Spir Dynamics 1396-1410, 11/24/98; 1379ff; 623-660, 779-782

DOCTRINE OF MARRIAGE (Part 6)

Q. The Analogies of Christ and the Church.

1. There are seven analogies in the New Testament with regard to Christ and the Church. 2. The Analogy of the Head and the Body.

a. This analogy takes up the vocabulary of marriage as in Ephesians chapter five, “Husbands love your wives as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself as a substitute for her.” The mystery doctrine language never occurred in the Old Testament.

b. Col 1:18, “He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything.”

c. The head and the body is used for mystery doctrine. It is also used for the Christian institution of marriage, Eph 5:23, 29-30.

d. 1 Cor 6 15, “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!”

e. 1 Cor 12:12, “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.”

3. The Analogy to the Bride of Christ.

a. There were three stages to marriage in the ancient world.

(1) The Contract Stage. The Bible calls this betrothal. It was not a period of engagement. The woman was already considered to legally be the wife of the man. The parents of the couple negotiated for the woman’s dowry. The couple were considered to be legally married once this contract was signed, though the marriage had not yet been consummated. This was a part of Codex Three of the Mosaic Law, Dt 38:30; 2 Sam 3:14. Anyone guilty of seducing a betrothed virgin was stoned to death for violating his neighbor’s wife, Dt 22:23f. The bride was considered the sacred property of the groom even though the marriage had not yet been consummated. Today betrothal or engagement has a different meaning.

(a) This explains the dilemma of Joseph, when he learned that Mary, his betrothed, was pregnant, Mt 1:18-25, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a virtuous man, and not wanting to disgrace her, desired to divorce her secretly. But while he was thinking about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, `Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to yourself Mary your legal wife; for that which has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. And she will give birth to a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.’ Now all this had occurred that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, `Behold, the virgin shall become pregnant, and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,’ which is translated, `God with us.’ And when Joseph got up from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took to himself his wife [the wedding ceremony in the home of the bride], and he did not consummate the marriage with sex until after she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.” Mary and Joseph were one of the greatest couples in the divine institution of marriage.

(b) The Christian institution of marriage in contrast to the divine institution of marriage is found in 2 Cor 11:2, “For I [Paul] am jealous of you with a jealousy from God; for I betrothed you to one husband, that I might cause you to be presented to Christ as a pure virgin.” Your resurrection body is analogous to the pure virgin. The contract point in the analogy is the day you believed in Christ. Once the contract is signed, you are totally dependent on what the husband has provided for that marriage.

(2) The Wedding Ceremony. The groom and his friends went to the home of the bride. The home of the bride in the analogy is planet earth. The groom stood before the bride in her parents home and he said, “You are my wife. I am your husband from this day and forever.” Then the parents gave their daughter to the groom. The presentation of the bride to the Lord Jesus Christ occurs at the Rapture of the Church. Then the groom and his friends escorted the wife to the home of the groom for the wedding feast, Mt 22:2. The bride’s maids assembled outside of the home of the groom and waited for them (the parable of the wise and foolish virgins was based on this custom). John the Baptist is identified as one of the groomsmen, Jn 3:29. The groomsmen are the Old Testament believers. The purification of the bride is the fact that the groom married her as a virgin. In Eph 5:25, we have the preparation of the bride, including positional sanctification. In Eph 5:26, we have the corporate testimony of the bride in experiential sanctification. In Eph 5:27, we have the wedding of Christ and the Church, ultimate sanctification.

(3) The Wedding Feast. The wedding feast begins at the second Advent of Christ and lasts for one thousand years. The wedding list includes: the groom is the Lord Jesus Christ, the bride is all Church Age believers, the groomsmen or friends of the groom include Old Testament believers and Tribulational martyrs, the bride’s maids are the Tribulational believers who are alive at the second Advent of Christ. The Groom is the Lord Jesus Christ. The home of the Groom is the perfect environment of the earth during the millennium. There will be 1000 years of wedding celebration in the home of the Groom. The wedding occurs at the Rapture. Preparation for the wedding feast occurs during the Tribulation.

b. Eph 5:27, “that He [the groom] might cause her [the Church] to be presented to Himself as a glorious church [the Church at the Rapture], having no stain [ultimate sanctification] or wrinkle [no human good or evil] or any such category of these; but that she shall be holy and unblemished.”

c. Rev 19:7, “Let us rejoice and celebrate and give the glory to Him, because the marriage supper of the Lamb has come and the bride has prepared herself.”

d. 2 Cor 10:17-11:2, “But he who keeps on boasting, let him glory in the Lord. For not he who commends himself for achievement is approved, but whom the Lord commends for achievement. O that you would endure a little foolishness from me; and not only this but also patiently endure me. For I am devoted to you with a devotion from God; for I have betrothed you to one husband, that I might cause you to be presented as a pure virgin to Christ.”

(1) Betrothal to Christ occurs at the moment of salvation. The resurrection of the Church is the wedding ceremony. During the Tribulation, every believer will be presented to the Groom. The wedding feast lasts for one thousand years during the millennial reign of Christ.

(2) Paul uses apanadiplosis—the repetition of an important word for emphasis and powerful effect. It is not considered rhetorical, but a vulgar (common) use of language by the fifth century B.C. Greek orators. By so doing, he hit the Corinthians right between the eyes with their own arrogance. Paul begins in verse 17 with the doubling of the Greek word KAKAOMI, which means to boast and to glory in something. Then Paul continues in verse 18 with the verb SUNISTEMI, which means to commend oneself for achievement, but has two different subjects. Paul uses harsh paralepsis, which is a rhetorical device in which the speaker pretends to pass over something quickly which he in fact deliberately mentions and the listener finds offensive.

(a) The protocol plan of God for the Church is never a system of self-promotion.

(b) Self-promotion is a system of arrogance that conflicts with the grace of God, Jam 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5.

(3) Paul deliberately insulted his audience very rapidly and then apologizes with sarcasm. Paul made his point in his apology. He knows his readers are going to be mad because of what he has just wrote. So he knows he must now soften up. In 2 Cor 11:1-2, Paul continues with epidiorthosis and prodiorthosis. The fact that Paul takes the reproach upon himself is epidiorthosis. Epidiorthosis means to correct a previous impression or excusing an unpleasant statement by taking the reproach on yourself. Prodiorthosis is an anticipatory correction. It is used to soften his tone. Paul now moves to the softer tone of conciliation. This is Paul’s genuine statement of love for the Corinthians. Now Paul uses the doubling of the Greek word ANECHO, which means to endure with a willingness to listen or to patiently endure someone. Paul takes the blame to himself to hold their attention until he can get to the major subject. The polite form of ANECHO is the imperfect tense. The harsh form is the present tense. Paul uses the voluntative imperfect, which expresses a wish in a very soft tone, polite and unoffensive. Finally in verse 2, he uses the doubling of the verb ZELOO and cognate noun ZELOS, which has two meanings, being jealous of someone or being devoted to someone. Devotion is profound dedication toward someone, faithfulness, strong love motivation. Paul is not talking about jealousy here. He is expressing his love for his congregation by making whatever sacrifices are necessary to teach them doctrine. He teaches by analogy the importance of the spiritual life of the Church Age and relates it to the Christian institution of marriage. How can you be the way you are, when you are in the greatest marriage that ever existed?

(4) The corporate testimony of Christian marriage dramatizes not only the significance of the spiritual life of the Church Age, but at the same time the invisible hero impact on the prehistoric angelic conflict. Paul is the spiritual father of the Corinthian believers. Paul evangelized the Corinthians and this is the devotion of the spiritual father. As their spiritual father, Paul prepared the legal wife, the Corinthian believers, for the wedding ceremony through the teaching of mystery doctrine.

(5) Condemnation and exhortation are a painful part of doctrinal teaching. But if a pastor loves his congregation, he must fulfill the teaching of the whole realm of doctrine, no matter who is hurt. The pastor must be honest. The pastor must prepare people for doctrine. Condemnation and exhortation often result in the arrogant and subjective reaction of antagonism and rejection. That is a good thing, because it means they are getting the message. The pastor is never responsible for winning a popularity contest. Censor and disapproval in Bible teaching is necessary; for the believer must understand the problem before he can use the solution. Unless the believer is aware of failure and carnality in his own life, he seeks no solution.

(6) Betrothal to Christ is analogous to salvation. Paul betrothed the Corinthians by evangelizing them and by giving them all the information they needed to live the spiritual life. The whole concept of Christian marriage becomes the perfect illustration for the baptism of the Spirit. You are in Christ and can never get out of being in union with Christ, 1 Cor 12:12-13; Gal 3:26-28. We have all been placed into union with Christ and we have all been betrothed to one Husband. This is the analogy. Presentation to Christ as the husband is analogous to the rapture of the Christ. Apostles and pastors are responsible for presenting believers as winners (pure virgins) at the resurrection. The second Advent is the beginning of the wedding feast.

(7) In 2 Cor 11:2, Paul did not extend the metaphor to include the wedding feast. This is because the wedding feast, which is related to the eschatology of the second Advent and the fulfillment of the four unconditional covenants to Israel, is not a part of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age and the apostle’s present objective in the context. So for the sake of continuity, Paul moves on to the basis for the corporate testimony of Christian marriage.

e. 2 Cor 11:3, “But I am concerned that just as the serpent completely deceived Eve by his cunning misrepresentation and skill of deceitfulness that perhaps your thinking may be corrupted from the noble simplicity [characteristic of the souls of heroes] and virtue, which is with reference to Christ.”

(1) In this verse, we have the contrast between the Christian marriage metaphor in the previous verse and the failure of the perfect marriage in the garden of Eden. No one will ever have as good a marriage as Adam and the woman. How do you ruin a perfect marriage in perfect environment? You destroy a perfect marriage by having a volition with no virtue and values. Even a perfect marriage must have capacity to appreciate that marriage, and the capacity comes from virtue and values.

(a) The man and the woman had a certain thought pattern, which we would call lust. But we cannot call it lust because lust did not exist until after the original sin. They also had all of the appearances of arrogance, but you cannot call it arrogance as a sin because they were perfect. Even if they had arrogance, they did not know it.

(b) God created them without a conscience. They did not know anything about right and wrong, good and evil, because they were perfect. They did not have to know the difference between good and evil because they were perfect. As long as they remained perfect, the knowledge of good and evil was totally irrelevant. Therefore, it was very difficult for them to destroy the perfect marriage.

© Perfect environment is not the solution to anything in life. Happiness is not perfect environment. Fulfillment of the lust pattern of the sin nature does not make us happy. The sin nature has a lust system, whereby one thinks that his environment would be improved if he just had this or that. Without virtue and values, there is no happiness in life. Virtue and values is the secret to happiness in life. Everything you see in life apart from virtue and values will never make you happy. The most miserable people in the world are people who are failing in their marriage. Happiness is not a person, success, money, pleasure, but is virtue and values produced by the four spiritual mechanics of the protocol plan of God for the Church.

(d) In the garden of Eden, there was no sin nature. You cannot have a perfect marriage if you have a sin nature. By execution of the spiritual life, you have the opportunity to have a better marriage than existed in the garden of Eden.

(2) God created man perfect with everything they needed, Gen 1:27, “And God created the man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female, He created them.” The man and the woman were designed to be different, but both of them have one thing in common. They were created to provide a testimony against Satan and the fallen angels. Extrapolated from the essence of God are certain characteristics which were entered into the soul of mankind. The image of God includes: self- consciousness (“I am"), self-perception (“I think"), the function of volition (“I ought"), and self-determination (“I will”).

(a) They did not need a conscience—the knowledge of good and evil. There conscience was hanging on a tree, Gen 2:16-17, “And the Lord God [Jesus Christ] commanded the man, saying, `From any tree in the garden you may freely eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it dying you will die.’”

i. This mandate is given to the man because he is the one in authority. Whenever God gives a negative prohibition, He always surrounds us in grace in order to motivate us from His grace to avoid disobedience.

ii. The qal infinitive of the Hebrew verb MUTH is translated “dying.” The second use of the verb MUTH is the qal imperfect and is translated “you will die.” “Dying” refers to spiritual death. “You will die” refers to physical death. As a result of spiritual death, physical death would eventually occur.

(b) Marriage was designed to test volition and freedom. Both the husband and wife had the freedom to succeed or fail. True freedom always gives you an option. The safeguards of freedom include authority and blessing (the virtue and values needed by perfect persons to have capacity for their perfection). You are responsible for every decision you make. Are you going to take the responsibility to use the four mechanics of the protocol plan to glorify God? You have to know the word of God to make good decisions. The use of the rebound technique of 1 Jn 1:9 is taking responsibility for your personal sins. You are responsible to God for what you do not know. Ignorance is no excuse. People fail in marriage because they will not take responsibility for their decisions. Instead they destroy their marriage by the arrogance of self-justification. Failure in sin did not destroy the marriage of Adam and the woman.

© Jesus Christ created mankind as an extension of the prehistoric angelic conflict, in order to establish a basis for the appeal trial for Satan and the fallen angels. Jesus Christ created human beings as rational creatures in order to duplicate in human history identical circumstances to the prehistoric angelic conflict. The prehistoric angelic conflict began with the original sin of Satan and terminated in the trial and condemnation of all fallen angels, Mt 25:41. Jesus Christ created human beings to resolve the prehistoric angelic conflict through their thinking. Satan and mankind had one thing in common—volition.

(d) Satan’s argument against God in his appeal trial is based on the perfect marriage in the garden of Eden. He says the perfect marriage failed. That is a fact. Then he distorted this fact by saying that he and his fallen angels do not deserve the lake of fire. He took a true fact and distorted it into a false premise. Then he uses an analogy. He says that God made us perfect and we failed. That is a fact. He says that God made Adam and the woman perfect and they failed. That is also a fact. Then he has a false conclusion, “If I and all fallen angels are sentenced to the lake of fire for our failure, why shouldn’t Adam and Eve, who also failed in perfect environment, be sentenced to the same lake of fire?” Satan’s argument ignores the fact that fallen angels had the volition and options to accept God’s solution, but rejected it. Every rational creature ever designed must take the responsibility for their own decisions.

(e) To test freedom in the garden of Eden in the human race, God provided one tree. In so doing, He duplicated the conditions of the fall of Satan. The tree in the middle of the garden is God providing the options, Gen 2:16.

(f) The teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ in the garden of Eden was designed to produce virtue and values for the first marriage. Both virtues and values of the divine institution of marriage become motivation for the obedience to the divine mandate of Gen 2:17. The man and the woman were free to accept or reject the doctrinal teaching of our Lord. They were free to discard the virtue and values that made their perfect marriage work. Marriages only work where there are virtue and values.

(3) Why did the first marriage fail?

(a) The first marriage failed because the wrong concepts regarding happiness existed in the garden. Happiness is volition and values extrapolated from metabolized Bible doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness. The Lord Jesus Christ reinforced Adam and the woman’s perfection with the teaching of virtue and values as they were pertinent every day in the garden.

(b) Both the man and the woman had volition in their souls and options, and were responsible for their own decisions. They were free to fail and had no excuse for their failure. The problem with the woman was that she thought that happiness consisted in knowing everything. The problem with the man was that he thought that happiness consisted in having a relationship with the woman.

© The woman in the garden did not have values. She wanted something more. This made it easy for Satan to deceive her. No one deceives a woman until she first deceives herself. The woman in the garden manifested a complete lack of values in her dialogue with Satan. She was deceived because her values were not in place. When she partook of the fruit, her virtue was gone. She had the freedom to fail, and she did. If you do not have virtue and values, you will never be happy and nothing can make you happy. Lack of virtue and values is what destroys the perfect marriage. The problem with the woman in the garden was that she thought happiness consisted in knowing everything. She had a great lust to know more than anyone else could possibly know. She thought knowledge about everything would make her happy. The Lord Jesus Christ taught the woman and gave her the knowledge she needed, but that knowledge was not enough for her. Because a woman is a responder, she has a great desire to know more. The woman wanted to know about good and evil. Great masses of knowledge may be necessary for your job, but are irrelevant to your personal life and happiness. She assumed in her dialogue with Satan that the knowledge of good and evil would make her happy. She did not take the responsibility for her decision and blamed the serpent. This was self-justification and exactly what Satan did in his trial.

(d) Adam had no values either. Adam was with Eve at the time of her fall. Gen 3:6 says he was standing beside her when she partook of the fruit. Adam looked on his wife in spiritual death as the first sinner and sees her for the first time and wants her more than ever, but knew he could only have her through spiritual death. His happiness was to continue fellowship with her at the expense of no fellowship with Jesus Christ. When Adam realized that he could not have his wife in the garden, he joined her in the original sin. At this point Adam surrendered all of the values he had learned. He lost his values and virtue from his own volition. Loss of values always means loss of virtue. Virtue and values always protect you from going the wrong way. He destroyed his own leadership and the chain of command from the Lord to the woman.

i. Rapport with God must precede rapport with people. Rapport with the woman through spiritual death was far more important to Adam than fellowship or rapport with God, hence, Adam lost his virtue and values with spiritual death. When you compromise or reject doctrine to have rapport with friends, then you have lost your values and virtue. Rapport with God is infinitely more important than rapport with people, even in the most intimate relationship of husband and wife. If you do not have rapport with God, you will never be happy in anything. There is no happiness apart from rapport with God. ii. Do not let other people make decisions for you with regard to Bible doctrine. When rapport demands compromise with doctrine including sin and evil, then you have just lost any possibility for true happiness, unless you can rebound and keep moving.

iii. If you have no values as a believer, you are never going to be happy. You cannot make it without virtue and values. The virtue and values reach their peak inside the integrity envelop. Virtue and values is far greater than perfect environment. You have the opportunity for far greater happiness than the garden of Eden. You lie to yourself when you say, “If I only had this or that I would be happy.” You have options, but do not waste your options on wishing for something. Capacity for life is gone without Bible doctrine producing virtue and values.

(e) Scar tissue of the soul was the only thing left at the moment that both had sinned. Scar tissue of the soul destroys every bit of doctrine you ever learned. There is no true happiness in life for spiritual death apart from the divine solution, and the first divine solution is salvation through faith alone in Christ alone. There is no true happiness for the believer after salvation apart from virtue and values, and virtue and values can only reside in the seven compartments of your stream of consciousness through the ministry of God the Holy Spirit taking Bible doctrine and metabolizing it in your soul. Therefore, there is no happiness for the Christian apart from the function of the three spiritual skills producing the virtue and values of our unique spiritual life.

(f) The man and woman knew they had a problem and thought it was their nakedness, which they saw as evil for the first time, when they sinned. They knew that they must adjust to this problem of nakedness. They attempted to have rapport with each other by covering their nakedness. Their first act in spiritual death was an act of morality. They have their eyes on the problem rather than the redemption solution.

(g) The man and woman had always been naked, but with virtue and values it was never a problem. They had to learn virtue and values to have capacity for their perfection. Spiritual death removed virtue and values, so that nakedness was now a problem. Everyday in the garden Jesus Christ came and thought Bible doctrine for the maintenance and capacity for blessing in the perfect marriage. Marriage always has to be sustained by virtue and values, which gives the capacity for that relationship. There is no such thing as a successful marriage unless there is some form of virtue. Virtue and values reach their peak inside the integrity envelope. From that integrity envelope originate all the virtue and values of life. Even the one perfect marriage in history needed maintenance. There never has been a marriage that did not need maintenance. Virtue and values provide that maintenance. There is no happiness in this life without virtue and values.

(4) The woman believed the lies and insinuations of Satan because this was what she wanted to hear. The woman, being a responder, wants to hear certain things. She was deceived because she wanted to be deceived.

(5) God has designed our spiritual life to be a system of thinking. God speaks to us through our thinking. Your thinking is either adherence to your spiritual life in thought or rejection of your spiritual life in thought. The worst form of degeneracy is the function of the three arrogance skills. You always have the option to accept or reject the teaching of doctrine. This is why the subjunctive mood is translated “that perhaps your thinking will be corrupted.” This is why the perfect marriage failed—their thinking was corrupted. Two kinds of thinking was corrupted— the thinking of the woman, who sinned in ignorance, and the thinking of the man, who sinned in cognizance. No matter how smart any of us are, there is always the potential that our thinking may be corrupted. We protect ourselves from this by living in Bible thinking. When we reject doctrine, our thinking becomes corrupted. The perfect marriage failed in thinking.

(a) Phil 2:5-7, “Keep on thinking this [metabolized doctrine in the stream of consciousness] in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who though He existed in the essence of God, He did not think equality with God a gain to be seized, but He laid aside His privileges, taking the form of a servant, having come to be in the likeness of mankind.”

(b) With the spiritual life and its thinking, two believers in a Christian marriage can have a far better marriage than the perfect marriage in the garden of Eden.

© Rapport with God means you have to think like the humanity of Christ during the incarnation. If you are going to have rapport with God, you must think the way Jesus Christ in His humanity thought in the testing and the proving of the prototype spiritual life. The only way to think as Christ thought during the first Advent is to utilize the four spiritual mechanics. The mystery doctrine of the Church Age is classified as the thinking of Jesus Christ, 1 Cor 2:16. The spiritual gift of pastor- teacher is the agent for the communication of Bible doctrine, and God the Holy Spirit is the teacher of that doctrine, therefore, the mentor of the spiritual life for every Church Age believer. Faithful teaching of Bible doctrine results in epignosis—metabolized doctrine circulating in the seven compartments of the stream of consciousness through the filling of the Spirit. This means that the spiritual life of the Church Age is a system of thinking—thinking Bible doctrine which results in rapport with God. Rapport is based on a similar system of thinking.

(d) Coalescence of bodies is not the basis of true rapport in marriage; there must be the rapport of souls. The rapport of souls demands metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness. The only way there will be this rapport in the souls of the husband and the wife is through the unique spiritual life of the Church Age. When a man or a woman find there soul rapport or best friend in someone other than their husband or wife, that marriage is dead. Your closest friend should be someone with whom you have rapport of doctrinal thinking— the coalescence of souls based on Bible doctrine. Never allow your opinions and enthusiasms in life to destroy your rapport with others, especially in marriage.

(6) Gen 3:12-13, “And the man said, `The woman whom You gave me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.’ Then the Lord God said to the woman, `What is this you have done?’ And the woman replied, `The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’”

(a) The woman in spiritual death lost all respect for Adam. When she took over the situation, she persuaded Adam to abandon his virtue and values. The higher you go as a leader the greater must be your morality and integrity and values. Your flaws will catch up with you. All flaws have a root, and the root is arrogance. The man entered into the arrogance skills—denial and projection.

(b) The woman also entered into the arrogance skills—denial and projection. Self-absorbed people, whether male or female, are vulnerable to flattery and deception. She was vulnerable to flattery and deception, so that she became erratic and capricious.

R. Partnership in Marriage.

1. Introduction.

a. True love is located in the soul, not in the body.

b. True love is virtue-love in the soul extrapolated from your very own spiritual life.

c. The source of true love is the virtue in the soul extrapolated from the unique adult spiritual life of the Church Age, the treasure house of all history.

d. The unique adult spiritual life of the Church Age exists in three stages: spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity. Each stage is related to a love category of the advanced problem solving devices: personal love for God is related to spiritual self-esteem, impersonal love for mankind is related to spiritual autonomy, and occupation with Christ is related to spiritual maturity. You use the basic problem solving devices to pass providential preventative suffering to be promoted to spiritual self-esteem. You use personal love for God and impersonal love for mankind to pass momentum testing to be promoted to spiritual maturity. You use occupation with Christ to pass evidence testing to be promoted to maximum glorification of God.

e. The believer enters this unique spiritual life when he enters the door of hope on God’s agenda. The door of hope is the dividing line between spiritual childhood and spiritual adulthood. It is the first tactical objective of the unique spiritual life. It is the sixth problem solving device deployed on the FLOT line of the soul and is tantamount to a personal sense of destiny. It is the first stage of the adult spiritual life and as such is classified as spiritual self-esteem.

f. God designed everything in life related to people under a principle that authority exists. Being under authority is not demeaning, especially when God ordained that authority.

2. Christ’s love for the Church is the highest love that could ever exist. This is the love expected of the man as the ruler of the woman in marriage. The wife is mandated to be subordinate to her husband, to obey her husband, to be under the authority of her husband as to the Lord. The highest love a woman can have in marriage is respect. But this respect is not as high a love as the love expected of the man. This shows that there is no equality in marriage. 3. The bride and the groom are partners in life, each forsaking mother and father to cleave to the other. They share a common name, a united household, a common experience, a love which blesses and transcends all the cares and trials of life. They have common interests and occupations. They have become co-workers for common ends. They hold property and possession in common. They have one history and one destiny.

4. Partner denotes a part of the whole or entirety. Partnership is the status of association and participation in a single entity; hence, association and participation. Marriage is a contract, creating a relationship of joint interest; therefore, a partnership between two individuals, male and female as husband and wife. The basis for this relationship is stated in Gen 2:18, “...I will make him a helper as his counterpart.” God created the woman as the man’s “counterpart” (NEGED in the Hebrew). Counterpart means one of two parts that fits. It also means a part that answers to the other part. The wife answers to the husband.

5. Partnership in marriage has a dual connotation.

a. The first connotation is authority in marriage, which establishes a senior/junior partnership with the husband in command. Partnership does not set aside authority. There is no equality in partnership.

b. The second connotation is equality in marriage through conjugal love or sexual relationship as both recreation and pleasure for both the husband and the wife. There is equality only in sex in marriage. Equality in recreation does not destroy authority in marriage.

c. Compatibility in marriage is enhanced by the unique spiritual life of the Church. Compatibility in marriage is enjoyed by mutual pleasures derived from the virtues and values of life. Sex in marriage is a reminder that the coalescence of bodies means partnership and one destiny. Sex in marriage does not destroy or abrogate the divine system of authority in marriage. It is designed to enhance it.

6. The two relationships, authority and sex, are not contradictory, but mutually supporting; for both require the virtue-love and the integrity on the other side of the door of hope. Authority in marriage is functional, demanding true love and virtue in the coalescence of souls. Sex in marriage is a coalescence of the bodies, which demands true love and virtue-love, resulting in equality in marriage.

7. All compatibility and rapport in marriage depends on virtue-love located on the other side of the door of hope where we enter only on God’s agenda. Therefore, all compatibility and rapport in marriage results from the four spiritual mechanics of the protocol plan of God to the Church.

8. It is never demeaning to be under authority. It is not demeaning for the wife to be under the authority of her husband. Being under authority is not dishonorable or a loss of your dignity. It is not demeaning but beneficial for children to be under the authority of their parents. Being under the authority of law is not demeaning but beneficial. The believer being under the authority of God and the word of God is not demeaning but beneficial. God makes war against abusive authority as well as against the arrogant person who rejects authority.

S. Marriage protects and preserves the human race.

1. Jesus Christ created the man and the woman as witnesses for God against Satan in his the appeal trial of his sentence to the lake of fire. Our Lord immediately united the man and woman in holy matrimony. Marriage was designed for the survival of the human race as its most basic element.

2. All members of the human race are witnesses for either God as the Prosecution or for Satan as the defense. As the human race multiplies, Satan began his attacks on the human race. One of his greatest attacks was the infiltration of angelic creatures with females in order to destroy the human race, Gen 6:1-10. Four marriages saved the human race—Noah plus his wife, and Noah’s three sons and their wives.

a. The greatest attack that the genius of Satan ever had was an attack on the genetic human race and the line of Christ, and an attack on marriage. Gen 6:1-13; Jude 6-7; 2 Pet 2:4-5; 1 Pet 3:18-22.

b. Certain demons prior to the flood had bodies. These demons attacked the human race by sexual intercourse with the daughters of men, which produced a half angelic and half human offspring.

c. The antediluvian demon attacks on the human race and the Tribulational demon attacks (Rev 9:1-12; Rev 9:13-23; Rev 12:7-17) on the human race both involve visible demons. Demon attacks in the postdiluvian dispensations involve invisible demons.

d. “The sons of God” in Gen 6:2 is an incorrect translation. The Septuagint (or LXX), which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, uses the word “angels” (HOI ANGELOI TOU THEOU) cf. Job 1:6 and 2:1 in the LXX.

e. The infiltration of marriage in both antediluvian and postdiluvian civilizations is a part of Satanic strategy in winning his appeal trial.

f. The objective of the genetic attack in the antediluvian civilization was to frustrate the incarnation of Christ in hypostatic union. It was also an attack on the divine institution of marriage. He tried to destroy all the witnesses for the Prosecution and create a mistrial.

g. Satan attacked Adam’s seed through the murder of Abel. Then Satan attacked Abraham’s seed when Sarah was found in the harem of the pharaoh of Egypt. The next attack was pharaoh’s mandate to kill the male line of Israel, Ex 1:10,15-16. The next attack was pharaoh’s attempt to destroy Israel in the pursuit at the Red Sea, Ex 14. Then there was the Haman conspiracy to destroy Israel in the book of Esther. There were many attacks on the line of David.

h. Gen 6:1ff.

(1) Gen 6:1, “Now it came to pass, when mankind had begun to become numerous on the surface of the earth that daughters were born to them,”

(2) Gen 6:2, “Now the sons of the gods [demons] saw that the daughters of mankind were beautiful; and they took for themselves women, whomever they selected.”

(3) Gen 6:3, “Then the Lord said, `My Spirit will not contend with man forever [as in a courtroom], because he also is flesh [true humanity]; consequently his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’” Mankind had one hundred and twenty years before the flood would destroy corrupt humanity—the half human half angelic creature.

(4) Gen 6:4, “The Nephilim [the fallen ones] were on the earth in those days. Therefore also afterward, when the sons of the gods had sex with the daughters of men, and had children by them, these [children] were the heroes who from ancient history were famous men.”

(5) Gen 6:5, “Then the Lord observed that the evil of mankind was great on the earth, and that every motive of the thoughts of his heart was only evil at the time.” (6) Gen 6:6, “The Lord changed His mind [an anthropopathism] that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.”

(7) Gen 6:7, “The Lord said, `I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.’”

(8) Gen 6:8, “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” (9) Gen 6:9, “The following is the family history of Noah. Noah, a justified man, uncontaminated in his genealogy; Noah walked with God.[Noah had a good spiritual life.]”

(10) Gen 6:10, “Noah sired three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”

(11) Gen 6:11, “Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God; furthermore, the earth was saturated with violence.” There is a parallel passage in Mt 24:37ff, “For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. [It will have terrible violence.] For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking [hedonism and preoccupation with self], marrying and giving in marriage [preoccupation with sex], until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.”

(12) Gen 6:12, “God looked at the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.” True humanity was almost extinct on the earth.

(13) Gen 6:13, “Then God said to Noah, `The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth has become saturated with violence because of their presence. Now behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.’”

i. Every bit of the corrupted humanity would drown in the Flood. The demons were imprisoned in Tartarus. 2 Pet 2:4-5, “For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but incarcerated them in pits of darkness in Tartarus, He delivered them over to be guarded for future judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah...” Compare Jude 6, “And the angels who had not kept their status quo, but abandoned their own dwelling places, He has guarded them with eternal chains under thick darkness for the judgment of the great day.” Compare 1 Pet 3:19, “by means of Whom [the Spirit] also] He [Christ] went and made proclamation tot eh spirits now in prison [Tartarus], who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were brought safely through water.”

3. Marriage was the first divine institution to keep the human race from self-destruction. Marriage is always a major issue in the stability and survival of the human race. But above all, the extrapolation of Christian marriage in the Church Age is extremely important because it is related to the unique spiritual life of all human history.

4. The purpose of Christian marriage is the greatest testimony against Satan in his appeal trial. Christian marriage is the greatest challenge to the postsalvation spiritual life.

5. No nation and no individuals are better than their marriage.

6. Failure in marriage is failure in life.

7. Christian marriage is the final answer to Satan in his appeal trial. Satan kept objecting to the fact that God did not condemn Adam and the woman to the lake of fire after they committed their original sin. Satan’s objection is answered by God during the dispensation of the Church Age with Christian marriage.

8. Very few believers ever succeed in Christian marriage because they do not have the spiritual life of the Church Age: the filling of the Holy Spirit, metabolized doctrine in their stream of consciousness, the ten problem solving devices deployed on the FLOT line of the soul, and the execution of the three stages of the adult spiritual life.

T. Christian marriage is the corporate testimony against Satan.

1. A corporation is an association of individuals created by law existing as an entity. It is a group of two or more people united in one body. A corporation includes:

a. Organization.

b. Authority. The husband is the authority.

c. Objectives. Once you have organization and authority in any organization, you have objectives. There are tactical and strategic objectives. The objective is to glorify God through advance in the spiritual life.

d. Policy. Objectives must be defined in terms of policy. Policy has to do with recovery from sin, what we should do, what we should avoid.

e. Principles.

f. Doctrines. Principles and doctrines come from the policy.

2. The divine institution of marriage is the first corporation in all of history. It only takes two or more people to form a corporation. Marriage will created and established for the purpose of stability and the base of operation for the perpetuation of the human race, and from that perpetuation to create witnesses for the Prosecution in Satan’s appeal trial, which is coterminous with human history.

3. The authority and organization of the divine institution of marriage has been basically the same since the creation of mankind by the Lord Jesus Christ. Each corporation always has one male and one female.

Man was given rulership of the world, which was nothing compared to rulership in marriage.

4. The first corporation is created by our Lord Jesus Christ. A perfect woman was created by Jesus Christ and immediately the first corporation was formed. The man and the woman were created as a husband and a wife. The first thing Jesus Christ did with the man and woman was to form an organization. So He performed a wedding ceremony. They were given a wedding present of the perfect environment of the world and specifically the garden of Eden.

5. The next thing our Lord did was to define the relationship in terms of authority. The man had the authority over the woman.

6. The next thing our Lord did was to define the objective. Our Lord protected them, gave them Bible classes every day, provided a language for them. The objectives, policies, principles and doctrines were defined daily. The authority and organization of the divine institution of marriage has been basically the same since the first corporation. They were created perfect and did not need to have a conscience. They did not need to understand the difference between right and wrong. All they needed was one test. This test duplicated the circumstances of the prehistorical angelic conflict with regard to divine institution number one—volition.

7. Mankind was perpetuated as the witnesses in Satan’s appeal trial.

8. The divine institution of marriage was also designed to make sure that the human race would not destroy itself. God created marriage to protect the human race from self-destruction. Nations survive because they have x number of good marriages. Stability in the laws of divine establishment and whether freedom with continue depends on what the parents do with their authority regarding their children.

9. Because the Church Age is the rebuttal phase of the Prosecution in Satan’s appeal trial, the Christian institution of marriage was extrapolated from the divine institution of marriage as the corporate testimony to refute Satan’s argument. The corporate testimony of the Christian institution of marriage is God’s answer to Satan, and God waited all of this time to do it because Jesus Christ had to be judged first for every sin before this issue could come before the supreme court of heaven. So the corporate testimony of the Christian institution of marriage is God’s answer and the refutation of the Satanic strategy to appeal the divine sentence from the supreme court of heaven as stated in Mt 25:41. Therefore, the Christian institution of marriage is specifically related to the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. The analogy to Christian marriage is Christ and the Church. You have the greatest responsibility as a single Christian, and that responsibility increases dramatically when you marry.

10. There are three witnesses for the Prosecution in Satan’s appeal trial.

a. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect spiritual life and fulfilled the royal law—"you shall love your neighbor as yourself"—even while bearing our sins on the Cross.

b. Every individual who has believed in Christ.

c. The corporate testimony of Christian marriage in the Church Age.

11. The great danger to marriage and failure in marriage comes by putting yourself above the royal law through fornication, adultery, or other sexual sins, bitterness, hatred, revenge, vindictiveness, the sins of arrogance.

U. Marriage: Aggressive Love And Leadership.

1. God created a husband and wife. In the creation of the husband and the wife, they both had aggressive love and responding love, and it was directed toward God. When it came to their marriage, the aggressive love and responding love were separated. Enduring devotion and respect both existed in the husband and wife because they each had a spiritual life. Out of this came their worship for God the Son. Their intensive love for Jesus Christ ended up with deference and admiration for Him. They had enduring loyalty to Him and honored Him. Their worship of Christ was their defence, admiration, honor, esteem, consideration, and partiality. 2. The husband was mandated to have in his leadership enduring devotion for the wife. She, in turn, was to have respect for him. The husband must have intensive love for the wife and she will respond with deference and admiration for him. (Both husband and wife must have integrity in marriage.) Enduring loyalty is mandated of the husband and the wife responds with honor. The husband is mandated to consecrate his wife and she responds with esteem. The husband is mandated to have dedication toward his wife and she responds with consideration and partiality toward him.

3. Marriage was designed to take any man and make a leader out of him. A woman should never marry a man unless he is a leader. How do you know he is a leader? He has to demonstrate aggressive love, which is a lot of thoughtfulness for you. It is enduring devotion, intensive love so that it arouses your deference and admiration. He demonstrates enduring loyalty which you honor. He demonstrates consecration which arouses your esteem for him. He demonstrates dedication toward you, which arouses your consideration and partiality toward him. None of this is based on emotion. It is all based upon thought.

4. Eph 5:31 quotes Gen 2:24-25, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and he shall have sexual intercourse with his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife knew that they were both naked and were not ashamed.”

a. The principle behind sex in marriage is the coalescence of souls in love and the coalescence of bodies as a result of soul love.

b. Any sex outside of marriage is putting yourself above the law and is blasphemy against God. No one ever gets away with it. The supreme court of heaven deals with it. Some believers never recover from it because they do not know rebound. No nation ever survives the degeneracy that comes from flaunting marriage. Marriage is always a weather vane to show what is going to happen in a nation.

c. Eph 5:31-32 says, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall have sex with his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.”

d. The third divine law of marriage emphasizes mutual responsibility, and mutual responsibility always starts with the husband. Eph 5:33, “However, you husbands also, each one of you individually must love his own wife as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.”

(1) The husband must have spiritual self-esteem, a personal sense of destiny. Loving your wife as yourself is impersonal love for all mankind. This is motivated by personal love for God the Father.

(a) The command to the husband is given in the imperative mood. The command to the wife is given in the subjunctive mood, which means she must make an important decision as a subordinate.

(b) The aggressive and responding love for God are separated between the husband and wife in the third divine law of marriage. The man has aggressive love of enduring devotion and the wife has the responding love of respect.

(2) When a husband and wife fulfill their roles of leadership in the man and the response of respect in the woman, they provide leadership for their children, and the nation will flourish for another generation.

(3) Soul love always produces integrity, the true romantic function of love. Outside of this there is nothing but disaster. Guilt and shame destroys sex. These are built-in punishments to sex outside of marriage. Guilt and shame produce scar tissue in the soul.

(4) “Mystery” is used here in a technical sense for doctrine that was never understood in the Old Testament, but is now understood in Church Age doctrine.

(5) True leadership in marriage is based on true love as per the Scripture. The husband is to love the wife as Christ loved the Church and the wife is to respect her husband. Leadership demands responsibility, not brutality.

(6) Every husband is an individual and different.

(7) Loving self is not arrogant preoccupation with self, but refers to the believer-husband being responsible for his very own spiritual life. He is responsible for using his own volition to learn and utilize the fantastic spiritual life he has been given. He is responsible for the development of impersonal love for all mankind and personal love for God, out of which will come the most fantastic leadership. The secret to leadership is love.

(8) Loving self reflects the status of spiritual self- esteem, the first tactical objective of the spiritual life. The Christian husband is responsible through his study of the word of God to develop impersonal love for his wife and personal love for God and then apply these two categories of love in forgiving his wife’s failures. The only true response a man will ever get from a woman is from having personal love for God and impersonal love for his wife’s failures. No woman ever feels comfortable in a marriage where she is not forgiven for some stupid thing she has done.

5. The attack on Christian marriage and destruction of Christian marriage is described in Eph 4:30-31, “Stop grieving the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. All bitterness: both anger [from emotion] and wrath [a hidden reaction anger based on bitterness], both clamor [excited, loud verbal brawling] and slander [malicious defamation of character] must be removed from you, along with all malice.”

a. Without rebound (1 Jn 1:9) we do not stop grieving the Spirit, we perpetuate carnality, and bitterness, anger, hatred, slander, and malice become a way of life which we justify. We become divorced from the reality of the spiritual life, the filling of the Holy Spirit.

(1) If you reject rebound, your life becomes hell on earth.

(2) Rebound allows God to pick up these sins of bitterness and remove them.

(3) Redemption is the work of God. The soul is redeemed at the moment of faith in Christ. The body is redeemed at the Rapture of the Church.

b. Marriages are destroyed by bitterness and malice.

(1) Bitterness is a terrible sin of arrogance. Bitterness is what caused Satan to ask for an appeal trial. Bitterness is evil; it is more than sin.

(2) Bitterness and malice always combine arrogance and emotion. Bitterness is the start and malice is the result. Bitterness is the worst mental attitude because it includes inhuman cruelty, harshness, anger, animosity.

(3) Bitterness turns love into hatred, happiness into malice, blessing into cursing. Bitterness is the fuel that runs the three arrogance skills (self-justification, self-deception, and self-absorption). Bitterness sponsors the three arrogance skills. If you lie to yourself, you have no capability for true love.

(4) Bitterness is a catalyst that produces irrationality. It causes the activity of the emotional sins. It is the pin of the grenade which explodes and destroys your spiritual life.

(5) Bitterness produces scar tissue of the soul, which blots out all the metabolized doctrine in the stream of consciousness. Therefore, bitterness contradicts the unique spiritual life of the Church Age.

(6) Bitterness destroys Christian marriage. It nullifies the corporate testimony of Christian marriage. Divorces are the function of evil bitterness. Bitterness is what happens when a woman is disappointed with the man she marries. Bitterness is what happens when a husband is disappointed and wishes he had married someone else. Bitterness always pops up in a relationship between a husband and a wife. Bitterness destroys a marriage even though there is no divorce, no separation of any kind.

(7) Marriage is also attacked and destroyed by fornication and adultery. Marriage protects the human race from self-destruction, which is why the punishment for adultery and fornication is so severe from the supreme court of heaven.

(8) Principles.

(a) If you live in Eph 4:31, you have destroyed all capacity for true love in life.

(b) If you have destroyed all capacity for love, you will spend your entire Christian life grieving the Holy Spirit.

(d) If you enter a life of perpetual carnality, you are the most miserable of persons as a born again believer in Jesus Christ.

(e) If you are the most miserable of persons as a believer in Christ, you have a problem.

(f) If you have a problem, you have garbage in your subconscious.

(g) If you have garbage in your subconscious, you do not want doctrinal solutions because they are God’s solutions. You want self-centered solutions of arrogance. Therefore, in Christian marriage you live in Eph 4:31.

(h) Divine solutions always begin with rebound; for you are living on the wrong side of the royal law.

(i) You are at the crossroads of a dilemma. The road of perpetual carnality leads to the road of double punishment from the supreme court of heaven. The other road leads to “The joy of the Lord is your spiritual power,” Neh 8:10. Whom the Lord loves, He punishes, and His punishment hurts.

c. Bitterness has five nouns which are all synonymous and appositional concepts that describe bitterness: anger, wrath, shouting, slander, malice.

(1) Bitterness starts whining and complaining. Once bitterness is launched in the soul, all true love is pushed out of the soul.

(2) Bitterness is followed by anger. Anger is really passionate lust in the Greek. From passionate immorality comes anger. The emotional sin of passionate lust drives out thought and adds only feeling, which leads to irrationality and anger. A bitter person will never take responsibility for the cause of their bitterness, and from that point on will never take responsibility for their failures. Many bitter people consider themselves to be perfect. Bitterness is irrational. They think they have righteous indignation, but they do not.

(3) Wrath is a reaction based on bitterness and hatred, vindictiveness and implacability. When hatred is added to anger you have wrath.

(4) Then the spouse reacts and looks for reasons to downgrade their opposite number. Clamor is shouting, loud verbal fighting, loud verbal brawling. All of these things lead to slander.

(5) Malice is the lust to hurt someone because of your bitterness, anger, and hatred. You seek revenge on the object of your anger, hatred, wrath. This destroys what is left of the marriage.

6. Eph 4:32, “Instead become kind toward each other, compassionate, forgiving each other, just as God also through Christ has forgiven you.”

a. Kindness is the exact antithesis of bitterness. You have the road of bitterness and the road of kindness. The road of bitterness is the road of carnality. The road of kindness is the spiritual life. Bitterness is what you do to yourself when you get into double punishment.

(1) Kindness is how you solve the problem within your own soul and then with your modus operandi.

(2) When you are kind, you are thinking about someone besides yourself; you are not filled with your own self-importance.

(3) Every spouse in Christian marriage is mandated to be kind to their spouse. Impersonal love for all mankind is being kind. Personal love for God and personal love for a few in this life is kindness.

b. To be compassionate means to stop thinking about yourself and to think about your spouse. It is a synonym for kindness. It is mental, not emotion. Self-centeredness is the antithesis of being compassionate.

c. Each spouse is to forgive each other as Christ has forgiven us.

(1) Because of the salvation work of Christ, at the moment of faith all sins are forgiven and God can bless us. When a husband forgives a wife, he never brings it up again. When a wife forgives a husband, she never brings it up again. When you bring up past failures again, that is malice, bitterness, and vicious fighting between two believers, which is evil.

(2) The only forgiveness that counts in the life of any believer is the forgiveness that forgets it and never brings it up again. There is no virtue-love where you remember past failures of a spouse. We are to forgive as Christ forgave the Church. This is why we are to love as Christ loved the Church.

(3) The forgiveness of others is the function of the prototype spiritual life, which we inherited from our Lord Jesus Christ.

(a) Forgiveness is always a function of grace. Being a function of grace, forgiveness is amplified for the believer because we are to forgive as Christ forgave us.

(b) This is the test of your integrity in the spiritual life. If you cannot forgive as Christ forgave, you have done nothing in the spiritual life.

(d) You do not forgive unless you put behind you forever the wrongs other people do to you. You are told to forgive everyone. The motivation for this is personal love for God the Father, not your spouse, and not your emotion.

(e) You are judged by this principle. When a person truly forgives, they truly love. There is no love in the person who forgives and then brings that failure back up again. Everyone will be tested at one time or another on whether their love is true or not. True love forgives. You put every wrong behind you as spiritual royalty.

d. 1 Cor 11:30-31, “For this reason many are weak [warning divine discipline] and sick [intensive divine discipline], and a number sleep [the sin unto death]. But if we would judge ourselves [but we are not doing it], we should not be judged.”

(1) This passage describes the accumulation of unforgiven postsalvation sins in three categories.

(2) Each one of us has the right to be the judge of our own lives. We are priests and represent ourselves before God. God has given us the right to be a judge of ourselves. However, the Corinthian believers were not doing this.

(3) We judge ourselves by the use of 1 Jn 1:9, the rebound technique. Without rebound and purification from all wrongdoing we do not have the right to continue the spiritual life and have harmonious rapport with God