Understanding Each Other's Curse

What I am about to share is likely to strike some of you as controversial. Not because of how I interpret the Word of God in arriving at this, but because of how you have been taught to look at the subject by modern, secular culture. I suggest to you that the modern view is sundered from reality and leads to dysfunction in relationships and the psychological dissonance involved in the perception of gender we see today.

What is the essential biblical truth in this matter? Biological males and females are different from each other both physically and psychologically.

Our society, as most western societies, has been laboring for decades under the false assumption that men and women are basically interchangeable. Fundamental differences in outlook, values, ambitions, etc. are seen to be superficial trappings artificially foisted upon us by developing under outdated patriarchal societal norms. Under such a view, gender is actually nothing but a choice in perspective, not a physiological assignment with psychological implications.

What I’ve seen anecdotally over my lifetime is that whatever our society has been trying to adopt in regard to the issue of manhood and womanhood has been a massive failure. I think we're collectively trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. It seems clear to me that the fallout has been the dissatisfaction, dissociation, divorce, and the sad state of gender confusion so prevalent today.

So what, exactly, does the Bible say? 

Genesis 1:26-27

According to the Bible, there is but one physical creature God made in his image, man, of which there is two physical sexes, male and female. This one creature, consisting male and female individuals, was made with one purpose by God in his pristine creation: to rule over the earth. There was no differentiation between the sexes in this and no implication of preeminence or authority in one over the other. There was, however, a differentiation in roles.

Genesis 2:15, 20b-24

Though male and female humans were undifferentiated in being (image of God), purpose (dominion), and authority (equivalent), they were made by God different in role, even in his pristine creation. The male was made to till and care for the garden God had planted. The female was made to relate to and accompany man, and eventually bear children.

Made as he was for his role, the male had a pristinely pure desire to plant, raise, maintain, and watch over the creation over which he exercised dominion. The female had a pristinely pure desire to stand beside (aid) the male she cared for and who cared for her as she exercised dominion. These purposeful conditions of either sex were implied by God's aim in creating them and verified by the dysfunction imposed upon them by God's curse upon them due to sin. 

Secular psychology will not make this distinction between the sexes, but the Bible can and does, and therefore, reality does.

Understanding this truth is to apprehend why males tend to be task-oriented and find identity in what they do, and females tend to be relationally-oriented and find identity in how they are connected to other people. Ask a man about his life and he’ll tell you about what he does or what he plans to do. Ask a woman about her life and she’ll tell you about the people in her life. A simplistic generalization, I know, but it certainly jives with my experience of people throughout my life.

This difference between the sexes is deep-rooted. It goes back to the purpose of God in creating us, and persists despite the flaws pervading our being since the Fall. Regardless of what we may say about gender differences in our politically correct affectedness, the difference is genetic, biological, and defeats our best efforts to erase it by social posturing or even surgery. Even something as mundane as video game preferences betray our innate differences: female players prefer The Sims and male players prefer Grand Theft Auto.

Genesis 3:16-19

Since the curse, Adam and Eve and all that have followed after, have been frustrated in their innate created purposes. Together in frustration, but distinctly so from each other, men and women live and die in an irreparably broken environment. Man was struck in body and in what he did: now all that he was purposed to do fights against his doing of it and then he dies. Woman was struck by death too and with increased difficulty in childbirth, as well as how she related to man. Instead of a mutually caring, egalitarian relationship, she is objectified by man, frustrated by subservience to him and then she dies.

In this age since the Fall, the differences between men and women are no longer strictly about their roles within a singular purpose (dominion in God’s image), but are also differences in the frustrations we experience with life led under the curse on the way to death. The things our natures were made to pursue are subject to struggle, are always out of reach, and then we die. So, we owe it to our husbands, our wives, and our children, by way of being examples of love, to understand the frustrations our mates experience because of the curse.

Husbands and wives do not experience the frustrations of life and death in the brokenness of this world in the same way. With patience, dedication and consideration we can make each other’s world better than it would otherwise be by understanding the burden our spouse experiences because of the curse. Jesus has broken that curse, but we can't get back to the unbrokenness of Eden in this life. We can, however, live by the light of faith, and help each other succeed despite the brokenness we encounter as we walk through this darkened age together in love and patience.

Finding the Right One

Helping folk find the "right one" is big business. Ads for dating and matchmaking services fill the web, TV, and the mails. It is not unusual to see such endeavors openly associate with Christianity or have departments that cater to the faith community. Love and marriage is not only important to us, but to God (and to pastors), so let me offer some advice for those seeking to find that special one to spend a life with.

THERE IS NEVER JUST ONE

As special as you may be, you're not that unique--you're not God. There is no such thing as the one: that is nothing more than a Hollywood fabrication meant to stir the flesh. If this one doesn't produce a love connection, then the next one could or the one after that. Out of 6.3 billion people in the world, I'd have to imagine that at least 100,000 would suit you just fine; that is if you're looking for a spouse, rather than a circus dog who can jump flawlessly through hoops.

         

Picky people end up lonely, get desperate, and then settle for less. Nobody's perfect so don't look for the perfect one for you. Even if someone could meet your standard, what's the likelihood you'd meet theirs? Though not just any one will do, remember that everyone has some annoying habits, and some philosophical disagreements with anyone else. So don't hold a standard that would exclude you if the other party approached this thing like you were or that only God would have a right to.

FIND SOMEONE WHO TRUSTS CHRIST

With rare exceptions, the choice of a mate is ours rather than God's, but we must exercise that freedom in line with Christ. If you and your potential mate do not agree on Christ, how will you be able to agree on a godly course through life? "Converting" in order to marry will not do, because folk will do almost anything to marry their love, even falsely acknowledging Christ. If you downplay or do not mention you allegiance to Christ, or accept a lame conversion by your mate in the selection of a spouse, you are out and out ashamed of Christ and that has no future at all!

FIND SOMEONE WITH A SERVANT'S HEART

Jesus, the mightiest, came to serve and he is the example we emulate. We should look for something of Jesus in our potential someones. Therefore, look for a person who endeavors to serve you; who does not consider it inconvenient to do so; who does not consider it a burden. If a potential mate doesn't want to serve you, plain and simple, he or she does not love you.

Don't be so afraid to not be in a relationship that you endure the boot heel of an unloving potential mate--that's mentally ill! Spouses are meant by God to be complementary companions, which means they help each other. Queens that wish to be pampered and kings that demand to be served are alike unfit for marriage, may they make themselves eunuchs or true widows for life! So be a servant, and look for a servant, if you desire marital bliss.

FIND SOMEONE WITH INTEGRITY IN THE SMALL THINGS

Someone who will cheat in little matters will cheat in the big ones too. That one will cheat on you (I certainly hope you see yourself as a big matter as a spouse)! So look for character, with integrity being the key issue. Don't look for a mate like a loaf of bread: just because it's soft to the touch, smells good, and doesn't look moldy, doesn't mean it must be wholesome.

The Bible never promotes romanticism in finding a mate, (even the Song of Solomon refers to love after marriage). God wants godly parents and godly children. If you want a mate, use your heart for sure, but also your Bible and your head! The lust of the flesh and eyes are no basis to find a suitable mate: no more than is mutual hedonism. Who you find, you give your life to, so pick the right one. Look for someone whose vision for God matches yours.

Overcoming the Gender Effect of the Fall I

Complementarians cite numerous NT Bible verses (like this, this, this and this) for their approach to male domination in Christian marriage. Is that what's really intended by those scriptures? I don't believe it is, and I think, generally, that kind of thinking is based on a faulty understanding of gender, it's place in God's plan, and the far reaching implications of our redemption in Christ Jesus (see the link in the title).

That the scriptures command wives to submit to their husbands is beyond doubt. That, however, is not the same as saying to husbands, "rule over your wives." That is the assumption (and it most certainly is an assumption) I see in the complementarian approach to Christian marriage. It leads to the unfortunate and faulty conclusion that Jesus' passion and resurrection may have cured many of the ills of the Fall in the here and now, but it didn't get near the gender consequences of it.

Eve, and all women through her were cursed to live in this natural world under the physical and societal domination of their husbands, though they would have an inward desire to master those men. Since the Fall, it has been natural for women to desire to maneuver, manipulate, and manage their dominant husbands. Even in the church world, this reality has been the fodder of the humor mill, as attested in old jokes like Aisle, Altar, Hymn. But Jesus changes all that!

From my particular egalitarian viewpoint the NT commands to wives to submit to their husbands actually prove the point: they merely say to Christian women, "don't do that kind of thing, you have been redeemed from the curse. Stop trying to master your husbands and submit to your partnership with them." The battle of wills in the Christian household is one gender effect of the the Fall that must be overcome!

The Biblical Duties of Matrimony

I have said that marriage is more about what we give to it than what we get from it. That, of course, is a practical statement, for if we concentrate on what we're getting from it, we'll short shrift what we give to it and end up undermining it. Unfortunately, the sacrificial attitude necessary to maintain marriage is foreign to the narcissistic baby boom generation and all the alphabet generations that have followed. 

The result—the burgeoning divorce rate. 

One must give continuously, for a lifetime, to make marriage work. Thankfully, there are plenty of happy marriages for us to learn from. There's a fair of amount of not so happy ones to take lessons from too. Those that I've come across that are happy and long lasting are those in which the spouses haven't saddled each other with the burden of making each other happy. Spouses can share our happiness, we can be happy to share life with them, but they cannot, in themselves, make us happy.

Unhappy marriages are often laboring under the faulty assumption that marriage, or at least the one they're married to, is meant to make them happy. It is the epitome of immaturity and folly to expect another human being to have that much power as to hold the key to our happiness. Spouses do supply emotional comfort to each other, which takes different forms for husbands and wives due to the gender effects of the Fall, but they are not the source of each other's happiness.

Natural women were cursed to live in a contest of wills with their husbands: redeemed women provide their husbands the comfort of knowing that their wives respect and submit to them. Natural men were cursed with ruling over their wives and the frustration of their toil (a source of preoccupation): redeemed men provide their wives the comfort of knowing that their husbands love them sacrificially (ἀγαπᾶτε) and will lay down their lives for them. 

A husband who has the respect of his wife and a wife who's loved by her husband like Christ loves the church are people who have something that makes life worth living.

When we see ourselves and yield ourselves as bound in oneness, providing our spouse with the kind of comfort we've been speaking about, we give our mates a sense of belonging and security that nothing else on earth can truly supply. My first pastor used to repeat over and over again for the sake of all of us coming into marriageable age, "love is not a feeling, it's a commitment." So true. I wish we all went into marriage buying into that.

It's not just an emotional or relational dynamic, however. It translates into all those more tangible areas that mark our shared journeys. Being a reliable source of provision and care is just part of the package. One area along that line is the marriage bed. Despite our culture's incredible fixation on sex, and the Word's relative silence on what, exactly, goes on between a husband and wife, the Word does say that nothing is wrong with sex in marriage, that we should have as much as we like in whatever way a husband and wife agree upon, and that we should not hold out on our spouse.

Marriage will not work for the takers, the heartbreakers, the jerks, nor those who would shirk the obligations of love. Marriage is a picture of the love within the Godhead, and must be treated with the honor appropriate for such. Though, in our age, we have managed to treat marriage as no more than a paper plate or plastic spoon, used for a moment then tossed aside, there is still hope for us in the church. It begins when we dedicate ourselves to the biblical duties of matrimony.

Why Did God Create Marriage?

From God's omniscient perspective, marriage could have little eternal significance. He knew the end from the beginning and realized there would come a time when marriage for humans would be no longer practiced. In fact, this is THE silver bullet that pierces the heart of Mormonism. Mormon hopes rest in eternal marriages with expansive reproduction of offspring, whereas Jesus said such do not and will not exist. Therefore, Mormons bank all of their hopes on a mirage that actually never was and never will be. 

If marriage has such a limited shelf life, then why did God institute it at all and make such a fuss about it?

God's plans for humankind within history required marriage, but not just for the dominion clause. Breeding and bossing can be accomplished without a  covenant between husband and wife, but effective child-rearing cannot. Fathers and mothers working together is absolutely required. That is why the divorce epidemic is having such detrimental effects on our broader society— children cannot be raised according to design by single mothers (or fathers) in broken homes. Sure, there are exceptions, but it's hard to miss the overall trend. 

Our fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants, make-it-up-as-we-go approach to love, marriage and family is a dismal failure.

So, within this space called history, from the fall in the garden to the dead seed of man rising from the dust to face God's judgment, marriage has divine and practical benefit. He who finds a wife, or vice-versa for that matter, finds a good thing. Certainly not something to be discarded after the kids have grown and gone. Certainly not something to discard because it takes too much effort. 

How hard can it be to see that spouse as the gift from God he or she truly is?

Marriage is not a human invention, nor a societal convention that can be tossed aside or experimented with. Oh, we can continue to break marriages upon the rocks of hedonism, but that only delivers the next generation into the cold, dark, stormy deep. That a non-believer opts for the selfish option or takes what seems to be the easier road is not all that surprising— that supposed Christians do is incomprehensible.

When it comes to marriage and family, there's God's plan or there's an inevitable spiral down into chaos. He didn't create marriage for that!

Biblical Grounds for Divorce

Despite what many folk say, according to Jesus Christ (also here, here, and here) there are no affirmative grounds for divorce. 

What Jesus said about marriage is that it is a lifelong covenant that no one should break. Some people will shatter the bond through abandonment and/or adultery, to their shame, but no one is given the grounds by which they can take the initiative to break it because they want it broken. Those that are the victims of a marriage broken by abandonment and/or adultery have some leeway to remarry, those who remarry apart from those exceptions commit adultery.

If a supposed Christian has abandoned a spouse, that one should be rebuked and commanded to return to the care his or her spouse. If that one will not return, he or she has proven not only his or her infidelity to a spouse, but to God. Their unwillingness to provide (what marriage is supposed to provide) for their spouse before God makes them worse than an infidel. According to the Word, the Christian abandoned by an infidel, or unbeliever, is free of the bond and can marry again as long as they do so with a believer. 

If a supposed Christian has entered into a sexual relationship with someone in addition to his or her spouse, that one should be rebuked and commanded to cease the adultery. If he or she will not, that one should be excommunicated. The faithful spouse would have the ability to remarry and not be considered an adulterer, nor the cause of adultery. The wronged party, in effect, is given an exception to the adultery clause for remarriage rather than a positive ground for divorce.

The effect of these allowances is an exception to the Lord's adultery clause rather than a ground given to initiate divorce.

If a Christian marriage is broken out of acrimony, or because of irreconcilable differences, or loss of interest, or anything other than abandonment and/or adultery, the parties do not have the right to remarry. To do so would be adultery. We are grown ups with God dwelling inside of us. If we're actually saved we should be able to find the means of getting along with someone else we're going to spend eternity with. Laying down our lives one for another is the stuff of the kingdom, it's certainly the stuff of marriage as well.

I live and am licensed to drive in Pennsylvania. Our traffic laws do not assign anyone the right of way on our roads. Instead, our laws are framed as to whom must yield right of way in any circumstance. So in a mishap, no one can claim they had the right of way; one can only be assigned blame for failure to yield such. I see the Bible approaching divorce in a similar fashion: it doesn't give anyone the right to divorce a spouse, it gives an exception to the adultery clause for remarriage for those for whom there was a failure by a spouse to yield to the marriage bond. 

So, although there are grounds for remarriage, there really are no grounds for divorce.

The Disaster of Divorce

America's epidemic is not AIDS, nor abortion, nor even pornography, although all are widespread and portend terrible trouble. The most virulent disease in the West is divorce. It only kills a relative few (although some are notable), but it is destroying our culture, and worse, something these other plagues could not— our churches.

The evangelical church has lost her voice and her way in dealing with the dilemma, preferring pop psychology and hedonism to the Bible when it comes to the subject. As long as American Christians, like any other Americans, continue to sell their souls to the demon of happiness and the phantom of self-fulfillment, marriage won't stand a ghost of a chance. Our society and our churches will continue to decay and be nothing but shadows of their former or their possible selves.

The OT allowed divorce on fairly broad grounds. Anything deemed an uncleanness, or indecency, in a wife (only husbands could divorce) by her husband (how objective was that likely to be?) could result in a pink slip and a "seeya." Who would have guessed that in God's sight "you disgust me" was actionable? Paradoxically, this same God who allowed divorce in the Mosaic code, decried it in no uncertain terms through the prophet Malachi! Forked tongue?

In explaining the apparent duplicity, Jesus said it was the hardness of our hearts rather than the softness of God's that inspired that provision.

I've pastored long enough now, and have seen enough marital failures to realize just how right Jesus was: we are terribly hard-hearted, absolutely unwilling to give another person what reasonably could preserve a relationship. Every marriage I've ever seen fail has done so because one or both parties were too hard-hearted to do what had to be done to maintain the marriage. Usually, it's not long at all until such parties are at it again in a new marriage, likely there to see the same result as they did with the one they tossed away.

We're naturally self-centered, self-absorbed, fault-finding, unforgiving, ungracious, uncommitted, and that's just the Prince Charming and Snow Whites among us. Trying to maintain a relationship that requires dedication and sacrifice in the face of such hard-hearted human nature yields a recipe for disaster. Nonetheless, God hates divorce! Perhaps we just need to get off our high horses and listen to the instruction of his Word.

Isn't it time for us to remember on the rocky road that so often is marriage, that our God is in the disaster surviving business?