Is This Popular View of Marriage Completely Unbiblical?

CharismaMagazine ^ | May 5, 2017 | DR. DOUG WEISS

[metmom]

Marriage being a trinity between God, man and woman is what separates a Christian definition of marriage from every version or perversion of marriage any culture or individual can decide upon.

Do you remember a while back when the media in America was asking whether marriage was only between a man and a woman? Even some of the best and brightest in Christianity were duped into answering a question that, even in its formation, limited the Christian definition of marriage.

From a Christian perspective, marriage is not and never has been between a man and a woman. A Christian marriage, as shown in Genesis 1 and 2, is between God, a man and a woman.

When a culture or individuals remove God from marriage, anything can occur. After all, in some cultures, beating one's wife is a normal practice. Regardless of cultural belief, when you or I believe that marriage is just between a man and a woman, the fruit of this secular idea will show up in our marriages.

[metmom]

Ping

[foreverfree]

Bump for later

[left that other site]

A rope of three strands is not easy broken. (Eccl. 4:12)

[metmom]

Very appropriate verse.

[HLPhat]

>>When a culture or individuals remove God from marriage, anything can occur.

Yep.

[BenLurkin]

“A Christian marriage is between God, a man and a woman.”

That’s a new one!

[leaning conservative]

I also think the premarital counseling we received from the Episcopalian priest who married us was very important.

[jonrick46]

The idea that the union between a man and a woman as God’s plan is as old as the Bible when it says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24 and, “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion” over all of creation (Genesis 1:28). It is the basis of Natural Law which gives sovereignty to the family unit over all other social institutions.

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

Christian marriage is, and always has been, a reflection of the Trinity, Christ at the centre, with the man and wife joined as one. In Genesis, it talks about two becoming one but it is assumed that Christ is at the centre.

[Ezekiel]

Some of our sages probe not only the words of the Torah, but each individual letter as well. The foremost exponent of this method was Rabbi Akiva. It was he who taught: If husband and wife are deserving, G-d's Presence dwells in their midst. If they are not deserving, fire devours them. For, said Rabbi Akiba, the Hebrew word for man is ish, spelled aleph, yod, shin. Remove the yod and you have aleph, shin or esh, meaning fire. The Hebrew word for woman is ishah, spelled aleph, shin heh. Remove the heh and, once again, you have esh, meaning fire.

From this we learn that there is a consuming fire in the heart of every man and woman. When they marry, two fires are brought together that are capable of destroying whole worlds, if not properly tended. To quench that fire is impossible, for it generates the life of the world. But to leave the fire as is, is also impossible for it generates evil as well.

What did G-d do? He placed one of the letters of His name, the first letter of the Divine Name, yod, between the aleph and the shin to make the Hebrew name for man. And He took the second letter of the Divine Name, the heh, and placed it after the aleph and the shin to make the Hebrew word for woman. In that way, both man and woman retain in their names the word fire, but when they marry, the Divine Presence dwells in their midst, in the combination of their names.

Wherever G-d's presence dwells, that fire gives warmth and heat, but it does not devour and consume. If husband and wife do not make the Divine Presence unwelcome, its blessing rests on the work of their hands and they become as partners in the act of Divine creation. But if they make the Presence unwelcome so that it does not dwell in their midst they are left only with two consuming fires.

https://www.mikvah.org/article/woman%2C_man_and_fire

man:

איש

woman:

אשה

fire:

אש

Yah:

יה

[BenLurkin]

I’ve never heard of that concept.

And when you think about it, marriage can’t possibly reflect the Triune God. There’s no correlation between the parties to a marriage and the Persons of the Godhead. Indeed the very nature of the Trinity is sublime and Holy, beyond any measure which man, or woman, or man and woman, can ever conceive, let only attain.

By the way, our Jewish Freepers might hesitate to accept the premise that Moses intended as he wrote Genesis that his readers of any era would assume that Jesus was a party in a marriage between a man and a woman.

And why Jesus anyway? Why not the Holy Spirit? That would seem to make more sense if our goal was to somehow crowd one part of the Trinity into the marriage dyad.

[amihow]

ACTUALLY Jesus is God’s only Begotten. In God’s image did God make man AND woman.

“Let Us make them in Our image” I think is Scriptural. To Whom was God speaking? And what would Our image mean?

I

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

We are saved by accepting Christ as our Saviour and as (here's the difficult part for most of us) our LORD. Holy Spirit, our counsellor, infills us but without Christ Jesus as Our Lord, Holy Spirit is absent. Further, the Bible is all about Jesus. The OT points to Jesus. Over 300 OT prophesies were fulfilled by Him. Of course, the NT shows His interaction with humanity, while He walked the Earth and how 'the end' will come and how eternity will be for for mankind, either with, or without Him.

I would suggest that you ask your Pastor about Christian marriage being a reflection of the Trinity. The reflection being not of 'substance' but of 'interaction' and 'relationship'. This link is as good as any, to explain the concept.

[metmom]

And why Jesus anyway? Why not the Holy Spirit? That would seem to make more sense if our goal was to somehow crowd one part of the Trinity into the marriage dyad.

There is this verse....

Malachi 2:13-16 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. 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. 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. “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

[Jumper]

Christians have taken the God of Abraham and comingled him with Jesus, essentially making God Jesus and Jesus God coupled with the Holy Spirit. This prompts the question that how is a Christian marriage different from a Jewish marriage, then. Your comments were instructive on the role of historical difference, the first split of God’s followers into two camps, both of which have either several hunderd sects or several thousand denominations.... It seems neither religion can agree between one another nor themselves!