Tag Archives: future of marriage

Discipleship, Divorce, Lost culture, Marriage Restoration, morality, Spiritual Warfare

Keys to Breaking the Back of the Evangelical “M-D-R” Heresy: One-Flesh Joining and Biblical Covenant

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Jesus-at-Cana-2by Standerinfamilycourt

…so that they are no more two, but one flesh; what therefore God did join together, let no man put asunder. 
Matt. 19:6

Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.  But not one has done so who has a remnant of the Spirit. And what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring? Take heed then to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth.
Malachi 2:14-15

 

Even now, most marriage-permanence disciples and ministries don’t fully understand the foundational concepts that make non-widowed remarriage constitute the ongoing state of adultery, in every case.    As a consequence, the best of these are constantly battling rationalized pleas for worldly exceptions that can seem impervious to scriptural correction, and suffering endless accusations of “legalism” evoked by the very idea that those who do not repent of marrying someone else’s covenant spouse will not inherit the kingdom of God.    Virtually NO Protestant pastor today preaches on the foundational facts underlying the thrice-repeated words of Jesus concerning this:

“everyone who marries a divorced [person] enters a state of ongoing adultery”.    [Matt. 5:32b; Matt. 19:9b-KJV; Luke 16:18]

The most enlightened pastors who correctly and faithfully quote Jesus in the “what” of marriage permanence do so without giving any deep voice to the “why it is so.”    Jesus said, “…from the beginning it was not so”,  referring to false, man-made  declarations of marriage dissolution, and He bluntly stated this was not possible by the hand of men.    The last such sermon or writing we’re aware of that came close to Christ’s explicitness of this foundational truth in God’s marriage  law went like this:

Isaac Williams (1802-1865)  Church of England

” ‘What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.’ Here our Lord sets aside the letter of Holy Scripture, in one case, in the passage in Deuteronomy, (which He speaks of as the command of Moses,) on account of the higher law of Christian holiness and perfection…And therefore this passage in the book of Genesis not only is spoken, as St. Paul says it is, of the Sacramental union betwixt Christ and His Church, but does also signify that marriage is of itself of Divine sanction, and the union formed of God, and necessarily indissoluble as such…for if God hath joined, man cannot put asunder.”

But precisely why is it not possible for marriage to be dissolved by an act of men?

We really don’t need to look any further than Matthew 19:6 and its parallel verse, Mark 10:8-9 to see where Jesus tells us concisely why:

“…so they are no longer two,  but one flesh.   What therefore God has joined together, let NO HUMAN* separate.”

(*the Greek word in the manuscripts is anthropos, meaning “mankind”,  not “andra” / “aner”  or “man”.)

GOD creates the one-flesh entity, and from that point on, no longer sees two individuals.    From that point on, only death can make one-flesh two again,  which immediately eliminates every single one of the myriad rationalizations for remarriage while the spouse of our youth remains alive.    [This is directly echoed in Romans 7:2-3  and  1 Cor. 7:39.]    

Yet GOD does something even further upon the making of vows before Him of holy matrimony, after He has created the irrevocable, inseparable  one-flesh entity:  He unconditionally enters  covenant with that new entity.  (Malachi 2:14)   This foundational fact means that holy matrimony is never replicated in a non-widowed remarriage, for God does not abandon covenant, nor join into a competing one.    That’s why Jesus was so unrelenting and exceptionless  in insisting that to marry another while having a living spouse, or to marry someone’s discarded spouse, is always to enter a state of ongoing adultery until repented and terminated.    To do so, brazenly mocks the God of the marriage covenant!

(See also Genesis 2:21-24,  and Ephesians 5:31 , noting that in every one of these stated cases,  a man leaves his father and mother, not the spouse of his youth)

It’s literally that simple.   However, to fully grasp the implications of all this, one must know the attributes of God’s character and how He deals with His own covenants, to which He is always the dominant party  — for the most part, unconditionally.

What are those attributes?

Holiness – He will not abide nor inhabit that which is immoral and undertaken in treachery.    (Not to be confused with the outward appearance of blessing, for He causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. )

Omnipotence – If not for His mercy and forbearance, we would be instantly consumed.   Yet He brings the foreign invader and the internal blight, against which He withdraws His mighty hand of protection from a nation in order to chastise toward repentance, for the purpose to restore relationship with Him.

Integrity –  Ancient covenants were always unconditionally binding on the stronger, more powerful party, i.e. Himself.    He does not break covenant even when men do.   Biblical scholars  J. K. Tarwater and D.W. Jones exhaustively studied a total of 267 Old Testament, and 34 New Testament covenants of the Lord, and found that He broke not a single one of them in all of biblical history.

Justice –  Unrepentant covenant-breaking and self-worship will have its day of retribution and recompense, even if it doesn’t occur in this life.   Undertaken in this life, the cost of repentance is finite.  Undertaken in the next life, the cost is unending.

Jealousy for His Symbols –  From the severe discipline Moses received as a consequence of disobeying God in striking the rock (a symbol for the crucified Christ – Numbers 20:8-12) to  the instant death that  was meted to the priest Uzza for touching the Ark of the Covenant (1 Chronicles 13:9-10), the Most High allows no violation of His sacred symbols, of which holy matrimony was the very first and most sacred of symbols (Ephesians 5:31-32).

As though it wasn’t symbolic enough for Jesus, the Bridegroom, to rehearse virtually the entire script at the last supper of the  traditional Hebrew betrothal ceremony (John 14:1-4; Luke 22:14-20) as He instituted holy communion, the actual elements of bread and wine represent a bit more than His flesh and his blood, they also represent one-flesh and the biblical marriage covenant itself:  “I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until I drink it anew with you in My Father’s house.”

(For a deeper study on God’s Character and His Covenants, follow this link.)

Before we take on the entrenched culture of “sanctified adultery”, calcified by 500 years of Reformation-sourced twin heresies: that men can dissolve the marriage covenant contrary to what Jesus asserted, and that born-again believers are not accountable for their post-conversion apostasies (behind which are the all the demons of hell),  we first must establish an immovable foundation whose pilings are the unambiguous teachings of Christ contained in scripture, whose bricks of covenant are the unchangeable attributes of God’s character, and whose mortar is the supernatural binding of one-flesh that only God can unbind. It is the unshakable knowledge that this foundation is not replicated, (nor can it ever be replicated) in unions that Jesus repeatedly characterized as in the ongoing state of God-mocking adultery.

This enhanced understanding of one-flesh and of holy covenant allows us to get out of the weeds of endlessly arguing about word usage and etymologies, of suffering charges of harshness under humanistic standards of perceived justice, and misguided concerns about “repeat sin” in undertaking the necessary acts of repentance.    It’s the stuff of the book of Ezra, a contemporary of Malachi, where more than a hundred of the priests could have made all the same arguments, and thereby permanently forfeited the sovereignty of their nation,  but instead they heeded the “thus saith the Lord” of their covenant to put away their foreign wives, for whom most had likely put away their one-flesh covenant wives previously, or were living in polygamy–as a good 60% of the contemporary Western church is today.  Imagine how rapidly God’s kingdom would be rebuilt if only a modern-day Ezra would be raised up by the Lord, and His shepherds would repent and become as faithful!

 

Thus says the Lord, ‘If My covenant for day and night stand not, and the fixed patterns of heaven and earth I have not established,  then I would reject the descendants of Jacob and David My servant, not taking from his descendants rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  But I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them.’
Jeremiah 33:25-26

 

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall |  Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

 

 

Church Discipline, citizenship, Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, Divorce, Fundamental Rights, morality, Religious freedom

Questions, RE: Ask Dr. Brown’s Warning to Shepherds Who Mislead The Sheep

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Dr. Brown, in August of this year you did a marvelous piece that went out to hundeds of people on our page and was very well-received.   It was called “Christians HAVE been Hypocrites, Now What?”   Connecting the dots, it stands to reason that each retained act or position of hypocrisy pushes more sheep over the cliff (or keeps them hiding in the bramble bushes!).

DrBrownsSheep

 

In it, you quite accurately stated,

“That’s why I’ve said for years now that no-fault heterosexual divorce has done more in the church to undermine marriage than all gay activists combined, and that’s why I’m all for any spiritual movement that calls us to recognize, confess and forsake our sins by the grace of God and the power of Jesus’ blood. Repentance blames no one else and makes no excuses. Instead it takes full responsibility and makes an about-face, receiving mercy and restoration from the Father.”

The community of covenant marriage standers would like to ask a few questions about how this is playing out in your church and circle of influence, therefore, in the months since you wrote this piece:

 

(1) Are you expecting most of the repentance to come from the flock?   If so, is there any particular sin cordoned off as not requiring cessation and renouncement as part of repentance?

 

(2) Are you teaching people the full truth about how Jesus defined adultery? Do you teach Matt. 5:32b as well as Matt. 5:28?   Do you teach Matt. 19:9b (or only the NIV version)?   When was the last time you preached on Luke 16:18?

JesusDefinedA

 

(3) Are you teaching people that the “b” portion of these scriptures, relating to the otherwise-innocent person who marries somebody else’s spouse, carries NO “exception clause”?

 

(4) Speaking of question (2), are you teaching your flock the things that are necessary since the start of the 20th century (post-Westcott & Hort) to be true “Bereans”?   Are you teaching them the basic principles of hermeneutics, what an interlinear text tool is online, the character and history of the men who shaped their NIV, and the critical information about the manuscripts their bible is based on?   Do they know that 47 verses have likely been eliminated from their bible version due to the prejudiced choice of manuscripts?   Do you teach them to compare modern lexicons, commentaries and bible dictionaries with those written prior to the 19th century and encourage them to research the discrepancies when it’s a verse dealing with marriage and sexual ethics?

 

(5) Do your people know who the church fathers were for the first 4 centuries of the church, and whether any of them taught a “Matthean exception” or a “Pauline privilege”?   Do they know the true history of and when and why these things actually began to be taught in the church?

 

(6) Do you have people in leadership or on staff who are the husband of more than one wife, the wife of more than one husband, or do you give them a pass if it’s 1-at-a-time?   Have you considered the example that this sets,  in light of Paul’s well known instructions to Timothy and Titus?

 

(7) Are you rewarding and incentivizing no-fault divorce by performing weddings that you’d be deeply ashamed to invite Jesus to, after the way HE defined adultery?   Are you pronouncing some people “man and wife” instead of pronouncing them serial polygamists?

 

(8) Do they see you and your team walking before them in the uncompromised fear of God above all fear of men?

 

(9) What are you doing politically to repeal or reform unilateral divorce?   Your congregation no doubt knows which constitutional protections are violated by sodomous/polygamous/incestuous marriage — but do they know that unilateral (no-fault) divorce laws violate the exact same fundamental rights, including religious freedom and right-of-conscience?   Do they know how much these violations have cost taxpayers every year in transferred social costs?

 

Ketuba

(10)   Do you preach “once saved, always saved”,  or do you realize that  our  human marriages  are  an  analogy  of the  Messianic Covenant all the way from Genesis to Revelation?    Surely with your background  you’re aware that  Jesus’  “script”  for the Last Supper  was  verbatim the Hebrew betrothal  ceremony,  and that an unfaithful bride  who  turned away and didn’t show up for the marriage supper, no oil in her lamp,  no wedding garments,  without  confessing and repenting, broke her ketubah  and would be divorced by the Bridegroom instead of becoming the bride as intended.    Is it then so inconsistent for Paul to apply 1 Cor. 6:9-10 , Galatians 5:19-21 and Hebrews 13:4 to those Jesus actively and repeatedly called adulterers?

For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.
2  Corinthians 11:2
Knowing that God protects and delivers when we are no longer mocking Him, we trust you have been working on some of these and will consider the ones you haven’t had a chance to think about just yet.           – “standerinfamilycourt”

#1M1W4L   #LukeSixteenEighteen

 


7 Times Around the Jericho Wall |  Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!
www.standerinfamilycourt.com
Divorce, Lost culture, morality

Who’s Sick of “satan-schmaltz” in the Media ?

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Screen-Shot-2015-09-29-at-11_00_00-AMby Standerinfamilycourt

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.  Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming;  that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.  For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false,  in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.
– 2 Thessalonians 2:7-12

This may be the least politically-correct blog I’ll ever write.    I almost skipped the cyber-story depicted above because I assumed it was another tedious gay wedding tale, coming in the midst of a week when SIFC was wrestling a lot of personal alligators and feeling a bit (well..) peevish.    Then, on the commute to the day job, on CHRISTIAN radio no less, this story was called out as having the evangelical dee-jay in literal tears because this father-of-the-bride was showing “the love of Christ” in his “blended family”  to the stepdad who had “just as much to do with who his daughter became”  as he (nolo contendre on that last point),  and so both men walked her down the aisle.     Both men indeed have much to do with this shared daughter,  not to mention sundry replacement spouses, and themselves all being on the wrong bus to the eternally-wrong destination, and having not the slightest clue of it.    Likely not their fault, since fewer than 5% of U.S. evangelical pastors will dare call out remarriage adultery and tell the truth about the eternal consequences of continuing to live in that state until death without forsaking it.    We can no longer even read authoritatively about it  in (altered) contemporary bibles or bible commentaries, thanks to a grand switcheroo on the manuscripts from which they are negligently translated.

And this little gem was also getting the adulation last week for the sterling display of love, respect and “maturity” of a husband yielding his “ex” over to the arms of an apparently cohabiting successor.    Quite a few “friends of friends” were wishing for this super-guy’s phone number.    Apparently SIFC was the only person in all of Facebookland  wondering why in the world this man wasn’t instead binding satan and praying Hosea thornbushes in their path!    If his love was so undying and his esteem for her so polished, how could he applaud her stroll toward the hell-flames with one of satan’s demons?    Since this friend (of mine) had twenty minutes before walked out of church behind me, and had already been burned, divorced and left with two fatherless daughters as a consequence of our pastor not declining to perform a wedding over her and another woman’s husband,  I called out the fact that this article was glorifying adultery and that her daughters deserved better.   I was slapped silly by her other “friends” for my judgmental lack of couth and insensitivity in accusing anyone of committing an “unpardonable sin” (let’s come back to that in a bit).    Nevertheless, the Lord was present, and helped me get a link into her hands to Casey Whitaker’s  “Have You Not Read?”

I’ll bet many of us nauseously remember this bit making the viral rounds in the last year or two, because it still keeps turning up every now and then like a bad social media penny!

It’s interesting that The Ruth Institute, the Catholic-based rare pro-family advocacy organization dedicated to exposure and full repeal of unilateral divorce laws in the 50-states, recently published an excellent piece on the brand of norm-enforced political correctness shoved off on the stepchildren of those “blended” unions who must stuff down God-given feelings of being violated and betrayed by their own parents.

In our culture, and even in our CHURCH culture, the highest good is the “feel good”,  as though this life on earth was all there is.    Prominent evangelical leaders who are media titans call this out as “functional atheism” on Friday (living as though we believe God doesn’t exist), then perform weddings on Saturday joining already-married ineligible adulterers to one another without the slightest regard for three souls including their own!    Everyone must “move on”  because that’s “emotional maturity”.    After all, those who say “divorce” is “the unpardonable sin” are legalists who don’t respect a brother or sister’s entitlement to the Matthean Exception, or barring that, to the Pauline Privilege.     Isn’t a man-made legal construct actually morally neutral and dependent on whether its goal is repentance or rebellion against God’s law?    Isn’t the real sin disobedience of Christ’s crystal-clear commandment in Luke 16:18 ?

And is this sin unpardonable?    Let’s examine that!

Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy [every evil, abusive, injurious speaking, or indignity against sacred things] will be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the [Holy] Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit [by attributing the miracles done by Me to Satan] will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.       – Matt. 12:31-32 (AMP)

Remarriage apologists love to point to this pronouncement of Jesus to insist, with condescending glare, that those who remain in a perpetual state of rebellion against the 1st, 7th and 10th Commandments (against self-worshipping idolatry, adultery and covetousness, respectively), will not go to hell, notwithstanding (KJV*):

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
[And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.]”   – 1 Cor. 6:9-11

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,  idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.   –  Gal. 5:19-21

(*No, you didn’t imagine it, your NIV, NASB, etc. omits “adultery” from this list.)

But the fearful [of men], and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.       –  Rev. 21:8

 

 

Marriage revisionists are absolutely right, Jesus clearly did say, “every sin and blasphemy [every evil, abusive, injurious speaking, or indignity against sacred things] will be forgiven people, ”  but there are two important provisos involved:   (1) the sin and blasphemy must be TERMINATED, and (2) the sinner must not run out of time before doing so!    Indeed, the opportunity that remains to go and sin no more,  as well as Paul’s words, (1 Cor. 6:11) ….”and such were some of you”,  conclusively proves that civilly marrying somebody else’s spouse, and taking them on a journey toward hell with you, is not the unpardonable sin.     However, like every other pardonable sin, the determination of whether an adulterous pair ultimately arrives there depends on which direction they are walking when the trumpet sounds, or when the sand empties from the personal hour glass at the end of the days of our lives.

The Thursday after this event brought the reality check, when our nation saw the wicked underbelly of all of this “unselfish emotional maturity” that ignores Christ’s marriage commandment and refuses to call adultery what Jesus called adultery.     We watched a blind, enraged President of the United States declare that this was the 15th time since taking office that he had to comment on a mass shooting, but neglected to mention the recurring circumstance that a son of divorce was involved, as he instead crusaded for stiffening gun controls.   SIFC would urge that a more disciplined root cause analysis be applied before drawing such conclusions in isolation.

Lord, raise up parents and shepherds who model their “gestures” from the eternal perspective, and who value souls over feelings and sensibilities.    Such parents would set the example for their own children by standing for their violated marriage instead of insisting on being with another, and would exit those civil arrangements that Jesus repeatedly called adulterous, so that their soul-jeopardizing example isn’t followed by succeeding generations!

“There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan”
(C. S. Lewis)

 

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  |  Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

www. standerinfamilycourt.com  

Discipleship, Divorce, marriage, Marriage Restoration, morality

Casey Whitaker’s “Have Ye Not Read?” – Chapter 10

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FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   This chapter from the excellent book by Casey Whitaker further illuminates the essential points we made in the May, 2015 blog, “God’s Character and His Covenants.”   (Links to scriptures are provided by us, and are in NASB Version except where faulty underlying  manuscripts omit critical portions of a verse, in which case we provide the KJV.)

Key thought:  Those who would rationalize the abomination of marrying someone else’s spouse in God’s eyes, or EVEN WORSE, would misuse the Lord’s name to perform such a ceremony as the undershepherd of an entrusted flock,  also tend to pervert the doctrine of eternal security.    Is our salvation actually a consummated covenant, or merely a betrothal which is dependent upon finishing the race in Christ?   Is the distortion, “once saved, always saved” sending people to hell, and causing pastors to deceive their assigned flock into dying in unrepentant disobedience of the 7th commandment?

CWhitakerCh10
(transcribed verbatim by Standerinfamilycourt.   A downloadable PDF link to the full book, “Have Ye Not Read?”  by Rev. Casey Whitaker is available here. )

The symbolism of marriage representing Christ and the  church is beautiful. It helps us to get a bigger picture of God’s design for marriage and what Jesus meant in the “clarification clause” in Matthew 19:9.  In the Old Testament, there is the  marriage covenant of God the Father with the House of Israel (Israel and Judah), which even divorce and separation has not annulled, at least in a spiritual way. There have been many Israelites who have become Christians (weren’t there thousands of Jews that came back to their Master by being obedient to Jesus Christ after the resurrection?) and God forgave them.  Zacharias, Elizabeth, Mary, and Joseph (all Jews) understood the significance of their miraculous babies (Luke 1,2).  Even Simeon and Anna (Jews) knew that God’s promise was being fulfilled.

In the New Testament, there is the betrothal/espousal marriage of Jesus (God in the flesh), and the church. The marriageof Christ and the church will never end. It will never be tainted with divorce or any other separation from Christ.

However, the spiritual consummation after the wedding of Christ and the church has not yet occurred. The church is still only in the engagement period (betrothal/espousal period) with Christ. There are some interesting passages of Scripture that point this out.  In 2 Corinthians 11:2 it says that we are Christ’s fiancée, so the marriage is yet to come:  “For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy.  For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.”

In Ephesians 5:22-33 human marriage is given as an illustration of Christ and the church. Many people had always viewed this passage as if the church was already married to Christ.   However, in verse 27 it indicates that the marriage is yet to come by using the future tense.   It is not the past tense: “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.”   The fact that the church is not yet fully married has some very interesting implications.  It has opened up some new insights that many people have never seen before.

The consummation of marriage in a spiritual sense of Christ and the church occurs after the whole church is gathered together in heaven at the end of the world. God gives us a glimpse of this in Revelation 19:7-9:  “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.   And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God” (KJV).

There Are Some Interesting Points About the Marriage of Christ and the Church:  

There must be death first from Satan, then sin, and also self, so that we can be remarried to Christ—divorce is not sufficient.  Death is the only thing that can end a marriage and free a person to marry another.  This is true in human marriage as well as in marriage in the spiritual sense to Christ.   In Romans 7 where Paul states that death frees a person from the first marriage so that they are free to marry another person, he also says in verse 4:  “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God” (KJV). This death occurs in the spiritual sense so that we can be betrothed/espoused to Christ.

The marriage of Christ and the church will never, ever end.  There cannot, and never will be, a divorce of Christ and the church. This is her eternal destiny.

Human Marriage Is a Type or Shadow of Christ and the Church.  A type (typos in Greek), or “archetype,” often called a “shadow”,  “parable,”  “allegory,” or “figure” in Scripture, is a person, thing, or action that precedes and prefigures a greater person, thing, or action.  That which is prefigured is referred to as an “antitype.” The concept is summarized in Scripture itself.   (Thank you, Myron Horst.)

We are told marriage is a type or shadow in Ephesians 5.

Examples of Other Types or Shadows:

Baptism – Why is it so important to be buried in water live Paul said in Romans 6?   It is a shadow of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.   Jesus commanded this.

Communion – It is a shadow of Jesus’ body and blood.  Jesus commanded this.

Isaac, after his miracle birth, carried his own wood and was obedient to his father Abraham according to Genesis 22.  The ram in the thorny thicket (a type of Christ being the sacrifice with thorns on his head) was provided by the angel for Abraham to use instead of Isaac. The event took place on Mount Moriah. The potential sacrifice of Abraham’s son was a type or shadow of Jesus’ miracle birth. Jesus carried His cross and was obedient to His Father’s will on the cross. It is very probable the great sacrifice took place on Mount Moriah (Calvary).

The Rock that Moses struck and the water came out in Exodus 17 was Jesus.  It was a shadow of Jesus being pierced with a spear on Calvary, when living water came rushing out of His side.  Remember how Moses disobeyed the second time with the rock in Numbers 20?   He was told to speak to the Rock.  Instead, Moses struck the rock twice and the penalty was that he was not going to lead his people to Canaan.  Joshua was going to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. Who was Joshua shadowing? The Greek name “Jesus” is a transliteration of the Hebrew name Yehoshua or Yeshua, the English form of which is “Joshua.” Only through Jesus do we have an opportunity to go to the real Promised Land.

Animal Sacrifice in the Old Testament – It was a shadow of Christ being our sacrificial Lamb to take away our sins. This was an Old Testament ordinance.

The Temple was a physical building created by Solomon and was the dwelling place of God.  The common man could not enter into the Most Holy Place. Only a priest could go into this special place once a year. Jesus’ body was that temple (John 2:19-22) and Christians are also the temple (Acts 7:48, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).  People who are Christians are priests (Hebrews 4:14-16, 1 Peter 2:5) and have instant access to the Most Holy Place.   Why?  The curtain was torn (Matthew 27:51, Hebrews 10:20).

The Curtain was a type or shadow of Jesus’ flesh becoming sin for mankind and opening the way for us to come to the Most Holy Place.

As a type, human marriage cannot break what the type or shadow is. Therefore, if Christ had allowed divorce then remarriage in the “exception clause” in Matthew 19:9, He would have destroyed the type. Human marriage would no longer have been the illustration of the marriage of Christ and the church. If Jesus had stated that divorce would free a person in a human marriage to marry again, it would not illustrate the eternal destiny of the church in which there cannot be, and will not be any separation from Christ. Any other explanation of the “exception clause” other than it referring to fornication with another during the betrothal period does not line up with the marriage of Christ and the church. Any other interpretation removes marriage from being a true type of Christ and the church.

Because the time on earth is the engagement/betrothal/espousal period of Christ and the church,  it is possible for a person to forfeit their salvation here in this life before they die.

Jesus did this to present her to Himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish.  Instead, she will be holy and without fault (Ephesians 5:27).

Doesn’t this sound like the betrothal period?

Marriage, which only death can end, is an illustration of the absolute eternal security given to the church. In heaven there will be no more death. Therefore, there can never be a divorce, annulment, or an ending of the marriage of Christ and the church. If God permitted divorce and then remarriage to another person, marriage would no longer illustrate the church’s eternal security with Christ.

 The marriage of God the Father with Israel (including Israel and Judah) under the Old Testament (Covenant) took the death of Jesus. The marriage of Christ (God in the flesh: Isaiah 9:6, Matthew 1:23, John 1:1, John 1:14, John 8:58, John 10:30, John 20:28,29,
1 Timothy 3:16, 1 Timothy 4:10,  Titus 2:10,  2 Peter 1:1; 1 John 5:7,  Revelation 22:13) and the church under the New Testament (Covenant) illustrate the permanence of marriage until death. Divorce does not end marriage.

Only death can end the marriage covenant and free one to marry another. (Horst, Whitaker)

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7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  |  Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

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Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, Fundamental Rights, Religious freedom, Spiritual Warfare

Sisterly Letter to Court Clerk Kim Davis

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KimDavisViolateby Standerinfamilycourt

Dear Kim,

You don’t know me, but I have been praying for you during your incarceration, and I have been encouraging others in the covenant marriage community of “standers” to pray and write as well.   I hope many of them will.    Much as we all rejoice at your finding fellowship with Jesus Christ and taking a  stand for His kingdom to the point of enduring great hardship for the sake of conscience, you (or your official role at least) is very difficult for us to like.   Most of us do not live in Kentucky, but there’s a counterpart in our county and state whose “orders”, “decrees”, “certificates”, “licenses” and “judgments” on file in their office no longer match up with those in the Courthouse of Heaven.    You see, we also love Jesus, and we are comforted by His words that He is the Bridegroom, the one who will never leave or forsake us, and that where man’s law conflicts with God’s law, it is His law that prevails.  But, of  course, you’re in jail for also saying so.

Jesus says that the Father joined us supernaturally to the husband or wife of our youth, and despite the “dissolution of marriage” paperwork that it was your elective responsibility to maintain on file, paperwork that was created upon a unilateral petition we contested or refused to respond to, that violated our conscience and deepest convictions, and that we know broke the Father’s heart, we are comforted that that’s all it is – just paper.    You may not know it, but in your present trial, you are a very fortunate woman.   When we committed our private act of civil disobedience in “family court” as citizens first of the Kingdom of God, we too were stigmatized, vilified and publicly slandered for making ourselves obstructions to somebody’s new fundamental right of unfettered sexual autonomy.   Unlike you, however, there was no Liberty Counsel willing to admit we were being punished for our faith, or willing to invest any resources in taking up our case in resisting an immoral law that violated God’s law and threatened our family and society.    Instead, we were told that the burden of unilateral (no-fault) divorce provisions on our right-of-conscience and free religious exercise, not to even mention due process over our parental and property rights,  was “only incidental” when we testified under oath on the witness stand that this was how we had together raised our children, and when we were punished by the judge for quoting Luke 16:18 on the witness stand.

For Matthew 19:6 and Mark 10:9 both assure us that the one-flesh He joined cannot be made two again by any judge or other human, and the presumption that they can “dissolve” what the Most High God, the God of Angel Armies said could only be dissolved in His eyes by one of our deaths makes Him laugh at the confusion about ownership.    Of course, as you know all too well, the content of the law is not your fault, but as you have also learned, it shapes your responsibilities in ways that conflict with your faith walk and primary citizenship in the kingdom of God.

But, regardless of the Father’s assurances to us who want to obey Him perfectly with regard to His law and commandment of marriage, we bear a deep burden for our spouses who have walked away, not only from us but also from the Lord.   In the first place, it is not possible to break fellowship with a one-flesh covenant spouse and retain fullest fellowship with Jesus Christ or the Father.   We live with the somber knowledge that unless they repent and turn back to the Father, reconciling with the many they have harmed in addition to us, and as long as they remain in an immoral relationship with somebody other than us, they are headed to hell and taking their companion with them.    You see, the man-made legal fiction of divorce is only official-looking paperwork licensing a permanent state of hatred and unforgiveness, filed in your office or one of your counterparts around the nation.   However, the choice our spouse has made, and you have archived,  may or may not satisfy in this life, but  Jesus warned that it will surely cost them in the next life unless they turn back.   When we talk to the Father about that (and we must do this daily), He says, “do not be afraid – I will never replicate with a counterfeit replacement the supernatural joining that made the two of you permanently one-flesh.  I even gave that process a unique name in my Word that is only repeated where holy matrimony is involved.   Not every civil marriage is holy matrimony, in fact, if it is not holy matrimony, then in every such case it is adultery.   I, the Lord, remain in covenant with you, and I will pursue your one-flesh partner in the watches of the night and in the middle of their day.”

Why do you complain against Him
That He does not give an account of all His doings?
“Indeed God speaks once,
Or twice, yet no one notices it.
 “In a dream, a vision of the night,
When sound sleep falls on men,
While they slumber in their beds,
 Then He opens the ears of men,
And seals their instruction,
That He may turn man aside from his conduct,
And keep man from pride;
He keeps back his soul from the pit,
And his life from passing over into Sheol.     –  Job 33: 13-18

I am sorry to hear of the death threats you’ve endured , the jeering of the crowds and the catcalls of “hypocrite”!   A hypocrite is somebody who takes action or refuses something out of unrighteous judgment, without dealing with the issues of their own heart that may come out in a different way than the one being judged.   Many of these people are opening their bibles for the first time and reading the marriage scriptures to compare your life to.    Your bold protest has made that a reality by motivating them, so you should feel very proud.   You are showing people who would otherwise never accept any moral absolutes, that judgment is only possible if there is a fixed moral standard.

The reports are that you were born again only four years ago, after you had remarried your second husband.  I have tried to find out a bit more about the church you discovered and what it teaches about divorce and remarriage.  If you are a “hypocrite” as the crowds say,
I don’t think you are an intentional one.   The very nature of hypocrisy is that it hides so that we’re the last to see our own, and we have an exceedingly hard time recognizing it.    If I understand what the Apostolic Church explains online, the Statement of Faith expresses strong support for marriage permanence and doesn’t seek to partition off “biblical exceptions”.    It is very good that your church has not embraced the Reformation heresy of “Matthean Exception” for adultery.  I wish I could say the same about my pentecostal denomination, post-1973,   On the other hand, it appears that your church does not consider marriages valid that are not of “like mind, faith and fellowship”,  otherwise they consider all marriages to be for life according to the doctrine of your church.   This sounds a bit like the other Reformation heresy of “Pauline Privilege” which technically was applied by men (Erasmus, originally) beginning in the 16th century to abandonment.   I hope you have a bible with you, and that you’re able to spend some time reading and meditating on God’s word, so that you can compare it to all you’ve been taught.   Please don’t be alarmed when you can’t reconcile a “disconnect” between what you’ve been taught in church and what your bible actually says.   Many of us experience this at some point in our walk, so please don’t let it shake your faith.  That’s why the Apostle Paul urged us in Acts 17 to test what we are taught against what’s really between the front and back cover of that bible,  as a “Berean”.    You will find that the only piece of paper filed in your office that actually dissolves an original covenant marriage in God’s eyes is a death certificate, and Jesus added no faith qualifiers when He said so.

I have lived in the south, and to this day I have loved ones living in small towns just like yours.   Though it was an elective, government office, I know this 30-year enterprise that began with your mother and employed various family members felt very much like a family business to you.   Suddenly the Supreme Court comes along and takes away the constitutional right of the State of Kentucky to set marriage policy, and does not even wait for the legislature to convene and give you a new law to follow.   The oath of office you swore was to uphold the old law, and you were doing just that.   You also showed strongly that you knew your most important citizenship is in the Kingdom of God, and you were willing to go to jail for that principle.   But what is the Kingdom of God, anyway?    Is it not where the King is obeyed in all things?

Matthew 19:4-6 

And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

And said, For this cause shall a man leave FATHER AND MOTHER, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not MAN put asunder.

=================================

Mark 10:7-9

For this cause shall a man leave his FATHER AND MOTHER, and cleave to his wife;

And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.

What therefore God hath joined together, let not MAN put asunder.

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Luke 16:18

Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.

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Matthew 5:32

But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

============================

Matthew 19:9

And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

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Romans 7:2-3

 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

============================

1 Corinthians 7:39

The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.

(Here I use the King James Version, since contemporary translations are based on choice of a manuscript text that deceptively omits a very critical phrase from some verses, and they take carnal and unscholarly liberties with the key word “fornication”,  a premarital sin in the context that Jesus and Paul used it when addressing the permanence of the marriage covenant bond.)

PrayerVigil_KDavisWhat you may come to understand before this chapter in your life is fully written is that marriage was not, in its most profound sense, redefined by those lawless “black robes” in 2015.   Fundamentally, it was redefined to be at odds with God’s law when you were but a small child, and actually before your mother was elected to file those pretentious pieces of paper that purported to “dissolve” covenant marriage,  and to legalize subsequent or existing adultery.   It was at that point that God was truly offended, but nobody back then was courageous enough to take the stand that you have taken.   If they had, we would have a very different country today, and God’s blessing would have remained with us.

The community of covenant marriage standers commends you for considering the souls of homosexuals so important, and the symbolism of covenant marriage (in the incomplete sense that you understood it as a relatively new believer) so sacred that you would take the hard road of suffering for Christ as you have.   We pray that you will come to understand that the souls of adulterers are just as much at risk, and that the paperwork you have recorded that gives them a “fig leaf” of man-made “respectability” is a stumbling block to many in getting their lives right with God.   For this reason, we pray that the Holy Spirit will convict you not to return to your post so long as the underlying marriage law of the land is so profoundly immoral.   And since God gave us our Constitution, any law that is immoral is also inherently unconstitutional.   This was the case long before the Obergefell decision.     Not every occupation is suitable for a follower-of-Christ.    While it may or may not be true that believers who hold government offices “check their free speech and religious exercise rights at the door”,  Jesus made it plain that His followers have no rights per se, but His strength is made perfect in our weakness.

RowanCoCourthouseWe are all praying for your soon release from wrongful imprisonment, and that your testimony will be profitable for the kingdom of God, Kim.    May you, like Paul and Silas, win your jailers over with a joy and song of worship that only comes from the Holy Spirit.   May you remain gentle in spirit, representing the King well.  God bless and keep you and your family.

In Christ,

“standerinfamilycourt”

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  |  Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

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Church Discipline, Discipleship, Marriage Restoration, morality, Spiritual Warfare

Ashley Madison Fallout May Go Far Beyond Those “Outed”

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HaveYourAffairby Standerinfamilycourt

Just as it seemed we were finally seeing the last of those endless versions of Kevin DeYoung’s 40 Questions (For Christians Now Waving Rainbow Flags), we are presented with a new culture war story-of-the-month where everyone who is anyone must weigh in.   The evangelical “establishment” seems to have taken another hesitating step toward graphic understanding that fearing men more than God carries real consequences – a reckoning we can all praise and thank God for!     These leaders have said they must rebuild “a culture of marriage”.    Perhaps the Lord is going to see to it that the rebuilding cannot proceed, as initially hoped, on its current shoddy and cracked foundation of systemic adultery atop flippant hypergrace.

Mag-pies outside the church are casting “righteous indignation” (not to mention unsolicited advice) on both a devastated Anna Duggar, and the chastened church, both of whom are no doubt struggling to sort things out while still reeling.    The world’s way of dealing with infidelity is to put self first, and discard the souls involved, as though this world were all there is, and as if God were powerless to transform hearts.  Meanwhile, there have been several reports that some 400 pastors were on the hacked and leaked Ashley Madison list, and will be resigning their pulpits, as they should.   While many are shocked by this number, “standerinfamilycourt” is actually amazed that it’s not far more, given the anonymous self-reported survey rates of confession among pastors polled about pornography use.

We stand with Anna Duggar’s decision to stand for her covenant marriage.   Were she to take the world’s, or her own brother’s advice, and obtain a civil divorce, she would join millions in holding a civil piece of paper while her marriage covenant remains undissolved in God’s eyes by anything a county judge or one-flesh husband can do.    We pray she is doing it with godly counsel and with sustainable motivation.   We are thankful that Josh Duggar has checked himself into a long term treatment program for sexual addiction, and that she will have the support of her husband’s family during the separation.     Anna has chosen God’s way to deal with the devastation.   She deserves our prayers because the too-common situation most of us get to deal with in our privacy,  she must walk out in a fish bowl setting.    We pray that God is glorified in the outcome, and Anna’s whole family is rewarded by her obedience.

We must keep in mind that Christ’s definition of adultery begins with the lust of the eyes, to the extent that He advised that an offending organ be severed and cast away (Matt. 5:27).   Adultery in Christ’s estimation is not only of the sort committed by Josh Duggar and his million list-mates.    Adultery in the sight of Jesus also comes dressed in man’s civil and ecclesiastical paper, which does not change the immoral character of the relationship (Luke 16:18; Matt. 5:32(b); Matt. 19:9(b)), despite the pastoral pretense that God does that sort of joining.   Both types of adultery must be physically repented in order to recover any inheritance in the kingdom of God.    The flock has not heard any such preaching for the past 50 years, and only a handful of Christ’s shepherds are starting to speak out on this.

 

While Christendom was riveted on Planned Parenthood barbarism, presidential politics, and Duggar-overload, there was rather meager reporting on a significant development related to the Ashley Madison hack, which should trouble all of us.    The American Family Association reported this past week that the Obama Administration decided to make a pre-emptive raid on the homosexual counterpart of Ashley Madison, an online hook-up matchmaker called Rentboy.    Given more than 1,000 U.S. government officials employees listed in the clientele of Ashley Madison, our POTUS was hoping his ordered raid has come before that sodomous site suffered a similar hack.

Cynically, some also see this as an opportunistic bid to trigger lawsuits that might give his Leftist judicial appointees an opportunity to legalize prostitution in all 50 states without the consent of the voters.     This would be the ultimate in the libertarian cry to “get the government out of the bedroom”,  at the further expense of the traditional family.    Prostitution has been legal for many years in various European countries including the UK and the Netherlands, where visitors to London know that one can walk past doors that actually say “Licenced Brothel”,  while visitors to Amsterdam pass bay windows with live, scantily-dressed “mannequins” for rent.

In the Kennedy-wrought brave new world of defining Constitutionally-protected “liberty” as the fundamental right to boundless sexual expression,  the presumption, will no doubt be that it’s not the clients or the service that caused the problem, but the “meddlesome and outdated” laws that restrict the freedoms of consenting adults.   Once again, the current U.S.  church would helplessly watch from the sidelines because this battle is inherently spiritual, requiring the intervening hand of the Most High, yet the moral authority she once had to put a stop to such distortion has been dissipated on her own widespread disrespect for God’s law of sexual purity and the sanctity (indissolubility) of covenant marriage.

 

DCEvangelicalSlipSlope

(IMAGES OF THE HARLOT CHURCH)

All the defining evils in Corinthian society such as the Apostle Paul spoke into would be at this point fully established in the U.S.,  adding to it a layer of legalized sodomy, polygamy and incest that was not known by that society.  1st century Corinth, where the local church established by Paul struggled mightily against a pervasively immoral culture, was the center of temple worship to Aphrodite and was reputed to have some 1,000 prostitutes at the time of Paul’s ministry there.   According to some scholars, prostitution was seen in that culture as an ironic and perverse means of “safeguarding” marriage and family.   Expect to hear a similar contemporary argument, especially on the homosexual side.

Even with nothing but moral and cultural adversity to contend with, the heavily-persecuted 1st through 4th century church proved that the only antidote was Spirit-led monogamous, permanent covenant marriage with which they also proved that obedient, faithful believers, who reverence God’s holy ordinance at all costs, can transform a hostile and thoroughly immoral society through perseverance in mere example.   Quoting bible historians Kenneth E. Kirk and Felix L. Ciriot,  author Milton T. Wells describes this history-and-culture transforming feat as follows:

““What is more astounding than the mere fact that the early Church taught and practiced the complete indissolubility of marriage for so long, is the fact that the Church chose to take its stand against the strong contemporary lax social and legal attitudes toward divorce which prevailed so universally all about them. The Church, today, feels that it is on the horns of a dilemma, because so many divorcees are coming to her for help and encouragement. Shall she accommodate the Scriptures to the apparent need of the unfortunate divorcees, or shall she uphold the Biblical standard of the indissolubility of marriage for any cause while faithfully discharging her duty to such distressed individuals?  Every church of today which considers the lowering of its divorce standards should remember that the early Church stood true to the Biblical doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage in a world that was pagan and strongly opposed to the moral and marriage standards of the New Testament.

Not only did the Church maintain her stand on the indissolubility in the early centuries, she changed the attitude and standards of the whole world toward it. Even today the whole Church of Christ and the entire western world is still reaping the rich benefits of that heritage.….“There were other grievous social evils in the early Christian centuries. Slavery enveloped the Roman Empire of that age, yet the Christians did not set themselves to change the thinking of the masses against it, but they did set themselves to change the thinking of the masses toward marriage and divorce. Why did they not attack slavery with the same vehemence? The reason was that the Apostles had not received a “thus saith the Lord” from Christ respecting it. They had, however, received such in the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage. No sect or school of philosophy is known to have influenced the early Church in this teaching. From whence, then, did she get the teaching? Certainly she received it from the teaching of the Gospels and from the teaching of the Apostles, who had earlier conveyed the same orally (as well as in writing) to the leaders of the early Church who succeeded them.”  

Rev. Milton T.  Wells, “Does Divorce Dissolve Marriage?” (1957), Chapter VIII.

 

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  |   Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

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Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, Divorce, Marriage Restoration, morality, Spiritual Warfare

IT’S “ALL ABOUT” PORNEIA!

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TGC1

by Standerinfamilycourt

“There are some Christians who believe very vigorously that Matthew did not grant an adultery-exception for Jesus’ prohibition of divorce. Even though one would be hard pressed to find a professor teaching at a mainline seminary more strongly opposed to divorce and remarriage-after-divorce than me (not bragging, just stating it as a fact), I am apparently too soft for some. Doesn’t mean I’m right (it is the evidence that counts, not some apparent position in a self-contrived middle); just an observation.” – Dr. Robert A.J. Gagnon, 7/30/2015

 

On July 20, The Gospel Coalition published a very good piece from John Stonestreet and Sean McDowell called “6 Things Christians Can Do About Same-Sex Marriage”.   Dr. Gagnon took exception to one of their points: “We can stop implying in our words and actions that homosexual sin is worse than all other sexual sins…” which runs counter to one of the chief tenets of his writings, i.e. that homosexuality is one of the worst of all sexual sins, and (specifically) worse than adultery. Wrote the authors: “Too often, homosexuality is singled out as “what’s wrong with America” while other sexual sins get a wink and a nod. This is wrong.”

The professor responded by commenting at length on the post on TGC’s Facebook page.   It seems rare for Dr. Gagnon to comment on public Facebook pages, as opposed to private ones.   This occasion, therefore, opened up an uncommon opportunity for some marriage-permanence warriors, who agree with him in far more respects than  disagree, to politely engage him on a few points where we do disagree.   In all, four of us weighed in on that particular thread.
After a few more general exchanges with “standerinfamilycourt” and a couple of others, Sharon Henry challenged Dr. Gagnon on his favored view of the expansion of the definition of the Greek “porneia” by contemporary scholars, lexiconographers and bible translators, to include all forms of sexual immorality, and specifically adultery, (despite the Greek “moicheia” being separately mentioned by both Paul and Jesus in several scriptures alongside “porneia”).  Sharon, though certainly not as learned as the professor, has extensively studied many lexicons from over various centuries, has extensively studied Jewish betrothal and marriage custom, and has engaged other scholars and linguists in her work to harmonize Matt. 5:32 and Matt. 19:9 with the vast bulk of OT and NT scripture which those two verses seem to contradict.   That is, these verses are contradictory if they are interpreted as providing an “exception” for adultery committed after vows have been exchanged, and after God’s supernatural act of joining of a covenant bride and groom as no longer two but one-flesh, and the marriage has been consummated.

Lacking any support for such a marriage bond ever being dissoluble (by men) in the context of the direct symbolism of marriage covenant in almost every book of the bible, nor in the history of what the early church fathers, without exception, taught to the contrary–from the cross all the way up to the days of polygamous Emperor Constantine, nor in the personal integrity of 16th and 17th century “Reformers” (documented anti-Semites and on-record condoners of concurrent polygamy) who gave rise to so-called biblical grounds for civil divorce and remarriage, there are only two basic pieces of alleged evidence on which proponents of the “exception clause” can possibly attempt to hang their hat:
(1) an expansive literary and mixed-biblical usage of “porneia” that suggests it extends beyond the wedding night to adultery, incest, sodomy, and the like, and
(2) looking wistfully back at that which Jesus utterly abrogated in Matt. 5: 27-32 — to the old Mosaic accommodations of “putting away” described in Deuteronomy 22 and 24.

The exchange between the professor and  Sharon continued in fascinating range and depth from July 26 through August 5, and we believe, has been enlightening to anybody following it over those many days.   At best, however, we believe this word debate can only conclude in a “draw”, because the wisdom of man ultimately falls short of the inspiration of God.   One of Sharon’s sources in this exchange, Kyle Harper of the University of Oklahoma (Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 2, 2012)  suggests a similar result is all that is possible concerning the etymology of porneia.

“If we deny Him, He also will deny us;
If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself

Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers.  Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.”   –  2 Timothy 2: 13-15

 

Writing in 1957, Rev. Milton T. Wells, an Assemblies of God bible college president said of debates of this sort over word translations: “Fortunately, Christ did not leave the Christian Church in ignorance respecting the meaning of His statement in Matt. 19:9, whichever reading of the original Greek one accepts. The harmony of the parallel accounts of Matt.19:1-12 and Mark 10:1-12 provides the context which clarifies the matter completely. “Etymology will kill you, but context   will save you.”  The statements of the Epistles respecting the same subject confirms the testimony of the two integrated Gospel accounts and the testimony of the early Church.” – “Does Divorce Dissolve Marriage?”, Chapter VIII– A STUDY OF THE VARIANT READING OF MATT.19:9

 

It should be noted that Dr. Gagnon is Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and a well-regarded media authority on biblical sexual ethics.   Just as he asserts, his defense of the permanence of marriage, in the sense that remarriage while a covenant spouse is still living constituted adultery in Jesus’ view, is as vigorous and firm as it can possibly be without running completely afoul of the Westminster Confession, the Calvinist-based doctrine which asserts that (in direct contradiction to Matthew 19:6, Mark 10:9, Romans 7:2 and 1 Cor. 7:39) the marriage bond can be dissolved by human action, and asserts a further “exception”, “allowing” remarriage not only due to adultery, but also due to marital abandonment.

 

Sharon, on the other hand, was formerly the non-covenant wife of another woman’s covenant husband.   The Lord began to convict her that her church-blessed civil marriage of more than 15 years, happy and prosperous in every other respect, was not lawful in God’s eyes.   Her testimony is available here.    She was grieved to learn that in God’s eyes she was an adulteress, and the adultery she was committing was against that covenant wife.   She also realized what repentance from her remarriage-adultery must entail.  To Sharon, this was no theoretical or abstract theological exercise.   In her circumstances, she needed to be certain that the word of God, rightly divided, backed up what the Holy Spirit was telling her.  So she embarked on her lengthy study for two or three years before taking civil action, and she separated from her husband within their house in the meantime.   Online resources have become increasingly available at low or no cost to the lay person with critical thinking abilities, enabling the general public to study as deeply as any seminary student might.   Indeed, at one point in her exchange with Dr. Gagnon, he remarked, “Sharon, thank you. Interacting with you has strengthened my knowledge of the meaning of porneia, reinforcing my previous position and adding more nuance to it.  But you probed harder than even most seminary students could probe and forced me to dig deeper.” July 30 at 7:40pm

Sharon’s life experience, so common in this age of church / state institutionalized adultery, is only one of dozens of such testimonies available online and in our permanence-of-marriage fellowship, as the Lord is moving to cleanse and prepare His bride for His return.   Sharon has engaged other prominent scholars, such as Dr. Leslie McFall, in similar fashion on the etymology of porneia, though his views are even less  supportive  of the “Matthean exception” in the Westminster Confession than are Dr. Gagnon’s.     (Like Dr. Gagnon, Dr. McFall believes that the etymology of porneia  encompasses a range of sexual sins, but, unlike Dr. Gagnon, he does not believe this justifies the Matthean exception, nor does it justify remaining in an adulterous civil remarriage   Dr. McFall has exposed some critical evidence on page 2 of his paper [linked below] that the Greek texts transcribed by Erasmus originally stated there was no exception for porneia until he himself tampered with it – which would render this entire debate moot with regard to today’s pervasive sequential polygamy, and perhaps still valid with regard to other sexual sins that exclude, if unrepented, from heaven.)

With the utmost deference, we’d like to respond to a couple of Dr. Gagnon’s reactions, as he states them above.   We applaud while we fully agree that we would indeed be hard-pressed to find a professor teaching at a mainline seminary more strongly opposed to divorce and remarriage-after-divorce than Dr. Gagnon.   However, we find the next remark, “I am apparently too soft for some”, a bit odd.   That characterization seems to imply that we see him, or that he sees himself, as some sort of appointed arbiter of “biblical grounds”, gavel-in-hand.   On the contrary, we see him as an anointed discipler of some of this nation’s “shepherds” at a very critical point in history, exactly as Paul was, and we are puzzled why his comparison of himself with other fallible seminarians of mainline denominations is even relevant.  Is Jesus Christ not the measuring stick for truth, doctrine and conduct? If Dr. Gagnon must compare himself with a man, why would he choose these men over Paul, whose kindred passion was to teach shepherds to contend for the faith, and whose revelation came from the baptism in the Holy Spirit?   Would either Jesus or Paul even remotely agree with these mainline seminarians with whom Dr. Gagnon is comparing himself?   We think not!   Given where their Westminster Confession-based system of “sanctified” adultery has taken our society, and has seriously endangered our very democracy, we think Jesus wouldn’t flinch in calling these mainline (or evangelical) seminarians “whited sepulchres full of dead men’s bones”.

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
 – The Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. 1:20.

 

Lastly, we doubt we are the only Christians (though we may be the few largely Protestant Christians) who believe very vigorously that Matthew did not grant an adultery exception for Jesus’ prohibition of divorce.   Matthew, after all, was simply a scribe to a Jewish audience, and an eyewitness narrator of what Jesus taught.   He was the only one of the 12 apostles whose gospel was written primarily to Jews in their cultural context, including the marriage-related elements of Mosaic law and Hebrew betrothal custom.   He was not, however, an authority figure in the Jerusalem church who wrote separate commandments.   That role was undertaken primarily by Peter and by James, neither of whom spoke of any exception or permission to remarry.  Mark, who travelled and ministered primarily with Peter, and Luke, who was Paul’s missionary companion, both address their gospel accounts to Gentiles in their very different Greco-Roman culture.   Hence Luke’s gospel reflects strict marriage commandments from Jesus (likely taught to him by Paul) that perfectly complement what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 7, once the Greek term for “bound” is correctly translated in verse 15. In similar fashion, Mark’s gospel reflects an exceptionless view of the indissolubility of what God has joined, probably taught to him by both Peter and Paul.

  • With regard to Matthew, his gospel and Mark’s together describe the scene in the house (Matthew 19:10-12; Mark 10:10-12) where the disciples are crestfallen that Jesus has just countermanded their Mosaic permission to divorce from a consummated marriage at all, (perhaps the only positive instance of marriage redefinition in all of recorded history) so that they say in effect, “well, we probably should stop getting married then!”   It does not make sense that the Jewish disciples would have had this extreme reaction if Jesus had simply affirmed the Mosaic law, or only slightly narrowed it.   What we also know is that they came out of that house, and after Pentecost some weeks later, they discipled the early church fathers who unanimously taught for four centuries that there was no exception which dissolved the marriage bond, short of physical death of one of the spouses.
  • various sources attribute some non-canonical works to Matthew, and say that he traveled to various countries as an evangelist, including Ethiopia, where he may have been martyred.   It is possible that he may have written something in those deuterocanonical works that reinforces the idea that he personally granted some exception to dissolve what God otherwise said cannot be dissolved.   However, several of the same church fathers who were very staunch expositors of the indissolubility of the marriage covenant except by death, make other mentions of Matthew and his works.   These include Origen, Ignatius and Jerome, all of whom made very forceful statements that remarriage in all cases was sequential polygamy that imperiled souls.

 

This is the truth we are trying to point the church back to, before the Lord simply abandons our society to its apostate ways in final judgment.   We feel that many Catholics would heartily agree with us in this.

 

FB profile 7xtjw Notes:   (1) Sharon Henry’s book,  JEWISH MARRIAGE, BIBLICAL DIVORCE, AND REMARRIAGE.July 2015.pdf  is  available for download.

(2) Many of Dr. Gagnon’s extensive writings are available for download on www.robgagnon.net.     His paper, “Divorce and Remarriage-After-Divorce in Jesus and Paul” is downloadable here.

(3) Dr. Leslie McFall’s definitive work on the indissolubility of the original marriage covenant, “Biblical Teaching on Divorce and Remarriage” is nearly 600 pages in length.   A link to one of his shorter pieces is provided here.

 

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

 

citizenship, Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, marriage, morality, Prayer, Spiritual Warfare

An Encouragement to Covenant Marriage Standers

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13.2.2

by Standerinfamilycourt

SIFC was privileged to attend a recent live lecture this past week with bible teacher / historian Ray Vander Laan.   This evening was eagerly anticipated because it was the series of episodes, That the World May Know, around Holy Land history and archaelogy tours hosted by Vander Laan that electrified the word of God in my well-worn bible some 10 years ago.   I had known deep in my spirit from the earliest days of walking with the Lord that His covenants were indissoluble and that He fiercely guarded their integrity, but this was basically the extent of my understanding until Vander Laan’s “Come! Let’s go see…” [that week’s episode] took me deeper and deeper into the context of what the Lord was doing in Israel, in prophecy, and in His broad purposes.  It was, in fact, all cast against a background of faithful covenant.   I started to gain some very rich depth of understanding of the textures that our indissoluble marriage covenant was to represent to the world, even under siege as it was, and even in its violated and tattered condition.   Vander Laan’s previous series on the 7 churches of the Revelation is, in my opinion, a “must-watch” in these days of explosive culture war and Christ’s imminent return.

The purpose of the live presentation was to introduce and preview the newest series called “Becoming A Kingdom of Priests in a Prodigal World”,  a series very much about engaging the culture we face.   The producers see this as a new undertaking in light of the rise of LGBT totalitarianism and the resulting defilement of marriage.    Astute standers would say that the prior series begun in 1993 were massively important in rebuking the culture of divorce and immoral remarriage that long preceded the current wave of marriage redefinition.

 

This preview episode places the tour group at the top of a mountain in the general vicinity of Mount Sinai where Moses received the 10 Commandments:

“Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” – Exodus 19:5-6

What did the Lord mean by “keep My covenant”?   Vander Laan pointed out that the 10 Commandments were actually a marriage vow between the Most High and His people Israel.   It struck me that the “grafted-in” (Gentile) body of Christ has institutionalized serial monogamy / sequential polygamy in the last 50 years by embracing the pretense of covenant dissolution because it has “irreconcilable differences” with the 1st, 7th and 10th commandments in that marriage vow on stone tablets.   Additionally, its shepherds have “irreconcilable differences” with the 4th commandment as they misuse the Lord’s name in pronouncing holy matrimony over unions that Christ would call adulterous.   In that sense, the bride of Christ is herself a prodigal in these last days.   The word “prodigal” literally means “wasteful”, though prodigals are the last to see what is squandered in undermining covenant families while giving unrighteous preference to “blended” ones.

 

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. – 1 Peter 2:9-12

 

I’d like to share a few additional highlights of the lecture before directing you to click here to view a 30-minute full-length episode:

    • Vander Laan points out that the mission of a priest is to put the full glory of the Lord on display for all to see, and that the biblical kingdom is where the King is obeyed.   The kingdom of God expands in proportion to that obedience.
  • He next points out that context is everything when it comes to reading bible text, he quoted Acts 16:12 (Luke’s narrative with Paul): “…and from there to Philippi which is a leading city in the district of Macedonia, a Roman colony, and we were staying in this city for some days…”  What was the significance of the Roman colony?   Romans set these remote cities up where all features of Roman life were to be on display, and all inhabitants would be bestowed all the benefits of Roman citizenship.   Luke was likening the kingdom of God to this model Roman colony in how we live, already being citizens of heaven, before others. This was evidenced in the conversion of the Philippian jailer and his family, verses 31-34 after the Lord responded supernaturally to Paul’s and Silas’ singing of hymns and praises to God. Our culture will be strange to the aliens we live among.   We are a “peculiar people”.
  • It’s OK to wrestle with God, for He favors “chutzpah” – intense persistence and a passionate refusal to give up, such as that which characterizes long-standing covenant keepers.   According to Vander Laan, there is a saying, “when life becomes a desert, the Greeks question whether there is a god, but Jews question God.”
  • Most of us know the account in Genesis 15:9-17 of the blood covenant God made with Abraham in the splitting of cow, goat, and ram, where the custom was to walk through the blood implying “so may you do to me, if I do not keep my covenant”, yet something unique happened in this situation. Abraham knew the minute he passed through he was a dead man, because his end of the covenant was to walk blamelessly before his God, yet the Lord had it covered for him:

“Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds….Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him…It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.”

The Most High not only made the covenant unconditional, He took up Abraham’s part in passing through the blood.   God’s end of the covenant?   Land, descendants and the Messiah, the means of covenant fulfillment.

FB profile 7xtjwSIFC note: In a covenant marriage, the covenant is between God and the one-flesh entity He has supernaturally joined. (In a non-covenant union that Jesus calls adulterous due to the unbroken prior covenant, there is merely a contract between two people without God’s participation). God’s participation in the same manner as with Abraham also makes a way for the fulfillment of that covenant despite circumstances or human faithfulness.   All covenant marriage standers should read the account of Abraham’s faith in Romans 4 for encouragement.  

  • Priests were instructed through Moses to sew long tassels on their garments, with one blue thread which was the color of the priesthood.   The significance to today’s covenant standers is that the tassels were a reminder as follows (Numbers 15:37-40):

The Lord also spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel, and tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue. It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot, so that you may remember to do all My commandments and be holy to your God.”  

Are we remembering our role in His priesthood every day?   Are we sewing those tassels to the garments of our prodigals, as our privilege as their one-flesh enables?   Non-covenants lack this privilege and are acting as a counter-witness to the kingdom of God.  The rebellion of remarriage adultery shrinks the kingdom, rather than expands it.   Their “colony” represents temporal life in this world only.

 

Wrapping up, I will mention that since 1993, the producer of That the World May Know is Focus on the Family.   I can say that apart from FOTF’s Adventures in Odyssey, this is the best of all that they sponsor, and probably their only adult programming that builds up covenant families rather than undermining them through their support of adulterous remarriage.   I hope other standers gain rich encouragement from all of these series and episodes from the Holy Land.

FB profile 7xtjwSIFC note:  When Ray is not producing a new episode on location, he returns to his life as the teacher of a discipleship class in Michigan for high school seniors.

 

 

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

 

 

Church Discipline, Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, Divorce, marriage, Marriage Restoration, morality

Response to TGC’s “And What About Divorce?”

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by Standerinfamilycourt

There are at least a couple of Calvinist / Westminster Confession- adhering groups with a prominent national “megaphone” who wish “standerinfamilycourt” would go find some other cause.   Whenever they publish a blog twisting either the context, the language translation or some other crucial aspect of rightly dividing the 4 or 5 most abused scriptures in the bible, SIFC and fellow outstanding permanence-of-marriage bloggers attempt to set the record straight on their blog page comments, where our detailed response won’t get buried under literally hundreds of Facebook comments.    We’ve been routinely censored in blog comments that fully met their posting guidelines (but politely rebutted their mis-assertions) and were typically removed — until recent days.

The blog piece by Kevin DeYoung that follows on The Gospel Coalition is from April, 2014,  pre-dates the inception of SIFC’s blog and Facebook pages by about 6 months.    Imagine our pleasant surprise to see OUR cover on the resurfacing of this blog to their FB page this week!   We have been given much favor from the Lord to be able to connect with national voices, most of whom do earnestly believe they are seeking the spirit of God in marriage matters.  We are especially blessed to do so before our first year has passed.    Our aim has always been to bridge constituencies in pro-family advocacy, as well as act as a voice of conscience to the churches who disagree with the authentically-biblical position on the permanence of marriage  (including SIFC’s own – the subject of another recent blog post on 7 Times Around the Jericho Wall).
If convictions about hypocrisy were not actually landing with these folks, it is unlikely that old blogs about it would be dusted off in this manner.   Not only are they hearing it from the pagans and angry, vulgar “page trolls”,  they are consistently hearing it from people who know their bible inside-out and who are fasting and praying for one more Great Awakening in this nation.

Kevin DeYoung begins as follows:

After last week’s post on gluttony, a host of similar comments bubbled up about divorce. Isn’t it hypocritical of Christians to protest so loudly about homosexuality when the real marital problem in our churches is divorce?

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   Is the “real marital problem” in our churches truly “divorce”,  Rev. DeYoung?   A recent story in the Washington Post about the trend in marriage and divorce statistics from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics shows a steep drop off in both, that tracks in tandem.   Presumably that trend is reflecting in the church, too, although fewer believers are probably spurning marriage as young people than in the world.    Isn’t the real problem in the church rather the encouragement of remarriage that violates the standard Jesus gave in Luke 16:18, sometimes serially?   And isn’t the root motivation for individuals divorcing in the body of Christ, stripped bare of its litany of classic excuses, really the desire to whitewash adultery through the sure anticipation of the evangelical church’s blessing on a remarriage?   (A  recent survey of evangelical church members by a national polling firm revealed that 90% of those who had been divorced said that their divorce took place following their conversion. )

As G. K. Chesterton put it, a century ago when the forces for civil family destruction were first marshalling the efforts that eventually resulted in the enactment of unilateral divorce:

“It may or may not be superstition for a man to believe he must kiss the Bible to show he is telling the truth. It is certainly the most grovelling superstition for him to believe that, if he kisses the Bible, anything he says will come true. It would surely be the blackest and most benighted Bible-worship to suggest that the mere kiss on the mere book alters the moral quality of perjury. Yet this is precisely what is implied in saying that formal re-marriage alters the moral quality of conjugal infidelity. “

Over many years debating these issues in my own denomination, I’ve often encountered the divorce retort: “It’s easy for you to pick on homosexuality because that’s the issue in your church. But you don’t follow the letter of your own law. If you did, you would be talking about divorce, since that’s the bigger problem in conservative churches.”

FB profile 7xtjw SIFC:  Many would say to this (perhaps a bit flippantly) that we’re not under law, we’re under grace.   Christ did indeed have a law prohibiting divorce of a covenant marriage, which Paul and the church fathers faithfully carried forward.     Divorce, unless undertaken with a motive of restitution and repentance, is only a symptom of the underlying problem.   In Matt. 5:28-30, Jesus got to the root cause: covetousness and lack of contentment which, unlike marriage, is truly genderless.

A Smokescreen
When it comes to debating homosexuality among Christians, the issue of divorce is both a smokescreen and a fire. It is a smokescreen because the two issues-divorce and homosexuality-are far from identical.

For starters, there are no groups in our denominations whose raison d’etre is the celebration of divorce. People are not advocating new policies in our churches that affirm the intrinsic goodness of divorce. Conservatives, in the culture and in the church, keep talking about homosexuality because that is the fault line right now. We’d love to talk (and do) about how to have a healthy marriage. We’d love for that matter to spend all our time talking about the glory of the Trinity, but the battle right now (at least one of them) is over homosexuality. So we cannot be silent on this issue.

FB profile 7xtjw SIFC:  As we pointed out above, divorce doesn’t just happen in a motivational vacuum, so perhaps the more apt comparison to homosexuality  is with legalized adultery (sequential polygamy) not with the civil pretense of dissolving what God has joined.   Making the appropriate substitution, isn’t there a group in your church tasked with affirming a hard-hearted marriage decision, and the culturally-compliant celebration of “moving on”?   (Would that group happen to go by the initials, “D.C.” or “D.R. “?)  Seems there is just such a group, actually-in quite a few churches.

Is the reason people are not advocating new policies in the church to affirm the intrinsic goodness of remarriage perhaps because that task was fully accomplished at least a generation ago?
The battle and fault line would no doubt shift immediately from homosexuality, if the pastor would suddenly obey Jesus and announce  that the church will no longer be performing weddings where one or both of the parties has an estranged living spouse, would it not?   It seems that any time someone dares to tread on anyone’s sexual autonomy, explosive things happen.    Instead, these churches are inappropriately silent on that issue of sealing the unrepentant in their legalized / sanctified adultery, even claiming with no truthful scriptural support that Jesus “allows” what He forthrightly forbade.   If the term “smokescreen” is, in this sense, a defense to the charge of hypocrisy, it is well to remember that the latter tends to be in the eye of the beholder, and is quite difficult to hide from watching pagans.   The louder the protest of the splinter, the greater the magnitude of the unremoved log.

And while we’re at it, Rev. DeYoung, is it not true that Ephesians 5:31 reminds us that the very essence of the  “glory of the Trinity” is the upholding of the sanctity of that which, reflecting that very glory, Jesus made abundantly plain is indissoluble, this side of heaven?    How can any rogue branch (or rotten trunk) of the body of Christ even think about holding forth on the glory of the Trinity when it systematically tramples under foot its most prominent symbol by solemnizing consecutive polygamy / polyandry, and even while misusing the name of the Most High to do so?

Just as importantly, the biblical prohibition against divorce explicitly allows for exceptions; the prohibition against homosexuality does not.

FB profile 7xtjw SIFC:  Exceptions also tend to be in the eye of the beholder.    The specific exception Matthew (alone) had in mind was for terminating the ketubah purchase agreement for the betrothed Jewish bride, who in this specific case, happened to be a bit too closely related to the groom, or had been compromised in some other way before the wedding.    This context is not discerned by a superficial  reading of the text at face value without filtering it through several of the five-C’s of hermeneutics,  in this case:

  • content (accurate  translation of key words like “porneia“),
  • context (Matt. 5  sermon on the mount abrogation of Mosaic law;  Matt. 19:9 Roman prohibition against traditional  Hebrew stoning of adulterous spouses)
  • culture (Jewish betrothal customs)
  • comparison  (for example, with Mark 10:1-12 and Luke 16:18)
  • consultation (what did the early church fathers say about an “exception”?  What did they say about the dissolubility of holy matrimony in general?)

The traditional Protestant position, as stated in the Westminster Confession of Faith for example, maintains that divorce is permissible on grounds of marital infidelity or desertion by an unbelieving spouse (WCF 24.5-6). Granted, the application of these principles is difficult and the question of remarriage after divorce gets even trickier, but almost all Protestants have always held that divorce is sometimes acceptable.

FB profile 7xtjw SIFC:  The Westminster Confession is the 17th century product of an Assembly of clerics and members of British Parliament to produce a doctrine based on putting the commandments of Christ to a popular vote of carnal men.     The portions that deal with marriage were greatly influenced by the apostate teachings of Catholic humanist Desiderius Erasmus.    From the moment the words crossed His lips, most human flesh has held that Christ’s law of the indissoluble marriage bond was too harsh to uphold.    Despite 400 years of uncorrupted doctrine upheld by the early church fathers, this tenet of the Protestant Church was established on a 16th century Erasmean heresy that is not supported by sound biblical scholarship.   It is for these reasons that Protestants  “have always held that divorce is sometimes acceptable”, but as Jesus told the first crop of Pharisees, “from the beginning, it was not so!”    Application of Christ’s law of marriage is quite simple, actually.

Rev. DeYoung, when you are before the bema seat of Christ,  and your works are being judged by fire, will you really be pleading to Him that you loved the Westminster Confession with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?

WontLetGo!

Simply put, homosexuality and divorce are different issues because according to the Bible and Christian tradition the former is always wrong, while the latter is not.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:  Homosexuality and divorce may be “different issues” but both share the common trait of violating a non-negotiable element of God’s definition of marriage.   Homosexuality violates Matt. 19:4 / Mark 10:7.   Civil divorce and remarriage violate Matt. 19:6 / Mark 10:9.   We will concede your last point however.   According to the bible, homosexuality is indeed always wrong, but civil divorce is only not wrong when it is motivated to end an unlawful subsequent civil union, with Spirit-led repentance, restitution and restoration of the true covenant in one’s heart and mind.    Today’s Pharisees would urge that person to remain in their adultery,  at the potential expense of many souls, on the pretense that it is “extending the cycle of divorce” or is a “repeat sin”.    God is showing this to be false with each covenant family He miraculously puts back together after decades of man’s divorce, and He sometimes does it with both families that Satan attempted to use the church as his accomplices to destroy for generations to come.

Finally, the “what about divorce?” argument is not as good as it sounds because many of our churches do take divorce seriously. I realize that many churches don’t (more on that in a minute). But a lot of the same churches that speak out against homosexuality also speak out against illegitimate divorce. I’ve preached on divorce a number of times, including a sermon a few years ago entitled, “What Did Jesus Think of Divorce and Remarriage?” I’ve said more about homosexuality in the blogosphere because there’s a controversy around the issue in the culture in the wider church. But I’ve never shied away from talking about divorce. I take seriously everything the Westminster Confession of Faith says about marriage. Marriage is to be between one man and one woman (WCF 24.1). It is the duty of Christians to marry only in the Lord (WCF 24.3). Only adultery and willful desertion are grounds for divorce (WCF 24.6).

FB profile 7xtjw SIFC:  Is the Westminster Confession inspired?   Why not preach directly from God-breathed holy scripture?    Rev. DeYoung, you say that “willful desertion” is a ground for divorce.   That’s strange, because Jesus surely didn’t say that (He said spouses joined by God can never again be two), and neither did Paul (he said a wife is dedetai
δέδεται to her husband as long as he lives) nor did Peter.   By any chance, sir, do you happen to know the difference between the Greek root words “douloo” and “deo“?   If the committee that signed off on the Westminster Confession knew this, they obviously chose to ignore it.

 

As a board of elders, we treat these matters with the seriousness they deserve. We ask new members who have been divorced to explain the nature of their divorce and (if applicable) their remarriage. This has resulted on occasion in potential new members leaving our church. Most of the discipline cases we’ve encountered as elders have been about divorce. The majority of pastoral care crises we have been involved in have dealt with failed or failing marriages. Our church, like many others, takes seriously all kinds of sins, including illegitimate divorce. We don’t always know how to handle every situation, but I can say with a completely clear conscience that we never turn a blind eye to divorce.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:  Do you counsel people whose civil union does not meet Christ’s standard of Luke 16:18 to remain in their adultery?   Do you delude them that this sin is the only sin that does not require full turning away and cessation?    Do you counsel “married” homosexuals differently than “married” adulterers?    HAVE YOU KNOWINGLY SOLEMNIZED IN THE PAST YEAR A WEDDING JOINING ANY PERSON TO SOMEBODY ELSE’S SPOUSE, IN GOD’S EYES?

And Undoubtedly Some Fire
Having said all that, it’s undoubtedly the case that many evangelicals have been negligent in dealing with illegitimate divorce and remarriage. Pastors have not preached on the issue for fear of offending scores of their members. Elder boards have not practiced church discipline on those who sin in this area because, well, they don’t practice discipline for much of anything. Counselors, friends, and small groups have not gotten involved early enough to make a difference in pre-divorce situations. Christian attorneys have not thought enough about their responsibility in encouraging marital reconciliation. Church leaders have not helped their people understand God’s teaching about the sanctity of marriage, and we have not helped those already wrongly remarried to experience forgiveness for their past mistakes.

So yes, there are plank-eyed Christians among us. The evangelical church, in many places, gave up and caved in on divorce and remarriage. But the remedy to this negligence is not more negligence. The slow, painful cure is more biblical exposition, more active pastoral care, more faithful use of discipline, more word-saturated counseling, and more prayer–for illegitimate divorce, for same-sex behavior, and for all the other sins that are more easily condoned than confronted.

 FB profile 7xtjw SIFC:  “but the remedy to this negligence is not more negligence“….We agree that there’s nothing more uncomfortable than telling a non-covenant couple (particularly a couple invalidly  “married” in your own church) that their union will never be holy matrimony in God’s eyes because of the undissolved prior marriage bond indelibly recorded in the courthouse of heaven.    But the “fire” that is dreaded here still sounds like the fear of man, instead of a holy fear of a deeply-offended Sovereign!   Why is it that few recognize the judgment of that offended Sovereign that has been falling on our nation for four or five decades, and is now coming to a sodomous, polygamous, incestual and bestial crescendo?
Since it is clearly negligent to continue the practice of joining somebody’s covenant spouse to another while the rejected true spouse lives, Rev. DeYoung,   BY WHAT DATE WILL YOUR CHURCH CEASE PERFORMING THESE ADULTEROUS CEREMONIES?

What is the resemblance, Rev. DeYoung, of your church with this church?

Now while Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping and prostrating himself before the house of God, a very large assembly, men, women and children, gathered to him from Israel; for the people wept bitterly.   Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, said to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.  So now let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law. Arise! For this matter is your responsibility, but we will be with you; be courageous and act.” 

– Ezra 10:1-4, concerning the cleansing of marriage desecration the Lord required before He would restore Israel  as a sovereign nation.

 

Or with this one?

“What is more astounding than the mere fact that the early Church taught and practiced the complete indissolubility of marriage for so long, is the fact that the Church chose to take its stand against the strong contemporary lax social and legal attitudes toward divorce which prevailed so universally all about them. The Church, today, feels that it is on the horns of a dilemma, because so many divorcees are coming to her for help and encouragement. Shall she accommodate the Scriptures to the apparent need of the unfortunate divorcees, or shall she uphold the Biblical standard of the indissolubility of marriage for any cause while faithfully discharging her duty to such distressed individuals?  Every church of today which considers the lowering of its divorce standards should remember that the early Church stood true to the Biblical doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage in a world that was pagan and strongly opposed to the moral and marriage standards of the New Testament. Not only did the Church maintain her stand on the indissolubility in the early centuries, she changed the attitude and standards of the whole world toward it. Even today the whole Church of Christ and the entire western world is still reaping the rich benefits of that heritage.   Shall the Christian Church of today be less courageous and faithful than the Church of the early centuries of the Christian era? Does she not under God have the same spiritual resources?

“There were other grievous social evils in the early Christian centuries. Slavery enveloped the Roman Empire of that age, yet the Christians did not set themselves to change the thinking of the masses against it, but they did set themselves to change the thinking of the masses toward marriage and divorce. Why did they not attack slavery with the same vehemence? The reason was that the Apostles had not received a “thus saith the Lord” from Christ respecting it. They had, however, received such in the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage. No sect or school of philosophy is known to have influenced the early Church in this teaching. From whence, then, did she get the teaching? Certainly she received it from the teaching of the Gospels and from the teaching of the Apostles, who had earlier conveyed the same orally (as well as in writing) to the leaders of the early Church who succeeded them.”

–  Rev. Milton T. Wells,  “Does Divorce Dissolve Marriage?” (1957),  Chapter VIII.

 

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall   |   Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

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Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, marriage, morality

Revisiting The Call To Public Witness On Marriage

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by Standerinfamilycourt

It seems that in its hyperfocus on homosexual marriage, the Southern Baptist Convention has missed at least 4  opportunities in its 2015 “Call to Witness” to shore up the requisite moral authority to speak to the Supreme Court and others about the biblical definition of marriage by reaffirming its permanence.   That’s like trying to run the marathon on one leg: lots of effort, little effect and looking very silly in the attempt.  

 

2015  COLUMBUS, OHIO

WHEREAS, God in His divine wisdom created marriage as the covenanted, conjugal union of one man and one woman (Genesis 2:18–24; Matthew 19:4–6; Hebrews 13:4); and

WHEREAS, The Baptist Faith & Message (2000) recognizes the biblical definition of marriage as “the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime,” stating further, “It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race”; and

WHEREAS, God ordains government to promote and honor the public good and recognize what is praiseworthy (Romans 13:3–4); and

WHEREAS, The public good requires defining and defending marriage as the covenanted, conjugal union of one man and one woman; and

FB profile 7xtjwSIFC note:   Missed 2015 opportunity to reinforce SBC’s The Baptist Faith & Message (2000)  by reiterating that they will defend marriage as the covenanted, conjugal union of one man and one woman for life.

 

WHEREAS, Marriage is by nature a public institution that unites man and woman in the common task of bringing forth children; and

 

WHEREAS, The Supreme Court of the United States will rule in 2015 on whether states shall be required to grant legal recognition as “marriages” to same-sex partnerships; and

 

WHEREAS, The redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples will continue to weaken the institution of the natural family unit and erode the religious liberty and rights of conscience of all who remain faithful to the idea of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife; and

FB profile 7xtjwSIFC note:   Missed 2015 opportunity to reinforce SBC’s The Baptist Faith & Message (2000)  by reiterating that eroding religious liberty and rights of conscience of all who remain faithful to the idea of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife for life is just as undesirable as intolerance for those who oppose homosexual unions.

 

WHEREAS, The Bible calls us to love our neighbors, including those who disagree with us about the definition of marriage and the public good; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Columbus, Ohio, June 16–17, 2015, prayerfully call on the Supreme Court of the United States to uphold the right of the citizens to define marriage as exclusively the union of one man and one woman; and be it further

RESOLVED, That Southern Baptists recognize that no governing institution has the authority to negate or usurp God’s definition of marriage;

FB profile 7xtjw SIFC note:   Nor does any church have authority to do the same by disregarding either its complementary,  or its indissolubility and permanence.

and be it further

RESOLVED, No matter how the Supreme Court rules, the Southern Baptist Convention reaffirms its unwavering commitment to its doctrinal and public beliefs concerning marriage; and be it further

RESOLVED, That the religious liberty of individual citizens or institutions should not be infringed as a result of believing or living according to the biblical definition of marriage; and be it further

FB profile 7xtjwSIFC note:   Living according to the biblical definition of marriage includes religious liberty to assert the permanence of man-woman first marriage,  especially in the family court system of each state.

 

RESOLVED, That the Southern Baptist Convention calls on Southern Baptists and all Christians to stand firm on the Bible’s witness on the purposes of marriage, among which are to unite man and woman as one flesh and to secure the basis for the flourishing of human civilization; and be it finally

FB profile 7xtjwSIFC note: Missed 2015 opportunity to reinforce SBC’s The Baptist Faith & Message (2000)  by reiterating that among the purposes of marriage are to unite man and woman as one flesh for life in order to secure the basis for the flourishing of human civilization.

If standing firm on the Bible’s witness is important, why not:

RESOLVED, members of the Southern Baptist Convention hereby pledge to honor the permanence of holy matrimony by ceasing to perform all wedding ceremonies where either the prospective bride or groom has a living prior spouse, and to remove from ministry any pastor who knowingly performs such a ceremony?

RESOLVED, members of the Southern Baptist Convention hereby pledge to honor the permanence of holy matrimony by expending political resources and moral influence to end unilateral divorce in every state in the United States?

 

RESOLVED, That Southern Baptists love our neighbors and extend respect in Christ’s name to all people, including those who may disagree with us about the definition of marriage and the public good.

 

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC Concluding Thoughts:   It must be terrifying for Christian organizations to go up on a shoestring budget against the corporate-backed, well funded LGBT political machine.   But was Israel not in the same place, in the natural against her adversaries?   It appears the SBC is willing to play down some of its core biblical principles because it fears the loss of financial support, forgetting the God who pared down one army to only 300 so that His power would be manifest.    He urges the battle is His,  only fear Him alone and do not mock Him by violating His commandments.

Now I know that the Lord saves His anointed;
He will answer him from His holy heaven
With the saving strength of His right hand.
Some boast in chariots and some in horses,
But we will boast in the name of the Lord, our God.
They have bowed down and fallen,
But we have risen and stood upright.
 Save, O Lord;
May the King answer us in the day we call.
– Psalm 20

 

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7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  |  Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!