Was it true that if a maiden was bethroth or engaged to marry, to break the engagement
called for a bill of divorcement ? If I recall when Mary was espoused to Joseph and he thought she had been unfaithful its recorded Matt 1:18-19.
The espousal period was only a promise period, the consummation hadnt occurred, and yet even then scripture says Joseph was her husband.
Seems the promise period is binding with God. Jesus was Surety to the elect b4 the world began, His Promise as Surety to come into the world and deal with the sins of the elect was binding on Him.
In fact He called it a commandment at one point Jn 10:18.
When do you think this became a commandment ? I believe it was b4 He came down from heaven Jn 6:38.
So when did the Godhead ever expect the elect to be charged with their own sins and not their Surety ?
The certainty of promise
In first-century Jewish practice, betrothal was legally binding but it did not equal consummated marriage, as you noted. Joseph was called Mary’s “husband” during betrothal because the covenant was certain, not because the marriage was completed. And it just so happens that this actually supports Arial’s point: a guaranteed future reality is not the same as a realized present state. A marriage is not a marriage if it is never consummated.
Christ as surety secures but does not constitute payment
Christ as covenant surety (Heb 7:22) means the debt will certainly be paid, not that it has been paid from eternity. Like betrothal versus marriage, the
pactum salutis establishes the obligation and inevitability of what yet must be accomplished in time. Scripture repeatedly locates the actual bearing of sin at the cross—“he bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Pet 2:24)—not in the eternal
pactum salutis prior to creation. If the debt were already juridically discharged in eternity, the cross of Christ is merely demonstrative, not propitiatory.
Commandment concerns mission, not completed atonement
The Son receives the command in the eternal counsel, yes—but the obedience is rendered in history (“becoming obedient unto death,” Phil. 2:8). Eternal commission does not equal eternal accomplishment. Otherwise incarnation, obedience, and death become temporally unnecessary for justice, which contradicts the whole sacrificial logic of Scripture.
When were the elect ever charged with their own sins?
Scripture has a clear answer: prior to union with Christ. The elect, in themselves and in history, stand guilty in Adam until they are united to Christ (in Adam vs. in Christ). That surety guarantees substitution, but the erasure of our guilt requires the application of Christ’s righteousness, which does not happen until we are united to him. Until then, we are “by nature children of wrath” (Eph 2:3), “alienated and enemies” (Col 1:21).
In orthodox Reformed structure:
- The debt is decreed in eternity to be paid (pactum salutis).
- The debt is paid in history (on the cross).
- The payment is applied in time to each elect (justification through faith).
You are effectively moving the payment itself into eternity. But once payment is relocated there, the cross ceases to be the moment of propitiatory satisfaction and becomes only the manifestation of a prior legal reality. That is neither scriptural nor confessional; it is the errant conclusion of certain men like William Pemble and John Gill (whom you have cited). Analogically, you are treating betrothal and marriage as if they are the same thing. But a marriage is not a marriage if it is never consummated.
Suretyship presupposes real liability
A surety exists because the debtor truly stands liable. If the elect were never, in any real sense, chargeable with their sins before God’s law, then the legal function of suretyship is emptied.
