Divine Wedding In The Old Testament Essay

In the New Testament, there is an accomplishment of the realities prefigured in the Old Testament. Those realities are accomplished in Christ, where Christ becomes the Antitypos. We are considering the history of Christian marriage, this means we are meditating upon the mysterious interaction of divine grace and human activity by which the Holy Spirit moves the Church through the centuries towards a complete recapitulation of all things in Christ so beautifully asserted by Paul in the letter to the Ephesians and initially developed by the genius of St. Irenaeus. Therefore, the divine Wedding in the New Testament fulfils the Old Testament typology, taking up the analogy “from minor to major,” and becoming the “Great Mystery” (Eph 5:32) in order

He inaugurated his ministry by his blessing at the wedding feast at Cana. In the Sermon on the Mount he set forth a new commandment concerning marriage, teaching that lustful looking constitutes adultery (Matt 5:28). He also transcended the Mosaic Laws allowing divorce with his teaching that "…anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, causes her to become an adulterous, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery".(Cf., Matt 5:32, 19:19; Mark 10:11; Luke 16:18) Similar teachings are found in1 Cor 7:10-11. The exception clause "except for…"uses the Greek word porneia which is variously translated "fornication" (KJV), "marital unfaithfulness" (NIV 1984), "sexual immorality" (NIV 2011), "unchastity" (RSV), et al. The KJV New Testament Greek Lexicon, KJV says porneia includes a variety of sexual "deviations" to include "illicit sexual intercourse, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals, etc., sexual intercourse with close relatives…."(Lev.

In the discussion with the Pharisees about divorce (Cf., Deut 24:1), instead of arguing about what is liable or about the juridical motivations, the Lord places the issue directly at the level of creation. His answer is a fundamental resolution, not a casuistic solution: “what God has joined together, let no one separate” (v. 9). Christ knows very well the pro-divorce praxis of his time and he rejects it. The principle which he refers to is not to be understood as temporal moment in the history of salvation; on the contrary it is to be taken as the original authentic will of the Creator. The unbreakable unity of marriage reflects its genuine meaning which, in fact, calls back to creation itself: a marriage acknowledged in this way becomes a means of salvation for the partners. It is withdrawn from human free will and is founded on God’s will. According to Christ, it is God’s will that unites man and woman in a covenant that is not determined by human