Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #8 in Genesis 38, and we will read Genesis 38:16-19:

And he turned unto her by the way, and said, Go to, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee; (for he knew not that she was his daughter in law.) And she said, What wilt thou give me, that thou mayest come in unto me? And he said, I will send thee a kid from the flock. And she said, Wilt thou give me a pledge, till thou send it? And he said, What pledge shall I give thee? And she said, Thy signet, and thy bracelets, and thy staff that is in thine hand. And he gave it her, and came in unto her, and she conceived by him. And she arose, and went away, and laid by her vail from her, and put on the garments of her widowhood.

I will stop reading there.  In our last study, we were looking at the word “daughter in law,” as used in Genesis 38:16 where it says that Judah knew not that it was his daughter-in-law.  We saw how God commanded that a father-in-law was not to uncover the nakedness of his daughter-in-law. 

We found this same word translated as “daughter in law” is also translated as “spouse”  in Song of Solomon 4:8-12, five times, and we are wondering if that is because the Song of Solomon is such an unusual book, and it is always translated as “daughter in law,” except for in that book.  No, that is not the case because we find this same word translated as “bride” in Isaiah 61:10:

I will greatly rejoice in JEHOVAH, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.

The word “bride” is the same word translated as “daughter in law.” 

Let us also read in the next chapter, in Isaiah 62:4-5:

Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for JEHOVAH delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married. For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.

So we can understand that when the Beloved declared in Song of Solomon, “my sister, my spouse,” He was saying, “my sister, my bride.”  And that is because the Bible lays out a spiritual marriage between Christ and His people.  One of the clearest places this is stated is in Revelation 19:7:

Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.

This is the marriage of the Lamb.  Who is the Lamb?  John the Baptist declared, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” and he was indicated that the Lord Jesus Christ was that Lamb of God.  And His wife has made herself ready.  Who is His wife?  It goes on to say in Revelation 19:8:

And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

This is the “bridal gown” of the elect.  There is the traditional bridal gown that many women have dressed in for centuries, and they took the description of it right out of the Bible.  It was “fine linen, clean and white,” a beautiful gown that pointed to the righteousness of Christ because Christ paid for all the sins of His spiritual bride, thus cleansing her, and making her white and pure like a virgin.  That comes right out of the Bible.  Again, it says in Revelation 19:8:

And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

That is exactly who the bride of Christ is.  It is the saints, and saints are not just a few select holy ones that a church determines after holding counsel, but they are each individual God has saved by washing away their sins, thereby making them holy.  The word “saint” means “holy.”  They have the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, and that is what God sees in them, that imputed righteousness.  And that is that beautiful dress that the bride wears.

Christ is God, and He is also the Lamb, and He has a bride.  That bride is everyone that He saved over the course of all history.  Collectively, they form the “woman,” or “bride,” that is spiritually married to Christ for evermore.  That is the reason why it is so important that we understand that when the Bible speaks of marriage, there is not to be divorce.  Marriage is not only for this life and this world, but the spiritual marriage extends into the new heaven and new earth, and for all eternity we are married to Christ.

If it were possible to put away one’s wife in this world, and since God is under His own Law, then He could “put away,” or divorce, us in the next world, but it is not possible.  That is why Romans 8 makes the glorious declaration in Romans 8:35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Then it gives a list of things, but the response is that nothing can separate us from the love of God.  God will not put us away for any reason whatsoever, once we become married to Him.

So this is wonderful, but how does all this relate to Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38?  First, we know that Tamar is called the “daughter in law.”  She is Judah’s daughter-in-law, which can also mean “spouse,” or “bride.”  And it will turn out that Judah will marry Tamar, as he does go in unto her.  We are not specifically told that, but due to the fact that it says, “he knew her no more,” and that she was not burned, it must be as though they were married.  They were married through that union because a child resulted, and Judah is said to be the father.  So the daughter-in-law did become his spouse.  And that is interesting that Tamar, the daughter-in-law, became his spouse, and God uses this same word to refer to all the elect. 

In addition, we know that Tamar was a widow.  That is how she is Judah’s daughter-in-law.  Does that help us to understand?  We are helped if we go to Romans 7.  We have looked at this in past studies, but it is always good to go over it again when we are looking at something new because this will shed light on the historical situation in Genesis 38.  It helps us to understand the spiritual situation.  It says in Romans 7:1:

Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

Here, God tells us that the Law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives.  Which man?  Of course it is referring to all men.  It is not just some man somewhere, but God is using it to represent all mankind.  The Law has dominion over mankind as long as he lives.  Them it goes on to say in Romans 7:2:

For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth…

Now God is making a very similar statement in regard to a woman.  It is the same situation as the Law having dominion over the man.  Why would the Law have dominion?  It is because the Law is in the role of the husband.  The husband is the one in authority.  You can read that in Ephesians 5:22: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.”  It is the teaching of the Bible that the wife is to be in submission to her husband.  And here, the Law has dominion over the man for as long as he lives, and, likewise, the woman is bound to the law of her husband for as long as he lives.  But if the husband is dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 

We understand this.  We realize how this works.  It is how we live, even today.  Two people marry, and then after many years, maybe the husband dies.  Then the death of the husband looses the woman from the law of her husband.  She was bound to him.  She was the one she was to submit to, and no other man.  He was the one she was to be intimate with, and no other man.  But now she is loosed, and that means she can marry another, and that is what God goes on to say in Romans 7:3:

So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

We agree, and we understand this fully.  A woman’s husband dies, and let us say that a year later she meets someone else, and she becomes the wife of this other man.  There is nothing wrong with that according to the Law of God, and even according to our modern law.  It is fine.  There is no adultery involved because her husband was dead.  It is according to law, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Then it says in Romans 7:4:

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ…

So this is going back to the earlier statement that the Law has dominion over the man as long as he lives.  We cannot mistake what God is saying.  The Law has dominion over a man, and I emphasized that this means “mankind,” so mankind is married to the Law of God spiritually as soon as we are created in our mother’s womb.  Immediately we are “married to the Law,” which is why God can say we are conceived in sin and born speaking lies.  Since you cannot bring the clean out of the unclean, and since our parents were unclean, then they conceive a sinner, and we develop as a sinner, and immediately the Law condemns us as “born speaking lies,” and we will continue in that situation because we are married to the Law.  We are bound to the Law, and we are obligated to submit to our spiritual husband that is the Law of God.  And the Law of God is laid out in the Bible.  As a human being created in the image and likeness of God, we are created in this marriage relationship, which was the same marriage relationship that Adam and Eve had as God placed His Law upon the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and they would have lived happily in obedience to the Law, but they disobeyed, and death resulted.  The Law condemns those who are married to it and transgress it.  The Law demands “death,” for the wages of sin is death.  “You have committed spiritual adultery, and the Law of God pronounces death for adultery.  You have broken the Law.  You have broken the marriage bond.  You are guilty, and the Law of God demands satisfaction.  It demands that payment be made.”

 

This is where we have to stop for this study, but keep that in mind.  We will do a quick review in our next Bible study, and from there we will see that the only hope for man (since no man can keep the Law perfectly) is what we read in Romans 7:4: “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another…”

Now that is interesting.  We become dead to the Law by the body of Christ, in order that we be married to another, and, of course, that “other” that we become married to is Christ Himself, JEHOVAH God.  That is how He obtained His bride.