Interesting, This may help answer my heresy concern or false memory. Do you have any links that talk this way? Is it a Mormon concept?
I usually don't trouble myself with Mormon teachings in the same way I really don't have much interest in Eastern religions or Islam.
From my former days deep in Dispensationalism, there was the more active branch that tried to harmonize the many passages in the OT that portrayed ethnic Israel as married to Jehovah with the many clear references of the Church being the bride of Jesus Christ.
From a literalist's perspective, which is the fundamental interpretational hermeneutic of the Dispy, we see the LORD in Jeremiah 3:6-8 telling the prophet that Israel "played the harlot" so the LORD said "I had put her [Israel] away and given her a certificate of divorce" which in itself is an interesting passage because Judah is referred to as a "treacherous sister" so the divorce and implied former marriage to Israel suggests either Judah is not God's wife, or that God is engaged in polygamy married to sisters similar to that when Jacob married two of his cousins Leah and Rachel.
Nevertheless, the "backsliding children", either Israel or Judah are considered the wife of God because the LORD says regarding them "for I am married to you." (v14)
So to handle passages like that, and perhaps the entire Hosea/Gomer saga we read about in terms of it being a type played out to illustrate God and the descendants of Jacob, we get this God is married to Israel claim. The Dispies like that because it fits the template that Jews are better than everyone else - and why not, for they are allegedly wedded to the Almighty Creator. Of course the whole divorce thing gets a little weird in terms of an "everlasting Covenant" that Israel somehow cannot escape.
So now we have the problem of the Church being portrayed as the Bride of Jesus Christ, and with Dispensationalism's trademark view of the ethnic Jews being distinct and separate from the mainly Gentile Church, and a desire to break up the Trinity into distinct entities, one gets the wife of Father God, and bride to Jesus Christ.
Naturally this leads to doctrinal problems for the Dispy when preserving this view while also trying to explain Hosea 2:19-20:
I will betroth you to Me forever...
Because the wooden and immature template of the Abrahamic Covenant regarding an "everlasting oath" to ethnic Israel which is supposed to guarantee ethnic Israel's eternal existence (else why call the Covenant "everlasting" if one describes it in a way where it is at best temporary) binds God the Father to eternally be wedded to "the harlot" which largely hates with great passion, God's only begotten Son. Strained relations indeed.
Another branch of Dispensationalism has a much better and reasoned argument, and they don't make any claims at all that the Church is the Bride of Christ. Accordingly they still see ethnic Jews and Gentiles as eternally distinct individuals, and point to Hosea 2:16-20 and say that God has indeed divorced Israel but will remarry her forever. This theme is seen in Isaiah 50:1-2, with redemption in 54:4-8.
When viewed in that manner, turning to Revelation 19:7-8, the bride has "made herself ready" and this bride is actually ethnic Israel restored as a the eternal wife of God/Jesus Christ. This keeps the Trinity intact and thus ethnic Israel was the wife of God/Jesus, and after a temporary divorce is restored as wife of God/Jesus.
So what of the Gentile Church? Keeping the Dispensational template, the Gentile Church is not the bride and thus there is no Israel being the Father's wife and the Church being Jesus' bride. The Gentile Church is considered to be our LORD's body. (Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 6:15; 12:12-27; Eph 1:23; Col 2:19). Viewed in that way, the intellectual Dispensationalist can say that the Bride is thus a "made ready" and dressed in fine linen "bride" while the Church is distinct and separate as the body of Christ and therefore there is no problem - unless you read Ephesians 5:30-32 and see how "two become one flesh", and when you read Rev 21 and not stop at verse 12 which speaks of the bride being made up of the twelve tribes of Israel, but continue on to v14 which adds "...and had twelve foundations..of the twelve apostles of the Lamb"
If one also exorcises all of those passages which mentions the Church being grafted into the tree of Abraham (Ro 11), or inheriting the promises made to Abraham (Gal 3), then yes, one can end up like John Hagee and boldly claim that ethnic Jews don't need the Gospel since they will one day be re-wedded to God because of God's everlasting promise to the Abraham regarding, apparently, only ethnic Jews.
The Parable of the Ten Virgins become immediately unintelligible because if the ethnic Jews are the guaranteed bride inferred in the passage, then who are the Virgins? And if the Virgins by default are the Church, why is this parable only mentioned in the Jewish oriented Gospel giving works-righteousness warnings to the hated Gentiles? And since when have Gentiles been characterized as virgins or harlots? All of the wedding feast parables and the teaching of the Seven Years of Tribulation where the Church is going to a wedding feast need to be retaught in the Big Box and the Gentile parishoners need to be told that they aren't the Bride, they are merely spectators like the angels.
As you might guess, Expansion Theology properly eliminates these conflicts and restores the Church to something grander than being the Peanut Gallery in Heaven while also answering the question that Dispensationalists can't answer - why did Paul and the other Jewish disciples martyr themselves by leaving Judaism which would make them the bride, and go for being part of the Corpus Christi instead? They could have spared themselves all the pain and agony and just kept slaughtering critters until the Great Wedding Day
So what of the Gentile Church? Keeping the Dispensational template, the Gentile Church is not the bride and thus there is no Israel being the Father's wife and the Church being Jesus' bride.
"Teacher! Teacher! I know!", 'cause I've heard it with my own ears. The gentile believers are heavenly adoptive brothers and sisters to Jesus. While the Jews are an earthly, eternal, reproductive (do not do the math on that) people of God.
Saying stuff like this (and I'm not saying they all say this particular thing), you can tell they're trying to deal with problems. It's just that every which way you go, from the dispensationalist assumptions, you encounter absurdity. A sure sign that there's a problem with the assumptions.
I usually don't trouble myself with Mormon teachings in the same way I really don't have much interest in Eastern religions or Islam.
The Mormon angle is probably where I heard about the Israel bride years ago also.
From my former days deep in Dispensationalism,
Your knowledge is obviously due to experience and very well read. We do change as we grow or die. As you know I came from Lutheran amill to my present Lutheran premill position. I do admit I am quite alone in the premill part, that's OK.
Do you have a core philosophy today that you would care to share? My assumption was Roman Catholic but now I am not so sure. I am fascinated by your faith walk. I assume something disillusioned you about premill teaching.