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Love & Respect (Biblical Marriage Basics #9)

Christ Church on November 27, 2022
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A Great Mystery (Biblical Marriage Basics #8)

Christ Church on November 20, 2022

INTRODUCTION

Our confusions surrounding marriage are legion, and therefore it is no surprise that our confusions bleed into how we raise our sons and daughters or how we think about pursuing marriage or try to function within marriage. But all of these things are related and relate back to Christ and His union with His Bride, the Church. Our theology comes out our fingertips.

THE TEXT

“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:31-32).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The previous verse echoed Adam’s poem regarding the glory of the first woman, his wife, affirming that we are one with Christ, “of his flesh and of his bones” (5:30). And Genesis says that it is for that reason, that a man leaves his father and mother (Gen. 2:24). Because man was made first and the woman was taken from the man to become his glory, a man leaves his father and mother (Eph. 5:31). This leaving is for the purpose of forming a new union, a new family, to become one flesh with his wife (Eph. 5:31). Paul says that “this” one-flesh union is a great mystery, but the real mystery is how this is true of Jesus and His church (Eph. 5:32).

WE ARE NOT TRIBALISTS

We are not tribalists; we are Christians. And this means that when a marriage occurs a new family comes into existence. While the fifth commandment continues to be in force when a new family is formed, the honor due takes on a new tenor. Likewise, when a man leaves his parents’ household, he is forming a new household and he no longer owes the same kind of obedience to his parents, beyond basic biblical morals or inter-familial decisions. This means that a Christian marriage honors parents while making its own decisions before God and forming new habits and customs, and this requires some measure of space. It’s a great blessing to live near our families, and in general can be something we lean toward, but co-dependent children, overbearing parents, and tribal compounds can create real familial snarls.

THE BASIC SHAPE

The basic shape of Christian courtship and marriage is that a man leaves; a woman is given. Of course sometimes a woman grows up and also leaves in a sense, but when a man leaves, he leaves to establish a direction, a mission before God. In a Christian family, a grown daughter still looks to her family for support and protection, even if she does eventually form her own household. But a woman is ordinarily looking for man on a mission to join. It is good and right for a woman to use her gifts on her own, but she is made by God to make a home and so her calling/vocation will always be subordinate to that primary instinct of nurture and hospitality.

This means that asking a woman out on a date is an interruption by design. A woman is called to cleave, to join her husband’s mission. While this does not obliterate a woman’s interests or gifts, those interests and gifts really are submitted to the mission of her husband. It is not true that a man and a woman join in marriage and then work out a joint-partnership in terms of the direction and mission of the family. This will only result in great confusion, heartache, and resentment. In an offer of marriage, a woman is being asked to join a man’s mission.

THAT PRIMAL WOUND

A woman comes into maturity biologically, but a man comes into maturity more experientially, through the “blood” of crisis and survival. This is why boys in particular must be taught to be tough from their earliest years; they must be required to fight through their pain, their hunger, their fatigue, and their sins. As boys grow up, they must be encouraged to take risks, face consequences, and not be coddled or shielded, particularly by momma bears. This is also why boys need to see their fathers “leaving” to go out into the world to work and returning faithfully with provision. They are learning to embrace that adventure.

While Adam was literally wounded by God to come into his maturity as a husband, ever since, a man is “wounded” by leaving his father and mother. A young man must embrace the sacrifice of taking responsibility for himself, for his future, acting and thinking for himself before God and facing the real life consequences of those choices. Under God’s blessing, that leaving is ordinarily the path to marriage and family and dominion, but the cursed version of leaving is abandonment. We live in a culture that is facing the increasing results of young men abandoned, particularly by their fathers. And this is why the message of the gospel is for our culture: Christ, the perfect Son, came and endured that particular curse, that God-forsaken Hell, in order to restore all the lost and estranged boys back to their Good Heavenly Father.

A GREAT MYSTERY

Paul acknowledges that this whole thing is a great mystery, and the way of a man with a maid really is too wonderful (Prov. 30:19). But Paul is quick to insist that the real mystery, the real wonder is how this union has its greatest expression in Christ and the Church. Christ left His Father on a mission to save the world, and He endured the shame and misery of the Cross, so that from His side, a new Eve, the Christian Church might be formed. But that is not all: Christ bled and died so that He and the Christian Church might be one. The really glorious mystery is that Christ is more one with His bride than any human marriage in the history of the world. We who are sinners are united to the sinless One. “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:5, Gal. 3:23ff).

CONCLUSION

This great mystery is not the obliteration of male and female. In Christ, the image of God is being restored and glorified, while the enmity is being crushed and destroyed. In Christ, man is restored to the glory of God, and woman is restored to the glory of man (1 Cor. 11). In Christ, men who leave their fathers and mothers are never abandoned, and they are empowered take back up the mission of God, and under His blessing, they are crowned with the glory of a wife. In Christ, husbands are strengthened to love, wives are strengthened to respect, and in so doing, the wedding feast of the Lamb comes a little closer: the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven as a bride adorned for her husband (Rev. 19:7-9, 21:2).

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Nourish & Cherish (Biblical Marriage Basics #7)

Christ Church on November 13, 2022

INTRODUCTION

Man is the glory of God, and woman is the glory of man (1 Cor. 11:7). And far from a demotion, that means that woman is the glory of the glory. But the Bible teaches that this glory is the result of sacrificial love. The love of Christ is at the center, driving this glory in the church until it fills the world, but husbands, in particular, are called to imitate that sacrificial love cultivating that glory in nourishing and cherishing their wives just as Christ does the church.

THE TEXT

“For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones” (Eph. 5:29-30).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Despite all the modern calls for self-care and self-esteem and self-love, the Bible teaches that people naturally love themselves just fine: no one ever really hated his own flesh (Eph. 5:29). Everyone does what they think is best for the nourishing and cherishing of themselves, even if that desire is often twisted (Eph. 5:29). That human instinct is a reflection of the Lord’s care for His church (Eph. 5:29), and we in the church are part of his body, his flesh and his bones, just like the first woman and the first man (Eph. 5:30, Gen. 2:23).

OF HIS FLESH & BONES

When Adam saw his bride he said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Gen. 2:23). This appears to be the first poem in human history, and no surprise: it is a love song at the first human wedding. But what Adam says can be somewhat missed if you don’t understand Hebrew grammar. In Hebrew, the comparative is formed by saying that something is “big” or “strong” or “beautiful” from something else: it is more big/strong/beautiful than that other one. However, the superlative is formed by saying that something is the big/strong/beautiful of [all] the bigs/strongs/beautifuls (e.g. “Holy of Holies” or “Song of Songs”). When Adam says that the woman is “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” he is saying that the Woman is like him, only the best form, the best version: she is the glory of man or man glorified (1 Cor. 11:7).

In fact, in the very act of naming his wife “Woman” (Eeshah) which means something like “glory-fire,” he also gives himself a new name “glory-man” (Eesh). Up to this point in the narrative, the word for “man” has been “adam,” named after the ground (“adamah”) (Gen. 2:7). Adam is saying that in the creation of the woman and their union, the glory of the woman is so potent, it has made him shine. This is yet one more way in which a man who loves his wife, loves himself.

And here, the Bible says that the church is in that position with the Lord. We are “of his flesh and of his bones” in an analogous way, implying that Christ thinks of the church as His glory, that we make Him shine. And that is actually what was said earlier in Ephesians: “Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (Eph. 3:21).

NOURISH & CHERISH

Husbands are commanded to love their wives in this way: nourishing and cherishing them, as the Lord does the church, and as a man naturally cares for himself (Eph. 5:29), considering her “of our flesh and of our bones,” which therefore not only means loving her “as ourselves” but if we’re connecting all these dots, loving her “as better than ourselves.”

The word “nourish” literally means to “feed,” and “cherish” means to “keep warm.” In the following chapter, fathers are commanded to “bring up” or “nourish” in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4, cf. Gen. 47:17). And Paul uses the same word for “cherish” to describe how the apostles cared for the saints in Thessalonica like a nurse (1 Thess. 2:7). In those surrounding verses, Paul describes that cherishing as gentleness, affection, and working night and day not to be a burden and to see those saints walking worthy of God (1 Thess. 2:7-12).

At the center of this love is sacrifice: Adam was put in a deep sleep and endured the first surgery, the first bloody cut and broken bones in the history of the world (and in an unfallen world). And our Lord Jesus Christ is the new Adam who was nailed to a tree for His bride, and a spear pierced His side. As the first Eve was gloriously constructed from Adam’s bloody side and the New Church Eve is being formed from Jesus’ bloody side, so too every husband is called to that kind of sacrificial love for his bride, nourishing and cherishing her, so that she might be his glory. There is no glory apart from sacrifice. There is no crown apart from the battle.

CONCLUSION

In this way, the Bible uniformly insists that your theology comes out your fingertips. Your theology fills the air of your home, the tenor of your dining room, the aroma of your bedroom. The question is not whether but which. Is it the theology of Christ crucified for sinners or is it some bossy, manipulative, works-oriented, try-harder, or apathetic, despairing heresy?

Part of the message of Genesis 1 reiterated here is that men were made for this. God made men first, so that they might be cut first, so that they might bleed first, so that they might die first. The gospel in action is “my life for yours.” In this is love, and God made men strong so that they might go first. Lay down your pride and confess your sins. Lay down your anger and forgive gladly. Lay down your laziness, your apathy, your envy and get up and get back to work. Your King is already ahead of you.

What should Adam have done in the garden when his wife sinned? The Bible says that Adam was not deceived like Eve was, so many speculate that Adam despaired, thinking it was too late and decided to die with his wife. But we know what Adam should have done because it is what Jesus actually did. Adam should have led his wife to the Lord, taken full responsibility for the sin, and offered to die in her place. Jesus laid His life down for us, so that we might lay our lives down for one another. And men were made to lead the way.

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The Glorious Gospel of Grace (CCD)

Christ Church on October 30, 2022

INTRODUCTION

The Reformation was a recovery of the Gospel of grace. Not by the merit of saints, or the good works which we or others have done, or the penance paid into the coffers, but by the free grace of God are you saved. But in every age, various attempts are made to cloud and obscure and bury this glorious doctrine. It is the church’s duty to proclaim and defend this Glorious Gospel through all ages.

THE TEXT

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace (Ephesians 1:3-7).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

In this prologue Paul gives us the Gospel message undiluted. The Blessed God has poured out heavenly blessings upon us in Christ (v3). This blessing is not haphazard, but is according to His eternal purpose, before the worlds began, that we should be holy (v4). All blame is lifted away from us, Satan’s accusation is answered with the simple, child-like answer: Jesus loves me (v4).

Our holiness & blamelessness is brought about by His predestinating our adoption by Jesus unto Himself (v5); all this is according to God’s good pleasure (v5), and results in praise to the glory of His grace as displayed by enemies & strangers being transformed into beloved sons (v6, Cf. 2:13). This Gospel can be simply summarized in this way: by the redeeming blood of Christ, our sins are forgiven (v7). Furthermore, God can forgive our sins because He is rich in grace (v7).

THE SCANDAL OF FREE GRACE

Grace is favor. But God’s favor is no intangible notion that lives in the realm of ideas. When we look at the story of Scripture, we see that God’s favor makes the barren woman bear a child in old age (Cf. Gen. 30:22, Rt. 4). It delivers a nation of slaves (Ex. 15). It gives revelation to the proper worship of the living God (Deu. 4:33). It sends down heavenly manna, and makes water spring from rocks (Ps. 78:16, 25). It routs armies of Giants. It topples Jericho walls.

When God places His favor upon either an individual (i.e. Noah, Abram, David, Solomon, etc.) or a nation (i.e. Israel), things are not left as they once were. God gives the Law to Moses, and then Moses asks to see God’s glory, and in that episode the Lord, the Lawgiver, declares His character: “And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation (Ex. 34:6-7).” God’s glory is declared in His graciousness to mankind; this is nestled in the context of God establishing His covenant mercies with Israel. God rearranges Israel, and this is because God’s favor has been set upon them.

God’s favor rests upon Jacob as he flees from his brother, and God promises at Bethel to protect him in his wanderings (Gen. 28:15); upon Jacob’s return, God comes to wrestle with Jacob. This, too, is a display of God’s favor. It is a grace to wrestle with God (Gen. 32:28). How else did Jacob get a new name, Israel? God’s favor rested upon Jacob, it upheld him, protected him, and came to define him.

The story of biblical history is God repeatedly coming in grace to mankind, and revealing His great purpose to restore man to the glory of His presence. But when God comes down, He does not come down to simply leave things put. God’s grace rearranges the furniture. The presence of God, His sweet favor being poured upon His people, brings about the great moments of redemptive, covenant history. His favor is set on Noah, and the world is flooded & remade. His favor is set on David, and the Philistine giant is toppled and the army put to flight.

SWEET GRACE

Grace is sweet. But not like a 2lb. bag of gummy bears. It’s like the sugar which activates the yeast in your dough. Apart from grace you are damned, you are dead. But when God, by His eternal purpose, shows grace to you, you are brought to life. You are justified. You are forgiven. You are reckoned as righteous in God’s sight. And that grace begets in you life. True life. Christ’s life, by His Holy Spirit.

That first sight of grace is the root. But the continued gaze upon God’s glorious grace brings about the fruit of holiness, the fruit of the Spirit. Grace opens our eyes, and grace keeps our eyes steadfast upon the Christ who sought us and bought us.

KIDNAPPING INSTEAD OF ADOPTION

John Newton once said, “Satan will preach free grace when he finds people willing to believe the notion, as an excuse and a cloak for idleness.” Paul warns in his famous rhetorical question, “Should we sin so that grace may abound? God forbid.” But regardless of such warnings many Christians continue to operate under a misguided assumption about what grace is.

Amidst the many ways that the clear glass of grace is clouded over with the doctrines of men, is a recent tendency in modern evangelicalism to absolutize the doctrine of adoption. Our text describes our salvation in terms of being adopted in God’s household (Eph. 1:6). But recent articulations of this doctrine turn this adoption from a glory to a grief. Being adopted as sons by the Heavenly Father is turned into being pampered by a heavenly wet-nurse who denies no treat to the spoiled heir.

Grace is not the indulgence of God the Father of our sinful lusts. Grace begets a new nature within us, because the Father has adopted us and made us partakers of His nature. Grace restores nature, it doesn’t indulge fallen nature. Our adoption into the household of God is not a permission slip to remain in sin, to remain as enemies of the Almighty. Our adoption is a change of generation, a change of Fatherhood.

GRACE IS IN A MAJOR KEY

Another common feature of many descendants of the Calvinist heritage is to think of the doctrine of man’s total depravity as a description of the Christian post-conversion. But this is not the Gospel which was recovered in the Reformation.

Instead of moaning over or coddling our sinfulness, the Gospel of grace gives us hope that we are not only reckoned as righteous in our justification, but we are empowered by the Spirit to walk in true holiness in our sanctification. We aren’t left as orphans. We are given a new nature. A new heart. A new Spirit is put within us.

This glorious gospel of God’s grace is in a major key. Attempts to play it in a minor key are just plain ugly. As Paul puts it in our text, your salvation results in praise to the glory of His grace. Or as he calls it elsewhere, it is the “glorious gospel of Christ (2Co 4:4);” it is “the glorious gospel of the blessed God (1 Tim. 1:11).”

The glorious Gospel of grace is this. God has set His favor upon you. Not because of anything good in you, but by the goodness of Christ in your stead. This grace will not leave you as you are. By grace your eyes are opened to see Christ. By grace the glory of Christ holds your gaze. By grace you shall one day say with the hymn-writer, “hope shall change to glad fruition, faith to sight, and prayer to praise.”

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As Your Own Body (Biblical Marriage Basics #6)

Christ Church on October 30, 2022

INTRODUCTION

When God unites a man and woman in the covenant of marriage, they truly become one flesh. This is why divorce is always violent (Mal. 2:16). This is not merely a picture; it is a covenantal reality. Therefore, a man’s love and care for his wife is always simultaneously for himself. Like Christ, a man is always presenting his wife to himself, the only question is whether he is presenting glory to himself or not.

THE TEXT

“That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself” (Eph. 5:27-28).

A LIVING SACRIFICE

Christ’s love for us turns us into living sacrifices (Rom. 12). And here, the language implies that a husband should see his love as having a similar effect on his wife, making her spotless, holy, and without blemish, the sort of thing you would look for in a sacrificial animal (Ex. 12:5, Num. 19:2, 1 Pet. 1:19). While there was certainly a punitive element in Christ’s sacrifice, there is also an ascension and communion element to the sacrifices. All the sacrifices point to re-entering the Garden of Eden through the flaming sword of the cherubim (Gen. 3:24). But ultimately, to commune with God is to be changed from glory into glory, to be lifted up and transfigured (e.g. 1 Jn. 3:2). The High Priest in the Old Covenant pictured this in his garments of “glory and beauty” that matched the tabernacle (Ex. 28:2, 40), and he was anointed with blood and oil like the altar itself. The High Priest was a “living sacrifice” who communed with God in the Holy Place. This is what Christ has come to do for all of us, and it is was a husband is called to imitate.

This picture works in at least two directions: First, it certainly applies to loving your wife toward Christ and into greater and greater communion with Him. But second, the immediate context applies this communion directly back to the husband (Eph. 5:28). If the husband is to model Christ’s High Priestly love which has drawn us near to Him as living sacrifices, then a husband’s sacrificial love draws his wife near to himself. He that loves his wife loves himself. And we need not pit these two communions against one another. Because God is the source of all true fellowship, the closer you get to God the closer you get to anyone else. The inverse is also true: the further away from God you get, the further away from true fellowship you get. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 Jn. 1:7). Therefore, drawing nearer to God always brings you closer to your spouse, and a husband loving his wife nearer to the Lord is loving her nearer to himself.

AS YOUR OWN BODY

A man may think of his leadership of his wife in athletic terms. The best coaches push their players beyond what they think they are capable of because they have a bigger vision of what they might do and accomplish. All your favorite coaches and trainers pushed you harder than you thought was reasonable, and then you love them for it. Lazy coaches do not push you at all, and harsh coaches do not really love or care for you. Faithful husbands love their wives as themselves, pushing them as they push themselves for excellence and glory.

“Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (1 Cor. 9:24-27). So men ought to love their own wives striving for the prize, striving for the crown of glory: “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones” (Prov. 12:4), just as wisdom crowns a man with her glory (Prov. 4:9). Do you think of her as your crown, your glory (1 Cor. 11:7)?

Likewise, in athletics, there is a “mental game” where you must listen to your body and yet discipline your thoughts. Your body may not want to get up and work out/exercise. Your body may protest another mile, but if you do not push your body further, it will not get stronger. On the other hand, if you don’t listen carefully to your body, you can harm your body. Husbands must love their wives as their own bodies. A man must lead and love with a mission of glory in mind, but he must lead and love with diligence and care.

CONCLUSIONS

It is not whether you are presenting your wife to yourself, the only question is: what are you presenting to yourself? Are you presenting a glorious crown to yourself?

“A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones” (Prov. 12:4). The word “virtuous” literally means “strength, might, excellence.”

How is this kind of crown crafted? By loving her like Christ loved the Church, giving yourself for her good, loving her as your own body.

Your covenantal union with your wife both underlines your responsibility but also a promise. By God’s grace, she is your responsibility, and by His grace, you can be assured that your love is what she needs.

A man who has failed to love his wife well or diligently really needs to understand the damage that can be done through his neglect or harshness. On the other hand, when a man repents and begins walking in love, you need to know that God has made the world such that your love, under God’s blessing, really is potent for healing and glory.

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