RBV: I Corinthians 2:12

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

—I Corinthians 2:12

As the apostle Paul begins his first letter to the Corinthians, knowing that he is writing to a congregation divided among various factions, he patiently explains to them what makes them different from those in the world yet at the same time unites the members of the church. He, of course, refers to God's Holy Spirit, given to all Christians at conversion by the laying on of hands. The apostle John calls it "the anointing which you have received from Him" (I John 2:27), implying that Christians have been ordained, and thus set apart or sanctified, to a task or office that others have not been given.

This sets up a dichotomy. On the one side are Christians who have freely received God's Spirit, and on the other are all other human beings who, Paul says, have received "the spirit of the world" (see also Ephesians 2:2). Thus, there is a clash of spirits, a collision of motivating forces, at work between the Christian and the world. The apostle writes in Galatians 5 that the two spirits are diametrically opposed, one producing "the works of the flesh," while the other bears "the fruit of the Spirit" (verses 16-25). In fact, he declares in Romans 8:7, "The carnal mind is enmity against God"; the worldly person, imbibing of the spirit of this world, lives in hostility to God and cannot do what God commands.

The Spirit from God, though, removes the human hostility and allows the Christian to know—that is, realize, understand, and use—the gracious gifts of God. These gifts are predominantly spiritual blessings rather than physical ones. Jesus advises His disciples not to worry about food, drink, and clothing because God knows that physical human beings need such things to live (Matthew 6:25-32). Instead, He says, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you" (verse 33). The Christian's mind is to be focused on God's goal and godly things that will propel him along the way there, and he can do this only by the many gifts bestowed through God's Spirit.

Paul's focus in this passage seems to be on knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Earlier, he had mentioned that God has chosen to spread the gospel message through preaching, which the worldly Greeks considered "foolishness" (I Corinthians 1:23). Yet, this only exposes the fact that the Greeks did not have the ability to understand spiritual matters, and God would ultimately confound them in their "wisdom" through weak and foolish people preaching a "foolish" message of a crucified Savior. The difference is that those weak and foolish people possess a Spirit that comes directly from the Creator God that allows them to know the truth in all its divine splendor.

Thus, in terms of the apostle's overall goal in persuading the Corinthians that they should "be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I Corinthians 1:10), he emphasizes that they have this one commonality, God's Holy Spirit, that makes all the difference to them as individuals and as a congregation. So, as he goes on to say, there is no reason for them to be so judgmental one against the other, for they all "have the mind of Christ" (I Corinthians 2:16). Having one mind and being all in one Body of Christ, as he later discusses (I Corinthians 12:12-27),  dividing themselves into cliques is both counterproductive and contrary to God's purpose.

*Whither the Holy Spirit?

Most Bible students realize that most of the New Testament books are letters—epistolé in Greek and our "epistle," which is a written communication between parties. Paul's epistles, as well as those of James, Peter, John, and Jude, are written primarily to church congregations, although a few, such as those to Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Gaius (III John), are written to individuals. Many consider the book of Hebrews to be an epistle, but it is technically a treatise (a systematic argument about a subject) with a letter-like conclusion.

A typical letter during New Testament times followed a fairly strict format. It began with the writer's name, followed by the recipient(s) and a greeting to him/her/them. The body of the letter ensued, and at the end, the writer closed with additional greetings and perhaps a date. Occasionally, other material is attached to the full salutation, either within or after it, but such material may not technically be part of the formal greeting (see, for example, II Peter 1:3-4). In many cases, the writer makes parenthetic remarks about the recipients (see, for example, I Peter 1:2).

Thumbing through the salutations of the epistles brings out a curious fact: The greetings are all essentially the same. Time after time, the authors write something akin to this from Romans 1:7: "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Almost all of Paul's epistles follow this wording—perhaps with the word "mercy" thrown into the mix—and some of the other writers' greetings follow suit. This shows how standardized this part of the letter format was during the first century.

Of the four other epistle writers, James pens a workmanlike, "James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad: Greetings" (James 1:1). Peter's first epistle simply states, "Grace to you and peace be multiplied" (I Peter 1:2), to which he appends in his second letter, "in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord" (II Peter 1:2). John dispenses with the standard greeting altogether in his first epistle (which may suggest that, like Hebrews, it is not technically an epistle), while in the second he writes one of the longest: "Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love" (II John 1:3). In his third letter, his greeting to Gaius is terse but kind: "To the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth" (III John 1:1). Finally, like II John, Jude includes a longer greeting: "To those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ: Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you."

The most curious—and theologically significant—facet of these epistolary salutations is the wholesale absence of greetings from the Holy Spirit. In nearly every greeting, the writer sends greetings from God the Father and God the Son, Jesus Christ. A Bible reader brought up in traditional Christianity would expect that the so-called Third Person of the Trinity would get equal billing with the Father and the Son from the apostles, but the biblical text omits all mention of the Holy Spirit in terms of personal greetings to the churches. Is this just a mistake? An embarrassing omission? A slight?

If greetings from the Holy Spirit were absent in some but not all the salutations, we might make a case for any of these explanations, but because they are entirely absent among the greetings of twenty epistles (not counting Hebrews) from five apostles, they make an implicit theological point: The Holy Spirit sends no greetings because there is no Third Person in the Godhead to send them! Put simply, the Father and His Son are the only divine Persons, and in grace, mercy, and peace they send their personal greetings to the church. Not being an additional, distinctive entity, the Holy Spirit does not send any greetings.

The clearest biblical explanation of this truth appears in John 14, where Jesus Himself provides the correct understanding:

. . . I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. . . . If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. (John 14:16-18, 23)

Jesus teaches here that the Holy Spirit is not another personality but the divine essence of both the Father and the Son that comes to and resides in each of God's chosen sons and daughters.

Since Jesus Christ is the One who most often interacts with humans, the apostles single Him out most frequently as "the Spirit." In II Corinthians 3:17, Paul states this plainly, "Now the Lord is the Spirit. . . ." It does not get much clearer than that! The apostle also equates "the Spirit Himself mak[ing] intercession for us" (Romans 8:26) with "Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us" (verse 34). The "Christ in you" statements (see Romans 8:10; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 3:17; Colossians 1:27; etc.) also have this sense: The Spirit of the Son lives, abides, or continues with us.

Broadly, the Holy Spirit is the personality, mind, and power of God to do His will throughout His creation. But for those of us who believe and love Him, it is also the means by which the Father and the Son live in us, interact with us, empower us, and enable us throughout our developing relationship with them. In a way that we as humans cannot fully fathom, the Spirit is both of them in us, uniting us with them, as Jesus explains in His prayer in John 17:20-23:

I do not pray for these [disciples] alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

Because the Father and the Son are fully united in all things, when Christ is in us, the Father is in us also, and we are thus united with both of them in spirit and growing to become united with them in character. There is no need for a Third Person of a Trinity. It is truly amazing what can be learned from realizing that we must live by every word of God—even what the salutations of the epistles do not say is instructive!

Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part Seven)

The biblical concept of husband and wife being "one flesh" is far more involved than many people think. This teaching has its origins in Genesis 2:24: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." Too many Christians pass this off as being merely an illustration of the marriage bond—that when a man and woman marry, the two become one. However, when Jesus quotes this verse in Matthew 19:6 and Mark 10:8, He states it in the negative: ". . . they are no longer two but one flesh," strengthening the principle beyond mere illustration.

This phrase "one flesh" is used only seven times in the Bible: four times in the three verses just cited, as well as Matthew 19:5; Ephesians 5:31; and I Corinthians 6:16. This final scripture elevates the "one flesh" principle, revealing a spiritual correspondence:

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For "the two," He says, "shall become one flesh." But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. (I Corinthians 6:15-17)

How sacrilegious it would be to try to force Christ into a union with a harlot! Yet, that is what members of the church do when they give themselves over to un-Christian behavior, since they have been joined to Christ by covenant. He is the Bridegroom, and the church is the Bride. Such iniquity, Paul suggests, is the spiritual counterpart to a married man having sexual relations with a woman who is not his wife.

As shown previously, coitus—whether inside or outside of marriage—binds a man and woman as one flesh. Joined in verse 16 is derived from the Greek word kolláō, which means exactly the same thing as the Hebrew word dabaq in Genesis 2:24: "to glue together," "to cleave," "to adhere." Paul is plainly stating that, as the conjugal relations of a couple bind them together like glue, so also does the illicit act of a man and a harlot unite them as one flesh.

In the Old Testament, writers often used forms of the verb "to know" as a euphemism for the sexual act (see Genesis 4:1; I Samuel 1:19; etc.). This "knowing" suggests that the actual intercourse is but the physical sign of the greater personal and emotional intimacy that is shared—even with a prostitute. "Uncovering the nakedness" of another, as is written throughout Leviticus 18, is such an intimate act that it creates a bond between the two participants.

Too many people of this generation think of sex as cheap. Since the publication of the Kinsey Report in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, the doors of promiscuity have been flung wide open, spawning the sexual revolution. Nowadays, it raises few eyebrows that some have multiple sexual partners, even before graduating from high school! While Americans of all beliefs shake their heads in consternation over Tiger Woods' string of illicit liaisons, the truth is that this kind of scandalous behavior is quite commonplace in Main-Street America.

God does not consider the sexual union of man and wife as cheap. As the author of Hebrews writes, "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (Hebrews 13:4). To Him, it is so valuable that every time a person engages in it, he more intimately binds himself to his spouse, making marriage even more precious. Clearly, the "one flesh" principle is vital to Christian marriage.

However, the sexual aspect of this principle should not distract us because, in fact, the focus is on the closeness of union or togetherness. Without using the term "one flesh" again, the apostle expands on how this principle applies to marriage in I Corinthians 6:18-20; 7:2-4. He writes, "You are not your own" (I Corinthians 6:19), and "You do not have authority over your body, but your spouse does" (I Corinthians 7:4, paraphrased).

This is a major Christian understanding, one that separates it from marriages in other religions. Once married—once joined as a unit—the individuals in the covenant (husband and wife, male and female) are subsumed within the bond. To use a sports analogy, the team becomes more important than the individual players. The principle of "one flesh" leads to absolute togetherness or unity—living, thinking, planning, working as one.

This is obviously the ideal. It should not embarrass anyone or make anyone feel like a failure if this kind of total oneness is not present in his or her own marriage. It may never happen. Even so, God expects married couples to work toward the goal of being so committed to the relationship, so much in love with each other, so willing to work harmoniously together, that they function as a perfectly oiled unit, as it were.

We should never forget that marriage is a type of something greater! What does God want of us? To be one spirit with Him (I Corinthians 6:17)! The marriage relationship, where a man and a woman come together as one flesh, is a training program for the majority of us to learn how to be one with Him. If we cannot be one flesh with the person closest to us, how can we hope to be of one spirit with God?

Marriage is a primary spiritual testing-ground for us to prepare to be the Bride of Jesus Christ our Savior and to be one with God. Thus, we learn how to work in tandem with another human being whom God has given to us as a mate. Like a yoke of oxen, we must learn to pull in the same direction and for the same purposes, straining to reach the same ultimate glory.

How are we married couples doing? Are we pulling together? Or have we agreed to something like a 50/50 marriage? God would frown upon a 50/50 marriage because what it implies is that one is willing to meet his spouse only halfway. God desires us to give everything up to the other—so much that we no longer even own ourselves! Each spouse owns the other. That is surrendering a great deal, but it is also receiving much in return.

In Song of Songs 6:3, the Shulamite, after experiencing the trauma of being beaten and abused by wicked men in her town, comes to realize that the "one flesh" principle is the way a marriage should work. She says: "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." She understands that her spouse has done everything for her benefit, and because she was his and he was hers, she would do everything for him.

This is as good as it gets, humanly speaking. The perfect marriage is one in which each partner is wholly committed to the other and to the relationship. Each mate is striving to the utmost to live according to the will of God by showing true love—outgoing concern—for the other. And the perfect mate is the loving Christian giving his all to develop God's character both in himself and in his spouse.

Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part Six)

Moses writes in Genesis 2:24, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." As mentioned in the previous essay, this is the "leave and cleave" verse regarding godly marriage. Notice that Moses begins the verse with "therefore," which signals a concluding statement. In other words, a man leaves his parents and cleaves to his new wife "because she was taken out of Man" (verse 23). The marriage union, then, works to restore the unity—the oneness—of humanity; the man is incomplete without the woman, and the woman, without the man. Together, they are whole.

"Cleave" is a word that we do not use very often. It is a strange word, as it has come down to us through the centuries with two diametrically opposite meanings! These meanings descended from two similarly sounding Old English (Anglo Saxon) words, clēofan and cleofian, the former meaning "to cut asunder, split," and the latter meaning "to stick fast, adhere." Obviously, the meaning that is correct in this passage is "to stick fast, adhere," as the Hebrew word under it, dabaq, means "cling, adhere to." Modern translations render this Hebrew word as "be joined to," "cling to," "hold fast to," "unite with," "bond with," even "stick with." In every case, it suggests that the couple are "stuck like glue" to each other.

In our house, there is a table in our living room where our children do their homeschool work, and around it are some Windsor chairs. A few years ago, my son, Jarod, had a bad habit of rocking back on one of these chairs, and he rocked on it so much that its back broke completely off, creating a stool. Not wanting to throw the chair away, I decided to repair it. While inspecting the break, I was interested to see that the chair broke above the glued joint. The glued joint remained solidly connected to the seat of the chair. It stuck, adhered, or clung to the seat of the chair, while the rest of the back broke off.

This simple illustration helps us to see what God means in Genesis 2:24. When a man and his wife are joined together—when they cleave to one another—the joint should be stronger than anything else. The joint between a married couple is to be so strong that, if trouble visits the marriage, the union will survive. If a break comes, one of the spouses should "break" but not the joint, that is, one or the other should submit rather than break the bond. That is God's overall intention for the marriage union.

This is the first indication in the Bible that God intends marriage to be one man and one woman for life. Notice the apostle Paul's elucidation of this point in Romans 7:1-3:

Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.

The law that Paul is refers to here is not explicitly stated in the Old Testament; no verse in the Old Testament says a man and wife shall be married "until death do they part." In fact, those words are nowhere in the Bible. Neither is the phrase "as long as you both shall live," used in many wedding ceremonies, although it is implied here in Romans 7. Nevertheless, the principle is unquestionably in both testaments, showing the continuity throughout God's Word.

Paul makes God's instruction regarding the marriage union very clear. Marriage is for life, except for a limited number of circumstances that are explained by both Christ in Matthew 19 (and related places in the other gospels) and Paul in I Corinthians 7. God says that He hates divorce in Malachi 2:16, and He therefore provides only a bare minimum of "outs" from the marriage covenant.

The "marriage is for life" principle is definitely in the Bible. In I Corinthians 7:10, Paul restates the church's teaching unequivocally: "Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband." With all the authority of an apostle of Christ, Paul affirms God's desire for a lifelong union, this time positing it in the negative. It should be added that, despite his commanding the wife not to depart from her husband, "what is good for the goose is good for the gander," as the saying goes.

I Corinthians 7:39 again repeats the apostle's doctrinal statement from Romans 7, adding an interesting caveat: "A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord." The caveat concerns a person's conversion status. If a woman's husband dies while she is a member of the church, she is free to remarry, but "only in the Lord." In other words, she can marry only another converted member of the church, and without doubt, that is the best thing for her to do if she wishes to remarry.

Jesus comments on Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 in Mark 10:6-9:

But from the beginning of the creation, God "made them male and female." "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh"; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.

Clearly, the Bible consistently emphasizes lifelong marriage—from the Book's opening salvoes in Genesis to Malachi, throughout the Gospels, in the epistles of the apostles, and even in the final chapters of Revelation. Conversely, human beings tend to try to find loopholes for splitting up. However, the Bible is not a book that provides many legal loopholes. In fact, it contains so few regulations concerning divorce that it takes a fair bit of scholarship to figure out exactly what Jesus and Paul, especially, mean when they give the few reasons for divorce. It is not simple but a matter that must be deeply considered.

Our God is a very positive God. Throughout His Book, He emphasizes His desire—His intent—for a man and a woman to remain married for life. As we see from Jesus' statement regarding marriage, the first two chapters of Genesis provide the core principles regarding marriage. Other biblical scriptures about marriage are based on what we read about the first human couple in Genesis 1-3. In the end, it comes down to one concept: that a man and his wife are to be one flesh joined together by God. Jesus sums it up by saying that, since "they are no longer two, but one flesh," they should not be separated.

Next time, we will look more closely into the concept of "one flesh."

Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part Five)

As Part Four illustrated, a chief purpose of marriage and family is to teach proper, godly government. It provides a conducive environment to learn both how to submit to authority and how to oversee others in love. Even in the "marriage chapter," Ephesians 5, Paul makes frequent use of governmental terms (italicized below) to describe the ideal marriage relationship:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. (Ephesians 5:22-29)

Submit is a governmental term, as the governed person surrenders, gives in, or yields to the one who is in authority, and the apostle later uses subject in the same way. Paul employs the word head to denote one who has authority over an institution, just as the head directs the body. In God's scheme, the husband has authority over his wife and family in a similar way to Christ's authority over His Bride, the church. Again, we see the physical/spiritual parallel.

Perhaps the most significant governmental term in the whole passage is love. To many, love and government seem like odd companions, for most governments do not practice love but sheer, unfeeling power. But God's government is different. Love—outgoing concern for everyone and everything—is the very basis of His government and way of life. Paul illustrates this by pointing out that Jesus Christ governs His church in love, giving us examples of how His love is manifested to us: by sacrificing, sanctifying, cleansing, glorifying, nourishing, and cherishing it. The apostle turns these into instructions to the person in authority—the head, the husband—on how he must work to produce a happy, successful marriage.

Throughout this passage, he emphasizes the fact that the marriage union has a greater purpose, and a major one is to teach and practice proper governance. He stresses the authority and the loving care of Christ, the Head, as well as the submission and eventual glory of the church. In the husband's role, authority is finely balanced by loving care, and in the wife's role, her present submission is compensated by her ultimate glorification.

Many people think of government negatively, but good government offsets its use of power with an appropriate amount of love, combined with humility, and the promise of reward or blessing. These elements do not always take place at the same time, but this mix of virtues will eventually produce some form of glory, that is, a wonderful, magnificent result. In the case of marriage, it should produce enduring, harmonious, loving mates; happy, productive children; and sterling, righteous character in all parties involved.

These days, authority is disrespected and maligned, and Paul—actually, the whole Bible—teaches that this should not be. God is the ultimate authority, and He gives it to governments, institutions, and men as He sees fit (Romans 13:1-7; see Daniel 4:17). Those so endued are responsible for wielding their power justly and fairly, balancing it with kindness and concern. In the church, especially, we should have a better and more proper understanding of how government should work. Sometimes authority is not always used properly even in the church—yet in some of these cases, we make such a judgment because our perspective is skewed by various factors. A patient person will often find that it produces good fruit in the end.

Paul continues his teaching in Ephesians 5:30-32:

For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

Just as Jesus reached back to God's instruction to Adam and Eve in His teaching about marriage in Matthew 19, the apostle similarly refers to Genesis 2:24, when Eve is first presented to Adam. This verse, often called the "leave and cleave" verse, reveals that there should be a definite break between one's life as a child and life as an adult spouse. To put it another way, a man's life under his father and mother should be completely separate from his new life in which he is over his own household.

According to this verse, the newly married couple should set up a house on their own because to do otherwise confuses the roles and responsibilities that God desires to work on through this relationship. If a man remains under his father and mother, he cannot be the lord of his own manor, as it were; he cannot really be a head to his wife. In the same way, if the couple lives in her parent's home, the wife has divided loyalties. Who is really her head: her husband or her father?

For the marriage to work best, the couple should not remain in the home of either set of parents because it does not allow for the intended relationship between husband and wife. It is one thing if some sort of hardship forces the couple to live with the parents for a short time, but to fulfill God's command and purpose in Genesis 2:24, a newly married couple should set up their own household as soon as practicable.

A man should be king of his own castle and his wife, his queen without interference from parents or in-laws. The parents can be there to give needed advice, to lend a hand, and to watch the children from time to time, but for the couple to grow and develop the character that they need both now and for God's Kingdom, they should be on their own.

This means that, barring other complications, a couple should not marry if they are unable or not mature enough to set up a separate household. They should put off marriage until the husband can support his wife financially and emotionally. Paul does say in I Corinthians 7:9, that if a man and woman cannot control themselves, "it is better to marry than to burn with passion." However, that piece of advice has frequently been abused by people who are unwilling to practice self-control—a sign that one or both of them is indeed immature.

Next time, we will delve further into God's instruction in Genesis 2:24.

Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part Three)

Last time, we saw that it is God's involvement that provides the blessings and advantages to the Christian marriage. He makes Himself a party to the marriage covenant, binding the agreement and elevating it spiritually so that it can function as a superior environment for character growth and preparation for the Kingdom of God. With God participating in our marriages, the power is available to make it successful.

However, this does not imply that an individual is a failure if his or her marriage does not work; sometimes the odds are stacked against a person's success. Not every marriage is going to be perfect and work out perfectly—in fact, very few will be absolutely seamless because we are, after all, still human. Yet, a Christian has a clear advantage over others since God's power, gifts, and blessing are there for the asking and use.

Those of us who are married should take this to heart and grab onto this blessing as if it were a lifeline. It is there as a cushion and a help for us in our marriages because, no matter what two people they are and how much they have in common, the couple who makes a vow to share their lives until death parts them are quite different as individuals. They will never agree completely on everything. So, to make the marriage work to its fullest potential, God's blessing and involvement are absolutely necessary.

We have seen that God blesses marriage in the first chapter of Genesis, and it is interesting that as the Book nears its end, in Revelation 19, marriage and His blessing on it once again take center stage. Clearly, the institution of marriage has a far higher purpose than just the physical union of a man and a woman.

And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, "Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready." And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, "Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!'" And he said to me, "These are the true sayings of God." (Revelation 19:6-9)

Here we have a prophetic portrayal of the ultimate marriage, and God's blessing goes out to those who comprise the wife—the bride—of Jesus Christ. This blessing in Revelation 19:9 gives the blessing in Genesis 1:28 its true context. Our human marriages are types of this greater spiritual marriage. The experiences that we go through during a blessed physical marriage are designed by God to prepare us for our part in the ultimate intimate relationship with our Savior.

Marriage is a representation on the human plane of union between God and man. A similar intimacy exists in both relationships. Just as the sexual bond between a man and woman makes them "one flesh" (Genesis 2:24; see I Corinthians 6:16), a close, spiritual unity between God and a converted human being—which Jesus says is "to know" God in John 17:3 (compare this term to the sexual imagery of Genesis 4:1)—makes them "one spirit." On this, the apostle Paul writes in I Corinthians 6:17, "But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him" (see also Ephesians 4:4). Physical marriage, then, can teach us how to be spiritually one with God.

Just as surely as God will bless the union between His Son and the Bride, He will also endue the physical type with the ability to fulfill its purpose—that is, to create unity between marriage partners to prepare them for union with God.

A third purpose of marriage is found in Genesis 1:28: "God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth. . . .'" God provides marriage to produce children, and evidently, He wants many of them! The Catholic Church teaches that the primary reason for marriage is to produce children, but spiritually, it is secondary to God's higher purpose. Certainly, marriage is the only union so authorized and blessed to produce children. This purpose contains all the sexual aspects to marriage relations, as regulated by the seventh commandment, "You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18).

Children produced outside of the marriage union will automatically be burdened by severe disadvantages. Beyond the emotional troubles inherent in illegitimacy, single-parent households are typically poorer than the average and are powerless to improve. The harried single parent is forced to work long hours at his job or several jobs, decreasing the precious time that every parent needs to give to his children. In this situation, children often spend a great deal of time alone and undisciplined, frequently finding themselves in trouble with teachers and administrators, neighbors, and law enforcement. As a result, they often feel unloved, abandoned, and at odds with the world, and many end up repeating the sins of their parents.

Only within marriage and the traditional family can children have the best environment to produce, not just secure, peaceful, useful lives, but also the discipline and character to have the image of God created in them. This does not preclude a child produced outside of marriage from God's calling, although it can make matters more difficult. By the same token, not every child who grows up in a traditional Christian family will answer God's summons to belief and repentance. However, marriage provides the best and the only God-sanctioned relationship for the conception, bearing, and rearing of children. If a child begins his life in the proper environment, he has a head start on reaching both his physical and spiritual potentials.

These purposes of marriage always seem to return to the idea that God is reproducing Himself. The lawful union of man and wife is a vital first step in this process. Once God binds them together and they conceive a child, they bring into being another individual who has the potential to be a member of God's Family. This is the way God intends the process to begin.

Then, after parents train them up in the way that they should go (Proverbs 22:6), they turn them over to God for further development as His children. This is one of the great ironies in all of creation: that God gives often young, immature, inexperienced human parents "first crack" at producing children in His image. He places upon them the tremendous responsibility to mold and shape the next generation into the moldable clay that He can work with to shape righteous sons and daughters for His Kingdom.

Nonetheless, it all begins with marriage, the best environment to turn out the ideal product for God to use in reproducing Himself. In Part Four, we will examine a fourth purpose of the marriage institution.

Religion and Politics

Two events occurred this morning to prime the old thinking pump: the funeral of Pope John Paul II in Vatican City and receiving the February 28, 2005, issue of The Journal: News of the Churches of God in the church's mailbox. I have not read through an issue of that publication for a long while, so I skimmed through it before passing it on. It did not surprise me one bit to read a litany of complaints, criticisms, and controversies from one end of it to the other. I usually do not read The Journal for this very reason. It depresses me, and I take that as a cue to continue to avoid it.

Regarding the Catholic Church, I have read and heard a great deal—especially over the last few weeks—about the deals, schemes, plots, and machinations among the members of the College of Cardinals when it is time to elect a new Pope. My essay of March 4, 2005, "John Paul II's Successor," summarizes some of the latest speculation about who will emerge as the next Roman Pontiff due to the various blocs that already exist among the electors. Between now and the first sign of white smoke over the Sistine Chapel, the media will carry blow-by-blow accounts of the cardinals' politicking.

Closer to home, right on the fold of The Journal's first page is the languid headline, "The United Church of God's council of elders chooses not to affirm Roy Holladay as president." Page 3 carries a commentary, "The UCG turns 10: It's now or never," in which the author advocates a grassroots push to make "ordinary members'" desires for the next president known. The next page is top to bottom on speculation about how the council will align itself to elect a certain man as president, as well as the tumultuous history of UCG's presidency. The rest of the issue was every Tom, Dick, and Mary's opinions on doctrinal issues ranging from Passover to church eras to the nature of God.

Intriguingly, the page-4 predictive article, "Here is how council will select Jim Franks as UCG president," by Dave Havir, devotes its last handful of paragraphs to a comparison between the College of Cardinals' and the UCG council's processes for selecting a new head. Havir writes, "Whether loyal Catholics like to admit it or not, political maneuvering behind the scenes by the well-entrenched College of Cardinals is going on. . . . The same is true with an organization like United." The entire article illustrates step by step the wheeling and dealing that has already been done among the council members.

Is this surprising?

It should not be. When United decided to adopt a quasi-democratic, corporate governmental structure, politicking became an instant by-product. But this is not confined to United. When other churches chose their forms of government—hierarchy, presbyterianism, congregationalism—politics resulted for them as well because it is not a product of government but of human nature. It is essentially a human approach to accrue power or to end up on the winning side of a dispute.

A survey of the New Testament on the subject of politics proves to be an interesting study. We discover that those who stoop to politics or other devious means to get their own way are the bad guys. The ones in white hats are the apostles, evangelists, and other saints who submit to the will of God concerning His delegation of authority. Did our Savior once condescend to become involved in the political maneuverings of the Jewish sects of His day? Did he try to make an under-the-table deal with Pilate? In the church council at Jerusalem, do we find evidence of back-room "discussions" to push through the apostles' agenda? Do Paul and James take pot shots at each other over law and grace, pitting church members against one another?

No. They are all shown to be men and women who "walk[ed] by faith, not by sight" (II Corinthians 5:7). Sure, they disagreed at times—Paul's rebuke of Peter in Antioch is the best known (Galatians 2:11-16), as well as Paul's dispute with Barnabas over Mark (Acts 15:36-41)—but they never took the road to factions and voting blocs to get their way. They exercised the fruit of the Spirit to work in accord, or at the very least not to get in each other's way (II Corinthians 10:13-18).

While attending Ambassador College in Pasadena during the mid-1980s, I had the opportunity to work as an "Office Assistant" in Church Administration (August 1985-August 1987, that incredible period during the last half-year of Herbert Armstrong's life and the first years of Joseph Tkach's tenure). However, even from my lowly position, I could see politics at work in the corporate environment of the Worldwide Church of God. Running errands to every department on campus, where corporate intrigue thrived, I grew to abhor church politics because its worldliness and destructiveness were plain to see.

My brush with church politics nearly twenty years ago brings back frustration and sadness when I see it happening again within the churches of God. It does not bode well for the organizations that practice it because, frankly, they are exposing before the church and the world their works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) rather than godly fruits of the Holy Spirit working in them (verses 22-23). The apostle Paul warns in a preceding verse, "But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another" (verse 15).

If this is symptomatic of the majority of the converted membership, the whole church of God has a great deal yet to overcome. We still have not shaken off from ourselves the ways of this world. We have a frightfully long way to go before we recapture the "one accord" of the early church (Acts 2:1, 42-47). Let us contemplate this as Passover approaches (II Corinthians 13:5).