Men’s Group 2004
1. Observations
Is it fair to say that women tend to predominate in ministries of intimacy e.g. counselling, “worship leading”, intercession? Do you think this often reflects what is going on inside of Christian marriages?
It is inadequately biblical to attribute these observations simply to “culture” as if it were some sort of ultimate explanation.
We need to consider patterns of relating that stem from the fallen situation of humanity in the light of the revelation of how God relates to us in Christ.
This will involve a discussion of the biblical dimensions of the marriage covenant.
2. Controversies
Widespread controversy within the church and confusion in society in relation to gender roles. This is being highlighted by the extreme case, homosexuality. (The importance of homosexuality does not relate to it being a worse sin than any other sin, but that it is a denial of the basic identity of humanity as male- and – female.)
3. Unsatisfactory Solutions
a. Gender differentiation is purely biological, social roles are arbitrary and constructed merely by human judgements about values. This is in practice an atheistic position which denies God’s created order. It confuses identity of value with identity of role. For a Christian this is ultimately unacceptable for it implies a rejection of the unity in diversity of the trinity.
b. Gender roles are hierarchical, based on an essential difference between male and female so that all men have a position of authority over all women. Whilst in practice this is usually restricted to the place of women in the church, it suggests that there is some sort of essential dominance of the Father over the Son in the Godhead. This makes Jesus a lesser person than the Father.
4. A Suggested Alternative: Covenant Relationships
a. The nature of covenant: outstanding feature of covenants is that they are unconditional, there are no limits to the responsibility within the covenant. These relationships are other-centred. A covenant is the opposite of a contract where the limits of responsibility are clearly defined. Contractual relationships are self- focused.
b. The covenants made by God: God sovereignly initiates a series of covenantal relationships with humans, he is the greater and we are the lesser. There could be no preconditions for the establishment of such a relationship (as these could never be met). There are certain conditions however on the enjoyment of the benefits of the covenant e.g. keeping the law of Moses. On God’s side this covenant keeping is never in question, in the Old Testament it is his “steadfast love” (Ps 25:6; Isa 63:7; Jer 9:24etc.) that constitutes covenant faithfulness. In the New Testament the content of the covenant from both God’s side and the human response is Christ and his sacrifice (Matt 26:28; Heb 13:20). This will prove to be the key to understanding how men and women can equally share authority in intimacy with God and within marriage.
c. The covenant of marriage: this is the primary covenant relationship instituted by God within humanity, it precedes the existence of both state and church and the health of all other relationship is shaped by this one.
d. A covenant between men and women?: there is no biblical evidence that God has established a covenant relationship between men as a class and women as a class that is clearly different from the obligations within the same gender. The command to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:28; Matt 22:39) is fully inclusive in the meaning of “neighbour”.
e. There is however much biblical evidence of the importance of gender differentiation within marriage.
5. The Covenant between Adam and Eve
a. Adam the primary covenant bearer: he knows God immediately and directly through the Word (2:15; 17).
b. Origin of Gender: Eve’s point of origin is her husband (Gen 2:18- 24).
c. Eve knows the covenant through Adam: Eve knows herself as part of the image of God and in covenant with God through Adam’s testimony.
d. Eve is approached by the deceiver: the serpent speaks to the woman directly concerning the Word of God (Gen 3:1). This is the reverse of the order of creation.
e. Eve fails to be intimate with Adam: the woman fails to cleave to her husband in the order of God (Gen 2:24) but instead unites herself to the snake’s word and desire.
f. “The woman is tricked/deceived” (Gen 3:6, 13; 1 Tim2:14): Eve fails to refer to Adam as her covenant head (1 Cor 11:3), acting as though she had direct authority from God to speak to the devil (1 Cor 11:5).
g. Adam remains passive: this was to abandon the initiative God gave him in naming both the snake and the woman, which was the ground of their relationship with him (Gen 2:20, 23; 3:6).
h. Adam has abandoned initiative in intimacy to the serpent and to his wife. (This is now intimacy in evil.)
i. Adam seeks to please Eve rather than God (Genesis 16:1ff; 1 Corinthians 7:33-34). He should not “have listened to the voice of his wife” (Gen 3:17).
j. Adam commits idolatry: seeks to become “like God” (Gen 3:5) through Eve rather than via God’s Word. Eve was given a place of importance by Adam that belongs only to God (Rom 1:23).
k. Adam rebels: he accepts the fruit in direct contradiction to God’s prohibition (Gen 2:17) and in a wilful manner (Hos 6:7; 1 Tim 2:14).
l. Adam and Eve are no longer united in God: even though the first couple is now united in their fallen “flesh” (1 Cor 6:16) they are no longer “one in the Spirit and Word”. The image of God is split and spiritual intimacy is broken.
m. Dominion is lost: the complete authority that God gave the first humans over all the earth was now no longer theirs (Gen 3:15-19) because it depended upon their union with God.
n. Adam is judged most emphatically: his is the clearest covenant unfaithfulness (Hos 6:7 compare Gen 15:6; Rom 5:1) as he is the one who received the primary revelation of God’s Word.
o. If the original divine plan to multiply oneness across the face of the earth through the undivided image of God = male and female in covenant unity with God and each other (Gen 1:26-28) is to completed it will need to take on a new form. This will be Christ and the church.
Questions for Discussion
1. Adam is the leader in spiritual intimacy in his marriage to Eve, not because he is essentially superior to her, but because God spoke to him first. This means that the headship of the husband is a matter of grace and there are no grounds for pride. If married, are you thankful for this order of arrangement? Is pride/arrogance a problem for Christian men in relation to women- both inside and outside of marriage? (“Male chauvinist pigs”?)
2. Do you think many Christian men suffer from a sense of failure in spiritual leadership?
3. How may this be connected to the pattern of the fall and the strength of the judgement passed on Adam?
4. Adam had a choice between pleasing his Father (Luke 3:38) or pleasing his wife. He made the wrong choice. Have you had a history of struggle in this area?
5. The story of Adam and Eve would suggest that the foundation of all spiritual authority (not only in marriage) is in hearing = obeying the Word of God. As a man, do you look upon your Bible reading in this way?
6. The Covenant between God and Israel
a. This must be understood as an interim period between the giving of the covenant to Abraham and its fulfillment in Christ (Gal 3:23- 25; 4:2).
b. The pattern presented in Genesis is repeated: the promise is made to the husband (Gen 12:1-3). Even though his wife is intimately and necessarily involved in the conception of the promised child there is no direct word to Sarah before the word of rebuke (Gen 18: 9-14).
c. The incident with Sarah and Hagar (Genesis 16:1ff.) seems to repeat the desire of the man to please his wife. The result is potentially disastrous: “If only Ishmael might live before you” (Gen 17:8). This would be the triumph of natural effort over the supernatural promise.
d. Nevertheless, God continues to intervene to protect this marriage (Gen 12:10-20; 20) so that this promise will be fulfilled.
e. Perhaps there is a hint of godly order when Sarah is commended in scripture for recognizing Abraham as her “lord” (1 Pet 3:6 citing Gen 18:12).
f. During the period of the law Yahweh is the husband of Israel (Isa 45:4; Jer 31:32) and she is the wife (Jer 2:2).
g. Characteristically, because of idolatry,Israelis an unfaithful or adulterous partner (Jer 3:8;13:27; Hos 3:1).
h. The prophets anticipate a time when Israel will enter into a faithful partnership with God (Hos 2:19-20; Isa 62:4).
Questions for Discussion
1. If idolatry is spiritual adultery, how might there be a connection between materialistic ambitions in Christian marriages and marital strife? (Hint: do couples argue more about sex or money?)
2. God called and redeemed Israel by grace (Ex 19:4) then later gave the law to sustain this gracious relationship. If Christians reverse this order in thinking about God’s relationship with Israel(and/or the church) how do you think they will relate to one another in a covenantal relationship like marriage?
3. Hosea is the revelation of God’s broken heart because of a faithless wife. How is this revelation helpful to Christian males today?
7. The Covenant between Christ and the Church
a. Jesus is the bridegroom come for the bride (Mark 2:19- 20) in fulfillment of the Old Testament texts about Yahweh’s covenant relationship with his people (Ezek 16; Isa 54:4-8; Hos 2:19-20).
b. More foundationally, a range of evidence shows that he is the successor of Adam. He is for instance traced back by genealogy to Adam as the first “son of God” (Luke 3:38), Jesus resists the temptation in the wilderness where Adam sinned in the garden, his dominion over the forces of nature (Mark 4:35-41etc.) and evil (Mark 2:21-28) expresses the authority first offered by God to humanity in the beginning (In Paul’s explicit language Jesus is the “second Adam”, Rom 5:12-21; 1 Cor 15:22; 45.)
c. Unlike Adam however, Jesus is the completely faithful covenant partner to God because he always pleases his Father (Mark 1:11; John 5:30;8:29). This requires obedience to God’s Word (John 15:10; Heb 10:17).
d. It means refusing to please the people where their will does not conform to the will of God (John 6:14-15; Matt 16:22-23). Only by doing this can Jesus sustain his spiritual intimacy with the Father.
e. The consequence of Jesus’ faithfulness to God is that he must die alone, rejected by his own people (John 1:10-11) and with the status of a sinner (Luke 22:37) and a gentile (Gal 3:13; Heb 13:12). That is, he bears the status of a covenant breaker, someone who has divorced themselves from the Lord (Jer 3:8)
f. To the eye of sight, the claim of Jesus to be God’s Son, that is, his true image (John 14:10) and faithful covenant partner, is ridiculous (Matt 27:40, 43; Luke 23:35). It looks as if there is no oneness (John 10:30) or intimacy between Jesus and the Father (Mark 15:34).
g. Spiritually discerned however, Jesus sacrifice is fully pleasing to God (Eph 5:2) an the perfection of his righteousness (Heb 2:10; 5:9).
h. In other words, the cross was not the splitting of the image of God but the union between God and sinful humanity in love for the purpose of remaking it in righteousness (2 Cor 5:21). What Jesus embraced on the cross was our state of separation from the Father (Isa 53:4- 5; 59:1- 2).
i. The truth of Jesus faithfulness was revealed in the resurrection of and his return to the eternal glory of his Father (John 17:5).
j. Jesus will soon return to consummate his intimate marital relationship with his people the church (Rev 19:7, 9; 21:2)
8. The Faithfulness of the Church
a. The relationship between Jesus and the church is understood by the apostles (Eph 5:32) to be the anti-type or full meaning of the order marriage in Genesis 2:24.
b. To enter into a saving relationship with Jesus is to become betrothed to him as “one husband” (2 Cor 11:2).
c. This can be expressed in the most intimate manner. In a passage relating to sexual intercourse outside of marriage, and reflecting on genesis 2:24, Paul states, “he who is joined to the Lord is one with him in spirit.” (1 Cor 6:17).
d. The language of betrothal points towards a future glorious consummation (Rev 19:7,9; 21:2) when perfection will be reached on both sides of the relationship (1 Cor 13:10-12).
e. In the meantime there is a call to covenant faithfulness (Gal 5:22;Rev 2:10).
f. At a deeper level, Paul can use the language of Genesis to speak of the danger of covenant unfaithfulness: “I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds might somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” (2 Cor 11:3).
g. From this and the other relevant texts it is clear that the church is always feminine, a bride, in relation to Jesus. This means that she must always respect him as her covenant head and one mediator (1 Tim 2:5). Church to Christ is to be as Eve was called to be in relation to Adam.
h. All spiritual authority flows from Jesus downwards as the head of the church (Eph 1:22;4:15;5:23;Col 1:18).
Questions for Discussion
1. Jesus talks about Christians who have lost their “first love” (Rev 2:4). In what ways could this be you?
2. How would you expect a fresh love for Jesus to impact the way you relate to your partner (1 John 4:20)?
3. How is the motivational power of the sacrifice of the cross the key to all intimate relationships (1 John 4:19)?
4. According to the New Testament, a vital expectation for the return of Jesus (2 Tim 4:8) leads to a pure life (1 John 3:2 -3). What would the lack of this desire reveal about the deep inner condition of the church and so its couples?
9. The Covenant of Christian Marriage
a. The new covenant with Jesus does not annul the order established in the covenant of marriage in Eden: “Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” (Eph 5:23-24).
b. Even if the husband – wife relationship is mutual in terms of obligations of love (Eph 5:21), nothing suggests that the order of reciprocity is identical (Col 3:18- 19; 1 Pet 3:1- 7). It is the diverse nature of the relationship between husband and wife, mirroring that between Jesus and the church, that constitutes the unity in diversity of marriage.
c. To claim identity in relationship would be to deny the reality of the marriage covenant itself. (Just as the church would never claim identity in authority between her and Jesus.)
d. None of this should be taken to violate the basic equality of husbands and wives or men and women before God (Gal 3:28). This is established because all believers regardless of gender, ethnicity, age etc. have Jesus as their covenant mediator in the same way (Acts 2:17-18).
10. How Satan Seeks to Splits the Image of God in the Church
a. The principal area of attack, following the pattern set in Genesis 3, will be marriage.
b. Whatever subverts the order of God in marriage of the foundational manifestation of the image of God will spoil all other relationships – family, church etc.
c. Since mediation was of the essence of the way Eve was to relate to Adam as her covenant head in the beginning (and where he allowed her to fail) this will be a special area of satanic focus. (This explains the array of New Testament texts (1 Cor 11; 1 Tim 2) that concentrate on the interplay between the relationship of husband and wife and order in the assembly.)
d. Satan will do whatever he is able to remove the central role of Jesus as mediator of the new covenant in his blood (Luke 22:20; Heb 13:20).
e. A key theme in relation to vulnerability to deception is submission. 1 Corinthians 11:3 sums up the sequence or order of covenantal headship that protects the people of God from deception: “I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of the wife, and God is the head of Christ.”
f. Where there is deception it will often prove to be the case that the order of God in marriage is deficient.
g. The deepest intimacy of all is found in the willingness of Jesus to submit to the Father in love in going to the cross (Phil 2:5-8). The agony of the garden of Gethsemane and the cross (Mark 14:32-42;15:34) is an agony of intimate suffering. Where husbands have suffered for their wives (Adam refused to do this as he did not risk Eve’s rejection) and won their spirits over in love (this is a reciprocal movement and obligation: Eph 5:22-33) we must suppose the depth and power of submission has been learned and discernment of the diversity of the spiritual being of man from woman recognized or “known” (cf. Gen 4:1; Amos 3:2) through experience of the differences of role God has assigned from the beginning.
Questions for Discussion
1. The radical difference between men and women can be a source of deep frustration or high joy. How does the cross teach us that the former is the way to the latter?
2. Do you consciously seek to keep Jesus as the go – between you and your wife? How is prayer together indispensable to this?
3. Is marriage generally perceived as the primary battleground of spiritual warfare by the church and couples themselves? How do we account for this?
4. How is competition an issue for many marriages and what is a way forward?