The Disciplines of the Father
Readings
Eph 5:18-33 [] below are omitted from speaking form of sermon * = footnotes to be read
3. The Discipline of Marriage https://youtu.be/Y222Othny0E
Introduction
Marriage is a very difficult topic,[1] so much so that after 48 years[2] of wedded life, the longer I have been married the more mysterious Donna becomes. “Mysterious” in the sense of growing in revelation-understanding[3] of the glorious depths of someone made in the image of God, but never exhaustively understanding that person. The fruit of Donna’s spirituality is plain to see, I unhesitatingly call her “the women’s pastor of our church”, but just how she knows the Lord is “a great mystery”[4] to me[5]. I am quoting Paul here, who in expounding the final purpose of human marriage, testifies, “husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great/profound mystery, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Eph 5:28-32). Paul is telling us that the world was made for the consummation of a betrothal that sums up God’s plan in Christ, what the book of Revelation calls, “the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev 19:1-9)[6]*.
Since marriage is by nature a prophetic event, without pointing to Jesus and his Bride the Church, Christian marriages fail to function as genuine prophetic signs[7]. A huge problem today, is that many marriages of believers, are so ordinary they have never been able to expound with authority, marriage as a mystery whose purpose is reached through “many tribulations, toils and snares”[8]. Knowing someone in marriage is indescribably beautiful[9] but biblically it involves knowledge[10] by experience (existential knowledge). When Genesis says “Adam knew his wife” (Gen 4:1)[11]*, the first readers of scripture immediately understood they were in the world of covenant[12].Various scriptures might have flowed into their minds[13] God’s words about Abraham in Genesis 22:12, “now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”, or about himself in Exodus 2:23-25, “Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”, or the new covenant promise in Jeremiah 31:31-34, “they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest”, or the covenant text in Amos addressed to sinful Israel. ““You only have I known[14] of all the families of the earth [; therefore I will punish you for all your sins.]””. Or Jesus’ prayer in John 17:3, “this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Or Paul’s expectation in 1 Cor 13:12, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” The numerous biblical examples of “knowledge” as a unique state of relational understanding are too numerous to list. Let’s try to go a bit deeper here.
Sex and Revelation knowledge
Scripture tends avoids the language of “sex”[15]*, not because of cultural embarrassment, because it understands that “sex” take us into the sphere of holiness. Sexual intercourse opens what can only be called “revelation knowledge”[16]. Whilst marriage was given to humanity before the Fall[17], all sexual relations happen after the Fall, meaning that fallen shame and guilt work to block the fullness of God’s designed purpose of marital intimacy. The Lord’s healing solution to this is in the gospel as the power of God (Rom 1:16; 1 Cor 1:18); only through the gospel do we receive the confidence to completely reveal to another person who we really are on the inside. I will never forget when I sensed the Lord calling me to say to Donna something I was terrified of saying, [not to obey would have been to be intentionally disobedient,
], even as I was struggling[18] with a deep sense of inner incompleteness, “I need you.”[19] That moment of vulnerability was a crucial turning point in our marriage, before that I had always arrogantly seen myself as her spiritual and intellectual superior[20]. If we are called to marry, we are called to a blessed and difficult state of coming to a fuller revelation knowledge of who we are through another person, the person the Father has appointed for you as your exclusive covenant partner. This is a very deep and so generally avoided reality.
I remember being called up to pray for someone who had been seriously asking the Lord for decades for a wife. [Having learned how much damage can be done to people by naïve well-meaning believers promising others that God has a person for them[21],] I waited a little while listening to the voice of the Spirit before I prayed last. The word from the Lord [was simple but profoundly true. It ] was a gospel word conformed to the shape of the universe being recreated through Christ. “Marriage has a unique crucifying capacity[22], and it has a unique glorifying capacity.” There’s nothing like the pains and ecstasies of being married, and Donna and I have seen plenty of both. To ask, “Couldn’t it be another way?”, is equivalent to asking, “Couldn’t God the Father have chosen a less painful way for his Son than the cross?” Sadly, many drop out of the disciplines of marriage when things get too hard[23].
Marrying means taking a plunge[24] into a new covenant world with spiritually unique dimensions, for being married is the only human relationship that is comparable/analogous to the inner bonding of the Trinity out of which Christ’s love has been poured out for the Church. This is why being married imparts a unique relational intensity and sensitivity for crucifixion and resurrection life. Most Western Christians have tragically lost touch with these powers. The need to recapture them is being gradually forced on the Church through a discipline from God over which she has no power. This is the ultimate meaning of the increasing space our loving Father has given to the political pressures of LGBTQI+ movement.
[Since he is this Father we must expect prophets to arise from this space. David Bennett is a Sydney born celibate, gay, Spirit-filled Christian[25] who describes how] in most Evangelical-Pentecostal churches there is a running assumption that to have a happy life you need to be married with children. This assumption is a fusion of Western middle-class values and our hedonistic culture and ignores the fact that the greatest biblical experts on marriage, Jesus, Paul, and John, were all single men[26]. They intimately “knew” about marriage because they were righteous men subject to the disciplines of God as their “Holy Father” (John 17:11). The universal significance of marriage [doesn’t derive from the fact that most people are or have been married, or even that we first learned of relationships through observing, and imitating, our parents[27], but]is because human marriages[28] were from eternity part of the plan of God to reveal his love for people through Christ, the perfect/perfected Betrothed. “Sex” belongs only in marriage because it is a covenant sign[29], and where there is no intention of a permanent and exclusive relationship the sign can only be empty of all (prophetic) significance, [30]. “Sex” is so powerful because it was created to point to eternity, and its misuse is so corrupting for the same reason[31].
Until the Body of Christ has a revelation of the dimensions of sex in God’s purposes[32] we will be locked into a futile attempt to hold back evil spiritual powers in the heavenly places by employing natural means. [No matter how well resourced[33], we will continue to see repeated failures at the political level[34].] Only a genuine move of the Spirit that includes the revival of Christian marriages can stem the ever-swelling tide of the LGBTQI+ movement which the Lamb of God has released from heaven (Rev 6 cf. Rom 1:24. 26, 28), so that he might have a “church…in splendour, without spot or wrinkle…holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:27). Whilst so many believers are in panic over the “woke revolution” in society we all need a revelation that our day-to-day marriages are called to speak to “the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” of the eternal glory from which they are eternally excluded (Eph 3:10). This is a truth they cannot bear.
Covenant Love
The creation story in Genesis 1 is set in terms of series of ascending bipolarities*[35] with man and woman at the climax for they alone can reproduce the image and likeness of God. “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion…” (Gen 1:26-28). It is God’s Word spoken and understood by the first couple that binds them together in a destiny to be fruitful and fill the earth with the divine likeness[36]. As the first humans were before God in a total, permanent and exclusive covenant relationship, so men and women today can recognise they were made for each other in marriage (Gen 2:23-25)[37].
The author of Genesis goes on to declare, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Gen 2:24). That the “one flesh” union of marriage refers to sexual intercourse is indisputable, but that it transcends the biological level is rarely fully realised. The totality of the covenantal dimensions of marriage means that it penetrates beyond body to soul and spirit. At this point we must refer to the Fall of humanity, not because this has anything directly to do with sex in Eden, but because the effects of the Fall penetrate everything.
Covenant Fear
The radical fear found in marriage relationships originates in the failure of the first couple to keep covenant. Adam felt immense guilt[38] over his failure to guard the glory of the Lord in Eden in the vocation God chose for him as prophet, priest and king in the likeness of Christ[39]. He was responsible for allowing the entry of the murdering snake (John 8:44) into the garden sanctuary of God, and he failed to be Eve’s intercessor and teacher when she was allowed by his passivity to distort God’s command[40]* in her response to the serpent. Eve herself must have carried immense shame in failing to be a true helper/ partner in glory with Adam (Gen 2:20; 1 Cor 11:7). Every fallen human conscience knows that the deserved end of these things is the punishment of death (Rom 1:32; 5:12-14; 6:23; 1 Cor 15:22). Even Christian couples in the shadow of the failure of the first marriage in Eden struggle to fulfil the destiny of marital communion. As I experienced paralysing fear/paranoia in the physical world[41] before my coming to Christ, I see great fear in the relational world, in the failure of married men and women to be completely honest with each other for fear of punishment or rejection[42] (1 John 4:17)[43]. So many Christian couples fail to pray together on a regular basis, usually because of the husbands incapacity to cope with such spiritual intimacy. Fortunately, there is healing of dysfunctional fear through Jesus.
Whilst Adam and Eve failed in the garden of delight[44], Jesus prevailed in Gethsemane as a garden of terror. ““My soul is very sorrowful, even to death….“Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”” (Mark 14:34, 36). This is the place of the deepest intimacy between Jesus and his Father[45], where in holy closeness to God the Son is empowered by the “eternal Spirit” (Heb 9:14) to guard his own heart (cf. Prov 4:23) so he refuses to compromise God’s call to be our sacrifice. The command-keeping of Jesus in his holy fear of the Lord[46] uniquely qualifies him as the perfect Husband to bring his wife, the Church, to glory. How does this happen?
At the head of Paul’s great biblical passage on marriage we read, “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ”[47] (Eph 5:21)[48], this holy submission is the fear that belonged to Jesus in his Passion (Heb 5:7) and it is the fear that we all need. This fear can only ever be given by “the eternal Spirit”[49] of God and it is an expression of the love of the Father who alone disciplines our “spirits” (Heb 12:9). This fear unites us, it causes us to cling[50], to the Lord so we become “one spirit” with him (1 Cor 6:17)[51] and it realises the language of marriage as “one” in the Father, Son and Spirit as we share together their union (Mal 2:13-16). It is dwelling in this fear which practically unites us with the glory Jesus prayed for us as his Bride in John 17:22, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one”.
This fear is a primary form of discipline as a gift from God essential to the maturing of marriages, and to every other aspect of our discipleship. This fear is infinitely different from fleshly fear[52] because such holy fear alone binds us to our Head and Husband Jesus[53] and unites us to a souse in whom the Lord indwells. The fear of Christ the Lord is foundational to our ability to receive the discipline of the Father. Holy fear (2 Cor 7:1) of the Holy Father (John 17:11) casts out all unholy fear[54]. Sharing in Jesus’ own fear makes possible all that the scripture teaches on marriage. In God’s design, marriage was never meant to be easy, though it is called to be glorious.
The Cross and Marriage
[No marriage partner can realistically expect their spouse to share their perspective on anything, but it takes faith to peaceably live with the fact that the Lord of our prayers, might never change our spouse’s way of seeing things.
If marriage begins with a conclusive death to singleness, it will keep on growing to the degree that Jesus is recognised as the sole Lord who is more to be loved than the person to whom we have pledged all our love[55]*. The simple reality is that the closer we grow to Jesus[56] the closer we grow towards each other[57]. The love of Jesus is unconquerable. Whilst Israel as the Wife of God[58] tried to terminate the divine covenant once and for all by crucifying him he would never give her space to escape her holy calling. The resurrection opened up new dimensions of the all-forgiving love of God for his people. Through the new covenant in God’s death (Acts 20:28) anything can be forgiven. This is what is at heart of marriage as a “great mystery”.
Conclusion[59]
As shown by the pent up energy released in the same-sex/equal marriage debate, and what has flowed from it, “marriage” in secular culture carries an unrealistic mythological status which shows it to be a gross idol, especially when it is worshipped in the Church. Our deep and catastrophic problem is that we have forgotten how to understand everything (cf. Col 1:16) through the lens of Christ crucified and glorified. Until we have a revolution of the depths of the cost to God of our salvation, we will lack the inspiration and intensity needed to proclaim and enact his spiritual victory through the Church (Eph 3:10; 6:12-20; Rev 12:11). Our holy passion for Jesus must exceed the unholy lustful passions of the world (2 Pet 1:4).
The gospel is a marriage proposal [this may not make much sense to those in a dull or bad marriages], and the Bible reveals that the temporary “one flesh” of marriage awaits perfection in the union all believers will enjoy in the Spirit with the glorified resurrection body of Christ[60] . The telos, the goal of our existence is a morally perfect immeasurably pleasurable heavenly marriage[61]. This is a humanly unthinkable[62] proposition, but through the “new covenant in Christ’s blood” (Luke 22:20) it is a limitlessly powerful healing reality progressively revealed to those who by faith and with increasing insight into eternal things, live in the daily grind of earthly marriage[63].
The Lord warns us in extraordinary rare language, “guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.” (Mal 2:15-16)[64] to your wife/husband. This unique biblical command matches the language of Hebrews 12:9, “Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?” The spiritual depths of what we call “marriage” demands long term submission to the painful wisdom of God[65]; this is the indispensable way of suffering-and-glory in Christ (Luke 24:26). Until we accept these things by faith[66] we will remain an immature Body[67].
[1] One of the most difficult topics of all, a little like what they say about couples counselling, there’s “her story”, “his story”, and the truth.
[2] It could be 98 years, and it wouldn’t make any difference, for the mystery intensifies with the years.
[3] As an asymptote approaches an axis ever more closely but never reaches it.
[4] This mix of language only appears elsewhere in the New Testament as a description of the world Harlot, “on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” (Rev 17:5). The world system is the counterpart and counterfeit of the Wife of the Lamb.
[5] I know she both prays and reads the Bible, but not like I do in breadth or depth, but her facilitating the intercessions of our Anglican congregation and a Bible study and additional women’s fellowship, plus taking kids church sessions, is somehow achieved “osmotically”. Or better, through her favourite biblical text, by abiding in Christ, ““I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5).
[6] The Lord spoke to me clearly about this the first morning Donna and I were on the island of Patmos, the place from which John wrote Revelation (cf. Rev 1:9). History is like one vast bridal chamber of preparing the Bide for her Husband. Marriage is what we call a type, or symbol, of the archetype of Christ’s eternal relationship with the Church.
[7] In which marital sex is a sign of the sign. Like the ever-repeated but never exhausted sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, each sign-act (intercourse) points beyond itself to the permanent indescribably pleasurable union of the Church and Jesus in heaven. This means sex is constitutive of marriage, even if not exclusively so. Having encountered couples who have intentionally never consummated their relationship, I could only tell them they were not yet married before the Lord.
[8] Quoting John Newton from his song Amazing Grace, but he is expounding scripture. For thorough evidence of tribulations from his own experience see https://www.thebereantest.com/john-newton-amazing-grace .
[9] Not like the beautiful patterns of mathematics, music, engineering, philosophy or theology etc. Only the last two do I have some understanding of, but I accept that others gifted in other ways than me do experience these other disciplines as beautiful.
[10] The logic of marriage is not at all like the thinking of the AI or computer world.
[11] Which is what the text literally says, it does not say “made love to” or had “sexual relations with” or even was “intimate with” all of which, I think, are grossly misleading. See https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Genesis%204:1
[12] The world of unconditional relationships, not contractual i.e. conditional relationships, of an “if…then” character.
[13] These are all references important to me personally that I have memorised, they are not arranged systematically but according to testimony.
[14] The NIV has “chosen” which is not wrong but is interpretive. Cf. the biblical meaning of foreknowledge as a relationship that God has with us because he chose us before we were made (Rom 8:29, 1 Pet 1:2).
[15] Choosing expressions like “lie/lay with” e.g., Gen 19:30-36; 30:16; Lev 18:22; 20:13 or “go in/went in to” (Gen 16:4; 29:23; 38:18; Ruth 4:13). The New Testament does refer to “sexual immorality” many times.
[16] Even in the case of intercourse with a prostitute (1 Cor 6:16), the sinning Christian man and the prostitute are “one flesh”, one that is, in sharing mutual selfishness.
[17] Which is why people without faith can be validly married.
[18] Adam like (Gen 2:18), but with fallenness added.
[19] The exact opposite of the very extroverted tour guide at Iguassu Falls, who in talking about his relationship with his live-in girlfriend, proudly reported he’d told her, “I don’t need you”, to which she had boldly replied, “I don’t need you either.” Plainly, they were together for sex as mere pleasure.
[20] This is a process that has gone on and on. See http://cross-connect.net.au/trauma-and-revelation/ for divine correction of my arrogance through a dog bite.
[21] Merely a projection of their uncomfortableness at having a happy marriage whilst other firm believers seem deprived.
[22] If we should see “creation as the external basis of covenant” and “covenant as the internal basis of creation” (Barth), then marriage can be seen as a sign of God’s commitment to creation (N.T. Wright).
[23] By “drop out” I refer to divorce, separation or simply giving up hope for change.
[24] Engagement came easy to Donna and me, though we kept the news quiet for some months so parents and others wouldn’t panic. Over the engagement period however many strong storms blew from my own internal doubt about my capacity for marriage. Those who doubted my maturity were right, but wrong in terms of their estimation of Donna’s spiritual development. Her trust in God carried us through.
[25] David Bennett, A War of Loves, Zondervan, 2018. See also the testimony of Vaughan Roberts who recently visited Perth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaughan_Roberts
[26] Matt 9:15; 19:1-12; 1 Cor 7:1-40; John 3:29; Rev 19:6-9
[27] Who were foundational to our discipleship, or lack thereof, by virtue of being our parents, conscious of this or not.
[28] Whether they are theistic, polytheistic, atheistic or whatever is secondary.
[29] Other sources of sexual expression, like masturbation, bestiality, and homosexuality are signs that have no final signification. This is why they have no place in the covenant community. See my article, published in the Evangelical Quarterly. EQ 67:1 (1995), 71-87. Search under John C. Yates Towards a Theology of Homosexuality to download a pdf. As outside of the covenant of God, these experiences, however humanly tender and meaningful, cannot partake of the eternal.
[30] Conversely, an intentional lack of regular intercourse in a Christian marriage, is a sign of an inability to keep alive the dynamic of new covenant love. Which is why Paul allows abstinence as a temporary “concession” (1 Cor 7:1-6).
[31] “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Eccl 3:11). The uniquely potent language about divine wrath in relation to sexual perversion in Rom 1:18-32 belongs in this context.
[32] Which are far broader than space allows me to mention.
[33] As in the case of the National Association of Evangelicals in America, representing 45,000 member churches. At another level, the expose of then president and megachurch pastor Ted Haggard’s homosexuality and drug use should have provoked nationwide repentance in the churches but didn’t. Much the same could be said about the ongoing trials, legal, moral and spiritual, with Brian Houston in Australia.
[34] The efforts of the diocese of Sydney with respect to the same-sex marriage referendum, in putting in $1m, and the Australian Christian Lobby, have, in my discernment, been founded in Christian fears about the future of the nation, more than the power of the Spirit. “God gave us a Spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” (2 Tim 1:7).
[35] The whole created structure takes this form: heaven/earth; water below/water above; seas/land; vegetation/animals; male/female Gen 1:1-28. As is confirmed in the next chapter, neither male alone nor female alone can reproduce the image, for the complete or mature image is man and woman as gendered beings who define one another in their relationship. Without instruction, Adam and Eve recognise that they exist for each other (Gen 2:23-25).
[36] All humanity has received this call by virtue of being created.
[37] This is implied by the fact that the Hebrew words for woman (ishshah) and man (ish) sound alike. In Genesis 2 marriage is a analogue to God’s relationship with humanity in covenant. So the Church is called to be the image bearer of the glory of Christ her Lord, and to fill the earth with those who bear his likeness (Eph 1:23).
[38] Even if the giving of skins by the Lord was through a blood sacrifice (Gen 3:21) that was a sign of the gracious forgiveness coming perfectly in Christ (Heb 9:22ff.).
[39] Gen 2:15 with Num 3:7-8; 8:26; 18:5-6; 1 Chron 19:17ff etc.
[40] Her word, “neither shall you touch it” (Gen 3:3) is an addition not true to the original word of the Lord (Gen 2:17) and presents God as less than a perfect Father.
[41] Later exposed as demonic in origin, rather than holy.
[42] The power of shame about sex is spread everywhere. When, “Whoredom: God’s Unfaithful Wife in Biblical Theology” was reprinted in 2002 as, “God’s Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery”, the book contained no mention of the change of title, anywhere! It appears that the original title was removed because offensive.
[43] The famous saying, “happy wife, happy life.”, is doubtless demonic in origin.
[44] A likely meaning for the Hebrew translated as “Eden”.
[45] Here alone he calls God “Abba!”
[46] Cf. “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.” (Heb 5:7 NIV).
[47] Some translations have “fear of Christ”.
[48] Unfortunately, English versions of the Bible often separate v.21 form the rest of the chapter, this isn’t the sense of the Greek grammar. In other words v.21 applies to all that follows e.g. https://margmowczko.com/grammar-ephesians-521-22-missing-verb/
[49] Cf. “if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” (Heb 9:13-14).
[50] The KJV poetically translated Gen 2:24 as, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.” See also Deut 10:20; 13:4; Rom 12:9, where fear of the Lord and closeness to God are combined.
[51] In context this transcends the “one body” and “one flesh” of union with a prostitute by as much as the glory of covenant marriage surpasses the dynamics of a impermanent sexual relationship.
[52] Which always separates and distances us from others relationally.
[53] 1 Cor 11:3; Eph 1:22; 4:15; Col 1:18; 2:10, 19.
[54] Deuteronomy 10:20, “You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and hold fast/cleave (תִדְבָּ֔ק the same word used in Gen 2:24 of marital union) to him” should be seen as prophetic of the fear through which we are united in our spirits with the Spirit of Christ.
[55] “When the couple approaches the altar the priest says: “You have found your cross. And it is a cross to be loved, to be carried, a cross not to be thrown away, but to be cherished.” He then blesses the Crucifix.
During the exchange of vows, the groom holds the crucifix in his right hand and the bride places her right hand on the top of the crucifix uniting their hands together. The couple unites themselves on the Cross, and they recite their vows over this visceral image of Love Himself.” This is the marriage service from Siroki-Brijeg, in Bosnia-Herzegovina where the divorce rate is reportedly zero. https://www.spokenbride.com/blog/2020/8/21/the-marriage-crucifix
[56] Especially by “always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” (2 Cor 4:10).
[58] (Isa 54:5; Jer 2:2; 3:6-8;,14; Ezek 16; Hos 2:2-7, 14ff.)
[59] “Simply put, the male-female marriage relationship was designed by the Triune God to function as a “living parable” of the eternal marriage relationship with Jesus to which all Kingdom people are called as
a single corporate bride.” (Paul Rhodes Eddy)
[60] Which is why Paul introduces the topic of resurrection in his teaching on having sex with a prostitute (1 Cor 6:12-20).
[61] Accepting that this will be incomplete in this life, but assuredly perfected in the eternal marriage in heaven. “Heaven will be all marriage. In earthly marriage we detect the sign and promise that in eternity everyone is to be married to everyone else in some transcendent and unimaginable union.” (M. Mason).
[62] And as atrocious as the thought that God is a Father to those who have had a bad dad!
[63] Paul, with John and Jesus, lived with the sin of his churches, because they were recognised as the Bride of Christ.
[64] The Message powerfully conveys the sense, “His Spirit inhabits even the smallest details of marriage. And what does he want from marriage? Children of God, that’s what. So guard the spirit of marriage within you. Don’t cheat on your spouse.”
[65] Calvin comments on Hosea 3:5, “Afterwards shall the children of Israel return and seek Jehovah their God, and David their king. Here the Prophet shows by the fruit of their chastisement, that the Israelites had no reason to murmur or clamour against God, as though he treated them with too much severity; for if he had stretched out his hand to them immediately, there would have been in them no repentance: but when thoroughly cleansed by long correction, they would then truly and sincerely confess their God. We then see that this comfort is set forth as arising from the fruit of chastisement, that the Israelites might patiently bear the temporary wrath of God. Afterwards, he says, they shall return; as though he said, “They are now led away headlong into their impiety, and they can by no means be restrained except by this long endurance of evils.”
[66] The faith chapter of Hebrews 11 does precede the discipline chapter of Hebrews 12 for a reason.
[67] No perfection of union in marriages of Christian leaders means no mature discipleship in the Church. Your personal spirituality will never exceed your disposition towards the marriage partner God has given you as the most precious gift, next to Jesus, who you will ever receive in this age.