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THE NORTHERN KENTUCKY SEARCHER VOLUME 3, NUMBER 2, FEBRUARY 9, 2003 THE MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIP
As I brought last week’s article to an end, I mentioned marriage that
God approves of and marriage that God does not approve of.
What would constitute a marriage of which God would approve?
It a seems sad to have to say it, but in order to be approved of God a
marriage has to be between a man and a woman.
The current practice of two men or two women “marrying” one another
is just another example of what happens when people lose all respect for God.
Having lost respect for God, they lose respect for their fellow man.
Having lost respect for their fellow man, individuals lose respect for
themselves. Romans 1:19-32 details
the kind of thinking that has resulted in these modern “perversions” of
God’s plan.
A man or a woman who have never been married would have a right to be
married. A man or woman who has lost
a spouse through death would have a right to marry.
A man or woman who has put away a spouse for fornication, being innocent,
would have a right to marry. I
believe that a man and woman who were in a marriage God approved of, and
divorced each other and are now reconciling, would have a right to marry each
other. When both parties in the
marriage fit into one of these categories, when they have the intention to live
together as husband and wife, and when they meet the legal requirements of the
government under which they live, they are in a marriage of which God approves.
If one or both of the parties in a marriage do not fit into one of the
categories mentioned above, but they have the intention to live together as
husband and wife and meet the legal requirements of the government under which
they live, they are married, but it is a marriage of which God disapproves.
In order to understand a vitally important point in this discussion, we
need to look at Romans 7:2-3. Teaching
about marriage is not Paul’s primary point in this passage, but what he says
will help us to make an essential distinction.
The passage reads as follows, “For the married woman is bound by law
to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from
the law concerning the husband. So
then if, while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be
called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that
she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man.”
Notice, the woman is “bound” by the law to her husband as long as he
lives. That is the “bond”.
Jesus spoke of it as “God has joined together”.
When a couple that has a right to marry meets all of the requirements –
God is the third party to that marriage. He
“binds” them together. The
bond is the covenant with God that joins the man and the woman.
Now, in Romans 7:3, the woman in the illustration “marries” another
man, or “is joined to” another man while her original husband is
still alive. The word translated as “marries” in the King James and “is
joined to” in the New American Standard is “ginomai”.
It means “to become” and it is to become another man’s.
This shows that there is a biblical distinction between the “bond”
and the “marriage”. Marriage is
the intention to live together as husband and wife coupled with meeting the
legal requirements. God doesn’t
have to “approve” of it in order for it to be a marriage.
It is still spoken of in the scriptures as a “marriage”, whether God
approves or not.
Hopefully you can see how important it is to understand the distinction
between the “bond” and the “marriage.
There are many who talk about being “married in God’s eyes” and
“not being married in God’s eyes.” It
is amazing how a marriage of which God would not approve can suddenly become no
marriage at all when one of the parties wants out.
Suddenly, since they were “not married in God’s eyes”, they
weren’t really married anyhow – so what can possibly be sinful about
dissolving a marriage that really didn’t exist as far as God was concerned
anyhow? What convoluted reasoning!
We will have more to say next week. Greg Litmer A FEW SHORT THOUGHTS
It never ceases to
amaze me how being genuinely concerned about someone else’s problems makes
your own problems seem so much smaller. Our faithfulness
is not measured by the big things we do that everybody knows about, but the
hundreds of little things we do every day that only God knows about. Lord, for tomorrow
and its needs Given
to me by a dear old friend who has gone to be with the Lord.
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