Let No One Put Asunder

1 Corinthians 7:1-7

"Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that." 

Self-sacrifice in the service for the physical and spiritual welfare of each other is one of the major principles of marriage. This is its primary source of synergy that the the totality of a man an a woman in a 'one flesh' covenant is greater than the sum of its parts. These verses have so much to glean from at different levels: (1) The pattern of self-sacrifice, love and service in marriage has its foundations with Christ's marriage-type relationship with the Church, His bride — "Christ loved the church and gave His life for her." (2) Service and care towards each other as in one of the parables we often come across online about a man spoke with the Lord about heaven and hell, (with the pot of stew and long spoons in two scenarios) the man asks in the end, "I don't understand," said the man, "why are they happy here when they were miserable in the other room and everything was the same?" The Lord smiled. "Ah, it is simple," he said. "Here they have learned to feed each other." (3) The promise of protection against temptations also come in as part of the marriage arsenal, that helps both husband and wife overcome attacks on sexuality from Satan. (4) Ownership of bodies are 'shared' in both and self-denied in either one, in the essence of 'one flesh, giving us an image of husband's and wife's mutual submission to each other and cooperation and ultimately mutual submission to God. (5) Christianity does not deny the importance of the physical body and its needs. While most pantheistic religions and similar worldviews will seek to abolish the flesh completely for the mind or the spirit, Christianity affirms all realities of being human. Finally, (6) the apostle Paul acknowledges that we are all special and respond to our experiences differently and that is not essentially a bad thing, (marriage may not be for everyone, some of the disciples closest to Jesus are married and most are not), but God in His splendor and omniscience knows each and everyone of us, and knows how to guide us for His ultimate glorious purposes, uniquely. With these, Paul reinforces the application of our Lord's ideas and purposes in marriage, that although "because of the hardness of your hearts" (Matthew 19:1-10), institutions are rendered in flux, (God has already made allowances for the human condition), the basic principles remain the standards upon which the sending of Christ has reinstated the Kingdom of God.

Matthew 19:1-10

"Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that He departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there. The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.” His disciples said to Him, “If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”

~03.11.2013