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Many of us have made an idol of romance and marriage between a man and a woman, and this idolatry is not just in society as a whole. It is in our congregations and denominations, too. Our view of marriage tends to be a “non-view,” an inability to see what romance and marriage is, or even what men and women actually are.

This darkness weighs heaviest on the young people. The kids are decidedly not “all right.” In my ministry and just in my neighborhood, I see the tremendous pressure that we put on them. It is a pressure that is not of the Lord. Here is what the Gen Z vlogger Christina Aaliyah says: “There’s expectations and a rulebook for everything… we are chasing after this imaginary thing.”^[1]  

She speaks movingly and convincingly of the unbearable pressure that paralyzes her and her entire generation. Proverbs tells us, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Prov. 29:19). ^[2]

But it is worse than that. If Ms. Aaliyah is right, we have filled in the blank pages of knowledge with dreadful idols, that, like all idols, bind us with chains. Only a false idol could produce such unbearable pressure, such paralysis described as by Ms. Aaliyah and many others of Gen Z. An illustration: My father was an amateur mountaineer in his youth. Somewhere on the Matterhorn he came to a place where the cliff wall extended vertically up into the sky, as my father looked up into that spatial abyss he found he could not even lift his foot, so daunting was the task. Many young people have the same experience when they look to the picture we have painted of romance and marriage; they cannot move a muscle, a hair, towards the goal––the thing that is expected of them, the thing that they expect of themselves, a sheer cliff reaching into infinite darkness.

Sometime in the early 2000s, I sat in the office of a scholar and colleague in my presbytery. We spoke about the proposed dissolution of the so-called “fidelity and chastity” ordination standard. For those who do not remember or were not there, G-6.0106b in the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was the requirement that those holding an office in the church would be required to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness. For various reasons my colleague and I disagreed.

“It’s a Side Issue”

He was against the requirement, and I was for it, but as we came to the end of the meeting, I brought up the importance of romance and marriage between men and women that we see in the Bible. I offered up the Song of

Songs as evidence. “But Amy,” he said, cordially, as he opened the door for me to leave, “That’s just the Song of Songs. It’s a side issue in the Bible.” I had no reply. We bid one another goodbye, and I returned home with no answer to his objection for days.

For my colleague, the real issues in the Bible were, supposedly, things like justification, covenant, soteriology, eschatology, and perhaps even sanctification. Romance, marriage between men and women, these were humdrum things in comparison, perhaps pretty, perhaps even beautiful, but nothing in comparison to justification, sanctification, predestination, and the like.

I was looking to the Song of Songs, beloved of tweens when sent away to Christian camp, but my colleague was looking at the Epistle to Romans, the cornerstone of the Western civilization. It was only while driving home from a particularly fraught and tear-filled presbytery meeting––for those wondering what I mean by “fraught” and “tear-filled,” I am saying that the meeting was filled with hard looks, harder words, anger and distress, and that people wept as they made their statements on the floor of presbytery––when I remembered what I had been taught. Dramatic as it sounds, I had to pull over. “I remembered,” I say, but I must correct myself, as I was helped to remember by my elder who had joined me for the long drive to and fro. Long ago, my teachers had taught me about the love story in Isaiah 52–55; the romance and marriage right at the heart of the Bible, right at the place where we see the gospel (52:7a, b) most clearly preached (52:7c), right at the place where we see justification (53:11), sanctification (52:1, 10), predestination (55:8, 11), and the everlasting covenant (55:3) to name just a few of the “real issues.”

Of course, by this time in Isaiah there has been a steady drumbeat telling us of this love story, the love story and romance and marriage between the Lord and his city, Jerusalem, pictured as a woman. But now, beginning in Isaiah 52, we see what the labor of the Lord has been for––A woman made happy. “Happy wife, happy life,” as the old folks say. “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city … shake thyself from the dust … loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion” (Isaiah 52:1). And as if that were not enough, then in Isaiah 54, the love story really gets going. We see what the man of sorrows, the “just my slave,” the Lord God, has been doing, what his suffering and death has all been for: “Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing … enlarge the place of thy tent (your children are coming home!) … for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left … for thine husband … the Lord of hosts is his name” (54:1a, 2, 5). The Lord speaks to a city that he compares with the afflicted Hagar (vs. 11a). But now he says:

I will lay thy stones with fair colors and lay thy foundations with sapphires … and all thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of thy children … in righteousness shall thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression, for thou shalt not fear … no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper (11b, 14, 17).

Nature Abhors a Vacuum

For my colleague in presbytery, marriage and romance between a man and a woman was a side issue. I understood his point as I left for the long drive home. I agreed. I saw what he was saying. But this agreement that marriage and romance is a “side issue” was a result of ignorance about Isaiah and deafness to the New Testament and the Bible in general. Marriage is only a “side issue” if we are not seeing the love story that builds and builds in Isaiah until it bursts into glorious flower in Isaiah 52–55. Here is what it comes down to: We have erased the knowledge of the heavenly romance between a man and a woman from our minds, created a vacuum in other words. But that erasure site, that vacuum, does not stay blank, instead it is filled with drear idols, the “imaginary thing,” the unbearable expectations that Christina Alliyah and so many others experience, because “man’s imagination, is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). Indeed, “the human heart is,” as John Calvin says, “a perpetual factory of idols,”

Temptation to Forgetfulness

But why do we forget? Why this erasure? Why do we have this vacuum? Ernst Käsemann opined somewhere in his commentary on Romans that there is an unbridgeable gap between the Old and New Testaments. This gap is easy to see in most of our seminaries and divinity schools. I remember asking my beloved New Testament teacher about Romans 1:3. Karl Barth and Douglas Campbell translate γινομενου as “born” rather than “made.”^[3] I suggested to my teacher that “born” or “having been born” is the correct translation since in the Septuagint “γεν” and “γενν” (gen, genn), are an apt translation of the Hebrew word for “born” or “begotten,” namely, ילד (yeled). Without unkindness, my teacher looked at me and said firmly, “I don’t do that.” She meant that she did not and would not cross the gap between the Old Testament and the New. She was a New Testament scholar and there, firmly planted, she would stay. I understood her remark completely. Among many in the guild of modern biblical scholars it is still considered unscientific, even undisciplined, to leap to the Old Testament in order to understand the New. But there is an even greater barrier to supposing that Isaiah 52–55 has anything to do with the suffering servant who is Jesus.

Her name is Morna Hooker. In her ground-breaking work, Jesus and The Servant (1959),^[4] this brilliant doctoral student roused biblical scholars from their lazy sleep and challenged the theological world. It had been taken for granted by most Christian readers of the Bible for nearly two millennia that Isaiah 53–55 described the cross and resurrection and that further, Jesus understood himself to be the man of sorrows in his suffering, death, and resurrection. Hooker objected to this unexamined position. Her objection? To vastly oversimplify, it was: “Where are the direct quotations?” Jesus and the writers of the New Testament did not lay down the large slabs of Isaiah that Morna Hooker wanted. They did not directly cite large quotations from Isaiah 52–55. Therefore, there is precious little connection, if any, between Jesus and the Jerusalem mentioned in the New Testament, between the Lord, the man of sorrows, and the Jerusalem that we see in the Old Testament.

So, why are we blind to the romance in Isaiah? Why do we not see the love story there? Because we cannot get there. We cannot go, so we are told, from Jesus in the New Testament to the man of sorrows and Lady Zion in the Old Testament and, thus, we cannot see what romance and marriage actually are. There is no path, only a yawning, unbridgeable gap.

No Gap

But what if there was a way?  What if there were no gap between the Old and New Testaments? Since my full argument is quite lengthy, a mere gesture in its direction is going to have to do for now: Matthew 16:22 has been mistranslated, but when it is translated correctly (the exact words of Peter’s rebuke) we hold in our hands the key to understanding.^[5] Long story made very short, while Peter believes rightly that Jesus is the Messiah (Mark 8:29), a correct translation of Matthew 16:22 indicates that he also thinks (wrongly) via the Septuagint that the Messiah cannot suffer and certainly cannot die. Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes the Lord to that end. He is brief and to the point with Jesus; quoting the pertinent scripture, that in his view, shuts the door on the suffering of the Messiah with a nice hearty slam: “mercy to thee Lord.”^[6] This little snip of a quotation from Peter shows that he like many of his contemporaries believed that the suffering servant is Israel; it is Israel that suffers, not the Messiah.^[7] Jesus, however, seeing the fuller picture in the Septuagint and knowing the underlying Hebrew texts, names Peter as the adversary, “Satan” (Mark 8:33), and urges him to ‘get with the program.’

Under these circumstances, namely, that the Septuagint is basically the pew Bible of the time, the Bible that the people read, it is no surprise that Jesus and the New Testament writers need to do a “work-around.” It is no surprise that they do not lay down those copious slabs of Isaiah that Morna Hooker wants. Instead, they are compelled to allude. They must take the indirect approach. They must do a “work-around.” What is a “work-around”? In addition to ballet, I also treat my aches and pains using a method developed by fascia therapist, Sue Hitzmann. It is a form of therapy called Melt––this is not a paid for endorsement, fear not––where, in the places where there is pain, her patients are not to put direct pressure on the area but rather, go right up to the hurt area, and then, back off, working around the problematic part. In the same way Jesus and the New Testament writers work up to Isaiah 53 and then back off. They leave us clues but prefer not to quote directly. Why?  Because, again, the Septuagint’s Isaiah simply will not bear the weight.  However, it seems clear that they also have confidence in us to search the whole of the Septuagint and even to look back at the underlying Hebrew scrolls extant at that time. They have such confidence in us because they have confidence in God and, I dare say, the confidence of God as well. This is perhaps the most amazing part. They expected the hearers of the New Testament to exercise ourselves.  They will not spoon-feed us.

An illustration: Luke-Acts is all about the empowerment of humanity. Notice how Luke never reveals the scripture that Jesus opens to the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:27). We are expected to follow the numerous clues and, with the help of the Holy Spirit, find the way ourselves. Jesus said to his disciples, “you feed them” (Matt. 6:37). The scholars and hoi polloi are both right and both wrong. The people are right in seeing that the New Testament obviously is pointing to Jesus as the man of sorrows, but they are wrong in walling over the observations of Morna Hooker. The academy following Morna Hooker is right in demanding the end of laziness in exegesis but wrong in supposing that Jesus is not the man of sorrows. The clues are there. We can and we must follow them.

What Happens Next

What are some of the things that happen when we follow and are transported into the world of Isaiah, and really into all that “Strange New World of the Bible” about which Barth wrote and spoke? When, for example, it comes to marriage and men and women, we are delivered from the false idol of a god and his goddess consort or perhaps some version or other of Hera and Zeus and their distinctly unpleasant misadventures and mutual loathing. The Bible, you see, is the real critic. We may suppose that we are historical critics, dividing “J” from “E” and voting on what Jesus actually said or what he actually did not say with our beads. But in comparison to the Bible, we are no critics at all.

Consider the Epic of Gilgamesh, the tale from ancient Mesopotamia (circa 2100 B.C.), that tells the story of the creation and the flood. Now, do you remember how in the 1990s the young people used to say? “Yeah (one raised eyebrow) … No.” It was a wonderful piece of slang that meant to say, “You’re wrong but if I squint my eyes, I can sort of see where you are coming from. … But, yeah, no.” In the same way the Bible critiques the Gilgamesh Epic. There, Enkidu is Adam, but this Adam does not love his wife and he certainly does not like her. Enkidu does not say, “This now is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23). Rather, Enkidu would much rather be with his half-god bestie, Gilgamesh, than with his wife. In the Epic of Gilgamesh we see the origin of the wife as “the old ball and chain.”

In the Gilgamesh Epic, we also see the story of the flood, but the gods here do not gently close down the hatch of the ark as our God does, shutting in the little family (including giraffes and elephants and mice and badgers and skunks and birds and lizards … and all manner of beasts!). And here the gods see the people as flies crawling on the earth, annoyances. They do not walk in the garden in the cool of the day and ask, “Where are you?” It is only the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel who wants to be with us and who leads and upholds us with his victorious right hand. He is the one who immediately upon seeing Peter sink beneath the waves, reaches out his hand and catches him. The Bible is well aware of all our wrong notions about God and mankind, and it sets us straight.

In Isaiah 52–55, Isaiah critiques the idea of a god and goddess, indeed it demythologizes the notion. Jerusalem is no “queen of heaven.”  Rather, the heavenly city, our mother, is the restoration of a very real and quite ordinary city in the Middle East, namely Jerusalem. (Gal. 4:26). Ordinary (and small) as she may be, the Lord loves her and out of her comes healing for the nations (Rev. 22:2). I do not know if Anthony Kiedis, the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is familiar with the Bible but he composed a song, “Under The Bridge” all about his love for his city, the city of angels, L.A., “I drive on her streets ‘cause she’s my companion, I walk through her hills ‘cause she knows who I am.”^[8] The Lord God is something like that. But the Bible’s own demythologization is only the beginning.

We also enter the strange new world where Adam and Eve themselves are types of the originals in the heavens. Adam and Eve are the imprint on earth of the Lord, and Jerusalem in heaven. Do we understand how this might set many people in many generations free? In other words, Adam and Eve are decentralized. Instead, we are empowered to turn our eyes upon Jesus. At the same time, Adam and Eve are now actually seen, perhaps for the first time. Adam is a walking, talking statue of the Lord and Eve is a walking talking poem about Jerusalem. Ladies, did you know that the woman across from you on the subway is a daughter of Jerusalem, a living portrait or poem about Jerusalem? Menfolk, did you know that? I didn’t. To recap: We, men and women, are decentralized and at the same time seen as we really are, imprints of the Lord and Jerusalem. The terrible pressure of being the center, the be all and end all is suddenly gone and at the same time we begin to glimpse what we really are as men and women.

Fidelity and Chastity––Indication of Error

The fidelity and chastity requirement mentioned above put the wrong thing first. At the very least it should have been the “chastity and fidelity” requirement.  All things, however, work to the glory of God, because in so doing,  we revealed that we did not understand Paul’s emphasis on singleness. (I Cor. 7:8, 26–40). The wrong order was the indication that we did not understand the Old or the New Testaments. On the other hand, if we are now able to cross the gap, if we are freed up to look where Paul is looking, namely to his Bible and to Isaiah in particular first and foremost, then the reason for his emphasis on singleness becomes clear. Singleness is better than marriage, above it, the first thing rather than the second, because though our marriages do point to the romance that we see in Isaiah 52–55, how much more Paul’s direct service to the Lord and Jerusalem? My marriage to my husband, Farhad, certainly points not only to Adam and Eve but even more so to Jesus and Zion. But how much more does Paul, as a man without a wife, point to that romance in his letters?

It is no coincidence that Romans starts with “the just by faith” (Jesus) and ends with the commendation and remembrance of Jerusalem (Romans 15:25–26).^[9] If our eyes are open to Isaiah we begin to see why this would be. It is no coincidence that Galatians begins with the Lord Jesus and heads towards the restoration of Jerusalem, i.e., the heavenly Jerusalem. If we can cross the gap and get to Isaiah 52–55, we understand why Paul writes as he does. He, as a single man, is directly serving the marriage and romance that is number one, the marriage and romance that is central, the marriage and romance that is the gospel (“good tidings,” Is. 52:7), that is, no pun intended, the Biblical heart of things. I had a wonderful time at my wedding, and I am having quite an adventure now sixteen years into my marriage, but who serves the romance, the marriage better? I would say that it is Paul––and that is why men and women with the gift of singleness, with the gift of serving this romance should be encouraged and not discouraged.

As older adults, are we not sometimes guilty of pushing the young into love and marriage? We can be free of that now because love and marriage has already been accomplished. We can toss that false idol into the garbage heap (Is. 30:22). And as if all that were not enough of a gift from the Bible, consider too our confusion about what men and women actually are. Are we not guided as we walk through this darkness as well? We can follow the lead not just into Isaiah but into the whole Bible. We can go to the Song of Songs now, seeing it, among other things, as an illumination of the Lord and Zion. Did you know that the woman in the Song of Songs is compared to “an army with banners” (6:10)? Matt Walsh goes around and asks, “What is a woman?” Certainly, a woman is an adult human female, but even more she is an army with banners. Did you know that that is how a woman is pictured? As a shining sea of armor with banners flying? I didn’t! Yes, when a woman begets a child, she or the midwife says, “It’s a girl!” or “It’s a boy!” (Genesis 35:18), and that is all well and good but to define a man or woman we ought not to look first to any dictionary. Rather, we ought to look to the Bible and its very unexpected view of man and woman. There is a surprising universe to be found in the Bible. All I can personally guarantee is that it will not disappoint. In fact, both liberals and conservatives and everything in between will one day exclaim, “What’s not to like?”

The End of Expectations

If the marriage and romance of Isaiah 52–55 is the marriage and romance then all of the terrible expectations within Christina Aaliyah’s heart disappear. Why? Because all expectations have been fulfilled. I remember a young lady that was very unhappy with her husband. She would come to me and threaten to divorce him. What she wanted was for me to remonstrate with her. She wanted me to tell her to stay married. And when I complied, she could then insist all the more that she was now most certainly going to get a divorce. It was a strange game. She was tortured (and was sharing that torture by torturing me a bit) because she couldn’t help it, the pressure was enormous because everything depended on her marriage. Our marriages, our romances are central and, to top it all off, we do not even know what marriage and romance actually are. We do not even know of what marriage and romance consist. We are “chasing after some imaginary thing,” as Christina Aaliyah says. We wander in darkness and pain.

To return to the story, the darkness and pain was all too evident as “Susan” sat down next to me in the church basement.  As she began her plaint, began once again to express her terrible sorrows, I must have been a little tired and I suppose God’s power really is made perfect in weakness because I finally said, “Well, Susan, you may indeed get divorced someday but I just want you to know that there is one couple that is not divorced and that is the Lord Jesus and his bride, the city of Jerusalem.” Neither of us knew exactly what I was talking about but somehow it sufficed. We had gotten a glimpse of heaven, a breath of fresh air. Susan gave a little sigh then. In fact, we both exhaled and for the moment at least had some peace as we ate our hot dish in the church basement. We were reminded of the marriage and the pressure was off both of us.

I am a child of divorced parents. That divorce shook my world though I did not even know it at the time. I appeared, even to myself, as only a bit more sad, more worldly wise, and perhaps a little more bitter. But the truth was that my heart was hardened. Every child suffers with and for its parents. In Romans 5 we are told that suffering leads to perseverance and perseverance to character and character to hope, a hope that not only does not disappoint but leads out into love, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. But when there is a divorce, it seems that that all the suffering of both the parents and the child is for naught. There is no happy ending. There is no port after the storm. There is no reconciliation at last. There is no coming through the night and into the dawn. Children of divorced parents often learn the truth of what Malachi says. When faith between a husband and a wife is broken, the faith of the children is often broken as well: “Let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth” if “he seek a godly seed … for I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel” (Malachi 2:15–16).

But here is what we learn from Isaiah, now that we are allowed to go there: The children of divorced parents have a father (the Lord) and a mother (Zion) who are still going strong, who have come through the storm and many sufferings and are not getting divorced, who are happily married. There we can rest, repose, exhale.

Come, Thou long-expected Jesus,
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel’s Strength and Consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear Desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

Here’s the thing. Our expectations are fulfilled in Jesus and not just our expectations when it comes to love and marriage between a man and a woman. The “long-expected Jesus,”—he has come. He has done it. It is finished and we are more than conquerors through him who loved us (John 19:30, Rom. 8:37).

Do we realize what that means? It means that all the books have been written, all the essays published, it means that all the committee meetings have been concluded wonderfully, it means that all the teaching has been done, all sermons have been preached, all good works have been completed and all romance and marriage and happiness has been won. It is done.

Let me explain. One of my best friends has children, young adults now actually; I am just an auntie, but my friend tells me (and she has known me since childhood) that I was a Gen Z-er before Gen Z. Like Ms. Aaliyah, I carry the weight of expectations. I chase after some “imaginary thing,” and I am felled by its enormous unbearable weight. But what if Jesus was serious on the cross? What if his words, “It is finished,” are not idle talk or, as Woody Allen might put it, “just so much chin music?” What if Jesus means it? Well, that would mean that I am free, and that Ms. Aaliyah is free too and in fact all of Gen Z and all of their parents and grandparents and aunties and uncles and everybody else are also free for the adventure (cf. Is. 55), free to do the good things that God has prepared in advance for us to do.

If Jesus is serious then, I, a horrific preview of the worst faults of Gen Z (and not many of their copious gifts), am not paralyzed anymore. I can take up my mat and walk. I am not pinned down by the pressure of expectations because those expectations have already been met. It is done and we are free. We can lift our foot to ascend the sheer cliff. We are empowered to write our books and essays and live our lives and do fun things and hard things and everything in between that God gives us to do because the paralyzing pressure is off. 

We can adventure now, like the rain and the snow that come down from heaven sent from God (Isaiah 55:10). The taut string is loosed, and we are freed, there is play to the line and we can give our sermons and do all the good deeds that we have been called to do because it all really is finished. We can take a risk and not date or get married, or we can do the opposite and we can take a risk and date and marry. The line is loosened, instead of bondage, we are held securely in a bundle of love, we have play, freedom within true safety …  and so, whether single or married we can be happy and serve. The happy marriage has already been accomplished in the Lord Jesus and Lady Zion.

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[1] Christina Aaliyah, “gen z Is undateable.” Stop Shrinking, Start Living, April 24, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y09FwgU9Imw&t=927s, min. 3:28, 14:52)

[2] Unless otherwise noted all biblical citations from the KJV.

[3] Karl Barth, Epistle to The Romans, trans. Edwyn Hoskins (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), 27; Douglas Campbell, “Romans: A Translation for Pagans.” Pauline Dogmatics, March 5, 2025 https://www.douglascampbell.me/blog?offset=1744050469543

[4] Morna D. Hooker, Jesus and the Servant: The Influence of the Servant Concept of Deutero-Isaiah in the New Testament (London: S.P.C.K., 1959).

[5] Amy Kosari, “Answering Morna Hooker,” https://www.academia.edu/35025251/Part_II_Chapter_One_Answering_Morna_Hooker_Faith_As_Establishment_docx

[6] Peter says, “Mercy to thee Lord,”—“ιλεως σοι, Κυριε.” Most scholars seem to take this phrase as a reference to 2 Chronicles but the phrase is an exact quotation of the Greek of Isaiah 54:10 in the Septuagint’s Codex Vaticanus.

[7] Hooker, Jesus and the Servant, 57, 60.

[8] The Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Under the Bridge” Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/track/3d9DChrdc6BOeFsbrZ3Is0, min.57ff

[9] Douglas, Campbell, “Romans: A Translation for Pagans” Romans 1:17, “the just by faith”