Eph 1038ff 4/9/89; 740, 759, 961

DOCTRINE OF MARRIAGE (Part 1)

A. Introduction.

1. Application principles. These principles explain every problem in marriage, in romance, and in human relationship.

a. Application without truth is false.

b. Application without facts is folly.

c. Application from emotion is the life of the loser.

d. Application without principle is distorted thinking.

e. Application without doctrine is distorted learning.

f. Application without virtue is distorted living.

2. You cannot base doctrine on experience. You cannot base doctrine on what you see other Christians doing or failing to do. You base doctrine on what the Word of God says. Neither empiricism or rationalism is the source of absolute truth. If experience contradicts the Bible, then the Bible is correct.

3. Application of doctrine cannot be made without inculcation of the principles of doctrine. You are designed to learn doctrine and apply it from your own soul. You have to learn doctrine, metabolize it, apply it, and use it to solve problems. The pattern is learning, thinking, solving. For the Christian, the basic solutions to marriage are spiritual, which means they are doctrinal solutions.

4. All psychological solutions and multiapplication answers from counseling are not only human viewpoint, but are someone else’s thinking. You cannot solve your problems using another person’s mind.

5. Marriage changes people.

a. While marriage inevitably changes people—for the better or for the worse—they are basically no better in marriage than they are as people. Winning and losing lifestyles carry over into marriage.

b. Disobedience to biblical principles in childhood (Eph 6:1-3) can put scar tissue on the soul which does not surface until faced with the pressures of marriage.

c. In the spiritual life, however, everyone starts at zero in marriage and, through learning and applying Bible doctrine has the opportunity to become a winner.

6. There are three stages in the man/woman relationship.

a. Attraction.

(1) This first stage is that characteristic of a person which elicits interest or attention, hence, an attractive quality in another person.

(2) There are two man/woman relationships in which attraction occurs: romance, marriage. Attraction begins in romance.

(3) Attraction is generally overt and emphasizes physical appeal. It can include many things, such as allurement, enticement, or fascination. Attraction may include physical beauty, overt personality, or seeing the fulfillment of one’s personal standards (the knight in shining armor).

(4) Attraction is the reconnaissance stage of the man/woman relationship. It has to do with the superficialities of life, such as dress, appearance, personality, manners, smell, sex appeal. This is the empirical approach. It is a dangerous stage because you assume that what you see is what you get, and that is rarely true in marriage.

(5) Attraction is the blind stage of romance or marriage. A person often sets aside, ignores, or is blinded to the flaws or potential flaws in the object of romance. You don’t see the real person.

(6) Since attraction is often based on libido, most people get married in this stage; and that is a great disaster.

(7) The attraction stage has not come to grips with the problems the other person has or can create, and has not resolved any of the problems of incompatibility, or even recognized the existence of incompatibility.

(8) The attraction stage has not yet faced the facts of life. Another person’s problems may be the catalytic agent that destroys the relationship.

(9) Concentration on the object of love in the attraction stage has a very narrow field of vision, often resulting in the erroneous conclusion that the object of your love is the only person in the world for you.

(10) This false confidence of subjectivity rejects or ignores warning signs against marrying this person. Rationalization, simply dismissing it from the mind, or reaction results.

(11) People who get married in the attraction stage have very little chance of success, but it can be overcome by strong spiritual growth.

(12) When the believer is overpowered by emotion in the attraction stage, virtue and stability in romance are virtually eliminated. The removal of virtue and wisdom, caused by emotional revolt of the soul, is in direct contrast to the normal and legitimate emotional function of romance and love.

a) Emotional revolt of the soul results in blotting out everything that sustains love. This is because emotion has no doctrinal content, no ability to think or reason.

(b) Emotional revolt of the soul often emphasizes premarital sex, and therefore, handicaps marriage.

© Emotional revolt of the soul brings into romance two categories of sins: the sins of arrogance (jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, revenge, slander, gossip, maligning) and the sins of emotion (fear, worry, anxiety, hatred, anger, violence, murder).

(d) Emotion is irrational arrogance which blots out reality and virtue and ignores the problem-solving devices.

(e) While emotion can respond in love and does, it cannot be love.

(f) Emotional arrogance is a system of converting reality into illusion and hallucination.

(13) The strength of romantic love is virtue, which is produced by consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. From this comes biblical conceptualism, which is the transition from attraction to compatibility.

b. Compatibility.

(1) Compatibility is the capacity of a man and a woman to combine and remain together without undesirable after effects.

(2) Compatibility is a mutual tolerance, motivated by three categories of virtue-love: personal love for God the Father, impersonal love for all mankind, and occupation with the Person of Christ.

(3) Compatibility is a total adjustment to the other person so that he or she is the most important person in the world to you.

(4) While attraction is the blind stage of romance, compatibility is the enlightened stage. In this stage you have learned the strengths and weaknesses of the object of your love, and you have already resolved most of the problems of relationship. Whatever the sins, failures and weaknesses of your partner, they do not diminish your love for him or her.

(5) Compatibility is the problem-solving stage of romance; therefore, it is the best time for marriage. Those involved have used the privacy of their own priesthood to solve the problems.

(6) In compatibility both male and female take responsibility for their own decisions. Tolerance and understanding prevail in this stage.

(7) When attraction in romance becomes disappointment or disillusion, you can end the relationship forever. But when attraction in marriage becomes disappointment or disillusion, you cannot jump out and be in the directive will of God.

(8) Compatibility must be established before marriage, not after marriage. Do not get married in the attraction stage, but first attain compatibility. Compatibility will blend in with the problem-solving devices. Compatibility is the stage of virtue-love. No decision should be made about marriage until you have all the facts; and all the facts are not in until you have reached the stage of compatibility.

(9) The greatest manifestation of compatibility is conversation. A successful marriage is a long conversation that seems all too short. Your moment-to-moment compatibility is in conversation.

(10) Premarital sex destroys those standards of virtue upon which compatibility is based. Premarital sex causes the fornicators to use emotion as the strength of their love, and emotion has no strength. The strength of romantic love is virtue, which is produced by learning, thinking and solving problems using Bible doctrine.

c. Rapport.

(1) Rapport is the harmonious stage of romance and marriage. This is the status quo of sympathy and empathy, the spiritual identification with the object of your love.

(2) This is the fusion of opposites in the understanding of feelings, thoughts, and attitudes of the object of your love.

(3) This is the fulfillment of the divine mandates of marriage.

(a) Col 3:18-19, “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be bitter against them.”

(b) Eph 5:22, 25, “Wives, be subordinating yourselves to your own husbands as to the Lord.” “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself as a substitute for her.”

© The husband is required to have personal and impersonal love in marriage. The wife is required to have enforced and genuine humility, objectivity and teachability. This means that the husband teaches the wife in marriage. His personal and impersonal love motivate him to teach her.

(4) Rapport is where the wisdom of application of metabolized doctrine pays great dividends in human relationships, including how to rear children. Children bring out the worst in men. Parents teach their children to lie when they are too tough on them.

7. An ode to a loser. Personal love in the human race always begins, then turns out base. Minus virtue, it cannot stand; Loss of control, it’s out of hand.

Love is the victim of its own decision; Life without virtue has no precision. The arrogant cannot give it; The loser cannot live it. Frustrated love becomes an obsession; The lover fails and loses possession. You cannot hold a husband or wife; For minus virtue, all is strife. So think again before you leap; Without virtue, life is cheap. Your love becomes a real frustration; Leaving you as a bitter illustration.

8. Poems and one liners cannot solve the problems of marriage, even when true. For example:

a. Intimacy should not destroy privacy.

b. Love is motivation for communication. But it takes more energy to communicate than it does to copulate.

c. Possessive people are possessive because they are preoccupied with themselves.

d. The arrogant male does not take responsibility for anything in marriage; therefore, he reverses the role with the woman.

e. Marriage is the triumph of habit over hate. A good husband is a man who is unattractive to other women.

9. Marriage for the Christian is the most difficult, the most challenging, and the place of more failures than anything else in life. Failure in marriage is a failure of the believer’s own spiritual life.

10. Marriage is designed by God as a divine institution for both believers and unbelievers.

11. As marriage progresses it retrogresses, because the attractiveness begins to disappear as people age. Flaws that were hidden by youth and attractiveness become manifest in older people. In a good marriage, as the two people grow older and become less attractive, the relationship becomes sweeter. You cannot go back in time and undo past failures.

12. Any relationship in life must be founded on principle. In order for marriage to continue, there must be an understanding of principles of Bible doctrine. You cannot build a marriage on human viewpoint practical application or on philosophical writings. You must know and apply biblical principles.

13. No marriage will last without impersonal love, just as no believer can advance to maturity without impersonal love.

a. Legalism and moral degeneracy as well as immoral degeneracy destroy marriage.

b. Marriages do not fail because of financial problems, unfaithfulness, or other controversies but because believers fail to execute the protocol plan of God, especially in the area of impersonal love.

c. Out of impersonal love comes true personal love.

d. When people depend upon emotional love and emotional entertainment, they have no ability to choose the right person to marry.

14. There are three basic enemies of marriage: bitterness, jealousy, and anger. Anger represents all the emotional sins. You cannot be in a state of Christian degeneracy and be successful in marriage.

15. Personal Love and Intimidation.

a. Personal love in marriage depends upon impersonal love as a problem-solving device. You cannot have full capacity for personal love when you are intimidated. Intimidation begins in romance, not in marriage.

b. Intimidation in marriage eliminates capacity for love and substitutes fear. Fear introduces emotional and irrational sins which complicate the marital relationship.

c. The husband can be intimidated in two categories.

(1) By a strong woman who assumes the masculine role in marriage.

(2) By a weak woman who intimidates by nagging, self- righteous arrogance, or legalistic activism. A woman in polarized legalism is always right in her own eyes and is always trying to superimpose her viewpoint on her husband.

d. Intimidation in marriage becomes a problem without solutions when one or both partners are ignorant of the problem-solving devices.

16. The unharnessed woman in marriage rejects the authority of her husband. Therefore, she will inevitably enter the three stages of Christian degeneracy. 1 Cor 11:8-9, “For the man does not originate from the woman, but the woman from the man; for indeed, the man was not created for the woman, but the woman was created for the man.” When the woman is a blessing to the man, the woman gets the greater happiness. This is why women are greater in making sacrifices and in patience.

17. Marriage is a test for your spiritual life, since it is a problem- manufacturing device. What passes for goodness in single life often becomes a flaw in romance and marriage; therefore, marriage demands the best from every believer.

18. All human relationships emphasize the prime importance of consistent inculcation of Bible doctrine. No relationships in life are more dramatic than the relationship between the man and woman in marriage or between parents and children.

19. What you really depend on in life will determine the status of your marriage. To depend on Bible doctrine means ultimate (not immediate) success. To depend on the advice of others means confusion, misdirection, and ultimate failure. Success or failure in marriage in a reflection of your spiritual life. Defeat isn’t bitter if you don’t swallow it.

20. Marriages fail for two general reasons.

a. Getting married in the attraction stage of romance.

b. Never growing up in marriage. This means never attaining the stages of compatibility or rapport.

21. In romance and marriage two categories of learning are necessary.

a. For unbelievers and believers - the laws of divine establishment.

b. For believers only - Bible doctrine from which virtue and the problem-solving devices are extrapolated.

B. Romance, Marriage and Premarital Sex.

1. Sex before marriage, or fornication, generally occurs in the attraction stage. It is a sin of polarized antinomianism. Sex before marriage creates tremendous handicaps in marriage. Fornication is voluntary sexual intercourse between two unmarried persons. It is distinguished from the word adultery, which is voluntary sexual intercourse of a married person with someone other than a spouse.

2. The couple involved in fornication are in the process of destroying the very standards of virtue required for a successful marriage. Sex before marriage substitutes emotion for good standards, and no marriage ever succeeded on emotion.

3. Premarital sexual intimacy destroys the standards of virtue on which compatibility and rapport are founded. This causes the fornicator to encapsulate his romance in deceit; hence, the basis for romantic love becomes not only the sin of fornication but the sins of arrogance and emotion. After premarital sex you have very little chance of getting out of the attraction stage.

4. Premarital sex not only destroys the standards on which attraction is based, but causes the fornicators to switch to their emotions for the motivation and strength of their love. Human personal love cannot be carried by emotion. Emotion plays a part in love when it is a response to normal things, but emotion destroys love.

a. Emotions are irrational. Love and romance are not irrational unless they are based solely on emotion. Emotions have no doctrinal content, no ability to reason, no ability to apply doctrine, no common sense, and no content for solving problems and perpetuating human love.

b. In premarital sex, you drop the standards of Bible doctrine and pick up emotional revolt of the soul. Loss of standards through premarital intimacy and reverting to emotional revolt of the soul destroys the very foundation and ability for a successful marriage.

5. The strength of romantic love is virtue. For the unbeliever this virtue is attained through adherence to the laws of divine establishment. Virtue is attained in two ways by the believer:

a. Doctrinal conceptualism, which is consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation.

b. Understanding and using the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

6. Loss of standards through premarital sex creates two categories of problems which destroy both romance and marriage.

a. The problems of the arrogance complex: self-fragmentation through mental and verbal sins.

b. The problems of emotional control of love or romance.

7. Premarital promiscuity in the attraction stage of romance destroys the possibility of entering the compatibility and rapport stages of marriage. Intimacy destroys attraction when it precedes compatibility. There is always the problem of reaction from failure in romance due to premarital sex. There are four categories of reaction.

a. The reaction of entering a life of promiscuity with many sex partners. This results in Christian immoral degeneracy.

b. The reaction of seeking comparable chemical stimulation in drugs and alcohol.

c. The reaction of depression, self-pity, and even suicide.

d. The reaction of revenge through the function of polarized legalism and resultant Christian moral degeneracy.

8. Biblical warnings against premarital sex.

a. 1 Cor 6:18, “Flee fornication. Every sin that a person commits is outside of his body, but the one who practices fornication sins against his own body.” Premarital sex destroys the rhythm and success in sex between one man and one woman in marriage.

b. 1 Thes 4:3-4, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that is, that you abstain from fornication. That each one of know how to possess his own vessel [your wife] in honor.”

c. 1 Cor 5:11, “But now I write to you not to associate with any man who is called a brother, who happens to be a fornicator.” To succeed in marriage you must avoid the believer or unbeliever fornicator.

d. Heb 13:4, “Let marriage be held in honor among all; and let the marriage bed be undefiled. For fornicators and adulterers God will judge.”

9. Promiscuity before marriage creates handicaps in marriage. A premarital promiscuous man cannot perform adequately, and the premarital promiscuous woman is always thinking of someone else who did it better.

a. The handicap of self-gratification. Both men and women enter into premarital sex simply to satisfy their own libido. There is no genuine love or sense of responsibility for a sex partner in this kind of fornication. This is especially true of the man. The woman is simply an instrument for his self-gratification. This leaves the woman frustrated, which often results in lesbianism.

b. The handicap to compatibility and rapport stages of romance and love. Premarital sex makes a direct attack on two of the postulates of marriage:

(1) Marriage is more than finding the right person, marriage is being the right person. Premarital sex eliminates being the right person, so that finding the right person is frustrated with regrets.

(2) A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short. Premarital sex eliminates the possibility of ever attaining compatibility or rapport.

10. Premarital sex destroys a marriage long before the marriage occurs. Marriages are often destroyed by the patterns of sexual life in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. Premarital sex often results in Christian immoral degeneracy, which eliminates the virtue prerequisite for a successful marriage.

11. Promiscuity destroys discernment.

a. The attraction stage is the most vulnerable to premarital sex, which always destroys the spiritual life.

b. Premarital sex eliminates the understanding and use of the problem-solving devices you need and substitutes the irrationality of the emotional sins. For example, fear, worry, guilt, hatred and anger are emotional sins which often result from premarital sex. Emotion takes over and erodes the standards on which true love is based.

(1) Promiscuity leads to emotional revolt of the soul, which converts genuine personal love into pseudo-love; for it removes personal love from the integrity envelope of impersonal love.

(2) The irrationality of emotional revolt of the soul takes over the life and erodes virtue standards on which true love is based.

(3) Entrance into marriage with premarital sexual experience handicaps the marriage. The only recovery from this problem is the accurate use of rebound followed by both grace and doctrinal orientation and the proper use of the other problem-solving devices.

12. Premarital sex destroys the possibility of compatibility and rapport as the years of the marriages increase. Society becomes unstable when a large number of marriages lack compatibility and rapport. Too many unhappy marriages among believers in a nation causes instability and the function of Christian degeneracy, which has an adverse effect on the nation. As goes the status of marriage, so goes the nation.

13. God’s reasons for forbidding sex before marriage.

a. Periods of unrestrained licentiousness are followed by periods of unrestrained guilt and depression.

b. Licentiousness often ends in suicide because of the deep depression.

c. You are responsible for your own decisions. Two categories of decisions are involved in premarital sex: the volition of the male, who is usually the initiator; and the volition of the female, who is generally the responder. The more you learn about grace as the divine policy, the more you take responsibility for your own decisions. Premarital sex is fool’s paradise.

d. The road to disaster is paved with sex, drugs, and excessive alcohol, which means that the debauchery kids never make it. They are losers in the spiritual life and in marriage. God had good reasons for forbidding sex before marriage. God is not unkind, unfair, or trying to deprive you of any fun in life. He knows the end from the beginning.

e. No one is ever the same after salvation; we are either better or worse.

f. A male with virtue will never take a female past her own volition in the sphere of intimacy. The man must always be in control of the man/woman relationship.

g. The man who does not respect your volition, ladies, is the wrong man for you.

14. In a nation and society that depends on the divine institution of marriage and family the consequences of the destruction of marriage are devastating.

a. Most divorces occur in the first five years of marriage, which means the victims are often very young children. They enter a period of shock and acute depression, so that even while playing they cannot overcome their fear, depression and loss of security.

b. One of the many dangers of premarital sex is the development of an arrogant and erotic self-gratification in which a single person wants sexual sensation rather than a true love relationship.

15. The increase of Christian degeneracy means the decrease of both spirituality and the utilization of the problem-solving devices in romance and marriage. 16. Just as the believer must continue to learn doctrine to advance in the protocol plan of God, so good sexual response in marriage is a continual learning process. Good sexual response in marriage includes the four categories of the sexual cycle: volition, excitement, orgasm, and resolution (a general relaxed feeling of well-being and muscular relaxation).

a. Premarital sex destroys sexual response in all four categories of the sexual cycle.

b. Premarital sex often hinders sexual energy in the marital relationship resulting in impotence.

c. Sexual compatibility is related to mutual response of both husband and wife in the fulfillment of the four categories of the cycle of sex. This results in mutual pleasure derived from the husband’s love and thoughtfulness in first satisfying his wife. Mutual orgastic experience is often a matter of the husband’s ability to learn his wife’s response system and to control his own response to correspond with her response. This is sex in compatibility and rapport stages of marriage.

d. It is impossible for an alcoholic husband or wife to find mutual satisfaction in sex.

e. Sex was created by God as a binding force in marriage.

f. Illustration: paraphilia.

(1) Paraphilia involves fetichism, transvestism, pedophilia (sexual activity with young children), bestiality, exhibitionism, voyeurism, sexual masochism, and sadism.

(2) Arousal in paraphilia includes: preference for non- human objects; preference for sexual activity with humans which involves real or simulated suffering; sexual activity with nonconsenting partners.

(3) Since paraphiliac imagery is necessary for erotic arousal, it must be included with masturbation, in which the person establishes false rhythm for sexual satisfaction, and may never achieve satisfaction in sex as a result.

(4) Such activity often results in guilt or shame, and even depression which further complicates mutual sexual response in marriage. Sex was designed for the pleasure of two people, not one.

(5) No man is qualified to be a successful lover in marriage who practices voyeurism. Voyeurism means looking at strangers in the act of undressing, and watching strangers engage in sexual activity as a means of sexual arousal. If you add masturbation to this, you have a person who will be a loser in marriage. Do not confuse voyeurism with normal sexual activity in marriage which involves sexual excitement in observing nudity, undressing or sexual activity with your wife or husband.

(6) No wife wants a husband whose sexual arousal is based on being bound, humiliated, or made to suffer. Sexual sadism is the motivation behind rape.

17. Every premarital sexual involvement in some category of fornication destroys the possibility of having the marvelous blessing God designed for you in postmarital sex.

18. Premarital sexual activity often hinders interpersonal marital relationship. Postmarital sexual activity is a learning process; and nothing you picked up in the gutter is going to help you with that learning process.

19. 1 Cor 6:18 says that fornication is sin against your own body. This means there is a physiological factor in sexual arousal as noted by the phrase “one flesh” in Gen 2:24.

a. “One flesh” involves biological rapport as well as mental, soulish, and spiritual rapport. Biological rapport is difficult, and even impossible, if there has been premarital sex. Premarital sex destroys the biological conditioning for one man or one woman in the marital status.

b. Libido is the function of biological sex. But the maximum effectiveness of sex in marriage also depends on the status quo of the soul, the function of the spiritual life, the attainment of spiritual contentment and growth. Premarital sex numbs the normal biological sexual responses.

c. 1 Cor 6:18 implies that premarital sex decreases the source of sexual energy in marriage. This is why sex becomes dull for married persons.

20. Premarital sexual experience establishes the attitude a person will have toward sex for the rest of his life. Because premarital sex is sinful, it implies that the orgastic quality will be less than under the optimum circumstances of marriage. God designed sex in marriage as a reinforcement of the relationship.

21. Premarital sex in adolescence is generally not satisfying, but frustrating, not fulfilling in itself. This frustration results in bad interpersonal peer relationships, and has an effect on future marital relationships.

22. Chronic premarital sex does affect marriage and marital adjustment. Optimum sexual blessing and satisfaction occurs among couples who are virgins at the point of marriage.

23. Eph 5:3 warns us, “But fornication and all licentiousness, or insatiable erotic desire should not even be mentioned among you, as is protocol for the saints.” Why? Because for the single this becomes an arousal factor for premarital sex.

24. Marital compatibility, or marital love, is reinforced by premarital chastity in both sexes. Premarital virtue is favorable to one’s own marriage and adjustment to one’s own spouse in marriage.

25. Principles.

a. There is a correlation between premarital virginity and postmarital happiness, especially for the believer who enters the marriage with personal love inside the integrity envelope.

b. Sexual responsiveness is related to the quality of the marriage.

c. The quality of the marriage is based on the following principles:

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

(2) Perception, metabolization, and application of Bible doctrine under doctrinal conceptualism.

(3) Entrance into marriage in the status quo of premarital chastity.

(4) Recovering from premarital sexual activity through the attainment of spiritual adulthood.

d. Sexual responsiveness in marriage increases or decreases as the quality of the marriage increases or decreases.

e. Marriage quality and responsiveness influences each other. Therefore, they are mutually interdependent.

f. What is brought into the marriage by each partner determines the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual quality of that marriage.

26. The more premarital sex partners one has, the more difficult it is to adjust to one person in marriage.

a. Each premarital sexual relationship tends to be conditioned to the response pattern of other persons, or a composite from lasciviousness.

b. Many premarital sexual encounters produce a variety of responses and rhythms. Therefore, the sexual act results in a specific response pattern for each individual involved. A new premarital sexual encounter does not extinguish the previous pattern of the previous sexual relationship.

c. Therefore, promiscuity eventuates in a sexual conditioning to a composite of all of one’s sexual affairs. The pattern of effective sexual relationship in marriage may be permanently or temporarily damaged, depending upon the spiritual status quo.

27. The spiritual factor in God’s overruling grace policy whereby the believer recovers from the destructive effects of fornication includes rebound and reaching spiritual adulthood. But rebound alone is not the entire healing factor. Until one reaches spiritual self-esteem, there is no true recovery from premarital sex.

28. Unrestrained fornication and promiscuity do not lead to freedom, but to bondage. Premarital control of sexuality is liberating, for it avoids the handicaps brought on by fornication.

a. Undisciplined, obsessive, uncontrolled premarital sexuality hinders effective sexual relationship in marriage.

b. Premarital chastity produces a self-control which makes the husband an effective lover of his wife.

29. The security and environment of virtue-love offers optimum circumstances for developing compatibility and rapport in marriage.

30. The husband and wife who reach marriage in virginity and virtue create a more enduring happiness through their understanding and the utilization of Bible doctrine. This overflows into their sex life, for they have great satisfaction in learning to respond fully and completely to each other.

31. Sex is the equality in marriage. Though the man is the authority in marriage, he becomes a responder in sex. The woman is obedient to the man in marriage, but she can become aggressive in sex. Both are designed for aggressiveness and response in sex. This is how sexual rhythm is created.

32. In romance there is always some possibility of violating the principle of no premarital sex.

a. Premarital sex causes those involved to lean on emotions to the point where they often become irrational. This means loss of standards by which love-compatibility can be attained with a member of the opposite sex.

b. Intimacy in the attraction stage destroys a relationship, for God designed romance and marriage to place compatibility first. “Compatibility first” means to explore how a person thinks, to discover what they really are, what is the dark side, what is the bright side, what are the flaws in a person.

c. Intimacy destroys attraction when it precedes compatibility.

C. The Active and Passive Voice in Romance and Marriage.

1. Definition of the active and passive voice.

a. In the active voice, the subject produces the action of the verb.

b. In the passive voice, the subject receives the action of the verb. The subject is acted upon by someone or something else.

2. There are two categories of active living: active virtue and active arrogance. There are two categories of passive living: passive virtue and passive arrogance.

3. Active virtue means following the divine rules related to life and marriage. There are three divine rules in marriage that are designed to produce virtue in marriage. And virtue is the basis for all happiness in marriage

. a. Husbands love your wives, Eph 5:25.

b. Wives obey your husbands, Col 3:18.

c. Husbands and wives forgive each other as Christ forgave us. Eph 4:32.

4. In active virtue, the believer applies doctrine to his spiritual life, solves his own problems, and overcomes his own failures. Active virtue is:

a. Consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation and application of doctrine. This is learning doctrine, thinking doctrine, and using doctrine to solve problems.

b. Understanding and using the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

c. Execution of the protocol plan and subsequent glorification of God.

d. Active virtue is the function of Christian service in four categories.

(1) Related to your royal priesthood, there is intercessory prayer, giving, and all the functions of spiritual adulthood.

(2) Related to your royal ambassadorship, there is missionary activity, witnessing, Christian administration.

(3) Related to your spiritual gift.

(4) Related to the laws of divine establishment.

e. Active virtue always has an object.

(1) The first object in active virtue is God Himself, which includes personal love for God the Father, occupation with Christ, and understanding the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.

(2) People in general are the object of active virtue. This is the function of impersonal love and forgiveness of others.

(3) Marriage and romance are the objects of active virtue.

f. Active virtue is the function of impersonal love toward all.

(1) 1 Jn 4:10-11, “In this is virtue-love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.”

(2) 1 Cor 13:4-8a, “Love is forbearing and kind; love is not jealous; love does not brag; love is not arrogant; love is not unmannerly, nor selfish, nor irritable, nor mindful of wrongs; love does not rejoice in injustice but joyfully sides with the truth; love can overlook faults; love is full of hope, full of truth, full of endurance; love never fails.”

(3) Mandates for impersonal love can be given without mentioning the word love, as in Eph 4:31-32. “All bitterness, both anger and wrath, both quarreling and slander, must be removed along with all malice. But become kind toward one another and forgive each other, just as God also by means of Christ has forgiven you.”

g. Active Virtue in Scripture.

(1) Eph 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives [impersonal love] just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself as a substitute for her.” Active virtue by husbands is impersonal love.

(2) Col 3:19, “Husbands, love your wives [personal love] and do not be bitter against them.” Active virtue by husbands is personal love.

(3) Eph 5:22, “Wives, be subordinating yourselves to your very own husbands as to the Lord.” Obedience is active virtue in the wife. A woman is incapable of loving where she cannot subordinate herself from her own free will. The Lord must have number one priority in your life.

(4) Col 3:18, “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord.” God did not design a system where the man is to be a bully.

5. Active arrogance is the function of Christian degeneracy. In active arrogance, the subject produces his own problems and sins.

a. Active arrogance includes mental attitude sins, emotional sins and all the sins involved in pulling the pins of the grenade and fragmenting yourself. Moral arrogance causes far more divorces than immoral arrogance.

b. Active arrogance is the believer involved in the cosmic system. Active arrogance is reversing the roles in marriage (the man becomes feminine and the woman masculine).

c. In passive arrogance the subject is acted upon by something or someone else. Passive arrogance includes any form of arrogant subjectivity, guilt, self-pity, unrealistic expectation, role-model arrogance, and succumbing to the temptations of the old sin nature.

d. Illustrations of active and passive arrogance.

(1) The active virtue side is sensitivity and thoughtfulness of others which stems from grace orientation. The active arrogance side is self-gratification to the exclusion of satisfying the spouse in sex.

(2) The passive virtue side is the avoidance of hypersensitivity, self-pity, and guilt. The passive arrogance side is hypersensitivity, self-pity and guilt.

6. In passive virtue, the believer is acted upon by God the Holy Spirit to understand Bible doctrine. The subject is acted upon to function under grace. The subject receives love, respect honor from the execution of the protocol plan of God. The subject responds to Bible teaching with perception and metabolization. Passive virtue is reception of the teaching of Bible doctrine resulting in spiritual momentum. When acted upon by Bible doctrine, active virtue applies this doctrine to the life. Passive virtue is not receiving the grace of God in vain. Passive virtue is to receive divine discipline and to profit from it.

7. In passive arrogance, we are acted on by the old sin nature, by guilt, by others who dislike or hate us, or by a bullying husband or a nagging wife. In passive arrogance, the food gets stuck in your teeth (the teaching of doctrine is of no benefit). In passive arrogance, the man depends on the praise and approbation of others to bolster his ego. When praise and approbation are cut off, the believer in passive arrogance is deflated, discouraged, despondent, depressed. In passive arrogance the subject is acted upon by arrogance, guilt, self-pity, role model arrogance, unrealistic expectation, iconoclastic arrogance, or emotion; we receive the action. The sin nature acts on us resulting in Christian degeneracy, implosion, explosion, and reversion. You react to passive arrogance from others with active arrogance.

8. The timing of active and passive living.

a. No one can live his life totally in the active or totally in the passive sphere. When to be passive and when to be active is a matter grace orientation and the other problem-solving devices. The wisdom of spiritual self-esteem knows when to use active virtue and when to use passive virtue.

b. Grace timing originates from grace orientation. Spiritual adulthood is the status of effective grace timing in the function of active and passive virtue. It takes cognitive self-confidence, cognitive independence, and cognitive invincibility to know when to use active virtue, when to use passive virtue, and how to avoid active and passive arrogance.

c. When it comes to sin we are never helpless; when it comes to grace we are always helpless. We are absolutely helpless in the status of marriage. If we are ever going to have a successful marriage, we must recognize that we are helpless and that God has provided everything to make it work. God has provided all of the answers in active and passive virtue.

d. God has revealed in the Bible how to function in this synchronized system of grace timing. The only timing that is worthwhile is grace timing.

9. Principles for a successful marriage or the results of virtue in marriage.

a. Intimacy does not destroy privacy where you have active and passive virtue. But intimacy does destroy privacy where you have active and passive arrogance.

b. Marriage is not designed for the husband to be a bully or to suppress the woman’s volition, but promotes it and directs it toward the man in response to his love. Anything a man does to destroy or limit the volition of a woman is disastrous. The greater the sphere of the woman’s free will, the greater can be her motivation and capacity to love the man.

c. In active virtue, the man’s volition has two directions in marriage.

(1) Impersonal love for all mankind, which produces capacity for personal love.

(2) Personal love for his wife, which is the function of the husband in marriage.

d. In active virtue, the woman’s volition has two directions in marriage.

(1) Obedience and response to the love of her husband.

(2) Training and teaching children.

e. Love becomes motivation for communication.

f. The Bible must never be left out of marriage.

g. A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short.

h. Virtue never feels threatened by any aberration on the part of a partner in marriage.

i. Marriage is more than finding the right person; it is being the right person.

10. Husbands act on wives and wives act on husbands, resulting in a good or bad marriage. The husband who fails in marriage uses active arrogance in bullying not only his wife but his children and pets. Passive arrogance causes the man to revert to his childhood through pouting and sulking.

11. In romance, the woman often becomes disenchanted and terminates the relationship. Male active virtue understands this and allows the woman her privacy and never bothers her again. But male active arrogance bothers the woman and makes a pest of himself.

12. Whether we succeed or fail depends on whether we function from active virtue or active arrogance. When we act on someone or something else we do so from active virtue or active arrogance.

13. God invented marriage; He is the expert on marriage.

a. Because God is the author of marriage, there should be virtue in marriage. Anything invented by God can only function on the principles of doctrine.

b. God the Father performed the first marriage ceremony. The man and woman were sinless and lived in perfect environment, and they still failed. God made some rules so that marriage could be wonderful, but most people have forgotten or never knew the rules.

c. The woman is more aggressive than the man. In the Garden she aggressively took the forbidden fruit and brought it to the passive man.

14. The weak man in marriage.

a. The weak man acts on someone else. The weak man enters into premarital sex, which destroys his standards and locks him into the attraction stage.

(1) Premarital sex is the guarantee that you will never have a happy relationship in marriage apart from regeneration and spiritual growth. The same is true of the woman. Once she engages in premarital sex with multiple partners, she will never be able to respond successfully to one man.

(2) God designed sex for recreation in marriage, not just procreation. There is no meaning to bringing children into the world unless there is a system of rapport established in sex, in which the woman is completely and totally satisfied in sex. The man must understand everything necessary to satisfy a woman.

b. The weak man enters into active arrogance and pursues the woman until she has no privacy and cannot stand him. Male active arrogance pesters the woman because of wounded arrogance and she reacts and rejects him.

c. The weak man bullies his wife, stifles her volition, and abuses his God-given authority in marriage. Authority is given to the man by God. He also bullies his children and causes abnormal fear and resentment in them.

d. The weak man is unfaithful in attraction and in marriage.

e. The weak man in passive arrogance depends on flattery, praise, and approbation from women. But God ordained marriage so that the woman would look up to the man. When the woman cuts off the flattery, the man in passive arrogance is despondent and deflated.

f. The weak man has no grace orientation in his life. The weak man feels threatened by doctrine, reacts to it.

15. The weak woman in marriage.

a. Because men have a tendency to become hypersensitive in their relationship with a woman, it is generally conceded that women are stronger than men in certain areas of life.

b. There are two categories of women in life.

(1) The weak woman, whose arrogance is both passive and active.

(2) The strong woman, whose virtue from doctrine is expressed in both active and passive virtue.

c. The passive arrogance of the weak woman is her subjective preoccupation with self, her unrealistic expectation, her role model arrogance, her feet of clay syndrome, followed by iconoclastic arrogance, and her evil motivation from her guilt complex. She idolizes a man; then when she sees his feet of clay, she cuts him down. That is passive arrogance motivating active arrogance.

d. The active arrogance of the weak woman is manifest by her intrusion into the privacy of others. She is always trying to change others to conform to her faults or legalistic ideas.

e. The weak woman cannot execute either the protocol plan of God or the divine mandates regarding her husband or the general rules of marriage.

f. The weak woman becomes involved in the pattern of Christian degeneracy. Christian degeneracy destroys marriage.

g. In active arrogance the weak woman is always trying to change others to conform to her false and legalistic ideas and standards.

h. In passive arrogance she never tries to change herself.

(1) Locked-in arrogance sees no reason for self-improvement or changing self in any way.

(2) You cannot change others; you can only change yourself.

(3) Man has a destiny. When he gets married, his destiny must continue. The weak woman will often cut off a man’s destiny because it does not please her.

(4) In marriage the woman must walk around the man, not the man around the woman.

i. In marriage the woman needs a soul lift, not a face lift. The soul lift originates from obedience to the divine mandates.

j. In passive virtue the woman responds to her husband in obedience. In active virtue the woman functions in enforced and genuine humility, and objectivity.

16. Active and passive virtue require two things: consistent filling of the Holy Spirit and consistent perception of doctrine resulting in spiritual momentum. For both husband and wife, God must have number one priority. Therefore, husband and wife must learn doctrine together, or simultaneously. Perception of Bible doctrine is the real togetherness in marriage.

a. There are three crisis points for learning in life.

(1) At physical birth, when we must learn knowledge related to life in general.

(2) At regeneration, when we must learn Bible doctrine related to the protocol plan.

(3) At marriage, when we must learn the rules and principles related to the man/woman relationship, romance and matrimony.

(a) It is important to learn and recognize the three stages of man/woman relationship: attraction, compatibility, and rapport. If compatibility and rapport are not achieved in romance, do not get married.

(b) If compatibility and rapport are not achieved in romance, do not get married.

© The believer is designed by doctrine to solve his own problems, including the problems of romance and marriage.

(d) Since marriage was invented by God, He has revealed in the Bible how it works and how it becomes successful.

(e) Most problems in marriage are symptoms, the disease is failure in the spiritual realm. Deal with the disease and the problems will be solved.

b. Marriage was never designed for outside interference, including counseling.

c. Fellowship with God must precede fellowship with people. If your fellowship with God is a failure, your fellowship with people with be a failure. Fellowship with people includes romance and marriage. Fellowship with God and people is based on spiritual growth and momentum: the perception, metabolization and application of Bible doctrine.

d. To have application without principles of Bible doctrine is the human viewpoint of depending upon psychological counseling and superficial panaceas.

e. General principles related to marriage.

(1) Contradictions cannot and do not exist in the protocol plan of God. Supposed contradictions are eliminated through consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation and through understanding and using the problem-solving devices.

(2) The believer cannot account for his actions in undefinable terms. Therefore, he must resolve marital problems on the basis of doctrinal principles, not on the basis of counseling or someone else’s thinking.

(3) The believer cannot execute the protocol plan of God through sharing, counseling, Christian fellowship, emotions, or ignorance of Bible doctrine.

(4) Cognitive self-confidence in the sphere of Bible doctrine causes the believer to advance from the attraction stage of romance or marriage to the compatibility and rapport stages, where marriage has the best chance of success and survival.

(5) Spiritual self-esteem demands that the believer identify the role and importance of Bible doctrine in his life. Therefore, the believer cannot afford volitional default where Bible doctrine is concerned.

(6) Once the believer attains spiritual adulthood he follows the policy of conceptualism. Spiritual conceptualism involves three factors:

(a) Learning, which is perception and metabolization of doctrine.

(b) Thinking, which is application of doctrine to experience.

© Solving, which is understanding and using the problem-solving devices.

(7) Emotions are not adequate for spiritual conceptualism. Emotions are not tools of cognition, nor the criteria for the protocol plan of God. Thinking is a cause; emotion is an effect. Doctrinal conceptualism eliminates emotion as a criteria for the Christian life.

(8) The privacy of the believer’s royal priesthood is the sphere for doctrinal conceptualism and problem-solving. When the believer depends on others for guidance and counseling, he is weak; he contradicts the protocol plan of God; he subverts his own royal priesthood. God does not test us until we are prepared for it. You are designed to solve your own problems.

(9) You cannot solve the problems of life from morality without virtue. Morality minus virtue is self-righteous arrogance. This is the motivation for nagging. Personal love has no problem-solving capability.

(10) Response to God avoids reaction to mankind. Response to God is the function of two problem-solving devices: personal love for God the Father and occupation with Christ. Reaction to mankind is avoided through impersonal love. Reaction to life in marriage becomes a problem- manufacturing device, divorcement from reality, loss of common sense, loss of wisdom, and movement into panic palace.

D. God’s Grace Policy Related to Marriage.

1. We cannot justify ourselves in spiritual death. In grace God justifies us at the moment of salvation through personal faith in Christ.

2. We cannot justify sin in our lives as Christians. In grace God cleanses us from post-salvation sinning and restores us to fellowship with Himself through the rebound technique of 1 Jn 1:9.

3. We cannot justify blessing from God through our works or Christian experience. In grace God justifies blessing to believers, both winners and losers, through logistical grace.

4. The grace policy of God rules our lives. We cannot go back and rectify our sins and failures; and this includes our failures both in marriage and divorce. But we can go forward under the grace policy of God. And we can execute the protocol plan of God and glorify Him.

5. You cannot change the past, but as long as you are alive you can change the future. The consequences of past sins and failures are in God’s hands, but the future belongs to you under the principle of logistical grace. It isn’t what we do that counts, but what God does that counts.

6. The sins of marriage and divorce are no different than the sins of any other category of living. Therefore, if you discover that you are living in adultery, rebound once, forget it, and keep moving in your current marriage.

E. Taboos in the Selection of a Mate.

1. If you are a believer, do not marry an unbeliever, 1 Cor 9:5; 2 Cor 6:14-15. If you become a believer after having been married to an unbeliever, do not seek a divorce. You have the opportunity to evangelize your spouse.

2. If you are positive to doctrine, do not marry a person who is negative to doctrine or your biblical convictions. Spiritual compatibility is the only hope for resolving many of the problems in marriage.

3. Do not regard marriage as the solution to the problems of life. Marriage is not a problem-solving device, but a problem-manufacturing status. The more problems you carry into marriage, the less chance the marriage has of succeeding. If you cannot solve your problems while alone, you cannot solve them in marriage.

4. Do not marry on a wave of libido, which is tantamount to getting married in the attraction stage. This is especially true in teenage marriages.

5. Do not marry a person involved in substance abuse, which includes alcohol and drugs.

6. Do not marry to escape from an unhappy home life, abusive parents, or an unhappy set of circumstances.

7. Do not marry a status symbol, for security, or because of peer pressure. Status symbols are usually troublesome persons. Do not marry for money, or to improve your economic situation, or for financial security. Do not go in debt to get married. Do not believe that two people can live as cheaply as one person.

8. Do not marry because you love and want children. Children do not improve a marriage, nor do they ever save a marriage.

9. Do not marry a person for his or her beauty or attractiveness alone. Beauty gives little indication of the real character of a person. Beauty blinds the ignorant, the shallow, the superficial, and the nondiscerning person. Beauty can be a disguise for flaws and defects. These need to be recognized before marriage. Beauty fades and is often corrupted by arrogance. Without virtue, beauty is often susceptible to flattery.

10. Do not marry a person unless you are in the compatibility stage of your relationship. The compatibility stage has five characteristics

. a. Spiritual compatibility. If you can’t agree on doctrine, the same pastor, the same local church, you will have trouble. This is the most difficult of all compatibilities to recognize.

b. Mental compatibility. This is discovered through conversation.

c. Physical compatibility. This is determined after marriage, and the discovery is fun. Sex is a learning process.

d. Economic compatibility is agreement on how to handle finances.

e. Recreational compatibility. This is a most important compatibility in the attraction stage.

11. Avoid getting married under peer pressure. It is better to take your time and avoid making a mistake.

12. The Septuagint says in Prov 18:22, “Whoever finds a good wife receives grace from the Lord. But he who divorces a good wife divorces a blessing and takes a woman who is unchaste and stupid.” The Hebrew says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains grace from the Lord.” It appears that the LXX may not be a part of the Word of God, but the principle is certainly true.

14. Do not marry a neurotic person, which is dangerous to the soul and mental compatibility. This type is too unstable, too emotional, too hysterical, too self-centered, and too self-destructive to adjust to marriage. No marriage to a neurotic person ever works out.

15. Do not marry a divorced man except under those circumstances dictated by the Word of God: his former wife has died; he divorced his wife prior to salvation; his former wife has remarried; he is the innocent party of an adultery divorce; his divorce involved the desertion of his former wife.

16. Do not marry any man unless you can submit to his authority in three categories: his spiritual authority; his mental authority; his physical authority. The mental and spiritual are far more important than the physical.

F. The Principle of Responsibility in Marriage.

1. There are three times in life when learning is imperative: at birth, at regeneration, at the point of marriage.

2. Irresponsible people cannot make marriage work.

3. Irresponsibility is exhibited by the following characteristics:

a. Not being answerable or accountable to a higher authority.

b. Not being capable or qualified for responsibility. This is caused by failure of human maturity or failure of spiritual growth.

c. Rejection or ignorance of doctrine—regarding this study, the rules for marriage.

d. Failure to take the responsibility for your own decisions.

e. Ignorance, emotionalism, and lack of common sense all contribute to irresponsibility.

f. But the greatest problem with believers is failure to understand and use the problem-solving devices.

4. Irresponsibility in marriage is related to premarital sex.

a. The importance of premarital responsibility is taught in 1 Cor 7:1, “It is honorable [good] for a man not to touch [premarital sex] a woman.”

b. The purpose of marriage is taught in 1 Cor 7:2, “But because of fornication [premarital sex], let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.” Sex is forbidden before marriage and encouraged after marriage. The success of sex, rapport, and compatibility in marriage depends on the avoidance of premarital sex.

c. Solomon was guilty of sexual sins, Eccl 7:25-29. He seduced many women, and it destroyed his sexual ability. One of the worst things a woman can do is marry a man of many sexual conquests. It is tantamount to sexual abuse of women. You can never abuse a woman and get away with it. Solomon could not find a virtuous woman because he was out of fellowship all the time.

5. Irresponsibility and the desperation syndrome.

a. People in the desperation syndrome display three characteristics:

(1) They demand instant answers.

(2) They want immediate help.

(3) They insist on counseling.

b. This is not the way you learn God’s rules. It takes time.

c. The desperation syndrome has compounded the problems of many people.

d. Impatience for miracles or quick answers can be classified as the aspirin panacea. Impatient, desperate people fail to realize that it took years to become losers. Therefore, you do not instantly become a winner or quickly patch up the problems of Christian degeneracy

. (1) No one can solve your problems for you. You must solve your problems within the framework of your own spiritual life. That means using the privacy of your priesthood to solve your problems.

(2) You cannot instantly solve problems that took years to develop. You cannot learn all the doctrine you need in a few minutes.

(3) Instant and desperate solutions are not solutions at all.

(4) When you have lost control of your life through negative volition to doctrine, there are no instant solutions except rebound and keep moving. It will take time to mend and heal the wounds of Christian degeneracy.

(5) Desperate people want simple solutions. Desperate people are emotional people, and emotional people are irrational. Irrational people cannot understand anything except simple things.

(6) Desperate people want short-term solutions—nothing that cuts into their time.

(7) Desperate people want convenient solutions.

(8) Desperate people never get anything solved.

(9) Desperate people want instant relief from their accumulated problems.

(10) You cannot recover in a day what you lost over a long period of apostasy.

e. Marital problems are symptoms of the disease. You cannot remove the symptoms permanently unless you cure the disease. The disease is fragmentation, reversionism, and Christian degeneracy. You may temporarily separate yourself from the symptoms, but you still have the disease. To cure the disease you must expose yourself consistently to doctrine and learn to think and solve your problems through the use of the problem-solving devices.

f. What causes desperation?

(1) Living in the three categories of Christian degeneracy.

(2) Failure to understand and use the basic problem-solving devices.

(3) Emotional arrogance and emotional revolt of the soul. Emotional arrogance converts reality into illusion and hallucination.

(a) Emotional arrogance includes: the concept that you cannot be saved unless you feel saved, and you are not spiritual unless you feel spiritual.

(b) Emotional revolt of the soul includes: alleged speaking in tongues, fear, worry, anxiety, hatred, anger, guilt, self-pity, and violence.

g. The desperate person is the product of his own bad decisions. However, he refuses to take the responsibility for his decisions and remains in a state of arrogant subjectivity. This means loss of humility, objectivity, authority orientation, and teachability.

h. The desperate person usually wants to justify his decisions and actions. He wants marriage counseling that is quick and easy. He never provides all the facts to the counselor.

i. To recover, the desperate person must start with the fact that he is still alive, and therefore, God has a plan for his life. He must rebound, and then decide on a plan of consistent exposure to Bible doctrine. Since desperation is not the status of application of doctrine, the believer must learn and use the problem-solving devices as quickly as possible.

j. The desperate person always wants sublimation, stimulation, attention, the right to divorce and remarry, and has “restarted” his life many times. There is no such thing as a new start in life. Rebound just gives you the opportunity to recover and learn the rules.

k. Desperate people are not designed to deduce from doctrine the solutions to problems caused by accumulated bad decisions from a position of weakness. The deeper you dig the hole, the longer it takes you to climb out of it. This is why divorced people should wait at least a year before remarrying.

l. Instant solutions are not permanent solutions. You may have separated yourself from the symptoms, but not the disease.

G. The Divine Rules of Marriage.

1. The Responsibility of the Husband.

a. God is perfect; therefore, His works are perfect. Since God invented marriage for imperfect people, He had to make rules for its success.

b. God set forth rules both before and after man sinned. God’s mandate for the first marriage in the Garden: do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, i.e., do not sin. That rule still applies to all marriages. The more you sin after marriage, the more difficulty you have in marriage.

c. When we ignore these rules, marriage is a failure. There is no such thing as a neutral marriage; it either succeeds or fails.

d. There are divine rules today for each spouse in marriage: 1 Cor 7:3, “Let the husband fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband.” Each has a duty to the other.

(1) Marriage is more than finding the right person; it is being the right person.

(2) To be the right person a believer must be cognizant of the divine rules for marriage.

e. The motivation of impersonal love as the integrity envelope for personal love is found in Eph 5:25, “Husbands, love [impersonal love] your wives just as Christ also loved the Church [personal love] and gave Himself on behalf of her [impersonal love].”

(1) The present active imperative of the Greek verb AGAPAO means to love from your virtue, virtue-love. The progressive present is used for an action in progress, present linear aktionsart. This principle is true as long as marriage exists on the earth. Husbands produce the action by impersonal love as the integrity envelope for personal love in marriage.

(a) It is impersonal love that gives strength, honor, integrity, capacity to personal love. Many relationships do not work out right because you have naked personal love with no impersonal love protecting it.

(b) This is the first divine rule of marriage. This rule demands impersonal love for all mankind as a problem-solving device and as the basis for giving virtue to personal love.

© No one succeeds in marriage without impersonal love.

(d) This mandate requires active virtue in marriage rather than active arrogance. Arrogance is the great destroyer of the integrity envelope.

(e) God designed marriage. God is perfect. Therefore, anything He designs is perfect. The design is perfect for imperfect persons. God has provided in His grace and wisdom for our imperfections and failures in marriage. God also warns about the things that cause marriage not to succeed.

(2) Principles of personal and impersonal love.

(a) Impersonal love emphasizes the virtue of the subject; personal love emphasizes the merit or attractiveness of the object.

(b) Impersonal love is unconditional; personal love is very conditional.

© Personal love has no built-in or inherent virtue. Personal love is a system of human attraction which is related to the object of that attraction. Personal love is not virtuous in itself, for any person without virtue can fall in love or have a friend. Personal love emphasizes the object. Personal love is virtue dependent.

(d) Because personal love has no inherent virtue, it often results in vulnerability to the tragic flaws of life related to degeneracy. Personal love produces such things as jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, self-pity, anger, slander, self-justification, revenge, etc. Personal love complicates life by combining the problems of two people, which intensifies the stresses of life.

(e) The weakness of personal love is generally related to the attraction stage. But the object must remain attractive for personal love to be perpetuated. Personal love based on attraction always fades. Lack of reciprocation in personal love frustrates, causing bitterness, disillusion, reaction, and self-justification.

(f) Personal love is conditional; impersonal love is unconditional. Any time you have a conditional situation, you knock out virtue. Personal love depends on the attractiveness of the object; impersonal love depends on the virtue of the subject.

(g) The object of impersonal love can be known or unknown, a friend or enemy, beautiful or ugly, attractive or repulsive, honorable or dishonorable, good or evil. Impersonal love is an integrity envelope which perpetuates its own virtue and honor without reaction, retaliation, prejudice, or discrimination. Impersonal love cannot be destroyed by hatred, antagonism, animosity, or hostility. Impersonal love takes its virtue from life inside the divine dynasphere.

(h) Impersonal love functions on the basis of who and what the subject is, not who and what the object is. Impersonal love disregards malice, hostility and substitutes the virtues of tolerance, courtesy, humility, objectivity. It never depends on flattery, approbation, patronage, or attention.

(i) Impersonal love solves the problems of relationship with self, before solving the problems of relationship with others. Impersonal love begins to function best when the person is in spiritual self-esteem.

(j) Being unconditional, impersonal love is the virtue of the subject overcoming the problems related to the object. Impersonal love is that virtue whereby the integrity of the subject exceeds the unattractiveness and repulsiveness of the object.

(k) Impersonal love is the only category of human love for others which possesses virtue and problem-solving capabilities in human relationships.

(l) The contrast between personal and impersonal love.

i. Impersonal love is manufactured from that wisdom known as metabolized doctrine. Personal love is manufactured from human viewpoint in the mentality of the soul: emotion, lust, vanity, or the pattern of Christian degeneracy (such as jealousy).

ii. Impersonal love is a virtue from God; personal love is the arrogance of mankind or the expression of self-consciousness.

iii. Impersonal love is directed toward the entire human race; personal love is directed toward a few.

iv. Impersonal love is sustained by metabolized doctrine in the soul; personal love is sustained by the attractiveness of the object, or entering into a mutual admiration society with the object.

v. Impersonal love is a relaxed mental attitude toward mankind; personal love is often a very intense and possessive attitude toward a few.

vi. Impersonal love is free from arrogance and functions on genuine humility; personal love is hamstrung by arrogance.

vii. Relationship with self is stabilized and poised through impersonal love, while relationship with self is disconcerted and upset by the traumatic experience of personal love.

viii. Impersonal love is the mandate of the protocol plan of God; personal love is optional toward people. Impersonal love is the imperative of the Christian way of life; personal love is the option of life.

ix. Impersonal love is motivated by love for God; therefore, it is nondiscriminating. Personal love is motivated by attraction; therefore, it is very discriminating and prejudiced.

x. Impersonal love is a problem-solving device; personal love manufactures problems, except where impersonal love exists.

xi. Impersonal love is one of the imperatives of the Word of God; personal love carries warnings from the Word of God.

xii. Impersonal love is consistent when faced with animosity and antagonism on the one hand, and love and admiration on the other. Personal love is vulnerable to Christian degeneracy through arrogance and emotionalism. Therefore, personal love must depend on the integrity envelope of impersonal love to overcome vulnerability and individual tragic flaws.

xiii. Spiritual self-esteem is the beginning of effectiveness in the function of impersonal love as a problem-solving device.

f. One of the great problems in marriage is the believer’s failure to distinguish between divine policy for marriage and the individual’s personal standards.

(1) The divine policy for marriage is threefold:

(a) The husband must love the wife.

(b) The wife must obey the husband.

© Each are to forgive as Christ forgave.

(2) The difference between leadership and management is the distinction between the concept of policy for an organization and your own personal standards. Marriage demands the function of policy by the husband, but he does not superimpose his personal standards on his wife. You apply your personal standards only to yourself, and enforce policy on those under your control. Leadership enforces principle and policy; management superimposes personal standards on others.

(3) Husbands fail because they are bureaucrats, bullies, arrogant managers. They seek to impose their personal standards on their wives. This is not the policy of marriage. Leadership motivates authority orientation. Bureaucracy motivates revolt.

(4) As the spiritual leader, the husband executes the divine commands given in Eph 5:25 and Col 3:19. By fulfilling these mandates the husband becomes the leader in marriage.

(5) You cannot change others, you can only change yourself. The policy of marriage is impersonal love, not your personal standards. The husband has no right to superimpose his personal standards on his wife, only the divine policies of the Word of God.

(6) In spiritual growth the believer changes his personal standards to comply to protocol from the privacy of his own priesthood. In apostasy the believer abandons his standards.

(a) The standards of spiritual childhood are not the same as the standards of spiritual adulthood.

You do not bully others to live up to your standards. As you grow spiritually your standards will change.

(b) Variation in standards reflects your spiritual status quo or lack of it. But you don’t give up things to grow up spiritually. You use the divine problem-solving devices to change your own standards.

© Problem solving demands that the believer understand and use grace mechanics to change his own life and standards. And he cannot superimpose those standards on another person. Your personal standards reflect your upbringing, your background, and you don’t superimpose your background on others.

(7) The policy of the protocol plan of God belongs to all believers, but your personal standards belong to you. Only the teaching of doctrine can change someone’s standards. This is why counseling is not valid. To superimpose your personal standards on others is polarized legalism. Only Bible doctrine has the power to change the standards that have come from our upbringing and background.

(8) In the local church, the pastor is the leader who is responsible for communicating divine policy. He does this by teaching the Word of God on a consistent basis.

(9) In marriage it is essential that each partner maintain the privacy of the other partner by not broadcasting your problems to others.

(10) You cannot change your spouse, you can only change yourself. The only changes that count are the changes made from within your own soul through the influence of Bible doctrine. This is why changes from outside pressure are not valid, e.g., counseling, pressure from your spouse, or support of friends. You cannot execute the Christian way of life from the thinking of someone else. You cannot solve your problems from your own soul as long as you are getting outside help.

(11) Your standards reflect your relationship to the Lord. Your standards do not belong to the other Christians in your periphery. They are under the authority of divine standards, not your personal standards. You are responsible to comply with the standards of Christian organizations when you enter those organizations. This includes such things as observing taboos, the dress code, etc.

(12) In the same way the wife enters into the organization of marriage and must comply with its standards. Both the husband and wife must have impersonal love which they use as an integrity envelope. The husband uses his impersonal love to fulfill the command to love his wife. The wife uses her impersonal love to fulfill the command to obey her husband. Without impersonal love the husband takes advantage of the wife. And if the wife has no impersonal love, she has no way of responding to the man.

(13) The reason for these two divine rules that form the policy for marriage is that:

(a) The husband is the leader, therefore he initiates love for the enforcement of divine policy. Impersonal love keeps him from bullying the woman by superimposing his own personal standards rather than the divine policy for marriage.

(b) The wife is a follower, and therefore obeys her husbands enforcement of divine policy without surrendering her privacy or personal standards. Impersonal love provides the wife with humility and authority orientation, so that she can comply with divine rules while maintaining her own personal standards.

(14) Policy belongs to a group; personal standards belong to the individual. Believers with many different standards assemble for Bible teaching under the policy of the local church. Your personal standards are subordinate as long as you are under the policy of the group.

(15) God designed rules for marriage to make it possible for marriage to be a source of virtue. Marriage is designed for virtue, and virtue is designed for happiness. God’s rules provide the virtue.

(16) Personal standards that might become an issue in marriage should be resolved, if possible, before marriage. And after marriage without going outside the home.

g. There are three principles which introduce the analogy of Eph 5:25. “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the Church.”

(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.

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

(a) Scripture.

(i) 2 Cor 5:14: “For the love for Christ keeps on motivating us. In fact, we have reached the conclusion that One died for all mankind.” 2 Cor 5:19: “God, by means of Christ, was reconciling the world to Himself by not imputing their sins to them.”

(ii) 1 Tim 2:6: “Who gave Himself a ransom, as a substitute for all mankind.” 1 Tim 4:10: “Because we have confidence in the living God, who is the savior of all men, and especially to believers.”

(iii) Tit 2:11: “For the grace of God, which brings salvation to all mankind, has appeared.” Heb 2:9: “We see Jesus, that by means of the grace of God He should taste death for everyone.”

(iv) 1 Jn 2:2: “And He is a propitiation for our sins, but not for ours only, but also for the entire world.”

(b) In order to be judged for the sins of the world and yet stay on the cross, Jesus had to have some kind of love. It could not be personal love because we did not yet have God’s righteousness. And God cannot love us personally unless we have His righteousness. So in order to go the cross our Lord had to have impersonal love.

h. The precedent for impersonal love as the integrity envelope for personal love is found in Christ’s attitude toward the Church. All precedent for the Church Age is taken from the dispensation of the Hypostatic Union. “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the Church.”

(1) The aorist active indicative of the Greek verb AGAPAO is a reference to our Lord’s personal love for the Church. The dramatic aorist tense states our Lord’s personal love for the Church, the present reality, with the certitude of a past event, our Lord’s impersonal love for all mankind. God the Father demonstrated His impersonal love for us in eternity past by not imputing our sins to us, but waiting and imputing them to Christ. This is also a culminative aorist, which views our Lord’s impersonal love for all mankind in its entirety, but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, our Lord’s personal love for the Church. THis is also a gnomic aorist for a doctrine generally accepted as a fact, which may be regarded as so fixed in certainty that it is described by the aorist as though it were an actual occurrence.

(2) In the dispensation of the Hypostatic Union God the Son demonstrated His impersonal love by bearing our sins and being judged for them as our substitute. In the dispensation of the Church our Lord demonstrates His personal love for the entire royal family under three conditions.

(a) Our Lord’s personal love for the Church is encapsulated in the integrity envelope of impersonal love. Our Lord can now personally love the Church because He first had impersonal love on the cross for all mankind.

(b) The imputation of divine righteousness at salvation means that divine personal love now has a legitimate object: the imputed righteousness of God.

© The baptism of the Spirit at salvation means that every believer is in union with Christ. We are graced out in the Beloved. God loves us because we possess the righteousness of Christ which we share through union with Christ.

(3) Impersonal love as the integrity envelope for personal love must exist in the man before marriage.

i. To understand this precedent we must understand God’s love.

(1) Divine love is the pattern for all virtue-love as a problem-solving device.

(2) Divine love is part of the essence of God, a divine attribute. It belongs equally to each person of the Trinity. They have coequal and coeternal love.

(3) Divine love is compatible with all the other attributes of God. God is eternal, His love exists eternally. It is not sustained by anything else. God is sovereign; therefore, His love is self-motivating. God has never made a decision that is not compatible with His love. God is holy; therefore, God’s love is compatible with His righteousness and justice.

(4) We are not perfect because we have an old sin nature. That means that God cannot love us personally. But God has perfect self- esteem, therefore, He comes up with another kind of love: virtue-love, impersonal love, unconditional love. And like God’s impersonal love for us, husbands are to have the same impersonal love for their wives.

(5) God is immutable; therefore, His divine love is unchangeable. His love cannot be corrupted; it does not increase or decrease. God’s love cannot be bribed by human works. Since God is love, always has been love, and always will be love, God never falls in love. Since God’s love does not increase or decrease, it is not affected by our sins. God loves us because we have His perfect righteousness, not because we do not sin.

(6) God is omniscient, therefore, always acts rationally in the function of His love. Even though God knows everything about you, it does not change His love for you.

(7) God is veracity and truth; therefore, divine love is rooted in every doctrine and every form of knowledge that resides in His absolute being.

(8) God is infinite, which means He is without boundary or limitation. He unites in Himself those perfections which belong to His character. This means that the love of God cannot tempt or solicit to sin; God cannot sponsor evil or human good; God cannot be complicated by ignorance and absurdities. God’s love is infinite.

(9) Principles of God’s love.

(a) God’s love is never frustrated or disappointed.

(b) God’s love exists with or without an object.

© God’s love is not sustained by attraction, rapport, or any category of human merit or worthiness.

(d) Neither self-righteousness, human good, nor morality are the basis for God’s extending His love to mankind. God does not love us because of our Christian service.

(e) Since God’s love is both perfect virtue and a problem-solving device, it cannot be divorced from either His holiness (integrity) or any divine attribute.

(f) Since God is holy, He is perfect in both His righteousness and justice, and therefore, cannot be anything less than perfect or fair. When we have impersonal love, we are fair and deal with everything from objectivity.

(g) Because God is virtuous His love is totally devoid of sin, human good, evil or altruism. Furthermore, God’s love is free from hypocrisy, flattery, or any patronizing influence of mankind.

(h) There are three categories of God’s love:

(i) God’s impersonal love for all mankind. Divine impersonal love is mentioned in 1 Jn 4:9-10, “By this, the love of God was manifest in our case, because God has sent his unique Son into the world, in order that through Him we might live. By this, divine love exists, not because we have loved God, but because He loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.”

(ii) God’s personal love for perfect righteousness in others, mentioned in Eph 1:5, 2:4; 1 Jn 4:19: “We love because He loved us first.”

(iii) God’s love for His own integrity (divine self-esteem).

(i) Fellowship with the Holy Spirit is the means of loving God the Father. Rom 5:5, “And hope does not disappoint us because love for God has been poured out in our right lobes by means of the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” We could not love God the Father were it not for the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit. Since God is invisible, He can only be loved through learning Bible doctrine and subsequent spiritual growth.

(j) As we develop personal love for God, impersonal love is developed in our lives. And impersonal love is the key to solving problems in marriage. j. The precedent for impersonal love is found in the last phrase of Eph 5:25, “and gave Himself for her.” This refers to Christ’s impersonal love when He went to the cross. It is impersonal love that is the problem-solving device for marriage, along with personal love for God the Father and occupation with Christ. (1) The aorist active indicative of PARADIDOMI means to give in the sense of delivering yourself over in a sacrificial way. The culminative aorist contemplates the substitutionary spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the cross in its entirety, but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, i.e., redemption, reconciliation, propitiation, unlimited atonement, imputation, justification, etc. The substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross was motivated by impersonal love and resulted in personal love for the Church. As a dramatic aorist the verb describes what happened on the cross, a past event, the effect of which is felt in the present, a present reality of our Lord’s personal love for the Church. As a gnomic aorist the verb refers to a universal doctrine stated in the aorist tense dogmatically.

(2) This is a reference to our Lord’s impersonal love for all. Husbands should have impersonal love for all mankind in order to make it in marriage because personal love will not carry the marriage. Personal love has no staying power in marriage, friendship, or romance. It must have impersonal love to give it backbone, strength, and endurance.

(3) When our Lord was on the cross receiving the judgment for our sins, He operated strictly from impersonal love. On the cross He had the motivation of impersonal love.

(4) The accusative singular direct object from the reflexive pronoun HEAUTOU, translated “Himself,” emphasizes the sovereignty of Jesus Christ as God and the free will of Jesus Christ as true humanity. Both the sovereignty of Christ and volition of our Lord’s humanity represent the integrity envelope of impersonal love. When the action expressed by the verb is referred back to its own subject, the construction is called reflexive. This reflexive is very important because it indicates what the responsibility of the husband is. Just as Christ’s integrity kept Him on the cross, so impersonal love toward all mankind undergirds marriage.

(5) The Greek preposition HUPER plus the genitive singular of advantage from the intensive pronoun AUTOS is translated “for her.” HUPER plus the genitive of advantage is always substitutionary. The genitive of advantage indicates the persons on behalf of whom something is done. So it should be translated “instead of her, on behalf of her, as a substitute for her.”

k. Personal love in marriage has no staying power, no consistency, and no permanence without impersonal love for all mankind. Eph 5:25 is a mandate for impersonal love.

l. So in the analogy, our Lord Jesus Christ, during His substitutionary spiritual death on the cross, had two categories of love. He had personal love for the Church, not yet in existence. He had impersonal love for all mankind born in the status of real spiritual death.

m. Our Lord’s impersonal love on the cross became the function of our Lord’s personal love for the Church. Our Lord’s personal love for the Church emphasizes the object as having God’s perfect righteousness imputed at salvation. Our Lord’s impersonal love for the Church emphasizes the presalvation status of the royal family in real spiritual death, totally unattractive and unacceptable to God. In impersonal love, all virtue always lies in the subject; the object has no attractiveness at all.

n. Therefore, the emphasis of our Lord’s impersonal love is on Himself as the subject. He was judged for our sins; He took our place; He received the imputation of our sins. We were totally and completely undeserving then as we are now.

o. The analogy between husbands loving their wives in marriage and our Lord’s salvation work on the cross emphasizes the fact that two categories of love must exist in marriage, and you can’t have one without the other. That is the integrity envelope.

p. Our Lord changed from impersonal love to personal love because we responded to His impersonal love by faith in Him. Personal love must be linked to impersonal love not only in marriage, but even with God.

q. Without impersonal love for all mankind, there would be no salvation. Without impersonal love for all mankind, there would be no success in marriage or any human relationship that demands virtue.

r. Our Lord’s personal love for the Church emphasizes how impersonal love found a way to make personal love operational. This is exactly what happens in the marital relationship.

s. No believer can have a successful marriage unless he has the right priorities in life. Right priorities demand that God be given first place in your life. God cannot have first place in your life unless you make Bible doctrine your number one priority. No man can have a successful marriage without impersonal love for his wife.

t. No believer can have a successful marriage unless he has a successful relationship with God. If your relationship with God is a failure, your marriage will be a failure.

u. Knowledge of doctrine must precede the application of doctrine. And this above all includes marriage. Relationship with people depends on the attainment of impersonal love through doctrinal conceptualism: learning, thinking, and solving problems using doctrine.

v. Summary.

(1) Out of impersonal love for all mankind comes our Lord’s personal love for the Church as the Body of Christ.

(2) The Church did not even exist when Christ went to the cross and died for the sins of the world.

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

(4) The man must have impersonal love before he even knows that his right woman exists.

(5) To enter marriage without impersonal love as a problem- solving device means malfunction, failure of personal love and everything else in marriage.

(6) Without impersonal love in marriage, personal love has no staying power, no problem-solving capabilities.

(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 possessing divine righteousness. Rom 3:22.

w. Husbands should avoid bitterness. Col 3:19, “Husbands, love your wives, and stop being bitter against them.”

(1) The Greek word ANER, meaning “nobleman,” is used here for the husband because, the husband must represent the concept of honor, integrity and nobility.

(2) The verb AGAPAO is used for virtue-love, integrity- love, honor-love, that is, impersonal love in contrast to personal love.

(a) The durative present tense is for a state of being which began in the past and continues into the present. This is present linear aktionsart. The integrity envelope of impersonal love should always exist. This could also be classified as a tendential present, indicating an action purposed, or mandated, but not occurring.

(b) Husbands produce the action by impersonal love for all mankind and personal love for the wife inside the integrity envelope of impersonal love. If you do not develop impersonal love, you will become abusive as a husband.

© This is a command for all male married believers.

(d) God invented marriage; God makes the rules for marriage. All of the rules come from His justice, and in the case of Christians from His personal love. God is fair; therefore, the rules are fair. God is love; therefore, He is interested in your welfare, and the rules are for your welfare.

(e) No man can enter into marriage without integrity and a sense of responsibility. The motivation that the husband must have to execute this command is His relationship with God. Therefore, the husband should enter marriage with two problem-solving devices: personal love for God the Father and occupation with Christ.

Ÿ TheGreek verb PIKRAINO plus the negative adverb means to stop being bitter. Bitterness is a sign of arrogance. See the Doctrine of Bitterness.

(1) Bitter people cannot succeed in the plan of God.

(a) Bitterness that continues is a tragic flaw in the character. There are all kinds of bitterness. God has never given us the right to be bitter about anything.

(b) You cannot be bitter without malfunction in your spiritual life. No self-fragmented believer can have a successful marriage. Bitterness is locked-in arrogance.

© To the extent that you are bitter about anything in life, to that extent you will fail in life. When people are bitter they often slander, malign, and criticize.

(d) The answer to bitterness is forgiveness.

(2) No one who is bitter should ever get married while in a state of bitterness. Bitterness is an enemy to marriage. If you are bitter, do not get married until it is gone. No matter how great the romance, bitterness will destroy it.

(3) Relationship with God precedes relationship with people. No one can have a successful relationship in marriage unless they have a successful relationship with God.

(4) Problems in marriage are not caused by money, sex, or unfaithfulness. The problem in marriage is lack of virtue: lack of personal love for God the Father, occupation with Christ, and impersonal love toward others.

(5) Bitterness is arrogant self-centeredness combined with arrogant self-justification. Bitterness becomes an arrogant habit that keeps you out of fellowship the rest of your life.

y. Personal love outside of the integrity envelop is bitter, arrogant, and self-centered. This is why men become abusive and marriages fail.

z. Eph 4:31 says, “All bitterness, both anger and wrath, both quarreling and slander, must be removed from you, along with all malice.”

aa. Personal love inside the integrity envelop avoids bitterness and fulfills Eph 4:32, which is the third divine rule in marriage. “Rather become kind one toward another, compassionate, forgiving each other just as God by means of Christ has forgiven you.” Virtue-love is also described in 1 Cor 13:4-8. Love can overlook faults, is full of trust, hope, and endurance.

(1) The problem is that personal love is not a virtue in itself. It only has virtue while inside the integrity envelop of impersonal love.

(2) Any idiot minus virtue can fall in love. Therefore, human personal love is no solution of any kind.

(3) Personal love is dependent on virtue for its success and perpetuation, whether in friendship, romance, or marriage.

(4) All biblical mandates related to human interaction are divine commands for the function of impersonal love toward all mankind.

(5) Impersonal love inserts virtue and stability into all categories of human love and human interaction.

(6) Personal love minus virtue will not hold a marriage together.

(7) Personal love in romance includes many things which are transient and temporary and have no stability, e.g., physical attraction, lust, desire, security, temporary rapport, temporary admiration, the desire for self-improvement, boredom and a change of scenery, social acceptance, social advance, legitimate sex, or a desire for companionship.

(8) But whatever the motives that lead to marriage, personal love can neither sustain nor perpetuate that marriage unless accompanied by consistent function of impersonal love toward all mankind. This problem-solving device can belong to an unbeliever through his recognition of the authority of the laws of divine establishment. It can belong to a believer through his understanding of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

(9) God has found a way to provide the ability to fulfill His mandates. Virtue-love is the ability, and is provided by understanding of Bible doctrine.

(a) Divine power and human power are mutually exclusive.

(b) Only the function of divine power and enablement can cause the execution of both the protocol plan of God and the divine mandates in marriage. We are helpless, and God has provided for our helplessness.

© Human ability and human power cannot fulfill the principle of Christ’s loving the Church and giving Himself for her. That is too high a standard to be fulfilled by energy of the flesh.

(d) Human ability and human power cannot fulfill the principle of obedience to husbands in the protocol plan.

(e) Because of the genetic transmission of the old sin nature and resultant personal sins in the human race, personal love does not have the power or ability to fulfill the divine mandates regarding love in friendship, romance, or marriage.

(f) While permanence is not required in friendship or romance, God has designed the divine institution of marriage to be permanent.

(g) Therefore, virtue-love as a problem-solving device is focused on marriage as the only solution to marital problems. Personal love for God the Father is the motivation. Impersonal love for all mankind provides the staying power in marriage. If you have impersonal love for all mankind, you can manage to put up with your spouse when obnoxious. Occupation with Christ provides the priority solution to the problems of marriage.

(10) In marriage, impersonal love for all mankind actually provides both the capacity and the power for a husband to love his wife as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it, and visa versa.

(11) Impersonal love for all mankind inserts virtue into personal love in marriage, and provides the consistency, staying power, and permanence in the relationship.

(12) Therefore, marriages don’t need the band-aides of marital counseling; they need the radical surgery of the daily perception and metabolization of Bible doctrine.

(a) Arrogance and lack of doctrine are causing marriages to break up everywhere today. If you are a loser as a Christian, you are a loser in marriage. The problem is not marriage; the problem is that you’re a loser because you have rejected divine principles.

(b) Christian couples who fail to expose themselves to the teaching of Bible doctrine cannot resolve their marital problems. The secret to success in marriage is the life beyond gnosis, i.e., making doctrine epignosis.

© Just as people have to grow up and mature in life, so people have to grow up and mature in marriage. When you marry, you’re a baby again. You must grow up in marriage, just as you grew up in life.

(d) For the Christian, this is impossible apart from metabolized doctrine in the right lobe of the soul, and the proper application of the problem-solving devices which inevitably results.

(e) Some people never mature as human beings; many believers never mature as Christians. This explains why marriages fail, why believers are losers. They fail to execute the protocol plan of God through perception, metabolization, and application of Bible doctrine.

(13) Therefore, personal love in human relationships is a major issue, for it determines what kind of a person you are.

(14) Personal love minus virtue will not hold a marriage together. Personal love minus virtue inserts false motivation, hypocrisy and all the human gimmicks into marriage.

bb. The destroyer of marriage: arrogance.

(1) While most people cite unfaithfulness, arguments over money, or general personality incompatibility for their failure in marriage, they are merely describing symptoms and have not diagnosed the real disease, which is arrogance.

(2) Arrogance is actually the greatest destroyer of marriage, not the “other man” or “other woman.” Arrogance includes jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, anger, impatience, hatred, revenge motivation, revenge modus operandi, self-pity, guilt syndrome, and hypersensitivity. These are just a few of the arrogant symptoms that destroy a marriage.

(3) So if you come to hate your mate, then you have lost a far greater battle than your marriage; you have become a loser in the protocol plan of God.

(4) Again, the principle is that people are no better in marriage than they are as people. It’s true that people can improve and change, but that requires that they make Bible doctrine the #1 priority in their life and advance spiritually.

(5) This means that the solution to marital problems is found in the life beyond gnosis, in the execution of the protocol plan of God.

(6) Divorce is never a solution; divorce is always an escape.

(7) An arrogant person in marriage is an arrogant person out of marriage; nothing has changed. This demonstrates that arrogance is a far greater factor than anything else in the life, and that self- centeredness is the major problem.

(8) Only cognition and utilization of the problem-solving devices can change the person and solve problems in marriage.

cc. Other reasons why Christian marriages fail.

(1) Marriages fail because Christians marry the wrong person, usually in the attraction stage.

(2) Marriages fail because Christians enter marriage with false illusions and become disillusioned and frustrated.

(3) Marriages fail because Christians become involved in the three stages of degeneracy: implode, explode, revert.

dd. Why marriages in general fail.

(1) Premarital sex destroys marriages. Eccl 7:25-29, “I turned around my right lobe to understand, to investigate, and to search out wisdom, including the scheme of things [man’s relationship with woman], and to understand the stupidity of evil and the madness of foolishness. And I discovered more bitter than death the woman whose right lobe is a snare and full of nets, and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner will be captured by her. `Behold, I have discovered this,’ says the man with the message, `adding one thing to another and discovering the scheme of things, while I was still searching and not finding. I have found one virtuous man among a thousand, but I did not find one virtuous woman among them all. Behold, I have found only this, that God made people virtuous, but they sought out many sexual diversions.’”

(a) Man was designed to have sex with one woman. God made man virtuous in this respect, but man departs from this.

(b) Premarital sex destroys marriage, and the virtue needed for marriage and romance. Premarital sex erodes virtue, which solves the problems of romance and marriage.

© Instead of looking for your right woman in premarital sex, be sure you are the right man. Premarital sex guarantees that you are not the right man.

(d) Solomon never found any virtuous men or women because he never got out of the attraction stage. A strong libido has no conscience.

(2) Marriages fail because of many misconceptions in life.

(a) The misconception that marriage means happiness. Happiness in marriage depends on virtue-love.

(b) That marriage is a solution to the problems of life.

© That marriage is a panacea to life.

(d) That children will save a marriage.

(3) Marriages fail because people are no better in marriage than they are in single status. Marriages fail because believers are failures as human beings. The believer who fragments his life has no chance in marriage. Self-fragmentation is the first enemy of marriage. Both moral and immoral degeneracy destroy marriage. Self-righteous arrogance destroys marriage as quickly as immorality.

(4) Marriages fail because the husband or wife try to change the other person.

(a) Only the problem-solving devices can convert the loser into a winner in the divine institution of marriage. The principles of marriage are the same in every dispensation because marriage is a divine institution.

(b) In problems affecting marriage you can only change yourself, you cannot change your spouse. You can only change yourself by mastering and using the problem-solving devices. You cannot bully your spouse into a course of action you want them to follow.

© Marriages are destroyed by people who don’t know how to solve problems. Losers do not know how to solve problems.

(5) Marriages are not destroyed by unfaithfulness, money, relatives, incompatibility, disillusion, or children. These are effects. The underlying cause is anger, hatred, revenge, implacability, gossip, slander, self-righteousness, licentiousness, and other areas of self- fragmentation. The most difficult person in the world to live with is a person in moral degeneracy.

(6) Marriages fail because believers get married for the wrong reasons.

(a) For a meal ticket.

(b) Escape from an unpleasant home environment.

© For legalized sex.

(d) For unrealistic expectation or role model arrogance.

(e) For an overdeveloped sex drive.

(f) For peer pressure.

(7) Marriages fail because believers make bad decisions from a position of weakness.

(8) Marriages fail because believers do not obey the command of 1 Cor 7:3, “Let the husband fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband.”

(a) “Duty” means virtue, and virtue is the road to happiness.

(b) There are a lot of duties connected with marriage. God invented marriage and the duties that go with marriage. It is easier to get married than to learn the rules of marriage.

(9) Marriages fail because of the arrogance of unhappiness.

(a) The arrogance of unhappiness seeks to control others in one’s environment. It does so in two ways.

(i) Making them feel guilty for alleged neglect. Hence, it motivates attention through guilt.

(ii) It motivates attention through the arousal of pity. Self-pity tries to get others to feel sorry for you as well. This is the evangelism of self-pity.

(b) The arrogance of unhappiness seeks to dominate, to control, to enslave in marriage.

© The illusions of the arrogance of unhappiness are:

(i) You cannot build your happiness on pleasant environment or the details of life, such as money, success, power, pleasure, sex, approbation, social life, friends, health, or marriage.

(ii) You cannot build your happiness on crusader arrogance, Christian activism, civil disobedience, violence, revolution.

(iii) You cannot build your happiness on someone else’s unhappiness, i.e., by hurting others.

(iv) You cannot build your happiness on a moment of time, a moment of pleasure, a moment of power, a moment of success, a moment of stimulation.

(v) You cannot build your happiness on self- gratification, drug abuse, beauty, sex, attractiveness.

(10) Summary principles.

(a) Marriage cannot make you happy, only Bible doctrine can.

(b) Sex cannot make you happy, only Bible doctrine can do that.

© Prosperity and power cannot make you happy, only Bible doctrine can do that.

(d) Money cannot make you happy, only Bible doctrine can.

(e) Health cannot make you happy, only Bible doctrine can.

(f) People cannot make you happy, only Bible doctrine can.

(g) A friendly church cannot make you happy, only Bible doctrine can.

ee. The true nature of marriage.

(1) One of the greatest misconceptions is that marriage is a panacea. Actually, marriage is a problem-manufacturing device.

(2) People are no better in marriage than they are as people.

(3) People who are losers in life are losers in marriage.

(4) People who are winners in the protocol plan of God have all the potential for being winners in marriage. The potential is related to the use of the problem-solving devices.

(5) Losers are not people who fail, but people who do nothing about their failures, such as using problem-solving device #1, rebound and keep moving. To keep moving means the consistent perception, metabolization, and application of Bible doctrine resulting in the attainment of spiritual adulthood, and the maximum use of the problem- solving devices of the protocol plan of God. You can’t do anything about your failures unless you understand the problem-solving devices of the Christian way of life.

(6) Only the plan of God can change a loser into a winner. Only God can do this, not a nagging wife or a griping frustrated husband. God does not do this through miracles, but through your daily intake of doctrine.

(7) Furthermore, in marriage, you can only change yourself; you cannot change your spouse.

ff. The solution to marital problems.

(1) There is no solution to the problems of marriage apart from the use of impersonal love for all mankind combined with personal love for your spouse.

(2) So the solution to marital problems and the secret to a successful marriage is life beyond gnosis (Eph 3:19).

(3) Just as people have to grow up and mature in life, so marriage is almost like a birth. You have to start over and learn a lot of things. You have to be able to grow up with a minimal amount of antagonisms developing.

(4) People have to grow up and mature in marriage, just as they have to grow up and mature in life, and just as believers have to grow up and mature in the spiritual life.

(5) So there are three times in life when you must grow up.

(a) When you are born.

(b) When you are born again.

© When you are married.

(6) Each of these requires its own system of growing up. People often fail as Christians because they did not grow up as a human being, or they did not grow up in marriage, and the marriage became a hindrance to their Christian life.

(7) Each category of growing up has its own rules of progress which must be followed.

(8) The greatest people in life are those who grow up in all three categories (if all three are pertinent).

(9) If you grow up spiritually, you will make it in the other two areas. If you fail to grow up spiritually, you will flunk in the other two areas.

(10) The married couple who does not metabolize doctrine has no basis for resolving the problems of marriage.

gg. Marriage counseling.

(1) Counseling is a waste of time. All it does is provide individual attention, stimulate arrogance, and give an excuse to drop someone you cannot stand.

(a) Marital counseling is rarely a solution to marital problems.

(b) Instead of solving the problem from doctrine, you are depending on the wisdom and judgment of someone else who may be tricky or clever, but doesn’t necessarily have good judgment and definitely doesn’t have divine viewpoint.

(2) You cannot build your marriage walking on crutches, depending on the counseling of someone else. Since counseling is dependence on someone else to solve your problems, it becomes tantamount to walking on crutches.

(3) It never occurs to people that counseling solutions cannot be permanent, because those involved are failures as people, not as spouses. Yet the counselor is dealing with you as a failure as a spouse when the real issue is that you are a failure as a person.

(4) Being a failure as a spouse is a symptom. The real problem is the fact that the person is a loser. So counseling is only band-aid therapy given to a person who is badly wounded.

(5) Most people approach marital problems from the viewpoint of subjectivity. They are only interested in justifying self.

(6) Solutions to all the problems in life, including marital problems, must come from inside the individual rather than from outside persons, like counselors. It must come from epignosis doctrine you possess in your right lobe. It must come from learning and using the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God.

(7) The universal priesthood of the believer demands that each believer solve his own problems from his own inventory of Bible doctrine. The believer must learn and use the mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

(8) If you are married and problems develop, do not make hasty or impulsive decisions to get a divorce until you’ve learned to utilize the problem-solving devices. And if you want to divorce because you’ve fallen in love with someone else, you need the problem-solving devices twice as much!

(9) Two wrongs do not make a right. This is how losers are manufactured; they try to correct one wrong with another wrong.

(a) But in the protocol plan of God, a wrong thing done in a wrong way is wrong. A right thing done in a wrong way is wrong. A wrong thing done in a right way is wrong. A right thing must be done in a right way to be right; this is the preciseness of the protocol plan of God.

(b) In other words, you don’t solve your marital problems by divorce.

(10) An extremely misleading epigram says “the trouble with problems is solutions.” This is true only when the believer is trying to apply human and useless solutions to the problems of life.

(a) The epigram might be amended to say that the trouble with problems is wrong solutions, which are really no solutions at all. Furthermore, a wrong solution violates the principle of the protocol plan of God, which says that a wrong thing done in a wrong way is wrong.

(b) Actually, the trouble with problems is no solutions. No solutions include desperate, frantic dependence on others for answers instead of on epignosis doctrine in your own soul.

(11) The basic solution to marital problems is impersonal love for all mankind inserted into the inevitable conflicts which are created by marriage.

2. Divine Rule Number Two for Marriage: The Responsibility of the Wife.

a. Col 3:18, “Wives, render obedience to your husbands, as it is protocol [fitting] in the Lord.”

(1) The present middle imperative of the verb HUPOTASSO means to submit or to render obedience. The progressive present is for action in a state of persistance. This could also be a tendential present for an action proposed but not occurring. The dynamic middle voice describes the wife acting in relationship to herself. She acts for herself and with reference to herself. This is the imperative of command.

(2) Whether it is a good or bad marriage, there must be the principle of authority. The husband has the duty to take responsibility for policy. The wife has the responsibility of recognizing the husband’s authority.

(a) The Bible teaches that the husband is the authority in marriage. 1 Cor 11:9, “For indeed, man was not created for the woman’s sake, but the woman was created for the man’s sake.” It is a man’s world, and this is a great benefit to the woman.

(b) For the wife to render obedience or subordinate herself to the man, she has to be motivated by both impersonal love and personal love.

© God is fair and just in providing this mandate for women. Because of the uniqueness of the woman, she is honored, respected, and loved.

(d) Before a woman marries a man, she must be able to answer one critical question, “Will I submit to the authority of this man for the rest of my life?” The woman cannot answer this question in the attraction stage of romance. Other important questions include:

i. Does he demonstrate impersonal love toward all?

ii. Is he manly, and yet still gentle?

iii. Is he thoughtful, courteous?

iv. What is his attitude in general and toward people in general?

(e) If you say “yes” to the wrong man who is an emotional child, who is arrogant, or jealous, your life and marriage will be intolerable slavery.

(3) The perfect active indicative of the verb ANEKO means to refer, to relate. This is the impersonal use which means as it is proper, as it is fitting, or as it is protocol. The intensive perfect emphasizes the present state of being, the continuing results, the fact that a thing is in the protocol plan of God. The virtuous woman producing the action of the verb recognizing and submitting to the authority of her husband.

(4) God has a plan for your life. The name of that plan is called protocol. The policy for the plan is called grace. The precedence for the plan is what happened in the dispensation of the Hypostatic Union. Jn 1:14, 16-17. “Because from His fullness all of us have received grace in exchange for grace.” When we were saved by grace we exchanged salvation grace for “more grace” (James 4:6).

(a) The dispensation of the Hypostatic Union was a grace dispensation.

(b) Believers have exchanged salvation grace for postsalvation grace.

i. Eph 3:2 calls the Church Age “the dispensation of grace, which was given to you for your very own benefit.”

ii. Jn 1:17, “...grace and truth came through the Lord Jesus Christ.”

iii. Acts 4:33, “...and the abundant grace was on all of them.”

iv. Acts 20:32, “And now I commend you to God and to the doctrine of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all of those who are sanctified.”

v. Rom 12:3, “I say through the grace which has been given to me to everyone who is among you, stop thinking of self in terms of arrogance, beyond what you ought to think, but think in terms of sanity for the purpose of being rational without illusion as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from doctrine.”

vi. Rom 12:6, “...according to the grace given to us...”

vii. 1 Cor 16:23, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you.”

viii. 2 Cor 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.”

ix. Phil 1:7, “You are partakers of grace with me.”

(5) God’s plan for our life is perfect. But since we are imperfect, we do not have the power or ability to execute a perfect plan from God. A perfect plan can only be executed by a perfect power. Therefore, we must have the omnipotence of God combined with the grace policy of God to fulfill God’s plan, will, and purpose.

(a) The omnipotence of God the Father provided in eternity past our very own portfolio of invisible assets and our very own palace, the divine dynasphere, so that we can execute His plan.

(b) The omnipotence of God the Son guarantees the preservation of the universe and the continuation of human history on planet earth so that the divine plan will be completed.

© The omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit is available inside the divine dynasphere for the purpose of executing the plan.

(6) Protocol is a rigid, long established code and procedure, proscribing complete deference to superior rank and authority, followed by strict adherence to due order and precedence, coupled with precisely correct procedure.

(a) The protocol plan of God is a system of precisely correct procedure, which takes time to learn. It is designed for every Church Age believer.

(b) Romance, marriage, and divorce each have precisely correct procedure.

© God has only one way of doing a thing: the right way. A right thing done in a right way is the execution of the protocol plan of God. Wives obeying their husbands is a right thing done in a right way.

(d) Rank and authority is always delegated by God in His plan. In marriage He delegates the authority to the husband. Freedom without authority is anarchy. Authority without freedom is tyranny. Both states occur in marriage. Anarchy exists when the wife rejects the authority of her husband.

(7) To fulfill this command the wife must have a strong impersonal love. This mandate requires enforced and genuine humility, objectivity and teachability for execution. The wife’s active virtue is humility and authority orientation in marriage.

(a) The active arrogance of both husband and wife destroys the precisely correct procedure of the protocol plan.

(b) The wife’s active virtue is her humility; her passive virtue is obedience to her husband.

(8) The wife obeys the husband “as to the Lord” - occupation with Christ, but also because it is part of the protocol plan of God - “as is protocol in the Lord.”

b. Eph 5:22, “Wives, render obedience to your very own husbands, as unto the Lord.”

(1) Ellipsis demands the insertion of the present middle imperative participle from the verb HUPOTASSO from verse twenty-one, meaning to render obedience, to obey, or to submit. The progressive present tense is for an action in a state of persistance. It is also a tendential present for an action which is contemplated but not actually taking place. The dynamic middle voice is used to describe the wife as participating in the results of the action of the verb or acting in relation to herself. The participle is used as an imperative.

(2) The feminine motivation in marriage is given in the last phrase of the verse “as unto to Lord.” Occupation with Christ is the most important problem-solving device used by the woman to fulfill this command. The wife rendering obedience to her husband for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. No marriage can succeed without the use of all of the problem-solving devices. The wife obeys her husband because Bible doctrine is her number one priority.

(3) The execution of this mandate requires enforced and genuine humility, objectivity, and teachability. This also requires a love response by the woman toward God the Father and toward her husband. The wife can have no personal love toward her husband unless he has impersonal love toward others and personal love toward her.

(4) If the wife never has impersonal love toward others, she will never be able to obey this command.

(5) Warnings for both spouses.

(a) Marriage cannot make you happy. Virtue and the attainment of +H bring happiness to marriage.

(b) Sex cannot make you happy; only the attainment of +H.

© Prosperity, power, money, health, people, a friendly church cannot make you happy—only the attainment of +H through tenacity in learning the mystery doctrine of the Church Age.

(6) Marriage is a source of unhappiness because marriage has been distorted into a series of myths which do not come true, thereby causing resentment by those who believed the myths. The myths are that:

(a) Marriage is a panacea for life.

(b) Marriage is the ultimate in happiness.

© Marriage is a problem-solving device.

c. 1 Pet 3:1-6, “In a similar manner, you wives, keep on subordinating yourselves [rendering obedience] to your own husbands, so that if any of them are disobedient to the Word, they may be won over without a word [nagging] through the behavior of their wives, when they observe your blameless manner of life associated with their respect. And your beauty should not come from external appearance only - hair styling, jewelry, and clothing; but the hidden person of the right lobe [must be emphasized] with the imperishable [incorruptible] quality of a humble and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. For this is the way the holy women of the past, who put their confidence in God, used to make themselves beautiful, because they were submissive to their own husbands. Like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham, and called him her lord, and you have become her daughters, if you do the good of intrinsic value and do not fear any intimidation.”

(1) Beauty is found first in the woman in her overt behavior and appearance. Beauty is found secondly in the soul.

(2) A man’s respect for a woman is extremely important. A woman’s influence is far greater through respect than through personal love, because personal love can be outside of the integrity envelop of impersonal love.

(3) Nagging never advances the wife’s cause, but her manner of life does. It is much easier for her to nag and feel she is succeeding. Every time she nags, it is self-justification, bitterness, and arrogance on her part. If the woman does succeed, she has made the man weak and a wimp.

(a) You cannot make an issue out of your husband’s sins, flaws, or failures. This issue must be what God has done for you. That is the behavior factor.

(b) No woman can be a nag and have inner beauty. After a while she gives up on trying to change her husband but continues nagging because she is locked into bitterness and self-justification.

© There are two kinds of nags: loud-mouthed, and soft-spoken (like the incessant dripping of a faucet).

(d) Nagging should be a warning to a woman that she is in the arrogance complex. The accuracy of the nagging makes no difference; it is still wrong.

(4) The spiritual issue is inner beauty, not outward appearance, but you are not to neglect how you look nor assume a slovenly appearance makes you spiritual. Good grooming plus inner beauty is irresistible to the husband.

(5) Characteristics of the woman’s inner beauty.

(a) Self-consciousness becomes spiritual self-esteem and occupation with the person of Christ rather than whining and complaining.

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

© The woman makes decisions regarding her husband on the basis of the divine rule for marriage rather than from human viewpoint. Therefore she obeys him, even though he may be a jerk.

(d) The woman with inner beauty dresses with taste, but always gives number one priority to application of doctrine and consistent use of the problem-solving devices.

(6) The woman’s inner beauty is designed by God to execute not only the protocol plan of God but the marriage plan, and fulfill her responsibility to her husband.

(7) The humble and quiet spirit. The quiet spirit is the woman whose failures have nothing to do with arrogance. The quiet spirit is freedom from jealousy, bitterness, implacability, hatred, revenge function, gossip, slander, nagging, etc.

(8) It takes tremendous virtue-love, impersonal love, and more grace orientation to fulfill the role of the woman in marriage.

(9) The virtue of inner beauty keeps the woman from holding back her soul while giving her body to her husband. This is part of the obedience factor. A woman can have sex and be very antagonistic at the same time. The man who possesses the woman’s body without her soul has a total of nothing. Rather, he has a serious problem on his hands. Sarah gave Abraham both her body and her soul in marriage.

(10) The things that form inner beauty are the same things whereby you handle the problem of loneliness and you learn how to entertain yourself. A woman who can entertain herself and handle being alone has inner beauty.

(11) Personal love for God the Father is the wife’s motivation for obedience to her husband. Impersonal love is her function of obedience to her husband. Occupation with Christ must be the victory of her obedience to her husband.

d. Respect is more important than love and is also mandated of the woman.

(1) No woman should ever marry a man she cannot respect. Respect is far more important than love in marriage. Most women have very poor judgment about men because they do not have principle on which to base decisions. No woman should ever marry because of libido, personality, etc., but because of spiritual self-esteem in the man.

(2) For the wife to obey her husband or to subordinate himself to her spouse, she must be motivated by three categories of virtue extrapolated from doctrinal inculcation.

(a) Personal love for God the Father, which is motivational virtue.

(b) Impersonal love for all mankind, which the integrity envelope. Personal love or self-esteem outside of the integrity envelope of impersonal love is a monster as well as arrogance.

© Respect for what she sees in spiritual self-esteem in the man.

(3) When the woman respects what she sees in spiritual self-esteem and what comes from personal love inside the integrity envelope, she responds. This is the only way the marriage will be a success.

(4) The wife’s attitude toward her husband is described in Eph 5:33 as respect. It is only from respect that the woman is motivated to respond. Respect is the basis for the wife’s obedience of her husband.

(5) Where there is respect in the wife, there is leadership in the husband. The most basic thing in a husband is spiritual self- esteem. Spiritual self-esteem is the husband’s foundation for leadership. Leadership is ineffective unless there is respect.

(6) If the man does not gain the respect of the woman through Bible doctrine, virtue, and spiritual self-esteem, the marriage will never work. Before a woman marries a man, she should determine whether or not she respects him and answer the question, “Can I accept the authority of this man?” A woman cannot answer this question and objectively know whether or not she respects a man until she moves out of the attraction stage and into the compatibility stage. (7) The key to the marriage is more often than not the respect of the woman for the man. The average husband does not have spiritual self-esteem, therefore, the woman has no respect.

(8) Authority orientation is based on respect; love is secondary. If the woman says yes to a noble or virtuous man, she will be able to render obedience from respect parlayed into love. Personal love is volatile and unstable. But if the woman marries the wrong man, the marriage will be intolerable slavery.

(9) There is no way an arrogant woman will ever respond to the authority of her husband, nor respect his virtue. She must have respect from virtue.

(10) There are three motivations for the wife’s submission to her husband: respect for her husband; occupation with Christ; and because it is a part of the protocol plan of God.

3. The Third Divine Rule for Marriage: Forgive as Christ Forgave.

a. Introduction.

(1) God designed marriage for the human race. Therefore God designed the rules to make marriage successful. It is the will of God that marriage as a divine institution be very successful; especially between two believers.

(2) Marriages fail because human beings have sin natures, and human volition succumbs to the pressures and temptations of that old sin nature. Hence, as we have seen, God has designed three rules for marriage to make it successful.

(a) Rule number one is the responsibility of the husband in marriage to love his wife.

(b) Rule number two is the responsibility of the wife to obey her husband.

© Rule number three is the responsibility of both.

(3) Marriage is not a panacea. It is not designed for happiness. Marriage is designed for virtue, and virtue is designed for happiness.

(4) People are no better in marriage than they are as people. A loser in life is a loser in marriage; and a winner in life is a winner in marriage.

b. Eph 4:31-32, “All bitterness, both anger [emotional sin] and wrath [mental attitude sin], both clamor [verbal quarreling] and slander must be removed from you along with all malice. But become kind toward one another, compassionate, and forgive each other, just as God also by means of Christ has forgiven us.”

(1) Bitterness as a part of the arrogance complex is a cause of malfunction in marriage. See the Doctrine of Bitterness.

(2) This is an appeal to the volition of a fragmented believer to use problem-solving devices and grace assets to recover from the fragmented life of cosmic involvement.

(3) All malice must also be removed from you. In this verse the expression of malice is evil. Malice is both the desire and the motivation of the fragmented believer in inflicting misery, suffering, and injury on someone else.

(4) The beneficiaries of grace should become the greatest in the exercise of grace. The application of grace to others is intensified by being a major beneficiary of grace. To benefit from grace is to practice God’s plan of grace.

(5) Capacity for impersonal love for all mankind is compassion.

(6) Forgiveness of others is a sign of the nobility of the Christian way of life.

4. Divine Rules on Divorce and Remarriage. See the Doctrine of Divorce.

H. Successful versus Unsuccessful Marriage.

1. You can have either -H (temporal happiness) or +H (God’s perfect happiness) whether in a single or marital status. Minus H makes you discontent with your lot. If you are single, you wish you were married; when you are married, you wish you were single. But if you have +H, it doesn’t make any difference whether you are single or married. With +H and impersonal love in marriage, you can resolve all marital problems.

2. The four divine institutions are for believer and unbeliever alike. They are the structure of society, the basis for the perpetuation of human life, and the basis for order in society by which each person can fulfill his own destiny while others fulfill theirs. Neither divine institution #1, volition, nor divine institution #2, marriage, sustained and carried Adam and the woman in perfect environment.

3. Marriage is one of the two divine institutions which existed before the fall when mankind was in a state of perfection on the earth. But the marriage of Adam and the woman was a failure, as noted by their original sin. As the first couple left the garden, God gave each one a mandate: “Husband, work! Wife, bear children!” But God didn’t tell them, “Go forth and be happy.” Throughout the Scripture, there are no mandates to be happy in marriage, because marriage is not a state of happiness per se.

4. A happy marriage is when two happy people enter into a state of matrimony and in that state retain their happiness. The only happy people who can do this are those who have perfect happiness or neutral happiness.

5. An unhappy marriage is when two unhappy people get married and retain their unhappiness. Or it is when a happy person and an unhappy person get married, and the unhappy person dominates and controls the marriage so that the happy person loses his happiness.

6. A marriage can be successful when two unhappy people, believers or unbelievers, get married and through the protocol plan of God or the laws of divine establishment, attain happiness and live together in a state of contentment.

7. But with regard to believers, it is impossible for them to have a happy marriage apart from spiritual growth and execution of the protocol plan of God. In other words, happiness in marriage is execution of the protocol plan of God. The actual marriage has nothing to do with it; it is a spiritual factor.

8. The best potential for a great marriage belongs to believers who are positive toward doctrine! If the carnal believer tries to have a good marriage through establishment, his carnality and arrogance cancel out the establishment principles. Therefore, the believer’s only hope is to grow in grace through the perception of Bible doctrine. So a successful marriage is possible for any two believers who are both positive toward Bible doctrine.

9. An unsuccessful Christian marriage is when a happy person and an unhappy person get married, and the unhappy person causes the happy person to revert to the cosmic system.

10. A failing Christian marriage is when the happy person married to an unhappy person changes his priorities in life so that he loses his premarital happiness.

11. Marriage will not make you happy. If you are involved in the arrogance of the cosmic system, marriage will intensify and increase your misery. If you run away from that marriage, you will lose the chance to resolve that problem. Once you run away from marriage, you run away from life and are never the same again.

I. The Principle of Celibacy, 1 Cor 7:6-40.

1. 1 Cor 7:6-8, “But this I keep teaching by way of concession, not by command. Yet I wish that all persons were even as I myself. However, each person has his own gift from God, one in this manner, and another in that. But I say to the unmarried, to the widows, that it is good for them to remain even as I [celibacy].”

a. Paul does not contend that celibacy or single status is holier than marriage. This is why Paul uses the phrase “by way of concession.”

b. The phrase “by way of concession” indicates that there are certain principles for those in single status. This also indicates that celibacy is definitely not for all believers. “By way of concession” indicates that there is no mandate in the Word of God that says that all believers should be single.

c. Neither celibacy or single status is spirituality. But both circumstances demand spirituality and momentum under the protocol plan of God.

d. Phil 4:11-12 mandates the principle of being content in whatever your circumstances.

e. Verse 8 is the status quo principle. There are four circumstances in which the law of status quo applies to a single person.

(1) The possession of the spiritual gift of celibacy, 1 Cor 7:7.

(2) The operation of the law of supreme sacrifice, 1 Cor 9:5.

(3) The older widows, 1 Tim 5: 9-10.

(4) The eunuch category, Mt 19:10-12. Not everyone can accept celibacy. But certain people can, such as the examples given in verse 12.

f. It is God’s will that some people remain single. The divine mandate to remain single carries with it certain blessings that are exclusive to that status quo. God is fair, and those mandated to remain in single status have certain blessings and happiness which are not available to married persons.

(1) Paul is not seeking a wife; and he is not bitter toward other believers who are married. He does not succumb to peer pressure.

(2) Therefore, Paul was able to devote all his time to studying and teaching. The single believer has more time, energy, and opportunity to grow in grace and serve the Lord.

(3) 1 Cor 7:32-35 teaches that marriage is a distraction to spiritual life; therefore, certain things in life have to be done in a state of celibacy.

(a) 1 Cor 7:33 teaches that Bible doctrine is automatically reduced to a secondary status in most marriages.

(b) 1 Cor 7:34 says that the wife and Bible doctrine inevitably come into conflict.

© 1 Cor 7:35 says that no pastor can put a restraint on anyone in this area of life.

2. It is God’s will that some believers execute the protocol plan of God and both serve and honor the Lord in single status. It is also God’s will that some believers do this in marital status. One is not better than the other. Marital status is just more complicated in concentrating on the teaching of the Word of God.

3. To change from single to marital status is a solemn decision, and should never occur apart from careful deliberation in the status of spiritual adulthood.

4. Time is limited in marital status for the fulfillment of the protocol plan of God. Time is consumed by the time it takes to make a success of marriage, to train and educate children, to provide for the family. The single person has more time for the perception and application of doctrine. Therefore, it takes great organization, wisdom, and planning to manage your time.

5. Summary.

(1) If you are a believer in single status, remain single until a change is definitely and clearly the will of God for your life.

(2) Do not go out and seek a wife. God always brings the woman to the man.

(3) Do not panic because of peer pressure. It is much better to be single than to be married to the wrong person.

(4) Marriage is a state of terrible suffering if you are married to the wrong person.

(5) It is easier to remain single than to get out of a bad marriage.

(6) To get out of a bad marriage requires one of three things.

(a) Your spouse dies, and that terminates the marriage.

(b) Your spouse is guilty of desertion or adultery.

© Legitimate reasons for divorce where the Bible is silent, but a life-threatening situation or bodily-injury situation exists.

(7) Take your time about changing your status from single to married or from married to single.

J. The Problem of Single “Virgins,” 1 Cor 7:25-40.

1. Verse 27 teaches the importance of objectivity coupled with virtue in dealing with the subject of marriage. “Are you shackled to a wife?” means things are not quite right; there is some form of slavery in marriage. “Do not seek to be divorced.” Don’t try to get out of the marriage. Don’t be a child and whine that all your friends are divorcing. “Are you divorced from a wife? Do not seek a wife.”

2. One of the greatest problems people have after they are legitimately divorced and can remarry is worrying about remarriage. If you get divorced, one of the worst things you can do is seek remarriage. (It will probably fall in your lap anyway.) If you can’t stand to be alone, you are a loser.

3. People are no better in marriage than they are as people.

a. Unhappy people have an unhappy marriage. Marriage is not designed for happiness, but for winners.

b. Because winners have virtue, and marriage is designed for virtue, winners can have happy marriages. Losers never find happiness anywhere, especially not in marriage.

c. Remember, losers are not people who fail (everyone fails), but people who never do anything about their failures.

d. You can do something about being a loser. The solution is virtue first; i.e., residence, function, and momentum inside the divine dynasphere.

4. While asceticism is wrong in forbidding marriage, the state of matrimony is a disaster without virtue from the divine dynasphere, as verse 28 teaches.

a. Marriage is not a state of sin. Marriage is a divine institution, and is therefore one of the most important factors in the stability of a society. It is the index as to whether the client nation is going up or down.

b. “Virgin” at the time of writing meant an unmarried woman. Verse 28b says “But such ones [who get married] will have trouble in this life.”

c. No matter how wonderful your spouse is, married people have troubles that single people never have.

d. Loneliness is the easiest problem in the world to solve. The problems in marriage do not lend themselves to a simple solution.

e. The amalgamation of two people under one roof in marriage is a divine institution, but it does have its trouble.

f. “And I am trying to spare you” refers to those who think marriage is a sin, i.e., to the ascetics. Paul is trying to spare you from the shock of your marital problems in case you enter marriage thinking it is a panacea.

5. Without the system of God’s plan, and without virtue-love in the divine dynasphere, marriage is nothing but trouble, misery, and unhappiness.

6. 1 Cor 7:39-40 says that if the husband dies, the wife is free to remarry, but she will be happier if she remains single.

____________________

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

© 1990 by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.