Spir Dynamics 590-622 5/2/95

DOCTRINE OF MARRIAGE (Part 5)

N. Marriage and The Mystery Doctrine of the Church Age.

1. Doctrine related to the Church Age is called a mystery in the New Testament.

a. Rom 16:25-27, “Now to Him who is able to stabilize you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, on the basis of the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret long ages past, but now it has been revealed through the Scriptures of the prophets, on the basis of the mandate of the eternal God, and it has been made known to all the nations, for the purpose of obedience to doctrine; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory forever. Amen.”

(1) “Long ages past” refers to all previous dispensations and to eternity past and the prehistoric angelic conflict. Your marriage is something far more important than ever before in history.

(2) “Through the Scriptures of the prophets” refers to the apostles and prophets of Eph 3:5 who wrote the New Testament and taught it.

b. 1 Tim 3:16, “And by consent of all great is the mystery of spiritual life: the unique One who became visible by means of the flesh, this same One was vindicated by means of the Spirit, He was observed by angels, He was proclaimed among the Gentiles, He became the object of faith in the world, He was taken up into the place of glory.”

(1) The prototype spiritual life of our Lord Jesus Christ during the first Advent was a mystery never revealed in the Old Testament. Never before in history was the filling of the Spirit a reality. The ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament was entirely different. This was not known in the Old Testament.

(2) The concentration and the focus of the elect and fallen angels was greater at the point of the hypostatic union than at any other time. This part of the hypostatic union was not known in the Old Testament. This means that demons and elect angels are watching Christian marriages, because it is a part of fulfilling the uniqueness of the Church Age. Just as the humanity of Christ was observed by angels, so you are observed by angels.

(3) While certain aspects of our Lord’s first Advent were prophesied by the Old Testament, other aspects were totally unknown to the human writers of the Old Testament, such as the humanity of Jesus Christ pioneering four spiritual mechanics which became the operational spiritual life of the Church. For example, the filling of the Spirit.

(a) Jesus Christ taught in the power of the Spirit, Jn 3:34.

(b) Jesus Christ performed miracles by the power of the Spirit, Mt 12:28.

(d) Jesus Christ endured the Cross through the filling of the Spirit, Heb 9:14. The fact that our Lord would be judged on the Cross for sins was taught in the Old Testament, Isa 11:2; 42:1. The fact that our Lord received the imputation of human sin and remained on the Cross through the filling of the Spirit was not revealed until the New Testament, Mt 12:18

. 2. Under the mystery concept there are three great doctrines which must be emphasized: the uniqueness of the Church Age, equal opportunity for every believer to fulfill the plan of God, and the relationship between the mystery doctrine and Christian marriage of the Church Age.

a. The uniqueness of the Church Age is seen in the seven things God the Holy Spirit did for us at salvation, especially the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Gal 3:26-27, “For you are all the sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” To be baptized into Christ means to be identified with Christ.

b. The equal opportunity for every believer to fulfill the plan of God is seen in Gal 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile [no racial distinctions], there is neither slave nor free man [no class or social distinctions], there is neither male nor female [no gender distinctions]; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

c. The relationship between the mystery doctrine and Christian marriage as seen in Eph 5:32. Only during the Church Age do the fantastic and unusual systems of mandated virtue exist for marriage. Once the Tribulation begins, marriage will go back to the precedence that was established in the Garden and in the Old Testament dispensations.

3. The mystery doctrine of the Church Age is related to the prehistoric angelic conflict, Eph 1:2-10, “Grace to you and prosperity from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Worthy of praise and glorification is the God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ, since He Himself has elected us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in virtue love; He has predestined us for the purpose of adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the grace purpose of His will, resulting in the praise of the glory of His grace, by which grace He graced us out in the Beloved; by Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, on the basis of the riches of His grace, from which [riches of grace] He has made us super rich by means of all wisdom and the objective way of thinking, when He made known to us the mystery of His will on the basis of His gracious intention which He purposed in Him with reference to the dispensation of the fullness of times, the summing up of all things in Christ, things pertaining to heavenly creatures and things pertaining to the earth.”

a. If you are motivated by what you know, you should also be motivated by what you do not know, but is revealed in the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. True motivation is based on cognition of the mystery doctrine. Not knowing the mystery doctrine should motivate you to want to learn and understand more of it.

b. If you hear the teaching of Bible doctrine and do not understand it, you can be motivated to learn that doctrine by awareness of your ignorance. Humility gives you the motivation to be a good student. No one ever becomes a good student in anything unless they know that they do not know and therefore they want to know, and therefore they learn.

c. If you hear the teaching of Bible doctrine and you understand it, you should be motivated by metabolized doctrine in your stream of consciousness to deploy the ten problem solving devices on the FLOT line of your soul. This is the strongest motivation that can ever exist.

d. You can be motivated by cognition or you can be motivated by ignorance or by a combination of the two. Cognition of Bible doctrine motivates the Church Age believer to function under the four spiritual mechanics.

e. Ignorance of Bible doctrine should motivate the believer to learn the four spiritual mechanics and to utilize them to glorify God as a winner believer, as a witness for the Prosecution in Satan’s appeal trial. The believer’s credibility as a witness for the Prosecution is also related to marriage. Christian marriage is a part of the testimony against Satan in his appeal trial.

f. Marriage of two believers is the proving ground for the mandates which demand the highest form of virtue that has ever existed. The basis for fulfilling these mandates are two tandem problem solving devices— personal love for God the Father and impersonal love for all mankind. When the woman starts to react to her husband, the solution to her problem is responding to the Lord Jesus Christ with personal love for God and responding to her husband with impersonal love. The husband is mandated to love his wife with a leadership or virtue love as Christ loved the Church. True, honorable, virtue love expresses itself in sacrifice for the wife. That is the stability in the national entity.

4. Part of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age is a new phenomenon called Christian marriage, Eph 5:32, “This is a great mystery; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.”

a. Precedence for marriage as a divine institution was established in the garden of Eden with the divine creation of the husband and the wife. Both were the model husband and wife: perfect, beautiful, brilliant. It was the perfect marriage in perfect environment. After the original sin of our first parents, the divine institution of marriage included both believers and unbelievers. No changes were made over many thousands of years until the dispensation of the Church. The revelation of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age added a new dimension to marriage. This new dimension only exists in the Church Age, because this is the only dispensation where every believer can take the fantastic portfolio of invisible assets and parlay them into execution of the spiritual life of the Church. Since the mystery doctrine is revealed in the New Testament epistles only, it established a new modus vivendi for Church Age believers only. This includes the mystery doctrine pertaining to Christian marriage.

b. The biblical distinction between the divine institution of marriage and Christian marriage for the Church Age only. When Christian marriage was extrapolated to become part of the rebuttal phase of Satan’s appeal trial, it became a Christian institution derived from a divine institution. A Christian institution is for Christians only. A divine institution is for believers and unbelievers. In the Church age, Christian marriage has been given the highest standards that have ever existed or will exist in the human race. The standards for Christian marriage exceed the standards for any organization or any individual in human history. God has separated Christian marriage from the divine institution, and in so doing, He has made it part of resolving the prehistoric angelic conflict. The great mystery is the marriage of believers in this dispensation only. Christian marriage in the Church is a unique testimony to what God has ordained for the Church Age.

(1) The divine institution of marriage which began at the creation of mankind is perpetuated through the entire history of mankind on earth.

(2) The divine institution of marriage is ordained by God for both believers and unbelievers in every historical dispensation.

(3) The sin of Adam and the woman in the garden of Eden resulted in several modifications of the divine institution of marriage. For example, the purpose of sex in the Garden was for recreation only. Recreation is defined as refreshment by means of sexual intercourse of a husband and wife in marriage only. But after the fall of man and subsequent spiritual death, a second purpose was added to sex in marriage—procreation for the perpetuation of the human race. The perpetuation of the human race was necessary for Satan to have an appeal trial for himself and all fallen angels.

c. The word “mystery” refers to the unique doctrines of the Church Age which were never before revealed in history. The Church is the unique dispensation of all time. These aspects of marriage were not known in the Old Testament. During the Church Age, Christian marriage has taken on far greater aspects than ever before. The believer’s credibility as a witness for the Prosecution in the rebuttal phase of Satan’s appeal trial is related to Christian marriage. Married believers have a very special witness for the Prosecution and all angelic creatures are watching this very carefully. The pastor-teacher is mandated to communicate these things.

(1) 1 Cor 2:7, “But we communicate God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden assets, which God predestined before the ages for the purpose of our glory.” So great is this spiritual life, it will be demonstrated in eternity that the invisible heroes of the Church Age are the greatest believers who ever lived in all human history.

(2) 1 Cor 4:1, “Let mankind regard us in this manner, as ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.”

(3) Col 1:24b-27, “...I do my share on behalf of His body (which is the church) in filling up that which is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. Concerning which I have become a minister with reference to the dispensation from God which was given on me for your benefit to fulfill the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from past dispensations and generations; but now has been revealed to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ indwelling you, the confidence of glory.”

(4) The mystery doctrine of the Church Age is related to the teaching mystery of the pastor-teacher, Eph 3:2-6, “In as much as you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for your benefit; that through revelation the mystery doctrine was made known to me, just as I have already written in brief. And by referring to this, when you read it you ought to be able to understand my technical knowledge about the mystery of Christ, which in other dispensations was not made known to mankind, but has been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the agency of the Spirit, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and members together of the same body, and sharers together of the same promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

(5) 1 Tim 3:9, “with a pure conscience keep holding the mystery even doctrine.” The phrase “with a pure conscience” refers to the use of 1 Jn 1:9 to name your sins to God.

(6) Col 2:2, “that their hearts may be encouraged, having been held together by means of virtue love and resulting in all riches from the full assurance of the technical knowledge, because of the epignosis knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ.”

5. God created a new category of marriage for the Church Age and He gave to it the highest form of standards that have ever existed in a relationship between any two people in the human race. If these standards are met in a generation, you can count on having a pivot of mature believers and you can count on blessing for the nation. But if these standards are not met, you can count on divine discipline for the nation.

6. The mystery doctrine of the Church Age is related to the gospel, Eph 6:19-20, “and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” The mystery doctrine of the Church Age related to the gospel means that certain aspects in the presentation of the gospel were unknown in the Old Testament, such as the fact that every Church Age believer is an ambassador for Christ.

7. Principles.

a. The humanity of Jesus Christ in hypostatic union established precedence for the spiritual life of the Church Age. The mystery doctrine of the Church Age places great emphasis on the relationship of Christian marriage and the unique spiritual life of the believer in this dispensation. The revelation of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age added a new dimension to Christian marriage. This is dramatized through the unique divine mandates given to the believer in Christian marriage. Christian marriage in the dispensation of the Church is a testimony in the rebuttal phase of Satan’s appeal trial in human history. Therefore, as goes the spiritual life of the believer so goes marriage.

b. This means that until the Incarnation and first Advent the unique spiritual life of the Church Age was unknown and never used. The unique spiritual life of the Church Age comes in two categories. The prototype spiritual life pioneered and tested by the humanity of Christ in the dispensation of the hypostatic union. The operational type spiritual life which belongs to each one of us at the point of salvation.

c. Two standards of precedence coexist in the Church Age. In Eph 5:31-32, we have this system of precedence related to marriage. Precedence from the garden of Eden is noted in the quotation of Gen 2:24 in Eph 5:31. Something has been added to all of the precedence for marriage that was established in the garden of Eden during the Church Age as a part of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. No unbeliever can love his wife as Christ loved the Church. The standard required of the believer husband is much higher.

d. There is a higher precedence for marriage during the Church Age than at any other time in history because of the spiritual life. Marriage during the Church Age fulfills principles related to the prehistoric angelic conflict and to the uniqueness of the spiritual life. Christian marriage during the Church Age calls for more modus operandi of the spiritual life than has ever existed before. The mandates given to believers in marriage during the Church Age are of the highest level that has ever been given in the history of the human race. After the Church Age, these standards will no longer be operational. This relates directly to your spiritual life. There is only one higher form of marriage than the marriage in the garden of Eden—Christian marriage in the dispensation of the Church. All of the precedence established in the garden of Eden carried over after the fall of mankind, until the higher standards of the Church Age.

e. It is the precedence of our spiritual life that makes Christian marriage unique. Christian marriage in the dispensation of the Church is part of the testimony that once and for all condemns Satan and all fallen angels to the eternal lake of fire. Therefore the standards for Christian marriage are much higher than the standards for unbeliever marriage. Therefore the spiritual life given to us demands a virtue produced by the filling of the Holy Spirit and metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness.

f. Freedom, Authority, and Values in Marriage.

(1) Freedom without authority is anarchy. Authority without freedom is tyranny. There is no equality in anarchy or tyranny. Equality has never been available through any human function. Only God can create equality through regeneration.

(2) To avoid anarchy, freedom must have values. To avoid tyranny, authority must have virtue. The testing ground for this principle is Christian marriage. Authority in marriage belongs to the husband, but this authority must be exercised in virtue love inside the integrity envelope. Personal love for God provides both motivation and correction of action in marriage. Freedom in marriage belongs to both spouses, but such freedom must be exercised from the spiritual values related to the four spiritual mechanics. Therefore, freedom and authority in marriage are not in conflict. They are designed by God to establish a principle of testimony for the rebuttal phase of Satan’s appeal trial.

(a) The husband and wife are given divine mandates. When God gives you mandates, it means you have freedom to execute that mandate. The source of your freedom is volition.

(b) When a husband exercises tyranny toward his wife, he has taken from her the most valuable thing he could have—her freedom. No woman can love a man without being free to do it. That is true of friendship, romance, and marriage. A woman can never love a man when he violates the third law of marriage—forgive as Christ forgave. How can a husband expect his wife to love him, when he is a loser through jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, etc., and becomes vicious and vile. You take a woman’s volition from her and she has no way of loving you.

© As a responder, the woman can get into anarchy. Her anarchy occurs when she transfers her affection to another man. A woman can only respond to a man in freedom. If you have no values, you are not capable of love. The highest form of love is found in the woman as a responder. Why? Because capacity for love expands where one is under authority. It takes a greater capacity for love to respect a man and be under his authority. Respect has to be the mandate for the Christian wife, because she is under the authority of her husband. When a woman respects her husband, there is no danger of her transferring her affection to some other man outside of the marriage.

(d) Virtue and values always meet in one place, coalescence of bodies and coalescence of souls. Premarital sex can destroy an otherwise fantastic marriage long before the marriage occurs.

(e) Freedom in marriage belongs to both spouses, but must have values to avoid anarchy. Freedom must be exercised on the basis of spiritual values related to the mystery doctrine of the protocol plan of God. God has provided for the believer a whole system of values related to the spiritual mechanics.

(f) A marriage between two believers in the Church Age is the ultimate in Christian service. Because the great Christian service is fulfilling the spiritual life by which you have a testimony in the greatest trial in all of human history.

(3) Freedom in marriage demands a personal sense of responsibility. Having freedom does not mean anything unless you have a personal sense of responsibility with that freedom.

(4) Freedom without responsibility is apathy. Apathy is tantamount to negative volition to Bible doctrine.

(5) Negative volition to Bible doctrine means failure to deploy the tandem problem solving devices.

(6) Therefore, apathy means failure to live inside the integrity envelope. Failure to live inside the integrity envelope means failure of the spiritual life. Failure in your spiritual life means failure in Christian marriage.

(7) Marriage is the testing ground for the spiritual life. Every test to advance you in your spiritual life is related to marriage. The greatest Christian service is performed by invisible heroes, especially those in marriage.

(8) If you are motivated by what you know, you should also be motivated by what you do not know about the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. If you hear the teaching of Bible doctrine and you do not understand it, you can be motivated to learn that mystery doctrine by awareness of your ignorance. If you hear the teaching of Bible doctrine and understand it, you should be motivated by metabolized doctrine circulating in your stream of consciousness to deploy the ten problem solving devices on the FLOT line of your soul as the only means of fulfilling the protocol plan of God and glorifying God as an individual believer or a believer in marriage. You can be motivated by cognition or ignorance or combination of both. Cognition of Bible doctrine motivates the believer to function under the four spiritual mechanics as they are opened to your view through Bible teaching. This requires full understanding of the mystery doctrine. Ignorance of Bible doctrine should motivate the believer to learn the four spiritual mechanics and how they operate. Therefore, cognition changing ignorance into epignosis knowledge of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age includes perception of the unique status and responsibility of Christian marriage in the Church Age.

g. The laws of evidence in a trial as found in the Old Testament say that there must always be two or more witnesses, Deut 17:6, 19:15; 2 Cor 13:1. The witnesses must be interrogated separately, privately, and their testimony must agree. The testimony against Satan in the rebuttal phase of the appeal trial has three witnesses—the Lord Jesus Christ during the Incarnation, the witness of believers during the Church Age who execute the protocol plan of God, and the institution of Christian marriage. The purpose for you being alive after salvation is to be a witness for the Prosecution. The strongest testimony against Satan is the witness of two Church Age believers in a marriage situation. The organizational testimony against Satan is Christian marriage in the fulfillment of the three divine laws of marriage. This is the highest form of greatness that has ever existed in the human race. It requires a virtue, an integrity and an honor that has never existed before and will never exist again after the Church.

h. God has provided a system of values related to the four spiritual mechanics, which are the means of glorifying God during the Church Age. During the first Advent, the humanity of Jesus Christ pioneered and tested the prototype spiritual life under the greatest possible stress that has ever existed in human history with the result that believers during the Church Age were given the greatest operational spiritual life in all of human history.

i. The love that the Christian husband must have for his wife is a love that cannot be fulfilled by an unbeliever or by a believer who does not know the mechanics of the spiritual life. Christian believers have the greatest responsibility in marriage that has ever existed in the history of the human race. Never in history did God command a husband and wife to forgive as Christ forgave. No one could do it until Christ came and the filling of the Spirit was given.

j. The fact that Christian marriage is being watched by angels is taught in the following passages.

(1) 1 Cor 4:9, “For, I think that God has exhibited us apostles last of all, as men condemned to death; because we have become a theater to the universe, to angels as well as mankind.”

(2) Eph 3:10-11, “in order that at the present time the multifarious wisdom of God may be known to the [demon] rulers and the [demon] authorities in the heavenly places by agency of the Church in conformity with the plan of the ages which He accomplished through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

(3) 1 Tim 5:21, “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus and His elect angels, to maintain these doctrinal principles without bias, doing nothing in partiality.”

(4) 1 Pet 1:12, “It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by agency of the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels bend down to get a clear look.”

(5) Lk 15:10, “In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who changes his mind.”

k. Christian marriage is a part of the witness for the Prosecution in Satan’s appeal trial. The three divine laws of Christian marriage demand the highest and greatest system of honor, integrity, and virtue ever assigned to the divine institution of marriage. This unusual system of divine mandates is the monopoly of Christian marriage during the Church Age.

8. Marriage as a Corporation.

a. Marriage is the first corporation in history. A corporation is an association of individuals, created by law, existing as an entity, hence, any group of persons united into one body. Marriage is a system of corporatism, that is, the principles, doctrines, and organization of a corporation.

b. The divine institution of marriage as the first corporation in history was created by God at the beginning of the human race. In the Church Age only, extrapolated from the divine institution of marriage is the greatest system of service ever assigned to any group of people. This system of service is the Christian institution of marriage. The corporation of marriage has authority. Authority in marriage belongs to the husband. Therefore, to avoid tyranny the husband must have virtue. The basis for that virtue is the four spiritual mechanics of the protocol plan of God for the Church. Freedom in marriage belongs to both spouses, but such freedom must have values to avoid anarchy. God created the man to be a leader and God created the woman to be a follower. Every Christian husband should be great. If not, he will pay the price.

c. The spiritual values of the corporation called Christian marriage must be related to the four spiritual mechanics of the protocol plan of God for the Church and they must be used consistently. Freedom demands a personal sense of responsibility in which the divine laws of Christian marriage are executed inside the integrity envelope, which is deployed through the two tandem problem solving devices.

(1) Personal love for God the Father provides motivation and correction of reaction in marriage.

(2) Impersonal love for all mankind provides the highest form of honor, virtue, and integrity.

d. Freedom without responsibility is apathy. Apathy is tantamount to negative volition to the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. Such apathy from negative volition means failure to live inside the integrity envelope. Failure to live inside the integrity envelope means failure to fulfill the operational type spiritual life given to each one of us at the moment of salvation as the filling of the Holy Spirit.

e. Marriage has been an issue in Satan’s appeal trial since the first man and woman failed. Satan has constantly argued that if the first marriage failed in perfect environment, no marriage can succeed. Since marriage is a testing ground for the spiritual life, marriage is a part of the testimony of Satan’s appeal trial coterminous with human history. The spiritual life of the Church Age has nothing to do with the Old Testament believers. We do not take our spiritual life from the Old Testament. No Old Testament believer was ever filled with the Spirit, a royal priest, an ambassador for Christ, in union with Christ, indwelt with all three members of the Trinity, and many other things. The spiritual life in the millennium is not nearly as great as during the Church Age.

f. Part of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age is a new phenomenon that never existed before the Church Age began. It is called Christian marriage.

(1) Precedence for marriage was established in the garden of Eden with the divine institution of marriage. The man and the woman are entirely different in every way. Man was created with the responsibility. The man’s responsibility toward the woman always demanded morality. Morality toward the woman has always been the stability of society. Society is no better than the sum total of its marriages. The man and the woman were designed by the Lord Jesus Christ with different souls. They do not think alike. They were designed to be together as long as both shall live. Satan understood that when the woman is not responding to the authority of the man, she is reacting. This is why Satan attacked the woman.

(2) The first marriage was composed of a perfect husband and a perfect wife in perfect environment. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the only test of volition under perfect environment because under perfect environment knowledge of what is good and what is evil is not necessary.

(3) After the original sin of our first parents, the divine institution of marriage was not terminated, but the sin nature was added, so that now the institution of marriage includes both believers and unbelievers.

(4) Jesus Christ invented Christian marriage in which husband and wife are both born again. There are two other categories: unbelievers marrying unbelievers, and believers marrying unbelievers.

(5) There are three witnesses against Satan in the rebuttal phase of his appeal trial. The first witness is the humanity of Jesus Christ. The second witness is any Church Age believer who executes the protocol plan of God for the Church. The third witness is Christian marriage. In Church Age marriage, the divine institution demanded an even higher attitude toward the woman because the woman was created as a responder. God’s answer in Satan’s appeal trial to the attempted destruction of marriage by the demon invasion of the human race in Genesis chapter six is Christian marriage during the Church Age. The believer can never use the excuse that they made a mistake in marrying an unbeliever to get out of that marriage.

(6) No changes in the divine institution of marriage were made over thousands of years until the dispensation of the Church. The revelation of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age added a new dimension to marriage—the marriage of two believers. Mystery doctrine establishes a modus vivendi which is designed to give the highest form of service to God that has ever existed in the human race. This means that Christian marriage is one of the most highly sensitive corporations in the history of the human race.

9. The Attack On The Divine Institution Of Marriage.

a. Marriage came under attack by Satan. This is described in Genesis 6.

b. Satan’s strategy included a plan to destroy marriage and true humanity on the earth simultaneously. This was a genetic attack on the line of Christ.

c. Two categories of demons exist at the present time.

(1) Those who have bodies, who at present are not permitted to operate on planet earth because they violated the rules of the angelic conflict and had sex with human women.

(2) Those without bodies, who are classified as disembodied spirits, who are operational during this phase of human history. In 1 Tim 4:1 they are described as deceitful spirits who teach the doctrines of demons.

d. Demons with bodies invaded the earth because of the great beauty of women. Gen 6:1-13 described the demon attack to destroy true humanity by having sex with women to produce creatures who were half angel and half human. The Hebrew phrase BENI HA ELOHIM, translated “sons of God", is used only for angels, Gen 6:2, Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7. The purpose of this invasion was to seduce the beautiful women of the world resulting in the destruction of true humanity, so that Jesus Christ could not come as true humanity.

e. The result of angels having sex with human women was a super race of beings that were half angel and half human, thus destroying true humanity. In Gen 6:4 this corrupted race is called in the Hebrew HA NEPHILIM or “the fallen ones.” These creatures are described throughout Greek mythology.

f. Gen 6:3 describes an outbreak of violence such as had never existed before and would eventuate in the destruction of the human race, so that the humanity of Christ could not come into the world. So God gave that race 120 years to be evangelized by Noah. Only eight people (four married couples) remained as true humanity and the rest of the corrupted human race was destroyed by the Flood. The demons were imprisoned under the earth in Tartarus, 2 Pet 2:4. In Jude 6 we have a reference to the same thing.

g. The Christian institution of marriage in the Church Age was created by God to answer this event in the rebuttal phase of Satan’s appeal trial. Since Christian marriage is the third witness against Satan, there is a special warning to all believers in 2 Cor 6:14-16a, “Do not lend yourselves to being unequally being yoked together with unbelievers; for what do righteousness and lawlessness have in common? Or what fellowship [soul rapport] has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Beliar [the Greek word for evil, used for the personification of Satan], or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God.’”

(1) When a believer marries an unbeliever, you eliminate yourself from being a witness for the Prosecution under the third category of witnesses for the Prosecution.

(2) As a believer, you are still responsible for fulfilling the divine mandates for marriage during the Church Age, but the unbeliever is not under these divine mandates for marriage because they cannot understand the mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

(3) Therefore, the believing spouse must go it alone in that marriage to be a witness for the Prosecution.

(a) The believer married to an unbeliever in the Church Age has only one option in fulfilling the protocol plan of God—to go it alone.

(b) If the believer remains married to an unbeliever, and he should, he or she must face the additional problem of living alone inside the integrity envelope or reacting to the other spouse which is failure to fulfill the spiritual life. There is no legalism or manipulation of your spouse inside the integrity envelope. Freedom does not manipulate. Manipulation is tyranny. Go it alone means that marriage becomes a distraction to glorifying God through the four spiritual mechanics of the protocol plan. Therefore, it is much more difficult to glorify God when you have to go it alone.

(d) If the unbeliever is religious, there will never be agreement in marriage.

(4) As a believer married to an unbeliever, you are lending yourself to the Devil’s deal. You have compromised yourself to Satan.

(5) Marriage is not a partnership; it is a participation; it is a corporation.

(6) Light and darkness are mutually exclusive. Believers and unbelievers in marriage are mutually exclusive. “Fellowship” here means soul rapport. There can be no soul rapport between a believer and unbeliever in marriage. The children of this marriage are sanctified, set apart, or blessed because of the believer parent. The blessing will be delayed if there is a divorce and it will not exist if the believer fails to execute the four objectives of the spiritual life.

(7) The temple of God refers to the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and idols, where demons like to live.

h. The first witness option is for the believer to follow the example of the apostle Paul and remain unmarried. As a single person, Paul is the role model for going it alone. Every believer, whether single, married or divorced, has equal opportunity to become a winner believer and invisible hero. Some roads are more difficult than others. The second option is given to Christian marriage, which has the highest system of honor, integrity, and virtue under the mandates of the three divine laws of Christian marriage. The third option is for the believer to remain married to an unbeliever and to go it alone with the four spiritual mechanics.

10. The Creation of a New Category of Marriage.

a. In the Church Age, we have two categories of marriage.

(1) The divine institution category is the first category of marriage in the Church Age and it has three subcategories.

(a) The husband and the wife are both unbelievers.

(b) The husband is an unbeliever and the wife is a believer. She has no right to divorce him because he is an unbeliever.

(d) If you marry an unbeliever, you have no right to use your Christianity as an excuse for getting out of that marriage. If they want to stay married to you, then you have no right to divorce.

(2) The Christian institution category is the second category of marriage in the Church Age.

(a) The Christian institution of marriage is defined as two believers united in holy matrimony.

(b) Christian marriage is the testing ground for the greatest and highest spiritual life in all of history—the operational type spiritual life. This is its greatest function in corporate testimony against Satan in his appeal trial. The spiritual values of this corporation are related to the four spiritual mechanics of the protocol plan of God for the Church.

© The Church Age believer has the greatest spiritual freedom as a part of God’s grace. This freedom demands a personal sense of responsibility, which was never before assigned to the human race and will never again be assigned after the resurrection of the Church. The divine laws for Christian marriage must be executed inside the integrity envelope developed through the tandem problem solving devices.

(d) Freedom without responsibility is apathy. Apathy is tantamount to negative volition to the mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

(e) Such apathy from negative volition means failure to learn and use the four spiritual mechanics of the operational type spiritual life in your very own portfolio of invisible assets.

(f) Spiritual dynamics in Christian marriage include the greatest objectives ever assigned to believers in all of human history before the Church Age began and after the Rapture. Never in human history has such great objectives been assigned to believers.

(g) We are therefore challenged in the Church Age for the greatest service ever designed for being a servant of God. The ultimate in Christian service is invisible heroship of the winner believer either as a single person or as a believer in the status of marriage.

(h) The Christian institution of marriage is the divine answer to the failure of the divine institution of marriage in the garden of Eden.

(i) The successful Christian marriage is based on the fact that both spouses are positive to doctrine, learn and use the four mechanics of the protocol plan of God, and glorify God to the maximum by being winner believers and invisible heroes.

(j) The unsuccessful Christian marriage occurs when both spouses fail to use their equal opportunity to execute the protocol plan of God by failure to learn and use the four spiritual mechanics. Both spouses become loser believers.

(k) When one spouse fails to use equal opportunity to execute the protocol plan of God, the positive spouse must use the principle of “go it alone.” You do not have the right to divorce your spouse because they are negative to doctrine.

(l) Going it alone is the most important thing in the spiritual life. You have to decide for yourself about doctrine, and no one can decide for you.

(3) The divine institution of marriage and the Christian institution of marriage coexist during the Church Age. The Christian institution of marriage is extrapolated from the divine institution of marriage. This is another unique factor of the Church Age.

(4) No unbeliever husband was ever mandated to love his wife as Christ loved the Church. The secret to marriage from the man’s standpoint is not love, but virtue. If the Christian husband is not in the integrity envelope, then he does not have the capacity, the virtue, the honor, or the integrity to fulfill his responsibility. Failure in the integrity envelope eventuates in arrogance and the arrogance skills. One of the great problems in the United States today is that Christian husbands have almost universally failed to have virtue, honor, and integrity from the integrity envelope.

b. 2 Cor 5:17, “Therefore if any one [is] in [union with] Christ, [he is] a new spiritual species; old things have lost their power; behold, new things have come into existence.”

(1) Because of the uniqueness of the Church Age and because of the revelation of that exclusive body of doctrine pertinent to the Church Age only, new things have come into existence.

(2) One of the most important is Christian marriage. New things include: the filling of the Spirit, a completed canon of Scripture, a new spiritual life based on four spiritual mechanics, the highest standard of honor, integrity and virtue is assigned to Christian marriage, new divine mandates related to Christian marriage.

(3) This is why two standards of precedence for marriage coexist in the Church Age. Precedence for the divine institution of marriage for believers and unbelievers is Gen 2:24; Eph 5:31. Precedence for the divine institution of Christian marriage is Eph 5:22-30, 32-33.

c. If you are in anything in life where there are two or more people and you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have the greatest responsibility in the world to produce honor, virtue, and integrity from that spiritual life. Therefore, you should be on a different standard altogether from those who work with you in an organization. Your respect for authority and doing your job as unto the Lord demands a higher standard. The same is true with regard to marriage. You should have an attitude that represents the highest standards of honor, integrity, and virtue. You have the responsibility of going it alone as a believer, if necessary, to produce honor, integrity, and virtue.

d. The unbeliever can never execute the divine laws for marriage given to the believer. No unbeliever wife can obey her husband as to the Lord. The mandate to obey the husband is part of the divine institution, but something has been added as a part of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. The husband is mandated to love his wife as Christ loved the Church. No unbeliever husband can fulfill this mandate toward his wife. Obeying these mandates is designed to serve God in a way that has never existed before in human history.

11. The Principle of Going It Alone.

a. In a corporation as in marriage, you have two different kinds of people—believers and unbelievers. You also have two different categories of modus operandi. When people do their job right as believers, they do it as unto the Lord because they have the highest motivation from living in the integrity envelope. There are others who are unbelievers who do their job under establishment principles. Only people who live by principle truly succeed in life. If you are not living by principle, you are not living, you are only existing.

b. Marriage is the testing ground for the establishment principle that freedom without authority is anarchy and authority without freedom is tyranny, and to avoid anarchy freedom must have values and to avoid tyranny authority must have virtue. Therefore, marriage is always the key to stability in society. The authority is the mystery doctrine revealed in the New Testament epistles. The anarchy is the confusion located in the believer’s soul as a result of too many bad decisions from a position of weakness. Anarchy is confusion, chaos, disorder in the soul of the believer who rejects Bible doctrine or the Christian marriage that fails for the same reason.

c. Freedom without cognition and use of the four spiritual mechanics becomes apathy and irresponsibility. Freedom in marriage belongs to both spouses, but such freedom must have values to avoid the anarchy of confusion, chaos, and disorder in the individual’s soul. The spiritual values of the corporation called marriage must be related to four spiritual mechanics of the protocol plan for the Church. Freedom demands a personal sense of responsibility in which the divine laws of Christian marriage are executed inside the integrity envelope. Decisions you make today will effect you tomorrow.

d. Christian marriage is a dividing instrument when one spouse is positive toward Bible doctrine and is motivated to learn all that God has provided for the Church Age believer, so that the believer can become an invisible hero—the highest form of Christian service.

e. There are three categories of believers who are subject to going it alone.

(1) Believers who are not married and have never been married.

(2) Believers who are unmarried and were formerly married.

(3) Believers who are married to an unbeliever or negative believer. Going it alone does not mean to get out of marriage. If you are married to an unbeliever or to a believer who is negative to God’s plan, you can still fulfill God’s plan for your life by advancing to spiritual maturity. You may never get married and have to go it alone.

f. 1 Cor 7:8, “Now I say to the unmarried and to widowers that it is good for them to remain even as I.” Paul recommended that believers remain single if possible, because marriage has the greatest stress for distraction if virtue of the spiritual life is lacking.

g. 1 Cor 7:10-11, “But to the married I give orders, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not depart from her husband (but if she does depart, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), also the husband should not leave his wife.”

(1) This is not really talking about divorce, but the purpose for this is to address the problem of going it alone when you are unequally yoked with an unbeliever or gotten out of a bad marriage to a believer. If a spouse does depart, they should remain unmarried so that they can go it alone and be a witness for God against Satan without distraction.

(2) The worst marriage you can be in is a marriage to a loser believer.

h. 1 Cor 7:12-13, “But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any believer has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, let him not leave her. Also a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, let her not leave her husband.”

(1) “Not the Lord” means that the Lord did not cover this subject during His earthly ministry.

(2) Going it alone does not mean using an unbelieving spouse as an excuse to get out of a bad marriage. You do not have the right to leave a woman who wants to continue to be married to you. It is possible that when the unbelieving spouse sees the fantastic integrity you have from execution of the protocol plan of God, they may become a believer.

i. 1 Cor 7:14-15, “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the agency of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the agency of her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy.

But if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the Christian husband or wife is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us in the sphere of tranquility.”

(1) “Sanctified” means that the believing spouse becomes the basis of blessing by association for the other spouse.

(2) There is hope for the marriage of a believer and unbeliever succeeding even though it is a violation of the divine mandate not to become unequally yoked to an unbeliever. This marriage has a better chance of succeeding than when there are two believers in a Christian marriage and one of them is antagonistic toward doctrine. A marriage between two believers where one is advancing and one is not creates the greatest possible antagonism that the sin nature can muster, and when the sin nature is in control of a negative believer, there is nothing worse. The negative believer has refused to enter into values from their own volition. The believer who does that goes through every form of reversionism.

(3) If the unbelieving husband or wife walks away from the marriage of their own volition, let them go. You have just been freed from bondage. If a negative believer leaves you, let them go. God has not mandated enslavement in marriage to an unbeliever or negative believer who deserts a positive believer in marriage. Once the spouse departs, the other believer is free to go it alone. You do not go it alone by jumping into another marriage. You are missing the opportunity of a lifetime. Take the time to reach the four objectives of the spiritual life. Then you will have everything intended for the right woman, if God decides to send you one. No one ever waited on the Lord and became a loser. The loser is the believer who does not wait on the Lord. God will provide all of your needs at the right time. If you do not need another spouse and grow up spirituality, God will protect you through the doctrine in your soul from entering into another bad marriage. Marriage is not finding the right person; marriage is being the right person.

O. The Order of Necessity.

1. The order of necessity has three basic concepts: creation, the fall, the Church Age.

a. Necessity is used here in the sense of being necessary or indispensible regarding the human race. There are three categories of necessity regarding the origin and function of the human race in history. The first is the order of necessity at creation. The second is the order of necessity at the fall of mankind. The third is the order of necessity in the Church Age with special emphasis on the corporation of marriage.

b. At the moment of creation of mankind, two divine institutions were absolutely necessary to resolve the prehistoric angelic conflict— volition and marriage.

(1) Of all of the places and times when you need principles of doctrine, it is in prosperity and perfect environment.

(2) Marriage was absolutely necessary at the creation of mankind for the protection of mankind.

(3) At the moment of creation, God provided volition as the problem solver. However, volition can also create problems, and it did.

c. At the fall of mankind and resultant spiritual death, the second order of necessity, salvation through faith in Christ, became indispensible. When man sinned, a second order of necessity began because of spiritual death. Salvation through faith in Christ was indispensible only after man used his volition to sin. Mankind was created without a conscience. The man and woman did not need a conscience because they were perfect. They did not need to know the difference between right and wrong or good and evil because they were perfect. Therefore God ordered man not to eat of the tree of conscience (good and evil).

(1) As a part of the second order of necessity eternal life was absolutely necessary for time and eternity.

(2) Another part of the second order of necessity is procreation, which was added to recreation in sex for the perpetuation of the human race. Sex is the monopoly of the corporation of marriage.

d. The third order of necessity is the unique structure of the Church Age with emphasis on the Christian institution of marriage as part of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age, because the Church Age is the rebuttal phase of the Prosecution against Satan in his appeal trial. The third order of necessity is an answer to the failure of Adam and the woman in the Garden.

(1) The greatest system of service to God in all time is the invisible heroship that comes when one husband and one wife live in holy matrimony as a Christian institution. The impact of Christian marriage on the whole angelic realm is phenomenal.

(2) The divine institution of marriage under perfect environment did not prevent the original sin. Therefore the corporation of marriage has to be vindicated. It is vindicated by any Christian couple in marriage who both advance to maximum glorification of God.

(3) The third necessity has to answer the problem of how two perfect people in a perfect marriage in perfect environment can fail. In every generation of the Church Age there are a few Christian couples who make it to spiritual maturity and glorify God by vindicating the divine institution of marriage. Successful Christian marriage answers Satan’s contention that he won the case when mankind fell in the Garden. This is the greatest Christian service anyone can ever have.

(4) The only corporate testimony against Satan in the Old Testament was the nation of Israel. The only corporate testimony against Satan in the Church Age is the Christian institution of marriage.

2. The corporation of marriage has never stopped functioning in human history and will continue to function throughout human history. The divine institution of marriage has three categories.

a. An unbelieving husband and an unbelieving wife.

b. A husband who is an unbeliever and a wife who is a believer.

c. A husband who is a believer and a wife who is an unbeliever.

3. The Christian institution of marriage has two categories.

a. A believer husband and a believer wife in a successful marriage.

b. A believer husband and a believer wife in an unsuccessful marriage.

4. Every facet of the Church Age is indispensible: the filling of the Spirit, Bible doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness, the three spiritual skills, ten problem solving devices, your royal priesthood, the Christian institution of marriage as the greatest system of Christian service that has ever existed. Two believers in marriage can now have far greater happiness—a life with the maximum amount of significance—than Adam and the woman had in the Garden. It is the answer of the Lord Jesus Christ to Satan with regard to the fall of Satan and the angelic revolution.

P. The Third Law of Christian Marriage.

1. The third divine law of Christian marriage emphasizes the mutual responsibility in the interaction of both spouses and is, therefore, part of the corporate testimony of Christian marriage.

2. Scripture.

a. 1 Pet 3:1-9, “In a similar manner, you wives, remain under the authority of your own husbands that if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won over without a word through the behavior of their wives, when they see your blameless manner of life associated with your respect. Your beauty should not come from external appearance only—your hair styling, your jewelry, or your clothing; but the hidden person of the right lobe associated with the imperishable quality of a humble and quiet spirit, which has great value in the sight of God. In this way in former times the holy women, who also had confidence in God, kept adorning themselves by obeying their husbands. Like Sarah who obeyed Abraham, and called him lord, you have become her daughters, if you do what is intrinsic good and if you do not fear any fear. Likewise you husbands, live with your wives on the basis of knowledge, giving honor to the woman as to a weaker vessel also as a joint heir of the grace of life, since she is a woman, so that your prayers may not be hindered. To sum up, everything should be harmonious, sympathetic, impersonal love, compassionate, and humble in spirit; not giving back evil for evil, or insult for insult, but on the contrary blessing instead; because for this purpose you were called that you might inherit [escrow] blessing.”

(1) There are three parts to this passage.

(a) The Christian institution of marriage as the rebuttal phase of the Prosecution for Satan’s appeal trial, verses 1-4.

i. The impact of the second divine law for the Christian institution of marriage, verses 1-2.

ii. The importance of the woman’s inner beauty, verse 3.

iii. How that inner beauty is defined, verse 4.

(b) The divine institution of marriage as an illustration that inner beauty is not a part of the mystery doctrine except what God has provided for it in the Church Age, verses 5-6.

i. The inner beauty principle of the Old Testament, verse 5.

ii. The inner beauty illustration, verse 6.

i. The first divine law of Christian marriage, verse 7.

ii. The corporate testimony of the Christian institution of marriage, verses 8-9.

(2) In the illustration of verse one, we have a husband who is an unbeliever or a Christian husband who has rejected Bible doctrine. The response of silence rather than the nagging of reaction is the issue here. No wife is ever going to have inner beauty and true spiritual greatness unless she recognizes the authority of her husband. Every person is a loser who does not recognize authority. You will never make it in life on your overt beauty. Nagging never advances a wife’s cause, only the fulfillment of the spiritual life of the Church Age does, which has impact both in the home and her social periphery. Nagging is reaction. A reacting woman cannot solve her problems. When a woman is reacting, she is functioning under the arrogance skills, is at her absolute worst, and is trying to punish her husband. Reaction is a form of punishment to the person who is reacting. This only hurts herself. Nagging is often the sign of loss of values or of no values. The Christian wife must make an issue out her love-respect for her husband rather than emphasizing her husband’s flaws, sins, and failures. The issue must be what God has done for the wife, not the flaws, sins, or failures of her husband. The issue is respect, love, and obedience that wins over the man. The wife who nags her husband has misplaced her spiritual values. She does not even have a spiritual life.

(3) Therefore, the wife must possess inner beauty, which results from your spiritual life under the filling of the Holy Spirit and momentum from metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness through the filling of the Spirit. There is no greater form of love than a woman respecting a man. When a woman is not responding to her husband, she is reacting. When a woman reacts to the man she loves, a vacuum is created in her soul which drains the inner beauty right out of her soul. She neglects and rejects the problem solving devices and becomes vulnerable to flattery and response to the wrong person. When the woman starts to react, she loses her values in life. She uses personal love for God the Father as the solution to the situation. This calms down the reaction, removes it, and replaces it with tranquility, so that her inner beauty will again shine forth. Then she uses impersonal love to respect her husband again. This is a blessing to her husband and to everyone who comes into contact with her.

(4) The spiritual woman does not neglect good taste in outer appearance, but she has inner beauty to reinforce that good taste. Wives should not neglect their overt appearance, however the emphasis is always on inner beauty. Good grooming plus inner beauty of the soul is irresistible to the husband. Your values must first emphasize inner beauty, but never neglect your grooming.

(5) A humble and quiet spirit is of the greatest value in God’s values. The humility described here is a soothing, calm, patient composure in the presence of irritation from others. Without a quiet spirit, you are going to be an arrogant, noisy, obnoxious person. The woman’s inner beauty includes the following:

(a) Self-conscious, because spiritual self-esteem and occupation with Christ exist rather than whining and mewing self-pity.

(b) Metabolized doctrine in the right lobe becomes obedience to her husband from the function of impersonal love as the integrity envelope of her personal love response to her husband.

(d) The woman’s inner beauty is designed by God to execute the protocol plan and to fulfill her responsibility to her husband from metabolized doctrine in the stream of consciousness.

(e) The quiet spirit is freedom from arrogance, humility from the function of the four spiritual mechanics. The quiet spirit is the stability of the soul inside the integrity envelope, which lives in harmony with others and avoids the arrogance function of reaction, so that the channel of response to her husband is never closed by the arrogance skills.

(f) Loss of values means loss of coalescence of souls in marriage, so that even sex in marriage is a hypocrisy of a twisted soul; for reacting to someone you love results in responding to the wrong person.

(6) The virtue of inner beauty keeps the woman from holding back her soul while giving her body to her husband. Virtue is always free from hypocrisy. The wife who truly loves her husband and has attained virtue love of respect for her husband never holds back her soul while giving her body to her husband. The husband who possesses his wife’s body without her soul has nothing. It is the coalescence of souls which accompanies the coalescence of bodies in the sexual relationship that results in the trip back to the garden of Eden.

(7) We often have fear in our souls, which is under control by our spiritual life. There are many circumstances when we have fear in our souls which is normal. The issue is not being frightened by the fear. David had fear in his soul, Ps 56:3, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in You.” Sarah had her fears (that Ishmael would replace her son Isaac) but she dealt with them. The fear is there to be dealt with, to be handled. It could be the fear of death, fear of crime, etc. The issue is handling the fear and not letting it tie you up in knots.

(a) The more things you surrender to fear, the more things you fear.

(b) The extent to which you surrender to fear, the greater your capacity for fear.

(d) The more you increase the power of fear in your life, the greater your failure to learn and fulfill the four spiritual mechanics of the protocol plan of God for the Church Age.

(e) People who live by fear are intimidated by life.

(f) Fear focuses on and is preoccupied by the problem, but the problem solving devices focus on the divine solution.

(g) Fear is an emotional sin, therefore irrational—a major distraction to the deployment of the problem solving devices.

(h) Fear is a sin of arrogance. Therefore it results in the function of the arrogance skills in contrast to the spiritual skills. Fear in the soul is controlled, resolved, eliminated by the advanced problem solving devices.

(i) Fear of death will not prevent dying, but it will prevent living your very own spiritual life.

(j) Fear and function in your spiritual life are mutually exclusive.

(k) Scripture.

i. 2 Tim 1:7, “For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of virtue love and of self-discipline [or good judgment].”

ii. 1 Jn 4:18, “Fear does not exist in virtue love; but virtue love drives out fear, because fear has punishment, and the person who fears has not been matured by virtue love.” Virtue love drives out fear because virtue love is far greater than any system of fear. If you entertain fear, fear will punish you. Fear is never a fear until it is in your soul.

(9) Living with a wife requires patience and knowledge—the knowledge of Bible doctrine. The woman is not a weaker person. She is in a weaker status quo, being under the authority of the man. She is very vulnerable to reaction, which makes her weak. You must live with your wife on the basis of your knowledge of your wife. You must understand those who are under your authority. Leadership assigns honor to the one who is under authority. No one can learn anything unless they are under authority. Being in charge is often very frustrating, especially when the principles related to your authority are not understood and your authority is rejected. Joint heirs of the grace of life means that both the husband and wife have their very own spiritual life and portfolio of invisible assets with equal privilege and opportunity to execute the protocol plan of God.

(10) Failure to use the four spiritual mechanics to execute God’s plan for your Christian marriage results in loss of certain escrow blessings for both time and eternity. When you have a corporate testimony against Satan, you have a double blessing.

b. Eph 5:32-33, “(This [the first two divine laws of Christian marriages in verses 22-30] is a great mystery; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.) However you husbands 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.”

(1) The command to the husband to love his wife is the durative present active imperative from the Greek verb AGAPAO, which means to have virtue love for someone. This is the highest form of virtue love. The command to the wife to respect her husband is the durative present middle subjunctive from the Greek word PHOBEO, meaning respect. Respect is defined as a form of love, as admiration for a person based on the quality and the traits of the person involved. Respect is esteem and deference given to a person based on their virtue, honor, and integrity. This is a most unusual structure in the Greek. This mandate is in the subjunctive mood used as an imperative—an idiom from Hellenistic Greek.

(2) The Christian husband’s authority is executed in a way that a woman could never resist. When a husband has a personal sense of responsibility or spiritual self-esteem, the coalescence of souls is irresistible to the woman.

(3) The reflexive pronoun HEAUTOU (“himself”) refers the action back to its own subject. This emphasizes that every believer has his very own spiritual life and is responsible for using his or her own volition to learn the mechanics of the spiritual life. The reflexive pronoun also emphasizes the status of spiritual self-esteem or a personal sense of destiny. The reflexive pronoun emphasizes the mutual responsibility of each spouse to take each other for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, in adversity and in prosperity, as long as you both shall live. When you walk out of a relationship after you have taken a vow to stay in that relationship, you destroy yourself as a believer.

(4) The third divine demand of Christian marriage is the highest form of service and the highest demand that God has ever made on believers in any dispensation of history. This is invisible service of the highest order.

(5) When the woman fulfills her part, she is the most magnificent of creatures. Respect is a great combination of grace orientation and humility, which produces the most fantastic inner beauty in the woman. No woman with respect for her husband above all others will ever give the idea to another man in her presence that she has somehow transferred her affection away from her husband.

(6) God created the woman to have inner beauty as the basis for civilization and the only basis for a virtuous culture. The inner beauty of the woman is an inspiration in so many ways and the highest motivation men can have. When a woman fulfills her rightful place in history, then you have the most fantastic culture. When response exists and the woman reveres one man in her life, then you have the highest form of civilization and the greatest motivation for a virtuous culture.

(7) The tragedy of the destruction of the client nation is the fault of the man, who has no longer become a virtuous leader. Instead men have become abusive, petty, arrogant. Marital failure is a disaster, not only to the individuals involved, but to the society in general. Marriage is a stabilizer of society.

(8) The Christian wife’s capacity for respect as the highest form of personal love is the direct result of the husband’s leadership. But if he fails in that leadership, this does not give the wife the excuse to react. A reacting person is out of fellowship and has set aside their spiritual life. The solution for her is personal love for God the Father and impersonal love for her husband. Virtue love is the system for upgrading personal love to virtue. Both the husband and the wife must use the advanced problem solving devices to restore virtue to their relationship.

c. Eph 4:31-32, “All bitterness both anger and wrath and verbal brawling and slander must be removed from you, along with all malice. Instead become kind to each other, compassionate, forgiving each other, just as also the God by the agency of Christ has forgiven you for your benefit.” Interaction through virtue begins in the home.

(1) The answer to perfect environment in the Garden is the Christian institution of marriage in the worst of environments. The Christian institution of marriage has the opportunity for far greater happiness than ever existed in the Garden or will ever exist during the Millennium. The commands of the three divine laws of Christian marriage are Church Age doctrine that never existed before because this is the rebuttal answer to the failure of the divine institution of marriage in the garden of Eden.

(2) Irresponsibility cannot succeed in life or in marriage with either spouse. When you are reacting to someone you love, you respond to the wrong person, someone you do not love; hence, the importance of personal love for God the Father. When you have personal love for God the Father, it saves you a tremendous amount of unhappiness, misery, and discipline in life. It prevents you from responding to someone you do not love. Personal love for God the Father is a problem solving device to protect you from reaction. It causes you to respond to God instead of reacting to others.

(3) Nothing is ever won by irresponsibility or reaction. Irresponsibility to God will cause you to have a life of reaction and produces a loser in the male or female. Nothing is ever won by reaction. When women react, they are punishing a man. A woman drives away a man to whom she is constantly reacting. It shows she has yet to have personal love for God the Father. Impersonal love provides the highest form of personal integrity. Never try to punish someone by reaction. It makes you a loser. Impersonal love toward all mankind is the power that converts reaction into virtue love and provides objectivity which squelches the chaos of the soul.

(4) Bitterness is the result when a Christian husband and wife choose the old sin nature for their system of values in marriage. The Greek word THUMOS, translated “anger,” describes the emotional sin of anger, irrational anger. The Greek word ORGE, translated “wrath,” describes a reaction anger based on hatred, vindictiveness, implacability, and bitterness.

(5) The spiritual life given to Christians, not environment, is the solution to the problems that relate to Christian marriage. The believers who go the way of the sin nature are looking for perfect environment. They want to go back to the point of failure. They are looking for the perfect mate who they call their right man or right woman. However, you have taken a vow—for better or for worse. Environment is not the issue and will not make you happy. Having the right values is the issue. But if you relate your values to environment, you will become a loser. The spiritual life emphasizes the coalescence of the soul, and it is the coalescence of the souls that makes coalescence of bodies. The man does not have to be handsome; he has to be a leader.

(6) Being kind to each other is the function of impersonal love as a problem solving device. Compassion is the thinking of impersonal love for all mankind. Mutual compassion is far better than environment. The power that makes a marriage is the power of the filling of the Holy Spirit.

(7) The third divine law of Christian marriage has certain things in common for mutual responsibility and accountability. On the negative side they have the same sin nature. On the positive side they have the same spiritual heritage and same spiritual objectives.

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

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