Question:  Dear Greg,

            Is it a possibility that God made a matrimonial (family) relationship with Israel (as wife), and thus, by His own laws could not end this relationship with anything less than the death of either the husband or wife?  (Hebrews 3:13-14 say I can’t give up too easily!)

            Chuck

Answer:  Dear Chuck,

            Exactly.  This is one of the pictures of the old covenant.  It was a marriage covenant.  God committed himself to the terms of the old covenant, as did Israel.  God the husband; his people Israel the wife.  But as the old covenant tells us many times, Israel, the wife, was unfaithful.  But God did not divorce her.  God was and is faithful, in spite of human infidelity.  See the book of Hosea and the wonderful picture of God’s love and faithfulness which God asked Hosea to act out and depict in his life and experiences with his own wife.

            God, in the person of Christ, died for our sins (not just Israel, for while the old covenant was specifically only with the Jews, they were human beings, and we are all children of Adam—we all have sinful human nature, we are all guilty of sin).  It was the cross that ended the old covenant, and made a way for a new covenant.  See the book of Romans, Ephesians—especially chapter 2--Galatians, Hebrews (as you note), and 2 Corinthians 3:7-18.