Eph 1096ff, 7/14/89

DOCTRINE OF MARRIAGE (Part 3)

L. Relationship Problems and Solutions.

1. If we cannot live with ourselves, it is unlikely we could ever live with anyone else. If a man and woman are lonely and unhappy, they can double their loneliness and unhappiness through marriage.

2. One of the greatest problems in marriage is the autonomy-intimacy issue. The question is how to be oneself, yet remain in compatibility or rapport with one’s spouse.

a. There is the tension between the autonomy of the “I” and the interpersonal relationship of the “we.”

b. Being a separate and individual person, and at the same time being in a close relationship with another in marriage runs counter to many of the romantic ideals.

c. Before true amalgamation occurs in marriage, each spouse must recognize the other as a person, and as a person who also has an old sin nature. You cannot change your spouse to suit yourself.

d. No one reaches the status of compatibility when the woman keeps chasing him for what she cannot get, and the husband keeps running from what he lacks. The wife desires closeness and intimacy, and thinks, “If only my husband would change.” And the husband desires to be individualistic and self-sufficient. But if he tries to tell her who he is, she becomes critical and antagonistic.

3. Bitterness, disillusion, and resentment all result from believing three myths about marriage.

a. That marriage is a panacea for life.

b. That marriage is the ultimate in happiness.

c. That marriage is a problem-solving device. In reality, marriage is a problem-manufacturing device, and it is related to the three stages of Christian degeneracy: implosion, which is self-fragmentation; explosion, which is polarized fragmentation; and reversion, which is the eight stages of Christian degeneracy.

4. People are no better in marriage than they are as people. People who are winners in life are winners in marriage. People who are losers in life are losers in marriage. Losers are not believers who fail, but believers who do nothing about their failures.

a. Only the protocol plan of God and problem-solving devices can change a loser into a winner. You can only change yourself, you cannot change your spouse.

b. Changing yourself always begins with the rebound technique of 1 Jn 1:9.

c. Most losers in marriage try to solve marital problems by changing their spouse to conform to their standards. If that does not work, they change spouses. Both in marriage and the Christian way of life, you can only change yourself, and not others.

d. Divorce is rarely a solution to marital problems, because after divorce, you are still the same person - a loser. A fragmented person in marriage is a fragmented person outside of marriage. Do not blame marriage for the fact you are a loser. Blame yourself for negative volition.

5. Marriages do not work without spiritual self-esteem. Spiritual self-esteem is where effectiveness in marriage begins. Spiritual self- esteem is the envelope of impersonal love in marriage just as it is in the Christian modus vivendi. All relationships must begin with the filling of the Holy Spirit.

6. Psychological and human viewpoint solutions are no solutions to marital problems.

a. While most people cite unfaithfulness, money, personality conflicts, relatives, children, etc., as the reason for failure in marriage, they are describing symptoms, not causes.

b. The answer to problems in marriage is found only in the problem-solving devices.

7. Why do marriages fail?

a. Marriages fail because people are failures as human beings.

b. Marriages fail because people get married for the wrong reasons: security; libido; peer pressure; escape from unpleasant circumstances; for a meal ticket.

c. Marriages fail because believers make bad decisions while in one of the three stages of Christian degeneracy.

d. Marriages fail because believers get married to solve their problems, not realizing that this will intensify their problems.

e. Marriages fail because believers assume that marriage is a state of happiness. They have been unhappy all of their lives, and now they want to be happy. They think that all they have to do is get married.

8. Principles of happiness related to marriage.

a. You cannot build your happiness on self-gratification. This includes alcohol, drugs, success, approbation, or beauty.

b. You cannot build your happiness on a moment of time, pleasure, stimulation, success, approbation, power, or a moment of sex.

c. You cannot build your happiness on someone else’s unhappiness.

d. You cannot build your happiness on marriage. This means marriage is not designed for happiness; marriage is designed for virtue.

e. Virtue is designed for happiness, when achieved - when you attain one of the problem-solving devices - sharing the happiness of God. Therefore, marriage depends on the virtue involved in the fulfillment of the problem-solving devices, because the problem-solving devices equate virtue with happiness.

f. Marriages fail because believers become involved in the three stages of degeneracy: implode, explode, and revert.

g. The greatest cause for failure in marriage is also the greatest cause for failure in life - arrogance.

9. The first and greatest difficulty people have after marriage is unrealistic expectation.

a. When people reject doctrine, they tend to expect too much from someone else. They get their eyes on people.

b. Unrealistic expectation is part of the arrogance complex. It is the arrogant fragmentation of the believer.

c. Unrealistic expectation means that very few people are loved the way they want to be loved, and very few people are treated the way they want to be treated. Entering marriage with this attitude results in nothing but disaster.

d. The believer in marriage who is not loved the way he wants to be loved or treated the way he wants to be treated becomes frustrated and reacts toward his spouse.

e. Unrealistic expectation is a state of unhappiness. In fact, it combines the arrogance of unhappiness with subjective preoccupation with self.

f. Unrealistic expectation starts out in arrogant shock. Arrogant shock means subjectivity. Subjectivity means preoccupation with self. People are more preoccupied with self after marriage than they ever were before marriage.

g. The combination of arrogant preoccupation with self and the arrogance of unhappiness inevitably produces a loser. The key is always unrealistic expectation. When you add arrogance to arrogance, you have a locked-in loser in marriage.

h. Unrealistic expectation is the state of unhappiness in marriage in which the believer blames everyone else for his miserable circumstances. Unrealistic expectation never takes the responsibility for one’s own decisions, and always transfers the blame to anyone in the periphery. The spouse fragments his own life and then blames others. This changes the person’s personality, often creating a pall of gloom. One miserable person often creates another miserable person.

10. Another problem after marriage is role-model arrogance.

a. The combination of subjective preoccupation with self, unrealistic expectation, plus subjective preoccupation with the other spouse develops role model arrogance, which quickly destroys anything anticipated prior to the wedding.

b. There are three categories of subjective preoccupation with a spouse: role-model arrogance; the feet-of-clay syndrome; iconoclastic arrogance.

c. “Role” is defined as a proper or customary function of an individual as the other person thinks they should be. The role-model a person assigns before marriage does not turn out to be what was expected. Therefore, the person gets into unrealistic expectation.

d. We assign a role to our spouse in marriage. When anyone departs from their assigned role, there is reaction by the other person. This is why people try to change their spouse. This is why wives nag their husbands, and why husbands bully their wives.

e. We expect others to be perfect or to fit into our unrealistic expectations, and at the same time we have a role-model standard for ourselves. We see ourselves unrealistically as we see others unrealistically. This is the function of arrogant subjectivity.

f. In role-model arrogance a husband may excuse himself for his sins, failures, and flaws, and at the same time condemn his wife for the same sins, failures, and flaws. We never see our flaws, yet see our spouses’ flaws perfectly.

g. The husband may make a role-model out of his wife, and she does not meet his unrealistic standards. Therefore, he judges her for her failures to fulfill his unrealistic expectations. While being guilty of many things himself, he blames his wife. The wife does the same thing to her husband by assigning to her spouse the role-model of the perfect husband or father.

h. Role-model arrogance gravitates toward the sin nature trend of self-righteous arrogance, hence, becomes guilty of polarized arrogance in the field of legalism. This results in role-model arrogance making a hypocrite out of self and a victim out of one’s spouse.

i. Role-model arrogance rejects or neglects the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God and substitutes arrogant subjectivity.

j. Most men place an inordinate amount of importance on making the woman obey them. This comes from the narcissist syndrome. No man has the right to bully the woman. Some men only get married for perpetual approbation and attention from the wife. He wants his wife to constantly be kind, wonderful, tender, loving and thoughtful. She is not capable of these unreasonable expectations.

k. The role-model created by the arrogant wife is created out of illusions related to a kindness or tenderness that she has never before known.

l. Arrogance always exaggerates unrealistic expectations into illusions. And from illusions come hallucinations. The attraction stage of romance is the most vulnerable stage for creating an idol.

m. The arrogant believer takes an attractive person, and from either delusion, idealism, or romantic illusion creates an idol of perfection out of the opposite number. Then he marries the idol of perfection which he has created in his own imagination and emotions. He has created an illusion and assigned to it a role-model. Once the feet-of- clay, the person’s flaws emerge, the spouse seeks to destroy the idol which he created. This is iconoclastic arrogance. The husband often reacts with brutality.

n. Iconoclastic arrogance is total divorcement from reality in human relationship.

(1) It is defined as subjective preoccupation with other people resulting in disenchantment and disillusion. Iconoclastic arrogance is unrealistic expectation because it assigns perfection to another without taking cognizance of the fact that all of us have old sin natures.

(2) When the iconoclastic believer discovers some sin or flaw in his spouse, he becomes disenchanted with his partner in marriage and reacts. Discovery of the feet-of-clay produces hostility and the reaction of self-fragmentation, which motivates destroying the other spouse.

(3) Iconoclastic arrogance rejects all problem-solving devices. The arrogant iconoclast never takes responsibility for being arrogant. Illusion created by arrogance becomes illusion destroyed by arrogance. Arrogance destroys what arrogance creates.

11. A man might be able to motivate his wife to change in some areas, if he fulfills the divine rule to love his wife. And a woman may motivate a man to want to please her, if she executes the divine rule to obey the man. But the real issue with the wife is respect.

a. The only thing that really counts with a woman is having her respect, not her love. Respect from a woman is infinitely more important than her love because love gets tangled up in her emotions, and she becomes irrational. But a woman becomes very stable when she respects a man.

b. A man can gain a woman’s respect by living his life in relationship to a woman on the basis of principle. When the woman seeks to compromise your principles, cut her off. Better to have her respect rather than her love. When a woman respects a man, then she fulfills the principle of obeying and submitting.

c. When a woman respects a man, her attraction to that man is not based on beauty, muscles, or sex, but is based on character. Obedience has never been a problem for a woman who respects a man.

12. Most of the problems in marriage come from the mistakes made in getting married in the attraction stage of romance. The two people still do not know what the other person is like; they only have overt attraction. Do not marry in the attraction stage and expect success in marriage. This is very difficult.

13. Personal love, spiritual self-esteem, and virtue in marriage.

a. Personal love in marriage has neither strength nor staying power to make a success of marriage apart from virtue-love. Virtue-love is personal love inside the integrity envelope of impersonal love.

b. Personal love in itself is vulnerable to self-destruction from the arrogance complex. Personal love by itself is vulnerable to the emotional revolt of the soul. What you do not need is an emotional marriage.

c. Personal love in both romance and marriage demands residence in the integrity envelope of impersonal love.

d. Impersonal love only becomes effective at the point of spiritual self-esteem. Personal love in marriage cannot be effective without the integrity envelope of impersonal love and the status quo of spiritual self-esteem.

e. Lack of spiritual self-esteem, next to arrogance, is the major destructive factor in marriages. A husband minus spiritual self- esteem is a monster in marriage.

f. Virtue-love in marriage functions in the three stages of spiritual adulthood: spiritual self-esteem, the effective function of impersonal love; spiritual autonomy, which is the optimum function of impersonal love; spiritual maturity, which is the maximum function of impersonal love. There are six characteristics of spiritual self-esteem.

(1) Self-confidence, which results from postsalvation epistemological rehabilitation or doctrinal inculcation.

(2) Self-realization, which results from wisdom or the application of metabolized doctrine to experience.

(3) Self-direction, which is that spiritual momentum from doctrine that changes self under the principle: you cannot change others, you can only change yourself.

(4) Self-identity, which is the function of grace orientation, combined with a personal sense of destiny.

(5) Self-motivation, which combines personal love for God the Father with occupation with Christ.

(6) Self-vindication, which is tantamount to execution of the protocol plan of God. Self-vindication means four things:

(a) Becoming an invisible hero.

(b) Being a member of the pivot in the client nation.

(d) Glorifying God in the angelic conflict.

g. Impersonal love has a legitimate subjective function as well as a legitimate objective function. The legitimate subjective function of impersonal love is love of self; impersonal love loves its own virtue.

(1) Eph 5:28, “Husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies.” The husband loves his own virtue, which is the basis for fulfilling the principle of loving his wife with impersonal love, not personal love. This is subjective virtue. Spiritual self-esteem subjectively goes toward its own virtue. The greatest value a woman could have is a husband in spiritual maturity.

(2) “He who loves his wife, loves himself.” This is not arrogance, but virtue-love related to spiritual self-esteem.

(3) Eph 5:29 illustrates the principle, “For no one ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and provides tender care for it, just as Christ the Church.” Jesus Christ loves the Church with perfect personal love because He loves His own righteousness, which is divine self- esteem. In spiritual self-esteem the husband loves his wife as he loves his own body.

(4) As a result of spiritual self-esteem and impersonal love going inward, personal love inside the integrity envelope of impersonal love is directed toward the wife. Note that impersonal love has two directions: toward self in spiritual self-esteem; toward the wife in the integrity envelope of impersonal love.

(5) A normal believer in spiritual adulthood does not despise his own virtue. The believer loves his own virtue attained through Bible doctrine; therefore, the emergence of spiritual self-esteem.

h. The virtue of spiritual self-esteem has two objective functions toward the woman in marriage: the effective function of virtue- love; the effective and proper use of the husband’s authority in marriage. Spiritual self-esteem plus personal love in the integrity envelope fulfills the true responsibility of the husband toward the wife.

i. True virtue produces both love and happiness in marriage. The problem is that people put love before virtue, and that is backwards.

j. Spiritual self-esteem defined.

(1) Spiritual self-esteem is the effective function of the adult believer’s impersonal love directed toward his wife and toward himself.

(2) Spiritual self-esteem is the effective function of the husband’s personal responsibility toward his wife. When a husband has spiritual self-esteem, he has something far better than personal love outside the integrity envelope.

(3) Spiritual self-esteem is the effective function of the believer’s impersonal love toward the entire human race.

(4) Spiritual self-esteem is the effective function of the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

(5) Spiritual self-esteem is the stabilization of the believer’s life through freedom from arrogance and Christian degeneracy.

k. What is the evidence of spiritual self-esteem in your life?

(1) Tranquility of soul.

(2) Stability of mentality. Never feeling threatened by others; never succumbing to peer pressure.

(3) Composure marked by self-assurance.

(4) Grace orientation to life.

(5) Doctrinal orientation to reality.

(6) Good decisions from a position of strength.

(7) Personal control of your life through doctrinal conceptualism.

(8) A personal sense of destiny.

(9) Self-confidence from wisdom, the application of doctrine to your experience.

(10) Poise, the believer under spiritual self-command.

l. Spiritual self-esteem is the beginning of suffering for blessing that advances the believer to spiritual maturity. People testing, thought testing, system testing, disaster testing are all handled by spiritual self-esteem. You advance to spiritual autonomy and get the tests again.

m. Virtue related to marriage.

(1) Virtue is defined as the grace-righteousness and integrity produced by the believer who is living within the integrity envelope of impersonal love. The believer is virtuous under the following conditions:

(a) Execution of the protocol plan of God.

(b) Attainment of spiritual adulthood.

(d) Understanding and using the problem-solving devices.

(2) Virtue is the monopoly of God, and only God gives it. This is why marriage counseling is useless. Virtue is that quality of intrinsic good that can only be manufactured by God the Holy Spirit and doctrinal conceptualism.

(3) Virtue is not proving one’s worth; the believer who is trying to prove something cannot improve.

(4) Everyone sins in marriage, but not everyone is virtuous in marriage.

(5) Marriage is not designed for happiness or love, but marriage is designed for virtue, and virtue is designed for happiness and puts power into love. Whatever destroys virtue in marriage destroys happiness in marriage, and turns love into a disaster. Unhappiness in marriage is simply a manifestation of one’s failure to execute the protocol plan of God.

(6) The demand syndrome, on the part of either spouse, is a total lack of virtue. It means that personal love is outside the integrity envelope. Instead of the demand syndrome directed toward self, there must be trust directed toward one’s spouse. How do you trust anyone? By having spiritual self-esteem, which is directed toward your spouse in trust. You base your trust on who and what you are, not who and what they are. That is the function of the third stage of the faith-rest drill. Losers do not trust anyone, including themselves.

n. A successful marriage depends upon a successful spiritual life. A successful spiritual life depends on the filling of the Holy Spirit plus momentum from metabolized doctrine.

14. No believer can have a successful marriage apart from a successful relationship with God.

a. Relationship with God is the basis for every blessing that comes out of marriage. Therefore, Bible doctrine must be number one on your scale of values and must be applied to every situation in life.

b. If your relationship with God is a failure, your relationship with people and in marriage is a failure.

c. There is no solution to the problems of marriage in psychology and human viewpoint. All solutions for the believer come from application of the principles of Bible doctrine. You cannot have application without knowledge of doctrine.

15. Marital problems are symptoms; the disease is human failure in life. No marriage can be successful without virtue on the part of one or both partners. There are two sources of virtue in marriage.

a. For the unbeliever, virtue originates from the observation of the laws of divine establishment, or morality without arrogance.

b. For the believer, virtue originates from two sources.

(1) Constant postsalvation epistemological rehabilitation, which results in momentum and spiritual maturity.

(2) Understanding and using the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

16. You cannot change your spouse in marriage; you really can only change yourself. This change requires spiritual energy in three spheres: learning, thinking, and solving.

17. Authority related to marriage.

a. Life is a system of authority. Humility recognizes authority; arrogance rejects it. Happiness does not exist where authority is rejected. Arrogance always considers any form of authority demeaning. Arrogance is a loser in life, because arrogance always rejects authority.

b. Arrogance destroys morality because arrogance does not recognize authority, and all morality is based on authority.

c. Humility turns morality into virtue so that virtue-morality carries the husband and wife in the marriage of two unbelievers. Under the grace policy of God, humility benefits from authority; arrogance is destroyed by rejection of authority.

d. Virtue-morality avoids moral degeneracy.

e. In the case of the Christian marriage there is no substitute for the virtue produced by the inculcation of Bible doctrine under the filling of the Holy Spirit.

f. The filling of the Holy Spirit is the basis for perception, metabolization, and application of Bible doctrine.

g. Virtue from Bible doctrine is the highest expression of the interpersonal relationship of marriage.

18. The single, divorced, and widowed woman.

a. Taboos in the selection of a mate for the single woman - see the Doctrine of Marriage, Part 1, point E.

b. The problems of the divorced woman - see the Doctrine of Divorce.

(1) If the divorced woman was married to her right man, then she should remain single, so there is a possibility that a reconciliation can occur. 1 Cor 7:11, “But if she does leave her husband, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband; also the husband should not divorce his wife.” No matter what the cause of divorce or what justification exists for the divorce, do not jump into a new marriage. There should be a long elapse of time (one or two years) to give opportunity for spiritual recovery and the recovery from the problem of “damaged goods.”

(2) The law of status quo also applies. 1 Cor 7:27, “Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife.” Give yourself a chance to enter into spiritual self-esteem before you get another wife.

(3) The problem of young children in the home and the potential of remarriage.

(a) If you have the right of remarriage and your children are still young, but the potential new husband will not accept them, do not marry him. Do not force your children into having to put up with someone who does not like them. You cannot build your happiness on your children’s unhappiness. If the children do not accept a potential step-father, be cautious about marrying him. Be sure they have a valid reason for their rejection.

(b) But if there is compatibility, then marriage is a possibility. The issue also concerns your children, not just your love for a man. When you have responsibility for children, do not forget them because of love for a man.

© The problem is that the potential husband is not only marrying you, but he is accepting the responsibility of fatherhood of children by another man, and this requires a virtue which many men do not possess.

(4) If you are a mother completely occupied with your adult children by a previous marriage, do not marry.

(a) Your obsession with the success or failure of your adult children by a previous marriage will destroy a second marriage.

(b) If you marry a man who has custody of children by a previous marriage, you will have problems which may be more than you can handle unless you are spiritually an adult.

. (d) Children are often the victims of divorce and remarriage, especially where the parents are arrogant and self-centered, and looking for self-gratification.

(5) 1 Cor 7:28, “But if you should marry, you have not sinned. Yet such a one will have trouble in this life. And I am trying to spare you.” This is a statement about a first marriage, but the principle applies to a second marriage as well.

(6) 1 Cor 7:39-40, “A wife is bound as long as her husband lives. But if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whomever she wills, but only in the Lord. But in my opinion she is happier if she remains as she is.”

(a) Before a young widow remarries, she must have objectivity. She must have wisdom to analyze the potential second husband in the light of self-fragmentation. If he is jealous of her deceased first husband, the marriage will not work.

(b) Do not remarry simply because you are lonely or want a legal sex partner. These motivations will cause the marriage to fail.

c. The problem of the widows.

(1) Widows are those women who have lost their husbands by death and have not remarried.

(2) 1 Cor 7:8-9, “But I say to the unmarried and to the widows that it is good for them to remain even as I [unmarried]. But if they do not have self-control, let them marry. For it is better for them to marry than to burn with passion.”

(3) Young widows are prone to marry on a wave of libido; 1 Tim 5:11, “But refuse to put younger widows on the list, because when they feel sensual desire in disregard of Christ, they want to get remarried.”

(4) There is a good reason for young widows without children to be remarried, given in 1 Tim 5:14-15, “Therefore, I want young widows to get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy [Satan] no occasion for reproach; for some young widows have already turned aside to follow Satan.”

19. If the woman makes a bad decision and marries the wrong man, her life is one of intolerable slavery. If she marries the right man, her life is characterized by fantastic happiness and grace blessing from the Lord. There is no in-between in marriage, except boredom. Marriage is either virtue or degeneracy, happiness or misery, freedom or slavery. Romance and courtship is the most critical part of a woman’s life, apart from salvation.

M. The Authority Analogy to Marriage, Eph 5:22-25.

1. Eph 5:22, “Wives, render obedience to your husbands as to the Lord.”

2. Eph 5:23, “For the husband is the head of [the authority over] the wife, even as also Christ is the head of the Church, He Himself being the savior of the body [the Church].”

a. The husband is the authority in marriage. Because he has the authority, he is mandated by the Bible to exercise that authority through leadership rather than tyranny.

b. Only the husband’s arrogance can destroy his authority in marriage. This is because arrogance destroys virtue and morality. In arrogance the wife does not recognize her husband’s authority; and in arrogance the husband abuses his authority.

c. Compare the chain of command given in 1 Cor 11:3, “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of Christ.”

(1) This passage can only be understood as rulership, authority, supremacy.

(2) “God is the head of Christ” is a reference to the Hypostatic Union and incarnation, when Christ subordinated Himself to the Father’s plan.

(3) “Head” does not mean source or origin, and has never been used this way in the history of Greek literature. It means maximum authority or superior rank. This does not mean that man are better than women in all areas, or in all respects. But men do have the authority.

d. Christ as the head of the Church clearly illustrates the fact that the husband is the authority in marriage. Just as Christ is the ruler of the Church, so the husband is the ruler over the wife. The fact that Christ is the supreme ruler of the Church is taught in Eph 1:22-23; 2:16, 4:4-5; Col 1:18, 24; 2:19.

e. This analogy demands leadership rather than tyranny from the husband. Our Lord’s rulership is perfect leadership. He has a perfect policy of grace and perfect discipline. By analogy, the husband should have the same leadership.

(1) The authority of the husband is designed to enforce divine policy, to protect, care for, and cherish the wife in marriage, rather than to change her personal standards. He has no right to try to change her personal standards, which includes what local church she chooses to attend.

(2) Leadership demands thoughtfulness. It is one thing to have authority; it is another thing to exercise it properly.

(a) Authority demands a sense of responsibility, not a sense of arrogance and tyranny. You cannot have leadership in authority without a strong sense of responsibility.

(b) The man’s first consideration is to take care of his wife before he takes care of his own needs.

f. Above all things in marriage, the husband must be a spiritual leader. As a spiritual leader the husband executes the divine commands, such as Eph 5:29 and Col 3:19. This is because the husband’s motivation is based on the motivation of impersonal love.

g. Divine rule number one in marriage is the basis for the husband’s function as a ruler over the wife.

(1) Eph 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church, and delivered Himself over as a substitute for her.”

(2) Col 3:19, “Husbands, love your wives, and stop being bitter against them.”

(3) In both mandates the husband must exercise his authority over the wife through the function of personal love inside the integrity envelope.

h. The husband learns in marriage to distinguish between leadership and management.

(1) One of the distinctions between leadership and management is the distinction between policy for the organization and the personal standards of individuals within the organization.

(2) The leader has personal standards which he can only apply to himself. But he does not try to change people in the organization to conform with his personal standards.

(3) The responsibility of leadership and authority is to enforce policy and to fulfill the objectives related to the organization. Therefore, he applies his own personal standards only to himself, and uses his authority to fulfill policy objectives and the function of the organization. You cannot change others, you can only change yourself.

(4) Management seeks to impose personal standards on others under his command. Management becomes the degeneracy of bureaucracy.

(5) God invented marriage and established the policy. The husband must understand and enforce the policy in love, not in tyranny. To be a leader the husband can only enforce the policy of marriage; he cannot change his wife’s personal traits to satisfy himself.

(6) Good spiritual leadership recognizes that only Bible doctrine can change any of us, and that both husband and wife must take the responsibility for their own decisions regarding perception of doctrine.

(7) Through fulfillment of the divine rules for marriage, the husband becomes a leader with the full use of impersonal or virtue- love. However, when the husband becomes an arrogant bureaucrat, he is a bully in marriage. He seeks to impose his standards on his wife.

(8) You cannot change your wife in marriage; you can only change yourself. Marriage is more than finding the right woman; it is being the right man. Each individual in marriage may have to modify personal standards as they learn doctrine.

(9) Authority orientation demands that both husband and wife conform to God’s rules and policies in marriage. The wife is under both the authority of her husband and Bible doctrine. If there is a conflict, then she must put the matter in the Lord’s hands, while obeying her husband.

(10) All men are hypersensitive in their arrogance. Leadership can never afford to be jealous because jealousy results in inordinate ambition and competition, and the relaxed mental attitude of leadership in the function of authority is lost.

i. There must be no contradiction between the role of the husband and the wife in marriage. To avoid contradiction, both must be avid students of the Word of God. They must be consistent in their perception, metabolization and application of doctrine.

j. Spiritual growth in the protocol plan of God results in success in marriage. Success means that each partner fulfills the mandates of the Word of God with regard to that relationship.

(1) The husband must be a leader in the spiritual life of both marriage and the family.

(2) The divine policy in marriage can only be executed by fulfillment of the protocol plan of God through postsalvation epistemological rehabilitation, doctrinal conceptualism, and understanding and using the problem-solving devices.

(3) Leadership can be learned, attained, or acquired through learning and applying doctrine.

k. Do not get married without some form of spiritual compatibility. Spiritual compatibility is the key to all the categories of compatibility in marriage. This is especially true of sexual compatibility. The sex act is one time in marriage when no authority is involved. Either partner can initiate sex, but it is a learning process.

l. The divine policy of marriage.

(1) There are three divine rules in marriage.

(a) Husbands, love your wives. This can be accomplished only through integrity and humility.

(b) Wives, obey your husbands. She must respect her husband’s integrity, virtue, and humility. Her virtue demands obedience.

(2) The equation for the execution of the policy for marriage is impersonal love plus humility equals necessary integrity. Each use impersonal love to execute divine rules one and two.

(3) Since impersonal love is virtue-love, the secret to success in marriage is virtue (the positive side) and avoiding arrogance (the negative side).

(4) The husband is the leader. Therefore, he initiates all the characteristics of impersonal love for the enforcement of divine policy. The wife is a follower. Therefore, she responds to impersonal love from her husband, and obeys him without destroying her individuality or her personal standards.

(5) Impersonal love keeps the husband from abusing his authority, bullying his wife, or superimposing personal standards on her and trying to change her. Impersonal love provides the wife with humility, objectivity, and teachability, so that obedience to her husband is neither demeaning or humiliating. Impersonal love motivates both husband and wife to forgive each other as God by means of Christ has forgiven us.

m. Virtue-morality avoids moral degeneracy. Every stage of moral degeneracy is related to some form of arrogance. Virtue, originating from metabolized doctrine, is the highest expression of human interaction in marriage.

n. “He himself being the savior of the body” is an unfinished analogy.

(1) If the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the Church is Christ, then it follows that there is an analogy between the wife’s relationship to her husband and the Church’s relationship to Christ.

(2) The salvation work of Christ on the cross is the basis for Christ being the savior of the body.

(3) The husband’s impersonal love as the integrity envelope for his personal love for his wife is the protector of the wife. In the function of the husband, he has provided temporal security for his wife.

(4) The husband’s authority is established through the doctrinal analogy between Christ and the Church. The husband’s authority can never be properly exercised apart from spiritual self-esteem.

(5) The doctrinal analogy suggests that the wife’s compliance demands knowledge of doctrine, the problem-solving devices, and a virtue which can overcome the misuse of the husband’s authority.

(6) The authority of Jesus Christ over the Church demands knowledge of Bible doctrine and the function of virtue by the husband and the wife.

(7) Likewise, the authority of the husband over the wife demands a knowledge of Bible doctrine and the function of virtue.

(8) Hence, both authorities exist, whether they are recognized or not. And both authorities depend on doctrinal conceptualism and virtue.

(9) The authority of Jesus Christ over the Church is a fact, but its recognition demands doctrinal inculcation, resulting in spiritual adulthood.

(10) The authority of the husband is a fact, but its recognition demands spiritual momentum through doctrinal inculcation, resulting in motivational and functional virtue on the part of the wife. If the husband has spiritual self-esteem, then she will have respect for him.

Ÿ Summary

(1) All the counseling in the world cannot produce from the outside what it takes to produce a successful marriage. It depends on your knowledge, use, and application of doctrine.

(a) It does not depend on people on the outside. You cannot take your problems of marriage outside of marriage and get them solved; only Bible doctrine can do it.

(b) When you reach spiritual self-esteem, you have to tell yourself what to do to solve your problems. People on the outside cannot handle your marriage; only you and your spouse can.

(2) Compatibility and rapport in marriage originate from the two involved; not by changing their personalities, but by spiritual growth.

(3) Most people try to solve their marital problems by changing their spouse. But you cannot change your spouse, you can only change yourself. What you are in marriage is no different from what you are.

(4) If you are lazy about doctrine, you are lousy in marriage.

3. Eph 5:24, “But as the Church is subject to Christ, so also you wives are subject to your husbands in all things.”

a. The authority of Jesus Christ over the Church is analogous to the authority of the husband over the wife in marriage.

b. The husband cannot exercise authority without leadership. His leadership is based on virtue-love, spiritual self-esteem, and a sense of responsibility. His first thoughts must always be to care for his wife before himself. This is what it means to have authority rather than to be a bully and push other people around. The husband cannot fulfill his responsibility without spiritual growth.

c. The Church, as the body and bride of Christ, through perception of Bible doctrine, recognizes the authority of Jesus Christ and seeks to please Him. If we do not have respect for our Lord in the sense of loving Him, then we have respect for Him in the sense of fearing His discipline. We respect Him for His love and grace policy, as well as for His justice.

d. The Christian wife, through perception of Bible doctrine, begins to recognize the authority of her husband and seeks to please him. The woman chooses the man to be her authority of her own free will; now she must submit to the authority she has chosen.

4. Because of these analogies, in which the authority of the husband is compared to the authority of Christ over the Church, the ladies who are single must be extremely careful in the selection of a husband. Carelessness in making the decision regarding a husband has made life intolerable for the woman and placed her in a position where only the overruling grace of God can provide a solution. There are no instant solutions.

5. Eph 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself as a substitute for her.”

a. Husbands must possess at least three characteristics to make a marriage successful: virtue-love, spiritual self-esteem, and a sense of responsibility.

b. This verse is a divine mandate in which God makes a direct positive demand on all husbands. This mandate requires active virtue rather than active arrogance. Personal love minus impersonal love is active arrogance.

c. This verse is a mandate to impersonal love as the virtue envelope for personal love. Husbands are commanded to love their wives with impersonal love.

d. Personal love is virtue-dependent for its validity and effectiveness. There are two ways of inserting virtue into personal love.

(1) The way of the unbeliever - extrapolation of virtue from the laws of divine establishment.

(2) The way of the believer - extrapolation of virtue from postsalvation epistemological rehabilitation and execution of the protocol plan of God.

e. The weakness of personal love is that it always emphasizes the attractiveness of the object. The strength of impersonal love is that it always emphasizes the virtue of the subject.

Virtue-love is defined as personal love inside the integrity envelope of impersonal love.

(1) Personal love is an option in life. You are never commanded by the Bible to have personal love toward anyone. But impersonal love is mandated by Scripture. You are commanded to love your neighbor as yourself - impersonal love.

(2) Impersonal love is motivated by love for God; therefore, it is nondiscriminating. Personal love is motivated by attraction; therefore, it is very prejudiced. Impersonal love is a problem-solving device; personal love is a problem-manufacturing device.

(3) Impersonal love is manufactured from Bible doctrine. Personal love is manufactured from human viewpoint, lust, vanity, emotion, human desire, arrogance, self-gratification, criminal motivation.

(4) Impersonal love is sustained by the inventory of Bible doctrine in your soul. Personal love is sustained by the attractiveness and the mutual admiration that develops in the relationship.

(5) Impersonal love is a relaxed mental attitude toward all. Personal love is an intense and possessive attitude toward a few. Impersonal love is free from arrogance; personal love is hamstrung by arrogance.

(6) Personal love has no virtue in itself; it is virtue- dependent. Impersonal love is consistent in solving the problems of human relationship. It is consistent in the face of admiration or antagonism. It handles both with virtue.

(7) Personal love is vulnerable to Christian degeneracy through arrogance. Therefore, it must depend on the integrity envelope of impersonal love both for the inculcation of virtue and to overcome the side of your life that yields to certain temptations from the old sin nature.

f. Spiritual self-esteem is the beginning of the effective function of impersonal love as a problem-solving device in the protocol plan of God. Impersonal love is one of the most important things you acquire at the point of spiritual self-esteem.

g. Principles regarding impersonal love. (See also the Doctrine of Impersonal Love, Part 1, G.)

(1) Divine and human power are mutually exclusive. Divine power is available through the protocol plan of God. Human power is self- developed.

(2) God has provided His divine power and enablement for the execution of the protocol plan and success in marriage.

(3) Therefore, God has excluded human power and ability from the fulfillment of the protocol plan; and God has excluded human ability as the means of making a success in marriage.

(4) The use of human power or legalism excludes divine power and divine grace. Therefore, it causes the believer to fail to execute the divine mandates regarding marriage.

(5) Human ability and power cannot and does not execute the divine mandate “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself as a substitute for her.”

(6) Human ability on the part of the wife cannot fulfill obedience to her husband as is protocol in the Lord. The mandates of marriage are not executed by human power.

(7) God has found a way through His grace policy of providing the ability to execute all divine mandates, both in marriage and in the protocol plan of God.

(8) In marriage, impersonal love as the integrity envelope provides both capacity and ability for the husband to love his wife as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself as a substitute for her.

(9) The husband’s authority requires that he have the necessary virtue and integrity. The greatest initiation of love a man can make is personal love inside the integrity envelope of impersonal love.

(10) Impersonal love is that virtue whereby the integrity of the subject exceeds the unattractiveness of the object. Being unconditional, impersonal love emphasizes the virtue and honor of the subject rather than the attractiveness or repulsiveness of the object. The filling of the Holy Spirit replaces the energy of the old sin nature.

h. When Christ gave Himself for the Church, it was impersonal love, not personal love. By analogy the husband has the responsibility for virtue-love toward his wife. His personal love must be inside the integrity envelope of impersonal love or the marriage will not work. This is the kind of virtue that is required of the husband as the leader and authority in marriage.

(1) Out of the husband’s impersonal love for all mankind comes his personal love for his wife.

(2) Out of our Lord’s impersonal love for all mankind comes His personal love for the Church. Our Lord’s impersonal love for all mankind is manifested through the doctrine of unlimited atonement, while our Lord’s personal love for the Church is manifested by the imputation of divine righteousness at salvation.

(3) The Church did not exist when Jesus Christ went to the cross and died for the sins of the world. Nevertheless, His impersonal love toward the Church is manifest in that all the sins of the Church were judged on the cross.

(4) Premarital virtue demands the attainment of impersonal love before marriage.

(5) To enter marriage without virtue or impersonal love means malfunction, failure, the breakdown of love in marriage.

(6) Without the virtue of impersonal love in marriage, personal love has neither the problem-solving capabilities nor staying power.

(7) Our Lord’s impersonal love for all mankind emphasizes the presalvation status of the Church as spiritual death.

(8) Our Lord’s personal love for the Church emphasizes the postsalvation status of the Church as newness of life or +R.

(9) Unlimited atonement precedes the formation of the Church. Therefore, our Lord’s impersonal love in unlimited atonement precedes His personal love for the Church manifest in the imputation of divine righteousness. Application - the believer should attain impersonal love for all mankind prior to marriage. This ensures success of the marriage.

(a) Unlimited atonement is a demonstration of God’s impersonal love for all mankind.

(b) 2 Cor 5:14, “The love for Christ keeps on motivating us. In fact, we have reached this conclusion, that One died as a substitute for all mankind [unlimited atonement].”

(d) 1 Tim 2:6, “Who gave Himself as a substitute for all mankind.”

(e) 1 Tim 4:10, “Because we have confidence in the living God who is the savior of all men, especially of believers.”

(f) Tit 2:11, “For the grace of God, which brings salvation to all mankind, has appeared.”

(g) See also Heb 2:9; 1 Jn 2:2; Jn 3:16.

(10) The application of the doctrine of unlimited atonement is the basis for the formation of the Church as the body of Christ or the royal family of God. The application of impersonal love for all mankind to the doctrine of marriage is the insertion of virtue into the divine institution.

(11) Without impersonal love the husband cannot fulfill this command to love his wife; the wife cannot fulfill the command to obey her husband; and neither partner can execute the divine rule to forgive each other.

i. Success in marriage demands that impersonal love be developed prior to marriage, if possible, under the principle that premarital virtue guarantees the success in marriage.

j. No believer can be successful in marriage unless he has the right priorities. The right priorities mean doctrine first. Relationship with God is based on metabolized doctrine. Success in marriage, therefore, demands doctrinal conceptualism.

k. The doctrinal analogy to our Lord’s impersonal love as the integrity envelope of personal love is located in the phrase “and He gave Himself as a substitute for her.” The doctrinal analogy to our Lord’s personal love for the Church is located in the phrase “just as Christ also loved the Church.” The analogy demands that we understand the nature of impersonal love and its necessity for obeying divine mandates regarding marriage.

l. The believer is helpless to love his wife as Christ loved the Church. Therefore, God has provided the means to execute this command by the development and attainment of impersonal love through spiritual growth.

N. The Sanctification Analogy to Marriage, Eph 5:26-33.

1. Eph 5:26, “That having purified her [Church], He might cause her to be sanctified by means of the washing of the water [doctrine] with the word [communication of the Word of God].”

a. Union with Christ, “having purified her,” is analogous to the husband’s union with his wife in marriage. Experiential sanctification, “He caused her to be sanctified,” is analogous to the husband’s relationship to his wife in a successful marriage.

b. Experiential sanctification includes two basic concepts.

(1) The filling of the Holy Spirit. The filling of the Holy Spirit provides the enabling power to fulfill the responsibility of leadership in the execution of the husband’s authority. It does not come from natural leadership ability.

(2) Postsalvation epistemological rehabilitation or doctrinal conceptualism. Just as we need daily washings, it takes many lessons in Bible doctrine for the experiential sanctification of the soul.

c. Water can be used three ways in the Bible when it is used as an analogy. These uses never refer to water baptism.

(1) The water of salvation, Isa 55:1; Rev 22:17.

(2) Water analogous to the Holy Spirit, Jn 7:37-39.

(3) The water of Bible doctrine, Eph 5:26.

d. The phrase “with the word” is the instrumental of manner, which indicates the manner in which experiential sanctification is carried out - with the communication of doctrine.

2. Eph 5:27, “That He [Jesus Christ] might cause her [the Church] to be presented to Himself as a glorious Church, having no stain [sin] or wrinkle [human good] or any such categories as these [evil], but that she should be holy and unblemished.”

a. The marriage analogy.

(1) By analogy the groom is our Lord. The bride is the Church. The bride is prepared for presentation to the groom (the wedding ceremony) by resurrection or rapture and the judgment seat of Christ.

(2) The groom is accompanied by his friends. The friends of the groom are the Old Testament believers and tribulational martyrs. John the Baptist explained this in Jn 3:29 as himself being a friend of the groom.

(3) The friends of the groom gather at the house of the groom and then accompany the groom to the home of the bride where he picks up the bride. Then the groom takes the bride to some other home for the wedding feast. When the groom and bride enter this home, that constitutes marriage. The wedding feast then lasts for several days, during which time the bride and groom will slip away to consummate the marriage.

(4) The friends of the bride wait outside the place where the wedding feast will take place and wait for the bride and groom to enter. Those who survive the Tribulation, the millennial saints, are the friends of the bride. Jewish unbelievers will wait to go into the feast, but will not be allowed to enter. Matt 25:1-13.

b. At the time of writing of the New Testament there were three stages involved in a marriage.

(1) The marriage contract. The father selected a wife for his son, following the pattern of Gen 24:3 or 38:6. The betrothal, in which a legal representative of the groom met with the parents of the bride and drew up a contract which included a dowry. The parents of the bride had to pay for the groom to take the bride off of their hands. When the contract was signed, the couple were legally promised, but not married. This is analogous to salvation.

(2) The wedding ceremony. This was the transfer of the bride to the home of the groom, to the parents home, or to a friend’s home.

(3) The wedding supper. This feast lasted for several days. Rev 19:7-8. The bride will be in a resurrection body, wearing the uniform of glory, purified from having an old sin nature.

c. “Unblemished” means there is no old sin nature, no personal sins, and no evil in the resurrection body. It refers to the perfection of every believer in resurrection body for all eternity. God is perfect; therefore, His plan is perfect. There is no place for sin, human good, or evil in that plan. The perfect plan demands the utilization of divine power for the execution of this plan. Human good plus sin equals evil. Human power is a contradiction to God’s plan for the Church Age believer.

d. The application of ultimate sanctification to marriage.

(1) The authority application.

(a) The husband is the authority in marriage.

(b) Authority means responsibility. Hence, the husband is responsible for the proper care of his wife.

© The husband’s authority can only be exercised under the principle of virtue-love and spiritual self-esteem, that is, by the development of the integrity envelope of impersonal love and love for his own integrity. Leadership means the necessity for the development of virtue. Every husband is designed in marriage to be a leader. This leadership comes through postsalvation epistemological rehabilitation, through the development of virtue and spiritual self-esteem.

(d) There is an analogy between ultimate sanctification and the husband’s accountability in marriage. Just as Jesus Christ will cause the royal family of God to be presented to Himself in ultimate sanctification, so the husband as the responsible authority in marriage is accountable to God for the care of his wife. Since the husband is the authority, he is accountable to God for the handling of his marriage, just as Christ is responsible for the care and handling of the Church. This means no tyranny, no abuse of authority. There is a relationship between the way the husband exercises authority and the sex life of the couple.

(2) The application of Christian degeneracy and Christian activism.

(a) This means Christian involvement in various activities to achieve political goals, which only end up white-washing the devil’s world.

(b) Our responsibility as Christians is to evangelize and execute the protocol plan of God, whereby we enter into the pivot of mature believers which maintains the client nation to God.

© At best, Christian activism results only in manufacturing human good. At worst, it ends up in Christian cruelty, tyranny, abuse of power, and makes all unbelievers criminals. Violence is never justified in a client nation.

(d) The principle is to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” such as military service, free enterprise in the economy, voting, serving on juries, recognizing civil authority, and obeying the laws.

(e) As Christians, we have the responsibility to execute the protocol plan of God, advance to maturity, become a part of the pivot of mature believers, and so become invisible heroes who preserve the nation. We are to learn doctrine daily, precept by precept, and continue to grow spiritually.

(f) Separation of church and state provides the options of freedom. We are the products individually and collectively of our own decisions.

3. Eph 5:28, “So, husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.”

a. The husband’s personal love in marriage has neither the strength, the ability, nor the staying power to fulfill this divine rule outside of the integrity envelope of impersonal love.

(1) The integrity envelope of impersonal love contains two factors for life: the characteristics of spiritual self-esteem, and personal love inside the integrity envelope of impersonal love. Personal love comes from these two factors.

(2) These two concepts cannot be divorced. Personal love inside the integrity envelope of impersonal love is the way in which authority is exercised in marriage.

(3) Personal love outside of the integrity envelope of impersonal love is vulnerable to self-destruction through the arrogance and emotional complex of sins.

(4) Personal love outside of the integrity envelope of impersonal love undergoes self-fragmentation in the arrogance complex. This is called implosion.

(5) Personal love outside of the integrity envelope of impersonal love is also subject to the sins of emotionalism, such as: fear, worry, anger, anxiety, hatred, self-pity, guilt, violence.

(6) This means that emotionalism has two serious problems in marriage.

(a) Emotion has no doctrinal content; therefore, no problem-solving capability. Emotional revolt of the soul is irrational, devoid of reason, devoid of common sense, and devoid of wisdom.

(b) Emotional sins destroy love, or change it into anger, hatred, or self-pity, which means the permanent or temporary absence of spiritual self-esteem.

b. To love your wife as your own body means that just as a normal man takes responsibility for health and care of his own body, so the husband in spiritual self-esteem takes care of his own wife. This is an illustration of the virtue-love mandated to the Christian husband in marriage.

c. The husband’s love for his wife is expressed in two interrelated categories - the subjective concept and the objective concept.

(1) The subjective concept - impersonal love is directed toward the characteristics of spiritual self-esteem inside the integrity envelope of impersonal love. The man who has these characteristics is aware of them as a part of his grace orientation. Inside the integrity envelope, you never take credit to yourselves for having these characteristics. You recognize they are the result of the grace of God. Therefore, you respect these characteristics in you. This is spiritual self-esteem.

(2) The objective concept is the function of personal love that resides inside the integrity envelope of impersonal love and is directed toward the wife, friends, etc.

d. Spiritual self-esteem in the husband is the basis for the fulfillment of the divine rule in marriage “husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself as a substitute for her.”

(1) Without spiritual self-esteem the husband cannot properly exercise authority over his wife. Without spiritual self-esteem he cannot successfully exercise authority anywhere in life.

(2) Without spiritual self-esteem you are going to feel threatened by something, and you are going to get emotional because you are going to be afraid of something. Whatever causes fear in you wipes out any possibility of spiritual self-esteem.

(3) Without spiritual self-esteem the husband becomes a bully, a tyrant, and inevitably a loser in marriage.

(4) Without virtue-love the husband cannot fulfill the mandate to love his wife, nor can he exercise authority over his wife.

e. Success in marriage depends on the attainment of spiritual self-esteem and virtue-love. f. “He who loves his own wife loves himself.”

(1) If you do not love yourself - spiritual self-esteem, you do not love your wife - virtue-love. Spiritual self-esteem and virtue- love go together. Virtue-love is not effective unless there is spiritual self-esteem. You cannot love your wife unless you have spiritual self- esteem.

(2) If the man loves his own body and cares for it, then by analogy he also loves his own wife and cares for her because he has virtue. The virtue is his spiritual self-esteem.

g. The relationship between spiritual self-esteem and virtue- love is the subject of this verse. Spiritual self-esteem is the effective function of virtue-love in two directions: toward virtue in self, which is the subjective function of spiritual self-esteem; and toward one’s wife, which is the objective function of virtue-love in marriage.

(1) Spiritual self-esteem is the basis for impersonal love toward one’s wife.

(2) Spiritual self-esteem gives stability to personal love inside the integrity envelope of impersonal love.

(3) Spiritual self-esteem is the effective function of the husband’s impersonal love directed toward self. Spiritual self-esteem is the effective function of the husband’s virtue-love directed toward his wife.

(4) Spiritual self-esteem is the effective function of the believer’s impersonal love toward the entire human race. Spiritual self- esteem is the basis for the effective function of the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God. Spiritual self-esteem is the basis for the husband’s effectiveness in exercising his authority in marriage.

4. Eph 5:29-30, “For no one ever yet hated his own body, but nourishes and provides tender care for her, just as Christ also the Church, because we are members of His body.”

a. The first half of this verse is the negative illustration of spiritual self-esteem. It is a reference to normal people, not abnormal people.

b. The last half of the verse is the positive illustration, and explains the analogy of Eph 5:28, “So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies.”

c. Love is related to the exercise of the husband’s authority, which is manifest in his care for his wife. Where love is the motivation, the husband is kind, thoughtful, tender, and self-controlled to guide the woman in their relationship.

d. Since the husband and wife are one body, just as Christ and the Church are one body, the husband does not love his wife simply as he loves his own body, but his love goes beyond this into the status of unity.

e. His body joined to his wife making them one flesh is the issue. In this category, the husband’s virtue is manifest by his not showing authority in sex. Each has authority over the other in sex.

f. The analogy here shows that spiritual self-esteem is the same whether exercising authority or in a situation where authority does not exist. Spiritual self-esteem remains the same and is not threatened.

g. Just as the policy of Christ in ruling the Church is grace motivated by the combination of love and integrity, so the policy of the husband in ruling the wife is grace motivated by the combination of love and integrity. This is the analogy. The husband rules the wife in grace as Christ rules the Church in grace.

h. The wife is part of the husband’s body, and is to be treated in love, integrity and grace. And since the two are one flesh, if the husband takes care of his own body, then obviously he is going to take care of his own wife. This means that the major function of the husband in marriage and in the use of his authority is a sense of responsibility.

(1) The husband’s authority demands virtue-love rather than arrogance, bullying and tyranny. Just as the head rules the body in the function of life, so the head rules the body in the function of marriage. When the body rules the head, you have lust, fornication, and all the sexual distortions.

(2) Authority demands love and a sense of responsibility. Otherwise, the woman will never have respect for the man. The woman is never commanded to love the husband; she is commanded to respect him. From respect comes obedience and love response. But virtue-love and spiritual self-esteem are commanded of the husband.

(3) Authority demands virtue, and in the spiritual realm the function of grace. Leadership must never be divorced from the virtue that must accompany leadership.

(4) Authority must recognize the privacy, freedom and magnificence of the woman as a responder, so that from her own free will she will respect her husband and lovingly obey her lord and master.

(5) When sex is an expression of love, then authority is an expression of virtue.

5. Eph 5:31, “`For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and he will have sex with his own wife, and the two will be one flesh.’”

a. This verse quotes Gen 2:24. The precedence for marriage goes back to the garden of Eden.

b. Marriage has two unique separations. The first is separation from parents.

(1) There are two close relationships in life: between children and parents; and between husband and wife. And both of these relationships must be separated from the parents.

(2) The dividing line of separation between the two intimate relationships is sex. Sex is a wall that separates husband and wife from their parents and the rest of society. Sex forms the invisible walls of the castle of marriage. This is the basis for the stability of society. The foundation of the castle of marriage is Bible doctrine, the thinking of Christ.

c. God ordained that the human race be trained and prepared for life by parents. God ordained that marriage would be a special relationship for adults only; a system of unity, a system of privacy, a system of intimacy. Marriage is a castle that excludes all others.

d. God invented sex to be the unity of marriage and the separation from all others in life. Sex establishes a wall of privacy and intimacy around that marriage. Sex is the monopoly of monogamy.

e. The divine institution of marriage came before the divine institution of parents and the family.

(1) Marriage must be isolated from parents and society in general under the principle of sex.

(2) Therefore, sex portrays the beauty of interdependence in marriage, just as Bible doctrine portrays the believer’s interdependence on God.

f. Prior to marriage, the family represents the wall of protection for human beings in childhood. The relationship of parents and children does not include sex. In marriage, husband and wife, who were formerly children, transfer from family unity to marital unity, from family privacy and intimacy to marital privacy and intimacy.

g. Leaving father and mother at the point of marriage is a major permanent change of station. The transfer must be complete. Marriage is in jeopardy when one or both spouses are still children in the sense of failure to comply with the mandate to leave father and mother.

(1) This does not mean that you never see father and mother again. But it does mean that father and mother do not run your lives. You make your own mistakes and successes.

(2) The transfer from family to marriage does mean that new priorities exist. A spouse replaces dependence on parents with deference to parents. The parents are responsible to not interfere with the new marriage; not to interfere with their children’s new found freedom.

6. Eph 5:32, “This mystery is great. But I am speaking with reference to Christ and the Church.”

a. There are only two areas of precedence for marriage: the relationship between the man and woman in the garden of Eden, and the mystery doctrine of the Church concerning marriage. Information given during the Dispensation of Israel about marriage only concerns divorce and marital problems; it does not provide any precedence.

b. The mystery doctrine of the Church Age is used as an analogy for the relationship between the Christian husband and wife in marriage, and the relationship between Christ and the Church. The relationship of Christ and the Church both illustrates and establishes precedence, as well as analogy, for the relationship between Christian husband and wife.

7. Eph 5:33, “However, you also, each one of you individually, let him so love his wife as himself; and the wife, see to it that she respects her husband.”

a. Your problems concerning marriage must be handled individually with the doctrine in your own soul. It is better for doctrine in your own soul to tell you what to do than to follow someone else’s advice, no matter how good that advice may be. Doctrine in your own soul must do the job.

b. The first half of this verse is divine rule number one for marriage. This is a mandate to husbands to have personal love toward their wives inside the integrity envelope of impersonal love, and to have spiritual self-esteem. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself as a substitute for her. This was taught in Eph 5:25 and is repeated here. Compare also Col 3:19, Eph 5:28; 1 Pet 3:7.

c. The last half of this verse is divine rule number two for marriage. The wife is to have respect for the husband and obedience to the husband. She is not commanded to love her husband. Her respect is the strongest possible love she can have for a man. Respect in the woman is equivalent to virtue-love in the man. Therefore, there is something stronger than “I love you” from the woman, and that is respect. 1 Pet 3:1.

d. See also Col 3:18, “Wives, obey your husbands, as is protocol in the Lord.” How can the wife obey her husband after she has seen his flaws, failures and weaknesses? She does so by obedience to this command.

(1) Wives who have not grown up are commanded to obey their husbands because it is a part of the protocol plan, Eph 5:22-24.

(2) Wives who cannot obey their husband because they do not respect him must do obey unto the Lord, and so solve the problem of obedience.

(3) Neither good personality nor handsomeness in a man means strength; but many women assign their ideals to a handsome and attractive man. But once they marry that type, they find out he is not what they thought he was.

(4) A lot of women are merely tolerating their weak husbands, but have no respect for them.

e. In divine rule number two, three things are required: the wife respects her husband; the wife obeys her husband; the wife wins her husband through behavior - the execution of the protocol plan of God. By execution of the protocol plan of God, the wife becomes a blessing by association to her husband.

f. The ultimate solution to marital problems is the spiritual solution.

g. For the wife, obedience cannot exist apart from respect for her husband, except where she can substitute respect for the Lord. Respect must precede authority orientation in marriage. Far better to have a woman’s respect, than her so-called love. Since the wife is under the authority of her husband by divine mandate, respect and admiration for her husband is far stronger than love, especially a love outside the integrity envelope of impersonal love.

h. When a leader properly exercises his authority, he will be loved or hated at different times; but always he will be respected. Respect eventually becomes admiration.

i. A wife under the authority of her husband is incapable of love until he has exercised his authority in terms of virtue-love and spiritual self-esteem, so that her obedience, respect, and admiration eventually are welded into the strongest category of affection.

R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries 5139 West Alabama, Houston, Texas 77056 (713) 621-3740

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