, “Anger and love are strong, powerful emotions that reflect how deeply one feels about another person. In Jeremiah and Ezekiel, this is God and Israel, husband and wife, now suffering from their terrible breakup. Even anger, terrible anger, is part of this tragic love story. Yet even so, this story is never done, because God is never done; God recovers from the wounds inflicted by Israel, and so Israel does as well” (How Human Is God?, 52). Attending to the creation passages in the Old Testament, Smith notes that God the Creator is depicted in terms of his power, wisdom, and presence—and this context is the context of the covenant.

      187. Augustine, Confessions, III.v.9, p. 40.

      188. Augustine, Confessions, IX.v.13, p. 163.

      189. Augustine, Confessions, V.xiv.24, p. 88.

      190. Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, §42, p. 66. See Ramage, Dark Passages of the Bible.

      191. Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, §42, p. 66.

      192. Yvonne Sherwood points out that when Jerome and Augustine turn to the prostitute married by the prophet in the Book of Hosea, both of these Church Fathers insist that the prostitute (Gomer) became completely chaste prior to the marriage. See Sherwood, The Prostitute and the Prophet, 51.

      193. See Pitre, Jesus the Bridegroom, 155.

      194. Weems, Battered Love, 119.

      195. Weems, Battered Love, 114–15.

      196. Abma, Bonds of Love, 29; cf. 257.

      197. Abma, Bonds of Love, 257. Abma recognizes that in a certain sense this marital imagery is an “anthropomorphism,” but it is an anthropomorphism unlike other anthropomorphisms about God in Scripture (such as God having emotions, desiring to do wicked actions, having “a face, mouth, eyes, heart, hands, ears, feet and a voice,” and so on [Bonds of Love, 258]). The transcendent God can indeed unite a people to himself in an intimacy so profound as to be marital. As Abma says, “There is no shade of sexuality or procreation in the relationship with Yhwh . . . but there is intimacy between Yhwh and Israel. . . . God’s love for Israel implies that he takes pleasure in the people and in their being with him (Jer. 2:2). He enjoys Israel as his partner and does not want to lose her (Hos. 2:21–22). There is a sense of joy and delight in God’s partnership with Israel (Isa. 62:4). If there has been a temporary estrangement, a new and fresh start is made, indicating that Israel remains the partner after God’s heart” (Bonds of Love, 259). Israel lives “side by side” with God and enjoys “fellowship” and “companionship” with him (Bonds of Love, 259).

      198. Ortlund, God’s Unfaithful Wife, 8.