Singlehood and Isaiah

A Christian single has a unique set of challenges. This blog is about only one aspect of singleness. I came across a passage in Isaiah that expressed God's special fondness for singles in his covenant family. One blessing of singleness that the prophesy addresses is highlighted by Absalom's life. In 2 Samuel, David's son Absalom had no children and he wanted a legacy. He wanted his name and deeds to be remembered. However, even if he became king, he had no heir to the throne to takeover. His name and accomplishments would be forgotten. Absalom thought he could not achieve eternal fame so he decided to build a pillar.

2 Samuel 18:18
Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and set up for himself the pillar that is in the King's Valley, for he said, “I have no son to keep my name in remembrance.” He called the pillar after his own name, and it is called Absalom's monument to this day.

This desire to have one's name and accomplishments remembered is strong. It is not sinful. As it reads in Psalm 26:8, God's name and remembrance should be the desire of our heart. The desire to have children to pass on your name and remembrance to future generations is natural. Obviously, God's knows everyone has this desire: both single and married. God told the eunuchs in Isaiah's day, that he is better than sons and daughters to fulfill this need.

Isaiah 56:4-5 ESV
For thus says the LORD:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
    who choose the things that please me
    and hold fast my covenant,
I will give in my house and within my walls
  a monument and a name
  better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
  that shall not be cut off."

Alec Motyer's commentary on Isaiah makes several key points about the passage[1]. God promises faithful singles, those who "grasped" his covenant, a better legacy than having children could ever provide. God will invite the singles into his home. Their name and monument will not be out in his courtyard, but within his own house. Furthermore, it will be an everlasting name. God will remember singles fondly forevermore.

In the New Testament, Jesus speaks about families. In his speech in Matthew 12, Jesus hints that in the Kingdom of God the family will be transformed.

Matthew 12:46-48
While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Families are established by God and are good, but they are only a shadow and a pointer toward our relationships in heaven. Christ is coming for his bride.[2] Our weak and pathetic loves on earth are going to be surpassed and subsumed by God's love for us. Our relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ in heaven will be far stronger and deeper than any familial ties on earth (Ephesians 4:16).  Jonathan Edwards, an early American theologian, described the relationship of human love to our purified love for God in heaven.

“The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the ocean.” [3]

The states of being single and being married are temporal states. God has designed and gifted us for the state in which we are currently living. Where he has placed in us in our current circumstances is the best possible place for us to be in his loving sanctification of us at this time. Our married status or single status may change. Singles get married. Spouses are called home. However, our legacy as Christians is to be in God's love and be in his love forevermore.

[1] J. Alec Motyer
Keep and choose are imperfects of habitual action, denoting persistence in conformity to the Sabbath-code and in personal commitment to the Lord's will. On pleases me cf. of the Lord's 'will and pleasure' in 53:10; 55:11. And hold fast is probably the explanatory use of the conjunction, a summary statement of what keep and choose mean: 'that is/in a word, those who grip my covenant'. Since the Lord's covenant is first the pledge he makes (his covenant promises), 'taking a grip on his covenant' means taking his promises seriously so as to hold to them by faith through thick and thin. To those, however, who are within his covenant, the Lord speaks his gracious covenant law, teaching them how to live so as to please him. In this case, 'taking a grip on his covenant' expresses the practical life of obedience. The background to a memorial and a name (5) is found in 2 Samuel 18:18, where the childless Absalom sought to perpetuate himself by a memorial stone which would last beyond his own life-span. It is essential to translate temple as 'house' in order to establish the link with verse 7bef, and also to restore the second and literal 'within' before its walls. The eunuch is welcome 'in my house - yes, right inside my walls' not just vaguely within the precincts but right into the person (name) and is enriched with blessings far beyond those which even an earthly family (sons and daughters) might have brought. In 55:13, by gathering in a world-wide people the Lord makes for himself a name that will not be cut off. Here he shares that reality with those who were formerly excluded but have now become members of his house.
(pp. 466-467, The Prophecy of Isaiah)

[2] Ephesians 5:25-27
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish

2 Corinthians 11:2
For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

Revelation 19:7
Let us rejoice and exult
   and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
   and his Bride has made herself ready;

[3] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 17: Sermons and Discourses, 1730-1733