A presupposition that needs careful attention by Christians relative to marriage and the family (and much else) is the belief that human life is an analogy for earth of the order for life in heaven. We learn from it – how to live in love, peace, and meaning to fulfillment as individuals and society. For those giving attention to the matter nearly every turn they make observes another of the context of heaven and earth that provides insight so to give to faith an intellectual perception about spiritual reality, and in the understanding to discover who we are as individuals and society. For example, every individual is taken by God in a primary relationship that is treated as so personal that it can be perceived as the private personal relationship between God and the individual – to the equality of all other individuals who are also related to God in similar relationship. This is found in marriage with the human figure of the male and female in marriage – the male given the role in the marriage that is analogous to God’s intimate identity with mankind, and the role of mankind given to the female of all mankind in total (unity of the one and many) to God. This aids our faith in many ways including the understanding of God, the unity of three Persons ln One – a mystery.
So it is that God is personal but more. Mankind’s personality is the highest factor we find on earth, so we may force our analogy on God (rather than the reverse) and end up with three gods. This turns the analogy around. Scripture acknowledges the mystery of God. God is a person found in the Godhead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but God is much more about which we do not yet have extensive information, perhaps we do not have adequate language to express all that God is in the full story. The family is one with the basic makeup of mother, father and child with the child drawing from the parents characteristics of the oneness (unity) of God. If the analogy is not defiled or lost it represents Father, Son and Holy Spirit which is the truly one holy family. Mankind is treated as one (unity) with God. (This is seen in society when corporations are treated as persons in court.) For God there is no abandonment, no abuse, no death, and no evasion – nothing that mars the unity of God. The Father whose nature is love serves the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son whose nature is love serves the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit whose nature is love serves the Son and the Father. What one does in the role of Deity the other also does. In the perfect analogy of a family following the model of God, the family becomes one. Our oneness, for me, approaching the end of the earth sojourn is that I am, my deceased wife was, and my four children (with their mates) are committed – to God through the redemptive plan of Jesus Christ. In all this the success of my family is not determined by the wealth we might accumulate, the charity we might offer, or the achievement of creative accomplishment to society, but in the keeping of faith in God’s creative order. It is illustrated for us in the various analogies of earth life, with instructions in Scripture that we extend our faith to the mystery of God – to be provided to us when we have been obedient to what we have been given. God has something of a mirror on the earth even though from a glass darkly (fogged). (1 Corinthians 13:12)
A broken marriage, whether legal or sustained in a negative concept of acceptance, or broken in the unity of fellowship among its members, and lacking in interpersonal human devotion to one another becomes something beyond marriage as God formed it. The redefinition of marriage that takes from the genders their God-given gifts, both physical and spiritual, erases an important understanding about our meaning as human beings, and God’s meaning in the living analogies of his kingdom of citizens. In a recent statement a woman remarking about God did not want to hear about: Our father who is in heaven, but to the deity who is in heaven. That loses what God communicates, and will lose the meaning of both personal and family unity, a loss already under way, that helps persons to understand the plan of God for mankind. God has no sex. He accepts the indication of father, as Jesus accepts the indication of son, and the Holy Spirit might have been indicated as mother. Scripture adopted the terms, and mankind has moved them over to the genders of human beings taking them away from God’s meaning. God is not defined by gender. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020