“For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name, and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth, He is called.”
– Isaiah 54:5
This is an amazing verse, particularly when you take it from the back and work your way back up. The very last phrase (of Isaiah 54:5) says, “the God of the whole earth, he is called.” So we’re talking about the God of the whole earth. Then the phrase right before that says, “He is your Redeemer.” He’s the one who redeems you, who makes it possible for you to be reconciled to him. We know the storyline of the Bible, that we have all sinned against the God of the whole earth. He’s made a way for our redemption. He is our Redeemer, for us to return to him, to be reconciled to relationship with him.
We haven’t been called to cold, monotonous religion; we have been called to a marriage relationship with the Lord of hosts.
Isaiah 54:5: We Are the Bride of Christ
You keep going back up. “The Lord of hosts is his name.” We’re talking about the Lord of hosts. Now we’ve got this picture of the God of the whole earth, the Lord of hosts, and then the very first phrase, “For your Maker is your husband.” So we have this imagery. God uses it of his people in the Old Testament. He calls himself their husband, he calls them his bride. The same thing in the New Testament, we’re the bride of Christ when we trust in Jesus. He is our husband, we are his bride.
I think about my marriage. I think about my relationship with my wife and I love her so much. She loves me so much, so much more than I deserve. I just think about the beauty that God’s designed for this husband/wife relationship, but it’s really just a picture of his love for his bride. He is our husband, so think about the best picture of a husband you can imagine, a husband who loves his wife, a husband who cares for his wife, a husband who provides for his wife, a husband who leads his wife with love and sacrifice for his wife, a husband who lives to help his wife be beautiful in every way that is right and good.
This is the picture of God. He loves us like this. This is not just cold, monotonous religion. We are in a marriage relationship with the God of the whole earth, with the Lord of hosts. He is our husband.
A Reminder to Make Your Prayers Heartfelt
When we pray, let’s just always be on guard not to pray in some mechanical way, or even worship when we gather together with the church and worship on a Sunday, let’s not do that like it’s monotonous routine. Let’s not let any part of our relationship with God be mechanical or monotonous. This is like a marriage.
When we pray, we pray, “Oh, God, we praise you, not just as our Maker, as the God of the whole earth, but as our husband. We love you, God, we love you. Help us to grow in love for you. We praise you for your love for us. We thank you for your love for us. Thank you for sending Jesus so that we have redemption from our sins, so we have this relationship with you that’s not just like duty or monotony or religious routine. No, this is a delight, oh God. This is glorious, beautiful relationship that we want to experience with you today.
A Prayer for Covenantal Love Between God and Ourselves
“God, help us to experience this with you today. Help us to just walk with you as with a husband and a wife walking together, just in love for one another. God, we pray, knowing you love us like this. Help us to love you like this. Help us to experience the intimacy and beauty and wonder of a covenant marriage relationship with you today. And help us to live in that today and every day. May it just grow. May the depth of our love and our understanding of your love for us just grow every single day. We praise you. You’re the God of the whole earth, and you are our husband. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.”
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
