The Gender Consequences of the Fall

I've stated earlier that God knew marriage was temporary (see the link in the title). It will not be our state in eternity, and I am forced to believe that this must have been the case before the Fall, not only after it. Certainly, God not only knows what he's doing, he always knew it and always will (omniscience). If you follow this thought to its logical conclusion, it means that Adam and Eve may have been in good condition, but were not in their ultimate state before the Fall (see 1 Corinthians 13:9-12). Created gender--male and female he created them-- was a purely functional, and merely temporary contrivance.

This fact is verified in the NT by Galatians 3:26-29, which teaches that in Christ (the eternal condition) there is neither male nor female, everyone is merely a son. Gender is not an eternal verity, it is just a passing means to an end; therefore, our born again approach to gender better not rely upon created order, nor current physical reality, or it will miss what is of eternal significance. Doubtless, those considerations have had some value in history, but they will have none in eternity.

Gender authority distinctions were introduced to the human race with the curse. After Adam and Eve were confronted by God for sin (willful independence in opposition to God) they were cursed as follows: the male would rule over the female though it would be her desire [to master him] (see Genesis 4:7 for the grammatical construction). The effect of sin upon the interaction of husband and wife would be the development of a hierarchical relationship which would result in a battle of wills rather than a partnership in mission. Such a structure is clearly the result of sin and the curse rather than the design of God.

So why is gender such a controversial issue in the church today? Egalitarians pay little heed to it, complementarians see it as determinative. I see that sin and the curse have been dealt with in Christ, and that faith embraces the eternal promise of God, even while we still waste away in a world that is still wasting away. For freedom we have been set free. Is it not well past time for the church, particularly her men, to rise up and set the captives free from the gender consequences of the Fall?


Addendum: Check out this post on women leaders in Wesleyan movements.

The Ark of Safety

We like to cite widely occurring flood myths, complete with fortunate families escaping destruction in a boat, as evidence for Noah's flood. A common thread spread broadly across culture and race says something, after all. According to this article by Jonathan Cheng in the Wall Street Journal [HT: The Drudge Report], the idea is not confined to the ancient past. Is God still giving folk a vision to build an ark, or can it act as a bastion of safety, a charm, in troubled times like these? No, I don't think so, the only ark of safety any of us need today is the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Resurrection Day

Today is the anniversary of LIFE!

Enjoy the celebration of victory,

for he who was dead is alive

and we who believe in him live too.

Have a very happy

RESURRECTION SUNDAY!

Dead Man Walking

Dead, yet still breathing: that's the condition of every human being at birth. We all exist in the inescapable shadow of an inevitable conclusion. It takes reality, on average, about 70 or so years to catch up with us, but catch up with us it does. We produce pills, manufacture equipment, and develop disciplines that attempt to extend our dance in the shadows, but the end comes, and its finality is undeniable.

I think death is unnatural. A bold claim, seeing that everything dies. Yet, my heart abhors the circumstance, and tells me it's not the way it is supposed to be. There are very few who can embrace those cold arms without a revulsive shudder. Maybe our collective gag reflex is meant to tell us something, could there be that much truth in our common experience? To the icy atheist, such a thought would be nothing but emotionalism, and he or she would have a case, except that... Jesus Christ overcame death!

Almost 2000 years ago, the unnatural (read: not in sinc with nature's creator) essence of death came into sharp relief. Death was shown to be an abnormal imposition upon the created, who had adopted the unnaturalness of opposition to and independence from the Creator. For those in sinc with God, life is the natural condition. Those who follow Christ, and who trust him as their shepherd and Lord, become the living transforming. No more can their journey be announced condemnedly by their tormentor with the wretched cry, "dead men walking."

Dream a Little Dream

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness."
Romans 4:18-22 NIV

Arminians and Calvinists incessantly argue about the role of faith and why it is what it is. Calvinists (for the supposed glory of God) blame faith in its entirety on God, exchange election for faith as the issue of consequence in salvation (despite the entirety of both the Old and New Testament's testimony on the matter), all the while never truly admitting that if God is solely to blame for its appearance, than he's also fully to blame for its absence. Since I don't believe God is self-loathing in the least, what does that say about his scathing judgments on unbelief?

Arminians believe faith rises out of the human in response to God's grace. It doesn't have to, some resist grace just like they do compassion as they swallow hard and whiz by the car on the shoulder, four way flashers broadcasting an urgent need for help. God's grace rustles up some awareness within the soul, that then can be followed through on or ignored. To call that response a work is like saying the PENNDOT crew leaning on shovels have honestly earned their wages. In this era of intellectual property one would think the distinction between inspiring impetus and actual production wouldn't be so hard to understand.

Positive Confessionists emphasize faith, but not in the pattern of Abraham. Abraham was a realist. He may have gazed at the stars on a chilly night and dreamed, but he never lied to himself about what he was experiencing or his current condition. He faced reality squarely, openly admitted the facts of it, but he did not let those facts dissuade him concerning God's impossible promise. Faith is never about how persistently we can mentally fixate on a fantasy, or vainly repeat it mantra like with our tongues; it's about our estimation of the character and power of God who's made some promises to us.

We change in so many ways as we age. Not just our bodies, but our hearts and minds, our thinking and attitudes. We get weary, we get jaded, the older one gets, the less likely that one is to still have dreams. Look at the stars tonight, my friend. They're not gaseous orbs hopelessly far away, they're signs and symbols that a mighty God has hung in the dark to inspire us. Though we may seem light years away from graping them, those promises are ours. God is able, which means we can face the facts of the present unshaken, and dream a little dream from him.

The Duties of Matrimony

I have said before 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 that faulty assumption. It is the epitome of immaturity and folly to expect another human being to hold the key to our happiness.

We provide our spouses with fundamental emotional comfort, which (because of the gender effects of the Fall) takes different forms for husbands and wives. 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 (agapate) and will lay down their lives for them. A husband who has the respect of his wife is a man who has something to live for, and a wife loved like Christ loves the church is a woman who has something that makes life worth living.

When we see ourselves and yield ourselves as bound in oneness, providing our spouse that kind of comfort, 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 is not just an emotional or relational dynamic, however. It translates into all those areas of a more tangible nature that mark our shared journeys.

Being a reliable source of provision and care is just part of the package. One area along that line that is getting a lot of pulpit attention these days is the marriage bed. I think that is more a reflection of our culture's fixation on sex than anything the word says on the subject. Short and sweet, it says nothing's wrong with sex in marriage, have as much as you like in whatever way you agree, and don't hold out on your spouse. Wow, I managed to say that in less than 12 weeks and without a single billboard!

Marriage will not work for the takers, nor the heart breakers, not for the jerks nor those who would shirk the obligations of love. Marriage is a picture of the love in the Godhead, and must be treated with the honor appropriate for such. Though we've managed to make it no more than a paper plate or plastic spoon, used for a moment than than tossed aside, there's always hope if we can but begin to dedicate ourselves to the duties of matrimony.

Why Did God Create Marriage?

From God's omniscient perspective, marriage could have had little eternal significance. Surely, he knew the end from the beginning and realized there would come a time when marriage for humans would be unnecessary. In fact, this is THE silver bullet that pierces the heart of Mormonism. Mormon hopes rest in eternal marriages, Jesus said such do not and will not exist; therefore, Mormons bank all of their hopes on a puff of vanishing smoke. Yet, 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. Not just the dominion clause, breeding and bossing can be accomplished without covenants, but child rearing cannot. Fathers and mothers working together is required. I think that is why the divorce epidemic is having such detrimental affects on our broader society--children cannot be raised according to design by single mothers and 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; something not to be discarded even after the kids have grown and gone. 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. When it comes to marriage and family, there's God's way or there's a slow descent into the night!

Marriage Is About What We Give It

Marriage is anything but a human invention, and is not primarily the consequence of "falling in love." Unfortunately, that's about as deep as the cultural understanding of marriage gets in the West, and as a result, God's purposes for marriage have been frustrated and public trust in the institution has been eroded to the point of collapse. The Bible tells us God instituted marriage to accomplish several things for humankind from his perspective, and to allow several things from our perspective to be accomplished in our lives.

From God's perspective, marriage was meant to provide the human race with companionship in the mission of life, to be the environment for sexual expression and the conception of new life, and to be a bastion of holiness and learning for the family. To be honest, it's not like fallen man was ever going to do well achieving such noble ends. Nonetheless, noble ends these are, and they need to be front and center in our consideration of the institution.

From our perspective, marriage is meant to provide fundamental emotional comfort, to supply the security of a loyal commitment, and to be a reliable source of provision and care. These too are noble goals, but unfortunately are set before the eyes of the inherently ignoble. Nonetheless, this is the design of marriage, and we need to understand this if we're ever to honor the bond with the gravity it deserves.

Marriage has been romanticized through myth, tale, torrid paperbacks, and the insipid celluloid regurgitations of Hollywood. The emphasis, generally, is on how Prince Charming or Snow White makes their love feel. If these sources are the only input informing one's expectations of marriage, that one will, in all likelihood, make a terrible spouse and find the trouble of maintaining the bond of matrimony more than he or she cares to bear. You see, in the real world God made, marriage is not about what we get out of it, but what we give to it.

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 impetus 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. The effect of this allowance is an exception to the Lord's adultery clause (for any resultant remarriage by the abandoned) rather than a ground given for divorce.

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 divorce and remarriage rather than a positive ground for 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.

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 exception to the adultery clause for those for whom there was a failure by a spouse to yield to the marriage bond. So, although there may be grounds for remarriage, there really are no grounds for divorce.