“Celebrating Male and Female: Without Denigrating nor Demonizing People in the Culture”
Our LORD
Jesus Christ perplexed Pilate at the interrogation. John 18: “[Pilate] entered
his headquarters again and said to Jesus, ‘Where are you from?’ But Jesus gave
him no answer. So Pilate said to him, ‘You will not speak to me? Do you not
know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?’ Jesus
answered him, ‘You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been
given you from above’” (vv 9-11a). Our LORD trusted the Heavenly Father. He had
no need to engage in rebuttal. Nothing required becoming defensive. Instead, He
trusted and spoke truth. The LORD Jesus – who is the Truth – kept His
composure in the face of persecution, mocking, and injustice.
The LORD’s
non-defensive posture was on full display when He was betrayed and arrested.
47 While he was
still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with
swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people. 48 Now the betrayer had
given them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man; seize him.” 49 And he came up to
Jesus at once and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” And he kissed him. 50 Jesus said to him,
“Friend, do what you came to do.” Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and
seized him. 51 And
behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his
sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. 52 Then Jesus said to
him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will
perish by the sword. 53 Do
you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more
than twelve legions of angels? 54 But
how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” 55 At that hour Jesus
said to the crowds, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and
clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did
not seize me. 56 But
all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be
fulfilled.” Then all the disciples left him and fled. (Matthew 26)
In our view,
the LORD’s way is uncanny. It isn’t our first instinct. Our knee jerk reaction
is hubris and defensiveness -- or cowardly slouching away in avoidance -- when
the world attacks the truth of the Word of God. This is not to say that there
is never occasion for quality negative apologetics – that category of defending
the faith or giving answer to why we believe what we believe by also pointing
out the flaws latent in contrary views. This is what St. Paul’s refers to in 2
Corinthians 10:
3 For though we
walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of
our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments
and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every
thought captive to obey Christ,
The apostle,
however, is not describing license for being obnoxious or rude to denigrate or to
demonize opponents.
St. Peter’s
famous 1 Peter 3:15 dictum for Christian apologetics is:
15 but in your
hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense
to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do
it with gentleness and respect, 16 [emphasis mine]
In other words, even the use of
negative apologetics does not cancel the attitude and way of giving an answer.
God says, “do it with gentleness and respect.” St. Paul agreed with St. Peter.
It is evident at his famous witness and defense at the Areopagus. This is not
to say that St. Paul was not challenged by the Athenian atmosphere. Indeed, as
St. Paul took in Athens, “his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the
city was full of idols” (Acts 17:16). Certainly St. Paul while being “provoked
within himself” felt a kind of righteous anger towards the work of the enemy
who seeks to cover the Truth of God with his lies and counterfeits. However,
St. Paul’s provocation was kept under control. He did not use it as an opportunity
to draw a line of demarcation in the sand and then attacking those who had
contrary views.
Much to the contrary, St. Paul – who
assuredly drowned and crucified any attitude of defensiveness he might have had
– entered the Athenian’s den in this way:
First: He was not put off by the
fact that his listeners thought him to be teaching “some strange things” (v
19). That is, St. Paul put down his pride and the need to become defensive.
Second: He did not begin addressing
them negatively or offensively. He did not say, “Men of Athens, I perceive that
in every way you are very foolish.” After all, the Scriptures say at Psalm 14:1:
“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they do
abominable deeds; there is none who does good.” St. Paul, the Pharisee of
Pharisees, assuredly knew this Scripture.
But again, that’s not what He
said, but rather with wisdom and relying on the Spirit of God, He said, “Men of
Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious” (v 22). That is,
St. Paul wisely found common ground. Like him, the Athenians were seekers of
knowledge. They wanted and yearned for something that St. Paul could
immediately relate to. Already, St. Paul was not treating them as enemies, but
as friends.
Third: St. Paul honors them. How so?
By quoting their own poets, their own authorities. That is, he found something
in their way and culture he could respect and incorporate into his witness. At
verse 28 St. Paul says, “as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are
indeed his offspring.’” In fact, St. Paul quoted their poets more than once.
Furthermore, St. Paul considers this tailor-made witness by launching into the
truth of God’s Word with that article or loci through which he could
immediately connect with his audience: starting with creation and origins. Keep
in mind that this was not accommodationism where people tweak God’s Word to say
what people want it to say, but rather he was being considerate of the application
of the truth in light of the uniqueness of his audience.
So, quick review of how Christians
ought to testify to the truth:
1) From Jesus’ example: trust the Heavenly Father, avoid
rebuttal for the sake of rebuttal -- our goal is not to win arguments, but to
win people -- and speak the truth in love.
2) From Jesus through St. Peter: give testimony with
gentleness and respect.
3) From Jesus through St. Paul: don’t overreact to the world
viewing truth as strange; find common ground and apply the truth in a way that
can be understood in the unique context.
And what all the examples underline
is we step away from being defensive and emphasize the truth in all its glory
and I might say also, in all its beauty backed up with the conviction that not
only are we not ashamed of the truth, but that we also relish it, we rejoice in
it, because it is indeed glorious and beautiful. We do not need to enter a
power struggle; we do not need to succumb to politics in the kingdom work.
This means that we do not begin to
doubt God’s way just because the world is so vehemently opposed to the truth,
including of course to biblical marriage, life, and family. Remember the big
picture in Psalm 2:
Why do the nations rage and the
peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the
earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us burst their
bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” 4 He who sits in the
heavens laughs;
Of course there’s more
to this text, but I wanted to land on that last insight: “He
who sits in the heavens
laughs” (Psalm 2:4a). Or remember the scene again at
Jesus’ interrogation and
I’ll paraphrase this time: “Amusing Pilate, you think you
have the power, but you
do not. The only power ‘you have’ is the power I have
given you. Let’s get on
with it. I have work to do.”
My apologies if this
introduction seemed circuitous, but you might see where I’m
going with this when it
comes to our focus today on marriage, life, and family.
We shouldn’t be
surprised that marriage would be as undermined as it is. Just
how important is it? The
Word of God begins with marriage:
Genesis
1:
26 Then God said,
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion
over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the
livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on
the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the
image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
And the
Word of God ends with marriage:
Revelation
19:
The Marriage Supper of the Lamb
6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great
multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of
thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord
our God
the Almighty reigns. 7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the
glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself
ready; 8 it was granted
her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”—
And
Revelation 21:
2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out
of heaven from God, prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband. 3 And
I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God
is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God
himself will be with them as their God.”
And the
very last chapter Revelation 22:
17 The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who
hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires
take the water of life without price.
Here,
the Holy Spirit leads the Bride -- the Holy Church -- to say, “Come.” Her
desire is for the Bridegroom Jesus. The Church wants her eternal communion with
the LORD Jesus Christ for the eternal wedding feast.
Given this priority of
marriage, it is no wonder the devil, the world, and sin attack
it so. Without marriage,
life cannot continue, and without marriage, family
disintegrates.
Marriage is also upheld
as the highest priority among the Christian vocations as it
is inherent in both the
fourth, sixth, and tenth commandments as marriage and
parenthood belong
together. As you may know, the commandments are not
random but represent
God’s priority. So, the first commandment regarding our
relationship with God outranks
all other commandments. Within the second table
of the Law, the highest commandment
relates to marriage in the fourth
commandment -- God’s
plan of course is that father and mother are first
husband and wife -- and
is elaborated upon in the sixth and tenth
commandments, both
designed to protect and preserve marriage. Here again,
God is revealing the
vital importance of marriage.
Before I go on, the
biblical emphasis does not denigrate singleness. In fact, Jesus
limits the existence of
marriage. At Matthew 21:30 He taught that His people at
the resurrection “neither
marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels
in heaven.” Practically and
as a safeguard, Jesus in Matthew 19 will not allow us
to go too far and
idolize marriage:
11 But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this
saying, but only those to whom it is
given. 12 For
there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have
been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have
made themselves eunuchs for
the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is
able to receive this receive it.”
Here, “eunuchs” are
those who by the will of God live “single” lives for a variety of
reasons. And in the
Church, one of those reasons is probably to remind all
Christians (including
those who are married) that our most important companion
is the LORD Jesus. No
matter how romantic one might wane, the “first love” in
Scripture for the Church
and every Christian is the LORD.
Having offered this
qualifier on singleness so that we don’t overshoot the vital
importance of marriage,
we see – nevertheless – why marriage is targeted in the
culture and the world as
it is. That which takes aim at marriage are legion.
There is an interesting
cultural paradox going on in our Western milieu:
1. It
is good to be inclusive, so that no one is left out. Of course, nothing assures
real inclusivity as the Gospel of Christ does. For God so loved the world…
2. It
is also good to be completely unique or diverse, so that we can take special
pride in who we are. Of course, God’s creation is so magnificent that
uniqueness is a given within a creation more diverse than we can imagine.
But in the world these
values come with qualifications. While we desire inclusiveness, the desire for
uniqueness (to be one of a kind) won’t allow pre-conceived notions or
categories about what we should be which means that by nature we don’t
want God telling us what we are. Inclusivity combined with uniqueness to
the extent of hyper-individualism (which is what sin invariably leads to so
that there is no one more important than ourselves) combined with moral
relativism means that the highest priority in culture today is to be self-defining.
And if we are self-defining, then we reject what God defines.
That is, what is created
by God is not also categorized or called for what it is by God,
but rather what is created by God is categorized and called for what people
would prefer it to be by the culture steeped in the myriads of flavors
of moral relativism.
It is worthwhile for
this worldview to replace personal godism with either ambiguity (an impersonal
god) or perhaps even better from the world’s perspective, a view in which the
word “god” simply stands for the universe (a kind of pantheism or panentheism).
The Hindu Brahman for ultimate reality is much better suited for what is
preferred by the culture. With this position, there is among other things, no
moral accountability with a malleable entity.
In getting back to
marriage, the re-defining of “god” and the re-defining of “church” which has
the responsibility to proclaim the unchanging God, will have direct impact on
its most important analog and illustration: holy marriage between a man and a
woman which points to the Man Jesus and His wife The Church.
That is if what fulfills
the images and types is a fulfillment or antitype which is changing – not
immutable – then that which points to God and the Church must also be redefined
by the culture and the world.
So, marriage in the
world inevitably receives a new definition. Man, husband, and father receive
new definitions. Woman, wife, and mother receive new definitions and in some
cases the words are lost altogether.
And once this happens,
then marriage is whatever culture says it is, because “god” has become whatever
the culture says he or she or it is.
Now in getting back to
the apologetic enterprise with the examples of Jesus who demonstrates
gentleness while avoiding unnecessary rebuttal for the sake of rebuttal, and
St. Peter who directs us to engage with gentleness and respect, and St. Paul
who refused to permit his emotions dominate him and chose rather to seek common
ground with those whom he engaged with, then from these, how do we in the
Church faithful to the Word of Christ, celebrate and confess male and female
without denigrating nor demonizing people in the culture?
The first step is to
admit and confess that the egregious attack against Holy Marriage tempts us to
think what we ought not think, say what we ought not say, do what we ought not
do, or be what we ought not be, and that is a bunch of angry Christians running
around who want to turn the Christian enterprise into a political one; to draw
the lines of demarcation so as to engage in a culture war.
When Jesus saw what
death had done to His loved ones in Bethany before He went to the tomb of
Lazarus, He was mad. When Paul observed the idolatry in Athens, he was probably
mad. Peter was fully aware of the adversary seeking to devour. He too knew a
righteous indignation.
Solomon wrote, “A fool
gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back” (Proverbs
29:11). The LORD counsels us, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go
down on your anger” (Ephesians 4:26). So, the first thing we ought to do in the
Church is while recognizing that the cultural attacks on holy marriage are
terribly offensive and certainly raise our ire, it is our call from the LORD to
immediately check ourselves and retain self-control, especially as we avoid the
typical response of the flesh to behave as if our battle is against flesh and
blood. As St. Paul points out, however, it never is. It is rather against “the
rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present
darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places”
(Ephesians 6:12).
As for the person in the
culture who is rejecting biblical marriage, they are not the enemy. And even if
they were, then we should be like Jesus who died for us while we were His
enemies (Romans 5:10) and then He turns around and calls His disciples “friends”
(John 15:15). In other words, Jesus’ considers every enemy as a potential
friend, and in the meantime does for the enemies what a friend would do for a
friend. And that is our model. And again, when St. Paul spoke to the Athenians,
he spoke to them with the presumption of common ground which always marks
friendship.
This we must do when we
speak of marriage, life, and family today. And it begins by nailing our anger
that would turn to a political fight on the cross we are called to bear every
day as the LORD’s disciples. In other words, we must take God’s Word to heart:
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21)
So, that is step one: put
the wrath away and remember to whom the vengeance in the end belongs.
Secondly, we must permit
others to speak to us, so that we may have opportunity to speak to them. In the
book Faith That Shines In the Culture (CPH 2023) I had the honor of
interviewing my brother in Christ Michael Salemink. “I asked him about how
faithful married Christians can shine forth the light of Christ in our world
today, especially as we might try to build bridges to show the light of Christ.
Michael was insightful about how the family estate, especially the holy call of
husband or wife can shine in the culture:”
“First, we as Christians
celebrate the blessing of life and family that God gives us. We enjoy those so
that instead of spending time running down our spouses or the burden of our
children, we recognize that in a fallen world there are sufferings that come
along with that, but the blessings that are mediated even in that suffering are
so much greater, and we can confess those to people around us. You know when
the fellas are out drinking and running down the old ball and chain that’s an
opportunity for us to say, yeah, marriage is a lot of sacrifice and difficult,
but my wife has had to put up with as much if not more and I can’t imagine life
without her” (p 111).
On this second point, we
are really getting back to the “gentleness and respect” that St. Peter presents
in 1 Peter 3:15.
We do our very best to
absorb from the other what can be legitimately granted. In some cases, it might
be:
1) It’s
hard being a husband.
2) It’s
hard being a wife.
3) It’s
hard being a father.
4) It’s
hard being a wife.
And if the conversation
is with someone who lives in the realm of LGBTQ+, we can legitimately grant:
5) I
am in this relationship because I want to love.
6) I
am in this relationship because I want to be loved.
St. Paul was doing the
same then in Athens. The Athenians were saying in so many words:
1) We
seek truth.
2) We
are religious.
3) We
value learning.
The Christian takes what
he or she can towards living out the missionary strategy of St. Paul: “I have
become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1
Corinthians 9:22b).
We listen, we respect,
we practice gentleness (when we can of course, sometimes the environment will
not permit us to “cast our pearls” (Matthew 7:6), sometimes we have to leave
and seek a more opportune time), and we look for those things that represent
common ground.
For this, Michael
Salemink continued in the interview:
“Secondly, there are
common grounds, there are basic biological truths that still hold in our
culture’s warped understanding of relationships, of marriage and family, that
God created us to be connected to other people, that we have a deep need to
belong. I think that’s still a common ground, even if it gets twisted. I think
ultimately what drives cultural misunderstandings about sexuality, gender,
relationships is that this deep need to belong to someone has been failed by
selfishness in the world, but that doesn’t eliminate the need; it just forces
us to seek it in unhealthy ways…” (p 112).
And this is where we
launch with what I am calling “celebrating.” “Celebrating” is not a brash,
in-your-face “look what I have, that you don’t” kind of so-called “testimony,”
but rather two basic things offered in loving humility:
1) A
thankful reference to what God says in Holy Scripture, that from the beginning
according to the Word of God, He created male and female and gave marriage.
This is a simple point of fact of what God states in Holy Scripture. This is
sharing holy revelation.
2) Secondly,
we have the opportunity to testify to the beauty of marriage.
And here the Christian
is not trying to convert anyone but rather to be faithful in speaking the truth
in love while relying upon – and while praying to – the Holy Spirit. What can
we say about the beauty of male and female?
The first thing that we
speak to is something that inherently addresses the cultural and worldly confusion
regarding gender. Just as Christians are not ashamed of the gospel, however,
neither are they ashamed of male and female.
So, we should speak of
the outstanding quality of complementarity that comes through what is put forth
in Genesis at Genesis 2:18 as “a helper fit for him.” (ESV) The word “helper”
is better translated as “counterpart,” one who provides an extraordinary complementarity
that gives the occasion for the further concept of “oneness.” The counterpart
provides a completeness that was not possible before the giving by God of the
counterpart. The counterpart leads to the reality of being one.
From Timothy and Kathy
Kellers’ magnificent book The Meaning of Marriage:
In
it, the word “helper” from Genesis 2:18 as in “a helper suitable for him” – ezer
– from the Hebrew is considered. It is “almost always used in the Bible to
describe God himself.” (199) To “help” someone in this way is make up for what
is lacking in them with the strength the ezer provides. (200)…Kathy
Keller recounts her own experience, “Let me emphasize that Jesus’ willing
acceptance of this role was wholly voluntary, a gift to his Father. I
discovered here that my submission in marriage was a gift I offered, not a duty
coerced from me.” (201)
The
husband she says is like a servant-leader who matches the wife who is a strong
helper. (202) She’s not wrong. Bottom line according to Holy Scripture:
husbands sacrifice, wives submit, and both mirror the shining and glorious
picture of Christ and His Bride, the Church. This is a marriage made in heaven.
(Faith That Shines In the Culture, 111)
In
application to the wife specifically, it is like one who perfectly fits her
husband as in two half circles facing the other and then coming together to
form a whole. Such an ezer completes the other as a counterpart or
complementary opposite. (Ibid., 110-111)
Thus, we see all the
more why Jesus taught, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh” (Matthew 19:6).
Furthermore, the “holding
fast” of Matthew 19:5 or “cleaving” connects to the first command given to
humanity – the first command not to be confused with the first commandment –
that is, “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:22). That is, the great joy and
love Adam expressed in the most poetic and ecstatic way in Genesis 2:23: “This
at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” was tied distinctly to the
physical capacity to cleave (Genesis 2:24) and the biological capacity to have
children (Genesis 1:22).
The significance of the Hebrew
verb that is “cleave” means “to be glued together.” “This speaks of a bond that
is stronger than any emotion…The attitude of the Christian spouse becomes more
and more like that of Christ. When the Lord Jesus was on the cross of Calvary,
He didn’t choose to love those who were mocking Him because they were so
attractive while evoking warm fuzzies. Keller says, ‘No, He was in agony, and
He looked down on us – denying Him, abandoning Him, and betraying Him – and in
the greatest act of love in history, He stayed…He loved us, not because
we are so lovely to Him, but to make us lovely. This is why I am going to love
my spouse’” (109). (See Faith That Shines In the Culture, 105)
“Luther celebrated
marriage by teaching about it in his Marriage Booklet. In it, he guides
how the couple should be prepared for marriage by the pastor. After teaching
the couple that marriage is ordained by God, Luther emphasized three points:”
1. The
command of God concerning this estate (Ephesians 5:25-29, 22-24)
2. The
cross that has been laid upon this estate by God (Genesis 3:16-19)
3. The
comfort that comes forth from God’s hold on this estate with grace and blessing
(Genesis 1:27f, 31; Proverbs 18:22)” (Faith That Shines In the Culture, 106)
“Luther almost reads
like a romantic when referring to his wife, Katie: ‘Though I may look over all
the women in the World, I cannot find any about whom I can boast with a joyful
conscience as I can about mine: ‘This is the one whom God has granted to me and
put into my arms.’ I know that He and all the angels are heartily pleased if I
cling to her lovingly and faithfully’” (Ibid., 106).
All this is the
elaboration of “counterpart.” That is, we encounter God’s will and order in
creation the necessity of being forced out of ourselves. We are not permitted
by God to self-prescribe companionship, especially when we want it to the
extreme of our own image and likeness. If we do, we will break down.
“Counterpart,” however, not
only teaches us that we are never sufficient in ourselves for companionship,
but that we need someone else who while being the same – bone of our bones,
flesh of our flesh – who is at the same time, very different indeed to the
extent that they are not as we are, male or female (another duality of the
faith). For the woman to be “counterpart” she is therefore magnificently like
the man, and fearfully and wonderfully different. She completes something in
the man that the man cannot – by his very nature and any capacity within
himself – provide for himself. There is no replicating what the woman brings to
him.
And this of course we also
see in the counter-part concept, the other way around: the man provides for the
woman something she can never give to herself.
That is, marriage
maintains a biblical and therefore life truth: we are dependent and not
independent, and the lesson that we need God who is very much different than we
are, begins with the incarnational truth that in marriage, men are absolutely
not independent and woman are most assuredly not independent. The lesson extends to the higher truth: we
need God, and God came enfleshed and conducted Himself as if He needed
us by dying for us. But what is needed breaks us out of self-sufficiency and it
emancipates us from hyper-independence.
Hyper-independence
epitomizes incurvatus in se, sin that makes us “curved in on ourselves” while
taking our eyes off the gifts of God providing a complementarity that brings a
joy we could never muster on our own.
That is, marriage breaks
us out of ourselves. It demonstrates how much we learn to rely upon “the gift
of the other” (to use the terminology of my gifted brother Rev. Brian Barlow).
The second thing we
should speak of while celebrating holy marriage is God’s will for perpetuating
life. The first step was immediate even if God used dust or clay when He
breathed into it the breath of life, the ensuing steps are mediate: they
require – in accord with creation and not the attempts of man to forsake it –
the man and women, male and female coming together.
And the beauty is the
gift of a child that shows the most important love represented in marriage.
While all the loves are vitally important (yes, it was God who invented
romantic love, affection love, friendship love), but God wants us to know the
highest love of giving ourselves to others. This is agape love. We
extend this love in marriage, the highest arena of such love, when we give our
bodies to another so that life is perpetuated. This is of course the will of
God. The result of course is a reflection of God Himself.
St. Augustine reminds us
that love cannot be defined apart from the interchange between persons. The
Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father. The love itself which is
expressed between Father and Son is the Holy Spirit. Love cannot be divorced
from Trinitarian theology. This is reflected in holy marriage: the man who
especially represents the LORD loves the woman who especially represents the
Church, and what is always produced in this oneness? More offspring which is
what the LORD delights in. Malachi 2:
13 And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping
and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor
from your hand. 14 But
you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord
was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been
faithless, though she is your companion and
your wife by covenant. 15 Did
he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was
the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and
let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.
It's easy to let verse
15 skirt by: “And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring.” That is, what
God seeks and what God ordains is the man who is the image of Christ, the woman
who is the image of the Church, and the child who is the image of the “Godly
offspring.” Marriage, life, and family is exquisitely trinitarian and in every
case it pulsates agape love: it gives and gives and gives; it
sacrifices, sacrifices, and sacrifices. The man is taken out of himself by the
woman; the woman is taken out of herself by the man; the man and woman are
taken out of themselves by children. God provides merciful crosses for us in
marriage and family so that we do not drown in our sinful self-regulation,
imagined self-sufficiency, and our extreme hyper individualism.
In every case, we see
why marriage is beautiful. It humbles us to know that we need different others
outside of ourselves, to the extent that the difference of male and female
specifically is God’s calibration between sameness and difference so that
complementarity can be had, true love can be known, and fruitful oneness can be
experienced. It is hard to serve someone who is different, but when we do it,
it means that we showing evidence that Christ has covered our sin with His
blood. We no longer live for ourselves. Marriage makes for a beautiful picture
between Christ and His bride the Church and reveals in it the greatest love.
Let us celebrate marriage and in a way that is simply sharing God’s gift to the
world. Not something we get militant about, but something we share about and
live out with happy hearts. Mostly because marriage shows Jesus and His Church.
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