Tag Archives: morality

Discipleship, Divorce, marriage, Marriage Restoration, morality

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

September 21, 2015 standerinfamilycourt 6 Comments

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?

(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)

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

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

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

Ashley Madison Fallout May Go Far Beyond Those “Outed”

August 30, 2015 standerinfamilycourt Leave a comment

by 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.

(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!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

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

IT’S “ALL ABOUT” PORNEIA!

August 6, 2015 standerinfamilycourt Leave a comment

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 16^th and 17^th 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.

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

August 2, 2015 standerinfamilycourt Leave a comment

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 1^st, 7^th and 10^th commandments in that marriage vow on stone tablets. Additionally, its shepherds have “irreconcilable differences” with the 4^th 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.

SIFC 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.

SIFC 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?”

July 22, 2015 standerinfamilycourt 1 Comment

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?

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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).

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.

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.

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!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

Church Discipline, Discipleship, Divorce, marriage, morality

Emulating a Faulty “Confession”: Assemblies of God 1973 Position Paper Exposed

July 19, 2015 standerinfamilycourt 2 Comments

by Standerinfamilycourt

The summer of 2015 brings not only the pivotal U.S. Supreme Court announcement unilaterally imposing same-sex “marriage” on all 50 states, it brings the annual mass gatherings, and new or revised position statements of various denominations of the body of Christ. The Southern Baptists conference in Columbus, Ohio convened just prior to the SCOTUS ruling, and an ERLC (Ethics and Religious Liberty Council) statement followed shortly thereafter reaffirming its official position on marriage.

The Assemblies of God will be gathering in Orlando, Florida in August for their biennial General Council, the first since marriage started to be (re-)redefined, this time by the courts rather than by amoral state legislatures. This gathering will be reminiscent of an earlier sultry August gathering in Florida forty-two years ago. In turn, that 1973 gathering turned out to be reminiscent of a gathering in England more than 300 years earlier called the Westminster Assembly. In both cases, a clear, firm commandment of God concerning the absolute indissolubility of marriage by acts of men was put to a popular vote of carnal, self-interested clerics who found Christ’s instructions to be too unpalatable for their contemporary flocks to live by. The outcome of the vote itself was all too predictable, but the fallout to the witness and integrity of the Church, in each case, took decades or centuries to fully manifest. In both cases, the word of God was twisted and re-interpreted while suspending the normal laws of hermeneutics and simple logic, to accommodate and justify the doctrinal vote. Jesus Christ was never given a vote in either assembly, despite professions of His “lordship”, and as a consequence, the Holy Spirit was displaced as the anointed Interpreter of sacred scripture.

Permanence-of-marriage blogger Neil Novotnak has done an excellent job of pointing out the scriptural and logical flaws in the Westminster Confession. This blog will attempt to do the same with AOG’s 1973 position paper “DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE Application of General Scriptural Principles“ which resulted from a General Council vote in the wake of multistate legislative enactment of unilateral (“no-fault”) divorce, and was approved by the General Presbytery. This popular vote removed official denominational by-laws that proscribed AOG pastors from performing weddings for any couple where either the bride or the groom had an estranged living spouse, and “removed from fellowship” any pastor who knowingly did so. (In the early 2000’s, the AOG quietly made it compulsory for its pastors to perform such weddings as it previously forbade for more than 60 years since inception of the denomination.)

This position paper introduces its Statement of Biblical Principles by citing some statistics,

Barna Group, “New Marriage and Divorce Statistics Released,” [March 31, 2008 – link no longer available]

and by stating:

“It is imperative at such a time that the Christian church clarify, teach, and faithfully uphold what the Bible says about marriage. The Church must also speak biblically to the issue of divorce and remarriage, which occur all too often as one, or both, marital partners abandon their Christian ethical commitments and responsibilities.” (page 1)

SIFC wholeheartedly agrees with the scriptural faithfulness of the first three points in the Statement of Biblical Principles, but begins to have a problem with point #4 (middle of page 2):

4. Marriage is to be sexually consummated. At the Creator’s command, the first man and woman were to “become one flesh” for purposes of procreation, bonding, and mutual pleasure in a safe and loving relationship (Genesis 2:24). Jesus himself reiterated the divine intent (Matthew 19:4,5) and Paul instructed Christian spouses faithfully and regularly to fulfill their sexual responsibilities to each other (1 Corinthians 7:3-5).

The errors:
(1) This description of purpose completely misses the most important purpose for biblical marriage, and neglects to mention that marriage was the very first of God’s sacred symbols, one that is prominently portrayed in almost every book of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, symbols of which God Himself told us He is jealously protective. Marriage was, from its Gen. 2:24 beginning, purposed to represent all of God’s inviolable, irrevocable covenants which were to follow, and also purposed to represent (rather than misrepresent) the relationship of Christ with His bride, the Church, as discussed by Paul in Eph. 5:28-31.

(2) The point #4 AOG discussion of “become one flesh” misses (or deliberately downplays) the most important aspects of what Jesus had to say in Matthew 19 and Mark 10–probably the same chronological occasion–about that process. Indeed, AOG’s text seems to deliberately stop at Matt. 19:5 in order to avoid the conflicting truth in Matt. 19:6:

The exact words of Jesus:

“Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” ( – according to Matthew)

“But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” ( – according to Mark)

These aspects are:

– God does the joining, and He enters the covenant as a participant, reflecting a supernatural and irreversible event, unique to the specific couple.

– “No longer two” occurs before the physical consummation (unless there was prior fornication between them) and is not primarily an ongoing process. Furthermore, this phrase clearly refers to how God henceforth views them in commanding no man to separate.

– The man leaves his father and mother, not a covenant spouse to whom he’s been supernaturally joined by God. The supernatural process is not replicated so long as both spouses live.

Every significant church father uniformly understood this for the first 400 years after Jesus went to the cross, and it was the basis, along with Luke 16:18, for the prior AOG by-laws banning adulterous weddings in the fellowship. St. Augustine perhaps best captured this scripturally-correct (and conveniently-overlooked)understanding:

“There is a ‘conjugal something’ (quiddam conjugale) which continues to exist between spouses so long as both are alive, even if they have separated, such that any second union can meaningfully be called adulterous.”

(3) AOG point #4 also pulls off a slimy, and sadly consistent, trick of the evangelical marriage revisionists of all stripes: they convert a commandment or fact of the Most High God into an “intent.” In so doing, they trivialize the stern warnings against adultery that came repeatedly from the lips of Jesus (such as Matt. 5:28-30), from Paul (1 Cor. 6:9-10, Gal. 6:7-8 and Hebrews 13:4), and from John (Rev. 21:8). They quite literally compromise souls out of the fear of man when they should be fearing God, who sovereignly has no “intents”, “designs”, “ideals”, “bests”, nor the like. They ignore the entire thrust of Christ’s sermon on the mount, of abrogating various Mosaic accommodations, His warning that His followers’ righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees, and that participation in the kingdom of God is at stake.

(SIFC is aware of no major scriptural issues with AOG’s point #5 dealing with homosexuality, and fervently hopes they are able to stand firm on the word of God in the coming years, suffering as necessary to do so.)

6. God intended marriage to be a permanent union. The man was to depart from his parents’ home in order to “be united to his wife, and … become one flesh” with her (Genesis 2:24). Both Jesus (Matthew 19:5) and Paul (Ephesians 5:31) quoted this passage from Genesis as the foundational premise of marriage. Translating Jesus’ quotation, Matthew used a Greek word for “united (kollaō)” that means “to be glued to, be closely bound to” (Matthew 19:5). Jesus added, “Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate” (19:6).

The errors:

(1) All of what was just said above about point #4 is of equal weight and force here, particularly error (3) above.

(2) Additionally, in the accurate discussion of the Greek root word “kollao” (actual word form used in the passage is κολληθήσεται – kollēthēsetai) above, there is omitted consideration of a contrasting word used in 1 Cor. 6:16-17 in speaking of sexual immorality that is devoid of the supernatural joining by God in Matt. 19:6. But before we go there, let’s mention that Matt. 19:6 is the ONLY usage of kollēthēsetai in canonized scripture (an important fact this is missed when limiting the discussion to the root word “kollao“). Let’s also mention that in Mark 10:7 the word used is “proskollēthēsetai“ προσκολληθήσεται (“cleave to”), which is used only twice in canonized scripture, the other usage being by Paul in articulating the supernatural, symbolic element of covenant joining in Eph. 5:31.

What is the contrasting word for carnal physical joining not accomplished by God but wrought by men in insult to God? It’s kollōmenos κολλώμενος. This is the word for joining that can be undone. In fact, it’s the word for joining that must be undone to be in right standing with God. (The significance of all of this will be reinforced when we get deeper into this errant position paper.)

7. God intended marriage to be monogamous. The Creator’s acts in establishing marriage are focused on one man and one woman. The order of marriage itself (Genesis 2:24) is directed at a monogamous pair, “man” and “wife” being singular. Polygamy did exist in the Old Testament era, of course. The first case was in Cain’s line (Genesis 4:19) with many Old Testaments examples, including some of the patriarchs, to follow. But polygamy is never held up to be the ideal. The Old Testament writers indirectly criticize polygamy by showing the resultant strife (for example, Genesis 21:9,10; 37:2-36; 2 Samuel 13-18). Passages that idealize marriage normally do so by speaking of one husband and one wife (see Psalm 128:3; Proverbs 5:18; 31:10-29; Ecclesiastes 9:9). Jesus also affirms that God’s ideal from the beginning was monogamy, speaking of “man” and “wife” in the singular, with the “two” becoming one flesh (Matthew 19:5,6). There is no reference to polygamy as a practice of the Early Church; and, in any event, it would be proscribed for leaders by Paul’s references to a “one woman man” (1 Timothy 3:2,12; Titus 1:6).

The errors:

(1) There’s that slew of wishy-washy “i -words” again! Intent, ideal….idealized…(review again AOG point #4, error (3).

(2) “There is no reference to polygamy as a practice of the Early Church; and, in any event, it would be proscribed for leaders by Paul’s references to a “one woman man” (1 Timothy 3:2,12; Titus 1:6).”
In light of the facts established above, that God uniquely and irrevocably joins a non-adulterous pair (i.e. no prior living spouse) never again to be two, but considered one person in His sight, we must consider not only the contextually-recognized type of polygamy (concurrent), but also prevalent type which point #7 of this position paper is aimed to appease (serial or sequential polygamy) . If covenant marriage is indissoluble except by death, as Paul made very clear (Romans 7:2-3; 1 Cor. 7:39), and Jesus forcefully stated in Matt. 19:6 / Mark 10:9, then to presume to marry another spouse while the first spouse is alive is serial monogamy or sequential polygamy, take your pick. The LGBT activist community and its supporters, have no problems at all discerning, and loudly voicing, the holes in the AOG’s official witness on this matter, so our denomination’s determined myopia is quite remarkable!

Is it beyond all realm of possibility that there was no mention of polygamy (of either variety), as a practice of the Early Church because what they did practice was holiness? And perhaps Paul meant precisely what he said to Timothy and to Titus, that remarried adulterers (by the standards of Luke 16:18) need not apply as deacon or overseer.

Pre-1973, those aforementioned AOG by-laws read as follows:

“(e) We disapprove of any married minister of the Assemblies of God holding credentials if either minister or spouse has a former companion living. “

We daresay that a sizeable proportion of those in attendance to General Council 2015 in Orlando will be remarried, sequential polygamists who benefitted from the rule change in 1973, whose credentials are no doubt impeccable as one-woman (at a time) men. Greek semantics aside, they will be influential, no doubt, among those casting the next votes on the commandments of Christ versus cultural relevance, if not this year, by 2017 when perhaps concurrent polygamy will be freshly legalized by court decree.

(SIFC is aware of no major scriptural issues with AOG’s points #8, 9 or 10, dealing with the covenant nature, the mutually self-sacrificing nature, or the child-nurturing nature of biblical marriage, other than the vacuous use of those aforementioned “i”-words, so we move on to the AOG’s application of their version of these principles.)

The Nature of Divorce

(Point 1- God Hates Divorce, pages 3-4)…”Divorce was not a part of God’s original intention for humanity. His purposes in marriage are hindered when the marital covenant is deliberately broken. The divine purpose can only be realized as the husband and wife subject themselves to Christ and each other, as described in Ephesians 5:21-31….God’s hatred for divorce, however, is not to be interpreted as condemnation of those who themselves are not at fault, but have been divorced and victimized by the ungodly actions of their spouses. The divorce laws and teachings of the Old Testament were designed to add a measure of protection for the innocent, not to heap guilt upon the victims of circumstances over which they had little or no control.”

The errors: The first sentence is a nefarious understatement, containing one of those “i”-words again. Divorce is an entirely manmade fabrication that purports to do what God expressly denied men any authority to do (Matt. 19:6; Mark 10:9), to deign to separate a supernaturally-joined one-flesh entity into two again, and remove God’s participation from an unconditional triune covenant. Only death does that (Romans 7:2-3; 1 Cor. 7:39).

The latter part of the statement seems even more nefarious. SIFC knows of no petition for dissolution of that which God says cannot be civilly dissolved that was initiated by any spouse’s actions. SIFC can confidently assure all readers from actual experience in the courtroom that actions, regardless how despicable, have no legal standing whatsoever in “family court” ! Petitions are filed by human persons, whether innocent or guilty of harm against the marriage. Those human persons, all other facts and circumstances aside, are therefore each guilty of rebelling against at least two of the Lord’s commandments, 1 Cor. 6: 1-6, and 1 Cor. 7:10-11 if they are followers of Christ.

Further, the argument that somehow the church’s policies of obedience to 1 Cor. 7:10-11, Romans 7:2-3 and 1 Cor. 7:39, heaps guilt on “victims of circumstances” is sinful on its face, and even worse, is based on nothing but emotions. This behavior has been emulated to great effect by the LGBT activists in the days since, because it works, though it is desperately without merit. Sons and daughters of the King are NEVER hapless victims. Presuming to assume a role as their defender (apparently against taking up the cross of Christ) of such deemed “victims” thrusts church leadership into a role that God intended only for Himself. As alluded to in the last sentence of this statement, Moses also made this error, and was rebuked by Jesus for it: “Moses allowed you to put away your wives because of the hardness of your hearts, but from the beginning, IT WAS NOT SO!”
(We will leave aside for now the additional fact that the Mosaic divorce law- as contrasted with the rabbinic degradations of it that came after the death of Moses – applied very narrowly to the Jewish betrothal period, and never applied at all to consummated marriages – discussed fully with the next point below.)

(Point 2- The Law regulated divorce, page 4)…”The Old Testament divorce law was thus a necessary hedge against human sinfulness. The Law provided that, while the husband was the only one who could initiate divorce, he could do so only under carefully prescribed circumstances (Deuteronomy 24:1-4; cf. 22:13-19, 28,29; Genesis 21:8-21).

The regulative nature of the Law is seen in the confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees who erred in saying Moses commanded that a man give a certificate of divorce to his wife, thus freeing him to send her away (Matthew 19:1-9). Jesus pointed out that Moses only permitted (epitrepō) them to divorce their wives—but even then not for “every cause” as was commonly practiced at the time (Matthew 19:3,7,8). Jesus accurately read the divorce provisions of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 where the Hebrew is a simple sequence that does not command divorce, but simply recognizes that it happens under certain circumstances.

The errors: We shall have to take a scholarly look at each of the scriptures cited above because most have been notoriously and unfaithfully interpreted over the past 500 years. Given the supremacy God’s design which rarely included any provision for ongoing estrangement between one-flesh spouses, however, we must take exception to the assertion that any manmade contrivance constituted a “necessary hedge” against human sinfulness. Such notions presume an impotent, rather than omnipotent God! The verses cited are typically quoted as “proof” that God generally provided for civil dissolution of marriage in certain circumstances. But looked at more carefully, they are specific courses of action beyond divorce in various specific circumstances, each a unique case and course of Mosaic action.
Further, however, Jesus plainly announced in His sermon on the mount that He was thereby abrogating the Mosaic divorce law in its entirety.

Situation #1 – the unconsummated fiancée, with “some indecency“:

When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house, and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife, and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance. Deut. 24:1-4

(the “indecency” was typically a matter of consanguinity and the rules were there due to the Hebrew dowry and bride price. This would not have applied to a consummated marriage because of adultery, for example, occurring after the marriage. The penalty for that offense was stoning to death, which made “divorce” a moot point. That said, because in 6 B.C. the occupying Romans outlawed this practice throughout the empire, including in Israel and Judah, the Pharisees thought–in similar fashion to today’s Pharisees–that this law would serve as a handy compensation. Further note: this scripture is totally irrelevant to Christ’s commandment to be reconciled to our one-flesh covenant spouse, and to release any adultery partners to holiness. )

Situation #2 – the one-time consummation, evidencing prior lack of virginity (or false allegation thereof):

“If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then turns against her, and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames her, and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin,’ then the girl’s father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. The girl’s father shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he turned against her; and behold, he has charged her with shameful deeds, saying, “I did not find your daughter a virgin.” But this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city. So the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him, and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl’s father, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days. Deut. 22:13-19

This one should be self-explanatory because it is clear on its surface. However, note again that the penalty for betraying the marriage covenant through fornication prior to marriage consummation, since it was warranted in the ketubah, or betrothal contract making the Hebrew bride-to-be legally a wife was stoning, not divorce.

Situation #3 – the unbetrothed rape victim

“If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.” Deut. 22:28-29

We do not see the relevance of this passage to covenant marriage but see that it was included, apparently, because of its mention of “divorce”. But while we’re on the subject, the Hebrew root word here is “shalach” which means “send away”. This is very different from civil divorce of today because it could be accomplished without any civil authority, unless there were extenuating circumstances such as in this instance.

Situation #4 – the repudiated concubine, cast out by the covenant wife

Without pasting in this long passage, Genesis 21:8-21, we will simply link to it, which is the story of Sarah sending Hagar away with her illegitimate son. We again do not see any relevance to the point being made in the paper, but it does appear to be another usage of “shalach“. If anything, it strengthens the inviolable and indissoluble rights of the covenant family which God mandated from the beginning. It shows that in the case of a concubine who was a personal maid, the husband was not the only one who could “put away” or “send away”.

(Point 3 – Jesus forbade divorce as contrary to God’s will and word, page 4)… SIFC agrees with this point in all respects, as stated.

(Point 4 – Paul forbade Christian couples to divorce….page 4)… SIFC substantially agrees with this point except for the subtle inference that there would be valid reasons to divorce a covenant spouse. The only valid reason to seek to be severed from any spouse would be to reconcile with a covenant spouse after realizing from Christ’s and Paul’s teachings that a subsequent civil marriage was adulterous.

(Point 5 – Paul forbade Christians to take the initiative in divorce simply because their partner was an unbeliever….pages 4-5)… “While making every effort to preserve the marriage, when the unbelieving spouse was definitely unwilling to continue, the believer should not, at all costs, attempt to restrain him/her. In these cases, abandonment, by implication, may be interpreted as grounds for divorce and remarriage.”

The last statement is patently false, conflicting with many other scriptures including 1 Cor. 7:11 and 7:39 within the same passage, but expressly conflicting with the law of indissolubility of covenant marriage except by death. Jesus bluntly stated at least three times that such a remarriage would constitute ongoing adultery per Luke 16:18; Matt. 5:32; and Matt. 19:9 (faithful texts). Dropping the inference in this false assertion, and instead taking our direction from Jesus and Paul, it eliminates the relevance of the awkward question that would otherwise go begging in this day of adulterous cohabitation and unilateral divorce, “what happens if you are abandoned by a believing spouse”?

Point 6 – Jesus permitted a Christian to initiate a divorce when “marital unfaithfulness” was involved…..page 5) Jesus did nothing of the sort! Both this assertion and its alleged support is deeply problematic on many levels. In 1957, Rev. Milton T. Wells, president of AOG’s Eastern Bible College (now Valley Forge University) wrote a scholarly book whose foreword was by none other than AOG’s General Superintendent at the time. This book, obtained from the Flower Pentecostal Heritage archives operated by AOG, is now in the public domain and is carried in its entirety on this blog. For an intellectually honest, faithfully rigorous, and hermeneutically-sound treatment of the arguments presented in Point 6, we refer the reader to this book, where exactly the opposite conclusions are reached.

AOG- 1973: The Greek word translated “marital unfaithfulness” in these passages is porneia,which would certainly include adultery in the context of these sayings (a pornē was a prostitute). However, porneia is a broad term for sexual immorality of various kinds, often habitual, both before and after marriage (Mark 7:21; Acts 15:20; 1 Corinthians 5:1; 6:18; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 5:3; 1 Thessalonians 4:3).

This definition of “porneia”, whose Greek root, “porne” means to sell-off in the sense of commercial prostitution, is often cited by contemporary scholars as being a broadly inclusive heading of “sexual immorality”. However, there is significant evidence from 12 different lexicons and bible dictionaries / commentaries written prior to 1850 or so, that this definition has since been manipulated by translators with an agenda to falsely include immoral acts by married persons, where it originally applied only to various acts of immorality by unmarried persons. That’s why the older translations, including the Douay-Reims, the Geneva Bible, in addition to the King James version all translated “porneia” as “whoredom” or “fornication”, and treated it separately from adultery, as did both Jesus and Paul very consistently. Such treatment would be consistent with the discussions above of Deuteronomy 22 and 24 passages that deal only with an unconsummated or single-consummation bride situation. Rev. Wells was aware of this in 1957, and he discussed the same in his book. Other than relying on untrustworthy translation, this aspect of Point 6 is purely fabricated.

AOG- 1973: (Jesus did differentiate between porneia and moicheia elsewhere [Matthew 15:19; Mark 7:21] and the verb moicheuō is used in Matthew 5:32;19:9 to describe the actions of the sinful party who forces the divorce without a valid cause.)

These statements are all true. However, Jesus made it plain that there is NEVER a valid cause for divorce of a one-flesh covenant marriage under any circumstances, unlike an adulterous union in which God is not a covenant participant. Since Jesus was clearly talking about the covenant wife it is immaterial whether she was innocent or guilty of premarital immorality. If she was guilty, He is merely saying it wasn’t the husband who caused her to be guilty, but the time frame to “put away” such a wife has lapsed. If she is innocent, He is saying that the husband is forcing her into probable adultery by rejecting and abandoning her, so that he’s guilty not only of his own sin, but hers as well. In any event, He is saying that an otherwise-innocent man who marries somebody else’s discarded wife commits adultery. In other words, the innocent spouse may not remarry without also committing ongoing adultery. Unrepentant adultery sends people to hell. Inexplicably, AOG appears here to be correctly stating all of the objective facts, but not reaching a conclusion that those facts objectively support.

AOG – 1973: In Matthew 5:31,32 and 19:8,9, Jesus spoke of the man’s initiative in divorcing an immoral partner. In Jewish society, normally, only the man had that legal right—though certain upper-class women, as Herodias, seem to have done so (Matthew 14:3; note that in Mark 10:11,12, Jesus warns both sexes against groundless divorces). Clearly, the spiritual principle applies for either men or women. Moreover, it should be noted that Jesus granted permission to divorce only under specific circumstances where sexual immorality was involved. He did not, however, issue a command to divorce, since such action would rule out any possibility of reconciliation…..

It is seldom, if ever, that any single passage gives all aspects of truth on any single theme. To come to an understanding of any truth, we must take the whole of what the Bible teaches, and that is the intent of this paper.”

Jesus did indeed speak of the man’s initiative in divorcing an allegedly immoral partner, but said absolutely nothing that would condone it. Jesus considered all covenant marriages indissoluble except by death, and not at all dissoluble by men. The statement that divorce rules out any possibility of reconciliation is patently false and without biblical justification. Many such couples reconcile and remarry their covenant spouse, as only this is repentance in God’s will.

It is also true that to rightly divide God’s word we must compare with the whole of what the Bible teaches, in context, with correct language translation, consideration of cultural factors, and comparison with all other scripture on the same topic. When this is done, the faulty rendering of Matt. 5:32 and Matt. 19:9 to contrive an “exception clause” has even less support. Where is the comparison with Luke 16:18? Or with Malachi 2? Or Matt. 19:6? Or Mark 10:9?

The “Right” to Remarry

Pages 6 and 7 then launch into a 6-point attempt to recast what Jesus three times called adultery (Matt. 5:32; Matt. 19:9 and Luke 16:18 – “whoever marries one who has been put away commits [ongoing] adultery’) as biblically lawful establishment of a “new covenant” for the “innocent spouse”. This is very odd, because if the guilty spouse cannot remarry by this logic because the marriage covenant is undissolved, neither may the other spouse, innocent or guilty, with whom the marriage covenant is also undissolved remarry. As Rev. Wells succinctly put it: “We know of no one-sided marriages.” These are all the same false arguments we’ve already discredited above, until Points 5(b) and 6 which we will address here.

AOG 1973: Point 5b, page 7: “The objection sometimes is made that two passages, Romans 7:1-3 and 1 Corinthians 7:39, specifically say a woman is bound to her husband until death; therefore, believers may not divorce or remarry short of the death of their spouse.

Romans 7:1-3—A careful examination of the context shows that Paul’s point is to illustrate the believer’s freedom from the Law. In ancient Judaism, only the husband could initiate divorce. Therefore, his wife was bound to him as long as she lived, unless, of course, he chose to divorce her. Paul’s point is to show that the believer has died to the Law and is now alive to serve in the new way of the Spirit. The passage was not intended to address the problems of divorce and remarriage.

1 Corinthians 7:39—This verse appears to refer back to verses 8,9 which deal with those who have never married as well as with widows. So Paul is addressing widows whose husbands have passed away. The passage does not deal with the question of divorce and remarriage. Moreover, Paul has already addressed the problem of abandonment in verse 15 and shown that “A believing man or woman is not bound [that is, free to remarry] in such circumstances.”

Both arguments constitute presumptions and deceitful rationalizations. Both presume that divorce of a one-flesh covenant marriage can be accomplished, to begin with, in the courthouse of heaven, and such dissolution deemed valid there. Jesus spoke very forcefully that this was never the case. As we are seeing to an ever-increasing degree, civil law is one thing; God’s law is something else entirely.

There are five “C” ‘s involved in the principles of sound hermeneutics, and context is indeed one of them. But it does not follow in either the case of Romans 7:2-3 or 1 Cor. 7:39 that just because Paul is using Christ’s law of marriage in an analogy about something else, that the meaning is in that case taken out of context. It clearly is not out of context here. Its meaning, perfectly consistent with a preponderance of other OT and NT scripture, remains completely valid in this context by valid deductive reasoning (as contrasted with the widespread use of inductive reasoning attempted throughout this paper). To dismissively claim that these verses “do not address divorce and remarriage” is false on its surface:

Romans 7:3 “So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress.”

1 Cor. 7:39 “but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.”

Lastly, we need to deal with the assertion that “Paul has already addressed the problem of abandonment in verse 15 and shown that “A believing man or woman is not bound [that is, free to remarry] in such circumstances.” The presumption, blatantly contrary to both 1 Cor. 7:11 and 39, that an abandoned spouse is “free to remarry” is underpinned by a false translation of the word “bound” in verse 15, and by inferior inductive reasoning, when the facts are present to reach the opposite conclusion via deductive reasoning . In point 4 on page 6, this paper correctly renders this word as “douloo” meaning “not enslaved”, but fails to note that this is not the actual word for “marriage bond” that Paul used in verse 39 and in Romans 7:2. That Greek word is “deo“. Unless marriage is to be deemed to be “enslavement”, and in light of the conflict with the surrounding verses, it is not scholarly to infer a right to remarry from the usage of the word “douloo“. That would be inconsistent with the foundational principle that only death breaks the marriage covenant bond.

AOG 1973: Point 6, page 7: “Remarriage establishes a new marriage covenant. While Scripture makes it clear that errant spouses who sinfully break their marriage covenant do commit adultery, Scripture never places such guilt on the innocent partner. Those who argue that an innocent believer continuously commits sin by living in a new marriage have not a single shred of biblical evidence. Jesus clearly assumed that those who were divorced by sinful spouses, or those who divorced sinful spouses for “marital uncleanness” or abandonment, were free to remarry without any tinge of adultery. However, believers are to remarry one who“belong[s] to the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39) and the new marriage covenant is to be permanent.”

This is by far the most egregious statement in the position paper, having moved from unscholarly and misinformed to inexcusably slanderous of God’s character in covenant. God does not break any covenant in which He participates, nor does He enter into a duplicitous covenant at the expense of the first. There is no evidence offered in support of this slanderous statement, because there cannot exist such evidence. However, our previous blog addressed God’s character in covenant extensively with strong scholarly support.

The statement above that “Scripture never places such guilt on the innocent partner” is emotionally-charged and assumes an unhelpful perspective. While Jesus would not have sought to place “guilt” on anyone, He would bring conviction on everyone. He meant no malice when He stated, “whoever marries one who has been put away commits [ongoing – per the present-indicative verb tense] adultery.” He was merely stating that the marriage covenant is dissolved only by death, without exceptions. As for the allegation that there is not a “single shred of biblical evidence…that an innocent believer continuously commits sin by living in a new marriage”, we certainly have the Greek interlinear translations with Greek verb tense, for all three passages where Jesus made the clear statement, “whoever marries one who has been put away commits adultery“, Matthew 19:9, Matthew 5:32 and Luke 16:18. In each case, it’s the present-indicative form used for an ongoing state. Rev. Wells confirms this in his book by quoting two Greek linguistic experts. The words of Jesus repeated on three separate occasions is incontrovertible evidence to most. Jesus spoke of the state of being eunuch for the kingdom of God right after He dismayed His disciples that they could not put away their wives for any cause, including adultery, and expect to remarry without being guilty of living in an ongoing state of adultery due to the undissolved original marriage covenant that is neither dissolved by civil divorce nor adultery nor remarriage. There should therefore be far more concern for that innocent spouse’s soul than for their “rights” and feelings.

Anyone who has remarried adulterously, whether solemnized in church or otherwise, dare not stay in such a union or consider it permanent. Paul stated repeatedly that unrepentant adulterers will not inherit the kingdom of God, and that God avenges the adulterous defilers of the marriage bed. Jesus Himself said that it is better to gouge out an eye or sever a hand than miss heaven due to carnality, and made it clear that failure to forgive anyone, much less the one person on earth with whom we are one-flesh, will forfeit one’s own forgiveness by God. James warned that teachers of the law will be held to a higher level of judgment than those they mislead. This would certainly include those who counsel and seal people into the ongoing state of adultery by performing such weddings.

The remainder of the 1973 Position Paper discusses eligibility for leadership and for church offices, generally following the unscriptural standards set out above, and disagreeing that the ongoing state of remarriage adultery jeopardizes the members’ salvation. To that extent, these positions are at odds with instructions by Paul that such office-holders maintain their own households in good order, and be the husband of one wife, since adulterously remarried partners are serial polygamists due to the indissolubility by men of their original marriage bond.

In closing, we have now had occasion to observe whether the persecution and shame brought by the desecration of civil marriage due to legalizing same-sex nuptuals by judicial fiat, devoid of God’s redeeming intervention, would be enough to bring the church under godly sorrow, self examination and contrite repentance. So far, this has not been the case. In these couple of weeks the evangelical airwaves have been full of sermons drawing quite valid parallels with the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians, while citing the warnings in Deuteronomy 28, and the resulting exile, but nobody is yet willing to admit it was due to Asherah worship by heterosexuals within the church. Nobody yet is talking about the moral purge that was carried out under the prophet Ezra that began with the shepherds of God.

We shall have to see whether the expected ascendancy of concurrent polygamists’ “rights” to further redefine civil marriage help the church to recognize its own practices sequential polygamy, and to repent, before the destruction of our nation becomes final in the Lord’s hand. Two other societies in history, prior to contemporary times, enacted unilateral divorce laws equivalent to those in the U.S., the Eastern Roman / Byzantine Empire, and Bolshevik Russia. Both societies failed within two generations because the church failed to be the church in standing against it.

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

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

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

Revisiting The Call To Public Witness On Marriage

July 7, 2015 standerinfamilycourt 1 Comment

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

SIFC 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

SIFC 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;

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

SIFC 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

SIFC 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.

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!

Discipleship, morality

What about that Samaritan Woman?

July 6, 2015 standerinfamilycourt 1 Comment

By Standerinfamilycourt

“The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” He *said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus *said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet’. – John 4:15-19

Marriage revisionists (remarriage apologists) in the evangelical church love to trot out the story in John 4:5-42 just at the point where they can no longer refute context and language correction offered in rebuttal of their three or four “go-to” passages, which they insist justify remarriage while a covenant spouse is still living. Or it comes in handy when they agree with the accurate biblical principles that irrefutably point to the indissolubility by men of the marriage covenant, but in their squeamishness of the consequence thereof, they use this story to justify their counsel that people living in the ongoing sin of remarriage adultery should remain in that sin, despite the stern warnings in 1 Cor. 6:9-10 and Rev. 21:8 of risk to their souls, despite the idolatry entailed, and despite the trail of unreconciled relationship carnage and legacy of generational sin in sometimes TWO covenant families.

“Yup, we’ve got to admit that there is no pre-20th century scholarly support for the notion that the Greek “porneia” is generalized sexual immorality, notwithstanding our NIV bible translation to the contrary. OK, we concede that there’s no exception in Matt. 19:9 or 5:32 that truly applies to consummated marriages. But, Jesus never told the Samaritan woman she had to leave the man with whom she was shacking up, and be reconciled to her first husband…”

“Fine, you’ve showed us that there’s a clause that was amputated from Matthew 19:9, our favorite exception clause verse and that jettisoned clause reads, ‘whoever marries one who is put away commits adultery‘ (Just like Matt. 5:32 and the dreaded Luke 16:18 does.) Yeah, OK, “commits adultery” is, in all three verses, in the Greek tense indicating an ongoing state of sin, and not a one-time act. But Jesus said the Samaritan woman had five husbands, so that proves the marriage covenant must be dissolved by remarriage…”

“OK, so the word ‘bound’ in 1 Cor. 7:15 doesn’t mean ‘marriage bond’ since douloo isn’t the same Greek word as deo, but that Samaritan woman ….”

Thank goodness for that Samaritan woman, that fabled woman-at-the-well, lest the cause of hyper-grace cultural relativism be set back at least 50 years in the church! She is the coup-de-grace, the piece-de-resistance. By way of “reality-check”, there are a number logical issues to address before the thinking person relies too heavily on the woman-at-the-well to feel eternally comfortable in an ongoing situation that Jesus, in no uncertain terms, called adulterous on at least three separate occasions. Not only did He say so, all of his disciples’ disciples emulated Him in asserting this for the next 400 years after He went to the cross.

Without naming names or linking to their statements, let me say that it’s nothing short of amazing how many times I’ve seen some of the most disciplined theological minds today, even those who have written authoritative papers on the indissolubility of the original covenant marriage bond, fall back on this old saw simply because they feel squeamish about telling somebody who is civilly wed to someone else’s one-flesh covenant spouse that repenting of their ongoing state of adultery must be accomplished by severing the immoral relationship. Freeing that spouse to recover their inheritance in the kingdom of God (by either remaining celibate or reconciling with their rightful spouse) seems too sinful. After writing the scriptural truth with solid integrity and sound hermeneutics, they will then avoid bringing that truth to its only fitting outcome, and instead lapse into slovenly inference when discussing that Samaritan woman.

So, here are the top five reasons this S-W-A-W’s water jug of purported remarriage justification doesn’t actually hold water:

5. There are husbands, and there are “husbands“.

The Greek word for “husband” in John 4: 16-18 varies slightly by verse. Revisionists like to claim that Jesus recognized these remarriages as valid because He allegedly used the word “husband”. Maybe so, maybe not so much.

4:16 “Go call your [andra] ἄνδρα …” Root word, aner, which is translated “man; male human being”. It is used interchangeably for both “man” and “husband” in 31 occurrences in the New Testament, but there are several additional Hebrew words that refer more specifically to a lawful male spouse which Jesus did not choose in this conversation. Keep in mind, He was probably addressing the woman in either Aramaic or Hebrew, and this was then translated into the Greek text that is the basis for our English bible.

4:17 “The woman answered and said, “I have no [andra] ἄνδρα .” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no [andra] ἄνδρα ’;

4:18 “for you have had five [andras] ἄνδρας, and the one whom you now have is not your [aner] ἀνήρ; this you have said truly.”

Strangely, the last usage where Jesus was referring in verse 18 to her partner in cohabitation “is not your husband [aner] ” is the least specific to the married state, while at the same time referring to the married state. Among the several words for “husband” or “male companion” in Hebrew that Jesus likely used one or more of in His 4:18 response to this woman when she said she had no husband: Strongs 376 (eesh / isha) אִישָׁ֔הּ , Strongs 582 (enosh) אֱנוֹשׁ , Strongs 113 (adon) אָדֹן , Strongs 1167 (ba-al / ba-lah) בַּ֫עַל .

Just as we have translation issues from Greek to English, there’s no doubt we have the same sort of translation issues from Hebrew or Aramaic to Greek. True to the “Content” law of hermeneutics, it is just as important to accurate scripture interpretation / application to explore why an alternative synonym was NOT used, as it is to correctly translate the word that WAS used. Wasn’t Jesus, after all, merely acknowledging the gaping chasm between Mosaic civil law and God’s law, even if He did actually use a consistent Hebrew or Aramaic word for civil marriage partner?

4. Mention of a circumstance or situation does not logically equate to condoning it. Nor does silence on a matter logically support pure inference.

This is the classic “David-and-Bathsheba” fallacy. (More recently, it’s the specious “gay’s OK” argument.) People seeking to justify sin by shifting the focus off of what Jesus actually said usually try to point to scriptural mention of some vice, typically polygamy or some instance of adultery that prospered to some degree. Bathsheba’s son became a mighty, wise and wealthy king. Jacob and David both had multiple wives and concubines and the Lord prospered them. Jesus is never recorded in any of the gospels as speaking against homosexuality . So it must stand to reason that because the author of the book of John didn’t record Jesus as telling this woman the obvious, that she was living in either fornication or adultery, trying to plug a hole in her heart that only Jesus could fill, then adultery must not be all that bad, nor ongoing, if she’s in a “loving, commited relationship”. (Sound familiar?) Since He wasn’t recorded as telling her she must leave this man and reconcile with her unique one-flesh covenant husband who had apparently divorced her under Mosaic law, or was deceased, then adultery or civil divorce must dissolve our marriage covenant with God and with our rightful spouse.

Those who try to make this argument are presumptuously overlooking many things. First, is it not far more reasonable, based on a host of corroborating evidence, including what Jesus consistently said in like situations, to fill the silence on this with the presumption that He did tell her “go and sin no more”, as He did with the woman taken in the act of adultery? After all, the Samaritan woman readily admitted her adultery. Second, Jesus was all-knowing, which was the whole point of this story in the first place. Is it not perfectly reasonable that as He took His deep look into her soul He already saw that she had reached a point of conviction over her sin so that it was not necessary for Him to voice it? Didn’t the living water make the immoral relationship redundant in her own heart? Jesus also didn’t dress her down for any number of other sins He likewise mentions in Matthew 5, such as gossip and slander. By that same logic are those things OK for us today?

3. The rough circumstances of this woman’s life reflected the very Mosaic law that Jesus was poised to abrogate in Matt. 5:31-32.

It was said, ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce’; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Moses originally allowed men to divorce a bride via a “bill of divorcement” that then annulled the ketubah the binding Hebrew contract of betrothal if “some uncleanness” was found in her. He further said that in such circumstances the man could never remarry her if she had subsequently remarried. Jesus pointed out the hardheartedness of the Hebrew men that caused them to subsequently expand this permission into a “commandment” and extend the “grounds” well beyond the wedding night over the ensuing centuries, until the prophet Malachi rebuked them in no uncertain terms and bluntly told them that God was refusing fellowship with them because He was standing as a witness in covenant with the wife of their youth. Jesus further rebuked this practice by saying, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” He took them back to the garden scene in Genesis 2:24 and reminded them that a man leaves his father and mother (not his covenant one-flesh wife) and is inseparably joined to the wife of his youth.

So, this woman had experienced some combination of multiple divorce under Mosaic law, and (possibly) widowhood. So exactly as Jesus stated in Matthew 5, with few opportunities to support herself, she was either forced to commit adultery, or had been found not to be a virgin during the betrothal. Because of the Mosaic law which Jesus had come invalidate, she was foreclosed by the traditions of Hebrew society from any chance of reconciliation with the man with whom God had once supernaturally made her one-flesh. Presuming he was not deceased, the abrogation of the Mosaic law cleared away that prohibition. Regardless of what happened after that, the weight of context of everything else Jesus taught about the absolute indissolubility of the marriage bond makes it far more reasonable to infer that her civil marriages lacked God’s participation and sanction, just as remarriage does today while an estranged original spouse is still living.

2. Speaking of laws, why do the basic laws of hermeneutics always get suspended every time somebody’s sexual license is at stake?

We have a wonderful pastor at our Assembly of God fellowship. He is passionate about discipleship and passionate that people in our congregation learn the basics of rightly dividing the word of God so that they become discerning of false teaching that would lead them off course. In a recent sermon series, he taught the five basic “C’s” or principles of hermeneutics:

(1) Content – which depends on confirming the accurate translation of the text, as well as what is described
(2) Context – the immediate setting or backdrop against which whatever is going on in the verse(s) unfolds
(3) Culture – the broader backdrop of customs and history
(4) Comparison – is there a vast body of scripture against which the verse can be validly compared? Has it also been tested against the five “C’s” ? Does the popular or the offered interpretation of the verse conflict with the larger body of scripture, or is it in harmony?
(5) Consultation – what do the scholars say? Caveat: if it’s a topic involving sexual morality, it is best to make sure some of that consultation is with commentary that pre-dates 1850 when the marriage revisionists began to undertake writing lexicons and commentaries and translating bibles. Further caveat: make sure you know who those authors were as disciples of Christ (or not). Some of them have very colorful backgrounds. Know about two historical individuals in particular who wrote rogue commentaries of 1 Cor. 7: Ambrosiaster (4th century A.D.) and his protégé, Desiderius Erasmus (16th century A.D.) who heavily influenced this aspect of the Protestant Reformation.

As “standerinfamilycourt” has demonstrated above, once the five “C’s” are applied to this liberal interpretation of the woman-at-the-well story, it becomes readily apparent that several of the rules of sound hermeneutics have been suspended, and sometimes by highly-credentialed theologians.

Specifically, reason 5 above exposes the imprecise translation of the word andra as “husband” which fails in the principle of Content
– reason 4 above shows failure in the principle of
Comparison
– reason 3 above exposes imprecision in two principles,
Context and Culture.
– reason 1 below exposes failure in a SIXTH “C” – Common Sense!

1. Will we REALLY accuse the Master of approving the continuation of an immoral cohabitation arrangement? Really?

Does the surface absurdity of saying “Jesus never told the woman to leave her present relationship” actually require any elaboration? OK, here it is:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.” – Matt. 5:27-30

In recent days I’ve read the words of more than one prominent theologian saying (presumably, with a straight face) that Jesus’ words were only hyperbole. Paul clearly didn’t think they were mere “hyperbole” when he penned 1 Cor. 6:9-10 and Hebrews 13:4 to the body of believers. I dare them to utter the word “hyperbole” to Jesus’ face as they are explaining why they performed “x” number of wedding ceremonies that sealed people in ongoing adultery when they had the credentials to know better.

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

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

Courts and Religious Freedom Dichotomy: Coincidence or “God-incidence”?

July 5, 2015 standerinfamilycourt Leave a comment

by Standerinfamilycourt

“The alien who is among you shall rise above you higher and higher, but you will go down lower and lower…. he shall be the head, and you will be the tail.

“So all these curses shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you….The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand, a nation of fierce countenance who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young.” – Deuteronomy 28:43-45, 49

“Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? ….You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written.
– Romans 1:28-32

[UPDATE: On July 14, 2015 the 10th Federal Circuit ruled against an injunction protecting the non-profit Little Sisters of the Poor from the HHS mandate to provide abortifacients and birth control to employees against their 1st Amendment right to free religious exercise, while on July 17, 2015 a judge in Federal district court, in he 7th Circuit reached the opposite result and granted a permanent injunction to for-profit Tyndale House Publishers.]

One week after the cataclysmic 5-4 pronouncement of the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v Hodges, a poignant reminder of a very different sort of religious freedom pronouncement came up in SIFC’s i-phone, as decided by all the same SCOTUS justices only a year ago, June, 2014. Obergefell held that a newly-minted 14th Amendment fundamental right to redefine civil marriage, and to state-enforced “dignity” (which nevertheless remains a perception of the heart, mind and will as reflected against the backdrop of God’s law) shall supercede the very first fundamental right enumerated in the Bill of Rights, our irreplaceable freedom of religious exercise and of acting on our right of conscience. Unlike Obergefell, that 5-4 majority based their finding on sound constitutional analysis, with appropriate respect for precedent. That 2014 case was Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

The Becket Fund, a public interest religious freedom law firm that successfully represented Hobby Lobby before the Supreme Court last year has also enjoyed a long list of judicial successes affirming Christian-owned profit and non-profit entities who object to the requirements in the Obamacare mandate to provide birth control and abortifacient drugs to their employees. In so doing, they are upholding a “non-negotiable” in the kingdom of God that dates back to the days immediately following the days of Noah’s flood. God promised with a rainbow reminder to never again wipe out all life on the earth in a single event, no matter how vile and wicked man became again. He laid down one expectation, however: honor life.

Of the dozens of HHS mandate cases filed by religious non-profit organizations and Christian-owned for-profit firms, there have been 28 successful injunction requests to bar enforcement versus only 6 cases denied, and 6 favorable Supreme Court orders resulting directly from the Hobby Lobby ruling. In the case of a similar number of for-profit firms, there have been 8 temporary injunctions and 39 permanent injunctions granted, versus only one denial.

By contrast, the same pro-family, religious freedom Christian law firms, such as Liberty Counsel and the Alliance Defending Freedom, who were so successfully defending their clients’ honor of life issues in court, were at the same time losing virtually every case in every state and Federal Circuit where they attempted to uphold only half of God’s definition of marriage – complementarity, but not permanence. Sanctity-of-marriage is God’s second “non-negotiable“, one that He expects to be defended from far more than only the gender-confused.

Some of the judges in those cases bluntly pointed out the brazen hypocrisy of attempted sanctity-of-marriage arguments which centered around the welfare of the children, but in the face of those states’ unilateral divorce laws which ruthlessly subjugate the rights of the children of covenant marriages to the (apparently) “compelling” state interest of sexual autonomy for the petitioning parent. For example, Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circuit, in Latta v Otter eloquently opined:

“If defendants really wished to ensure that as many children as possible had married parents, they would do well to rescind the right to no-fault divorce, or to divorce altogether. Neither has done so. Such reforms might face constitutional difficulties of their own, but they would at least further the states’ asserted interest in solidifying marriage.”

In fact, several of these public interest legal firms who have in their mission statements expressed sanctity-of-marriage and religious freedom-of-conscience aspirations told SIFC in May, 2013 that the punitive confiscation of retirement funds from a non-offending Christian spouse to award to the offending petitioner as a result of an unwanted marriage dissolution was only an “incidental” religious freedom burden. The severe curtailment on technical grounds of the right to bring evidence in a dissipation of marital assets claim (that would otherwise defend against such confiscation) solely because of refusing to file one’s own petition based on biblical conviction was not an unconstitutional violation of freedom of conscience. Constitutional attorneys from a firm which regularly works for these legal ministries, once they were retained with SIFC’s personal funds, resoundingly disagreed with their assessment, and have filed her appeal accordingly.

What is even more uncanny as the marriage redefinition cases unfolded, is the unsoundness of the legal reasoning on which those cases were decided, especially the Obergefell decision. The favorable hand of God in the HHS cases was nowhere to be seen in the cases that would further desecrate marriage and bring fines and penalties to hundreds of Christian businesses in wedding-related goods, services and facilities. If marriage is a sacred symbol for the relationship between Christ and His church, where was the protective hand of God in those cases? Why was the situation so out of hand that two Justices who were performing these sodomy ceremonies and making biased personal statements before the oral arguments were even heard, were not strongly compelled to recuse themselves for the sake of retaining confidence in the integrity of the Court?

Like the harlot of the Book of Proverbs who eats and wipes her mouth, declaring she has done nothing wrong, the aftermath of the SCOTUS announcement shows a defiant, rather than a reflective and repentant mood among the nation’s most influential Christian evangelical leaders. Some even got into unseemly skirmishes with each other on the battlefield of their respective blogs and facebook pages. There is much talk of civil disobedience, of church leaders going to jail rather than follow a Federally / judicially-imposed national marriage law. There are state efforts to cease issuing marriage licenses to anyone. Nobody seems to even miss the conspicuous absence of the Most High so soon after His stunning presence in defeating the HHS mandate over the same 12 month period. Only a few are speaking publicly about the connection with unilateral divorce, and none are doing so with a view toward reforming or repealing these laws in order to fundamentally, rather than superficially, rebuild a culture of marriage.

Instead of any sign of contrition on the part of evangelical leaders in the week that has followed the Court’s announcement, in the form of a pledge to stop performing weddings where there is an estranged living spouse, or to work toward reform or repeal of unilateral divorce laws, all the talk was about circling the wagons around all marriages (whether covenant, or adulterous remarriages) to discourage future divorces, and to “educate young people to choose their spouses with more discernment”. (SIFC suggests they start with the most basic counsel: don’t marry somebody else’s spouse!)

Any suggestion is ignored or rebuffed that a real dilemma looms wherein pastors will find themselves counseling “married” homosexuals differently than those suffering the corruption reaped from their own flesh due to being in civil marriages whose roots were adulterous. Meanwhile, churches are bracing for a likely loss of tax exemptions and liability insurance, while perhaps not even understanding that a future of vandalism and harassment also awaits their events. Such was carried out in the past in various states by activists against congregations that continue to teach that homosexuality is immoral. In the UK, Canada, and several other countries, it has become illegal “hate speech” to read certain scriptures from a standard bible behind the pulpit. How will a church or denomination that couldn’t even withstand the “persecution” of people going down the street in order to defend the sanctity of biblical, covenant heterosexual marriage stand when unprecedented TRUE persecution ramps up?

Where was the Lord in 2013 when SCOTUS was formulating their decisions in the cases of Hollingsworth v Perry and United States v Windsor? Many fasted and prayed fervently for His intervention that would have prevented trampling of our Constitution that followed, and also prevented so much suffering for His servants running wedding industry businesses. Why didn’t that sway the Most High? Why did He instead choose to show Himself mighty in the Hobby Lobby case? Could it be that He was having a very hard time getting the attention of His shepherds, and was determined to keep trying?

SIFC is personally thankful for some of the precedents that came out of the various marriage redefinition rulings in the lower courts. Even when the Lord sent Judah and Israel, the apple of His eye, into captivity, He continued to prosper His people until they repented. He used the resources of her enemies and even urged the people to pray for the prosperity of Babylon while they were exiles in that land. The Lord shows Himself mightiest when He even goes so far as to turn the enemy’s own weapons back on the enemy. May it be so here, in Jesus’ name.

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

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

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

“EXTRAPOLATION” ? – OR FOUNDATIONAL?

June 12, 2015 standerinfamilycourt Leave a comment

by “Standerinfamilycourt”

Interesting conversation between jousting theologians this morning over God’s definition of marriage. Attempts have been put forth by some to elevate complementarity (Matt. 19:4) over permanence (Matt. 19:5-6), against the competing attempt to deny complementarity altogether. Both views seem to miss the mark.

Extrapolation [per Merriam Webster]:

– the product or result of inference (values of a variable in an unobserved interval) from values within an already observed interval

a : projection, extension, or expansion (known data or experience) into an area not known or experienced so as to arrive at a usually conjectural knowledge of the unknown area <extrapolates present trends to construct an image of the future>

b : a prediction by projecting past experience or known data <extrapolate public sentiment on one issue from known public reaction on others

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

It should be noted that one of these jousters has written a scholarly paper calling into serious question both the “Matthean exception” and the “Pauline privilege” of contemporary evangelical lore which presume to excuse the civil dissolution of covenant marriage and the subsequent non-covenant “marriages” that Jesus defined (Luke 16:18; Mark 10:11-12) as ongoing adultery.

SIFC has had personal exchanges with one of the jousters on this topic in recent days:

[RG to SIFC, Facebook 5/30/2015:]

“…..I’m not going to rehash again the issue of remarriage after divorce. We both agree that it is wrong from Jesus’ standpoint but we disagree on several aspects. Some of your points in my view cannot reasonably sustained. That porneia can be used as a general term for sexual immorality of various forms (including adultery, incest, and homosexual practice, in addition to fornication and prostitution) for early Jews and Christians is beyond dispute (though you dispute it). That Jesus viewed homosexual practice as a more severe offense than remarriage after divorce is also, in my view, beyond dispute. A violation of the foundation is by definition more severe than the violation of a principle extrapolated secondarily from the foundation. And there are many other arguments that could be brought forward. As to whether Jesus would have insisted on dissolution of such relationships long after they were made, that is disputable, though my best guess is that he would not have, for various reasons that I have put forward elsewhere. I could be wrong about that. I understand your point of view…”

It seems the Westminster Confession, whereby Christ’s marriage commandment was put to a popular vote of 17th century Pharisees, must nevertheless be defended!

(Indeed, SIFC gets just as much challenge on some blog sites from the homosexualists that it’s the Matthew 19:4-end that’s “extrapolated” to extra-scripturally exclude “committed” homosexual unions from holy matrimony. This, too, is ludicrous! That serpent, evicted from the Garden, is going to revise the story and distract from the truth on this topic at every turn.)

“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be [extrapolated] to his wife, and the two shall become [an extrapolation]. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the [extrapolation]. Eph. 5 31-32

“Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be [extrapolated] to his [sequential partner] and the two shall become [an extrapolation]? So they are no longer two, but [an extrapolation]. What therefore God has [extrapolated], (let’s just hope it works out).” Matt. 19:4-6

“So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into [an extrapolation] the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said,

‘This is now [an extrapolation] of my bones,
And [an extrapolation] of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was [extrapolated from] Man.’

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his [extrapolation]; and they shall become [an extrapolation]. Genesis 2:21-24

Gentlemen, is it not considerably more accurate to say that it’s serial, sequential monogamy that’s been “extrapolated”? Why would an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent Yahweh have need to do anything but CREATE? Isn’t projection, prediction, and inference something that finite, fallible MEN do?

Why is the idea of the indissolubility of marriage so distasteful to evangelical theologians these days as a FOUNDATIONAL element that they would deny its obvious status as such? And do so, despite all the repeated references to this biblical creation-of-marriage foundation, from Genesis to Revelation?

In rebuking the Pharisees’ plans for marriage redefinition, would Jesus have taken them back to Eden to point out a mere extrapolation? After all, it was not exactly the morality or legitimacy of homosexual relations they were challenging Him on!

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

Let's Repeal No-Fault Divorce!