Following Jesus in an Age of Rebellion
Introduction
Last week I accompanied Donna, an important detail, to the “Elvis” movie. Part way through I had a clear sense of the roots of the famous 60’s “sex, drugs, rock n’ roll” revolution started but in the jiving 50’s. The angle I believe the Lord gave me on this relates to the corruption of sexuality. Sexual depravity perhaps started long ago with fallen angels marrying women (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/who-are-sons-of-god-genesis-6/). Within our lifetime however, many young women in the Presley concerts were experiencing orgasm without a husband (cf. https://aeon.co/essays/can-music-give-you-an-orgasm-the-short-answer-is-yes)! (Remembering how many of my mates got their girlfriends pregnant before marriage made my think this was “safe sex” in a manner suited to the time). Today, the post-Christian turn to wickedness is embodied in blatant homosexuality and transsexualism, both of which are attempts to deny the male-female (binary), nature of the image of God (Gen 1:2-28; Matt 19:4-5). To discern the plan of God in resisting such assaults we need to go back to the Fall in Eden.
Rebellion in the Beginning
Paul teaches that husband and wife, including Adam with Eve, are created in the likeness and image of Christ and the Church (Eph 5:21-32). Whilst revealed only under the new covenant, this plan was always working through the “lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8; 1 Pet 1:18-19). It was the good will of God their Father (Luke 3:38), that the integrity of the marriage covenant between Adam and Eve reach a state of faith (2 Cor 5:7) and maturity sharing in the holiness of the Lord who holds “all things” together (Col 1:17; Heb 1:3). As such, the testing of Eve and Adam as fit vice-regents over all created things (Gen 1:26-28), needed to be as rigorous as it was momentous.
The man’s naming of the animals displayed his divinely ordained authority over them all (Gen 2:7, 19). Since Adam and Eve were created for a relationship that was mutual and reciprocal, she was a “helper fit for him” (2:18-20). Only the woman alone is an equal partner for the man, and the man for the woman. Such inclusive covenant partnership and cooperation is the glorious substance of marriage as God designed it. When the serpent entered the garden and spoke directly to Eve he succeeded in bypassing and blocking the consummation of marriage equality as God intended. How? As the Lord had first spoken the command about the tree of knowledge to Adam, not Eve, and he was present “with her” at the time of the satanic temptation (Gen 2:17; 3:6), scripture holds Adam as primarily responsible for the Fall. “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived” (1 Tim 2:14) is a word about open Adamic rebellion! In refusing to be a disciple of the One in whose image he was created (Rom 5: 14c), Adam accepted the lies of the devil that he and Eve could “become like God” (Gen 3:5) apart from the road that leads to suffering (Phil 2:7). He undid the covenant bond in which he and Eve with the Son of God held everything together. The spiritual death of this marriage meant the unity of all things fell apart (Rom 8:20, 22). The Lord however always had a greater plan.
Reversing the Rebellion
Peter’s prophetic message in Acts 3:17-21 spells out the divine plan to undo universal disorder 1). repentance of ignorance in sin 2) refreshing from God’s presence 3) the Return of the Messiah 4) the restoration of all things. Many revival movements are highly individualistic and do not pass beyond the first three elements of Peter’s vision. Azusa St, the Welsh Revival, that in the New Hebrides etc, contain wonderful stories of Church renewal, but little about social transformation i.e., peace, justice and prosperity across culture. Notably exceptions to this include the long-term outcome of the 18th century First Great Awakening in the U.K. (Wilberforce, Shaftesbury etc.), the Haugean movement which transformed Norway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haugean_movement), and today’s Iris revival in Mozambique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Global. A possible explanation of why many moves of God do not grow to maturity relates to the limited marriages of their leaders. As the world was broken through the collapse of the original marriage in Eden, its healing and maturity (Matt 19:28) awaits the marriage supper of the Lamb and his Bride at the Second Coming (Rev 19:6ff.). I am emboldened to share what I believe the Spirit of the Bride has been showing me for the Church (Rev 22:17). I need to begin with a confession of spiritual and personal dullness.
Witnessing the Glorious Final Consummation of All Things
After 47 years with Donna, I am just beginning to appreciate how radically different the two of us are in disposition, gifting, impulse and character and how this difference is the pleasing will of the Lord (Rom 12:2) for the final revelation of his glory! this insight isn’t restricted to us two. In the unity we share in Christ every believing couple are one in the covenant between Jesus and the Church in which all things hold together. The glory that in the End will fill the universe (Hab 2:14) is the glory of “the Bride the wife of the Lamb” (Rev 21:9-11). We will witness the radiance of all the manifold colours of creation made known through us as the eternal holy temple of God in Christ (1 Cor 3:16-17; Eph 3:10; Rev 21:22). Crucial to this glory is the radical diversity of people “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev 5:9; 7:9) exuding an imperishable excellence first testified to in holy matrimony. As in the natural so in the spiritual (1 Cor 15:46). As every ice crystal making up a cloud is unique in structure but functions as a lens for the one testimony of the rainbow spectrum of peace (Gen 9:16; cf. Rev 4:3), so every believer, is a “holy of holies” in Christ (1 Cor 6:19) that will radiate a unique complementary glory in unity with every other believer in union with our Head and Husband, forever. This is the single glory of God passed on to us in our incredible diversity through the prayer of Jesus. “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me” (John 17:22-23).
Conclusion
The spirit of rebellion suffocating the Western world presents gay marriage and surgically based transsexuality as normal and desirable, in truth they are dehumanising the image of God. Only a revival of holiness of life in M/marital love can resist this powerful demonic thrust. Since the rebellion against one’s holy Betrothed already penetrates much of the Church (Hey, I am an Anglican!), we must pray earnestly that the Lord will pour out his Holy Spirit on his Bride. Pray please that all of us, especially young people, enter into the ecstasy of a Spirit-baptism with “joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Pet 1:8>9) which is unsurpassable and God’s great preventative against all non-covenantal sex. This is heaven’s answer (Eph 3:10) to the demonic powers presently notching up seeming victory after victory against the kingdom of God in the public arena. By God’s grace we can live sacred lives that testify that Jesus has “disarmed the (spiritual) powers and authorities, making a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in the cross” (Col 2:15). May Christ triumph over the devil in and through the cross in us!