Lesson for March 31, 2019
The Doctrine of Christian Marriage
Pre-Marriage Stages
There are stages in pre-marriage: 1) attraction stage 2) compatibility stage 3) rapport stage.
Attraction Stage
Attraction generally emphasizes physical appeal. Attraction may include physical beauty, overt personality, or seeing the fulfillment of one’s personal standards. It often has to do with the superficialities of life, such as dress, appearance, personality, manners, etc. This is the empirical approach (what the senses tell you). It is a dangerous stage because you assume that “what you see is what you get,” and that is not always true.
A person often sets aside, ignores, or is blinded to the flaws or potential flaws in the object of attraction.
The attraction stage often ignores the potential problems the other person has or can create and has not considered any of the problems regarding incompatibility, or even recognized the existence of incompatibility. The attraction stage has not yet gathered all the facts.
Concentration on the “object of love” in the attraction stage often results in the false conclusion that the object of your love is the only person in the world for you. This false confidence rejects or ignores warning signs against marrying this person. Rationalization, simply dismissing it from the mind, or reaction often results. People who get married in the attraction stage often fail, but it can be overcome by strong spiritual growth.
When the believer is overpowered by emotion in the attraction stage, virtue and stability are all but eliminated. The removal of virtue and wisdom caused by the emotional revolt of the soul (living life on the basis of emotion and not spiritual reason) is in direct contrast to the normal and legitimate emotional function of romance and love. Emotional revolt of the soul (where emotion revolts against reason) results in blotting out the doctrinal principles that sustain love. This is because emotion has no doctrinal content, no ability to think or reason. Emotional revolt of the soul often emphasizes premarital intimacy. Human personal love cannot be sustained by emotion. Emotion plays a part in love when it is a response to normal things, but irrational emotion destroys love.
Emotional revolt of the soul brings into the attraction stage two categories of sins: the sins of arrogance (jealousy, bitterness, resentment, vindictiveness, implacability, revenge, slander, gossip, maligning) and the sins of emotion (fear, worry, anxiety, hatred, anger, violence, murder). Uncontrolled emotion is irrational, which blots out reality and virtue and ignores Bible doctrine and the Problem-Solving Devices. When Bible doctrine is properly applied during the attraction stage it becomes compatibility.
Compatibility Stage
Compatibility is the capacity of a man and a woman to combine and remain together. Compatibility is a mutual tolerance, motivated by three categories of virtue-love: personal love for God the Father, impersonal love for all mankind, and occupation with the Person of Christ. Compatibility is a total adjustment to the other person so that he or she is the most important person on the earth to you.
While attraction is often “the blind stage,” compatibility is the enlightened stage. In this stage you have begun to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the object of your love, and you have already resolved many of the problems of your relationship. Whatever the weaknesses of your partner, they do not diminish your love for him or her. Compatibility is the problem-solving stage of romance; therefore, it is normally the best time for marriage. Those involved have used the privacy of their own priesthood to solve the problems.
With compatibility, both the man and the woman take responsibility for their own decisions. Tolerance, understanding and forgiveness prevail in this stage. Compatibility must be established before marriage, not after marriage. No decision should be made about marriage until you have all the facts; and all the facts are not known until you have reached the stage of compatibility. The greatest manifestation of compatibility is conversation and communication which is a huge part of any successful relationship, especially marriage. A successful marriage is a long conversation that one wishes would never end.
Rapport Stage
Rapport is the harmonious stage of romance. This is the spiritual identification with the object of your love. This is the stage of understanding feelings, thoughts, and attitudes of the object of your love.
Rapport is where the wisdom of application of Bible doctrine pays great dividends in the relationship.
Rapport with God must always precede rapport with people. If your rapport with God is a failure, your rapport with people, including the object of your love, will be a failure. Rapport with God and people is based on spiritual growth: the perception and application of Bible doctrine.
If you cannot agree on the important issues in life as believers, you do not have rapport and should not get married. A biblical marriage is one where a man and woman unite and become one in the eyes of the Lord. If you are apprehensive about your money, your property or your material possessions prior to marriage (in case things don’t work out), then you do not have rapport and should not get married. Successful Christian marriage is a partnership between two believers who love God, love one another and want to glorify God as a couple. This will be impossible when there is no trust or rapport.
The Selection of a Mate
If you are a believer, do not marry an unbeliever, period! (I Corinthians 9:5; II Corinthians 6:14-15) If you do or if you become a believer after marrying an unbeliever, do not seek a divorce. If you are positive to doctrine, do not marry a person who is negative to doctrine or to your biblical convictions. If you have already done so, do not seek to be divorced, simply live your Christian life before your spouse as a testimony and leave your spouse in the hands of God. (I Peter 3:1) Spiritual compatibility is the only hope for resolving many of the problems in marriage.
Do not regard marriage as the solution to the problems of life. Marriage is not a problem-solving device, but a problem-manufacturing device. The more problems a person carries into marriage, the less chance the marriage has of succeeding. If you cannot solve your problems while alone, you will have a difficult time solving them in marriage. Do not marry on a wave of libido or to escape from an unhappy home life, abusive parents, or an unhappy set of circumstances.
Do not marry for security. Do not marry for money, or to improve your economic situation, or for financial security. Do not go in debt to get married. Do not believe that two people can live as cheaply as one person. Do not marry because you want children. Children do not normally save a marriage.
Do not marry a person for his or her attractiveness alone. Beauty gives little indication of the real character of a person. Beauty blinds the ignorant, the shallow, the superficial, and the non-discerning person. Beauty can often disguise flaws. These need to be recognized before marriage. Without virtue, beauty is often susceptible to flattery.
Do not marry a person unless you are in the compatibility stage of your relationship. The compatibility stage has five characteristics: 1) Spiritual compatibility. If you can’t agree on doctrine, the same pastor, the same local church, you will have trouble. This is the most difficult of all compatibilities to recognize.
2) Mental compatibility. This is discovered through conversation. 3) Physical compatibility. This is determined after marriage, and the discovery is enjoyable. Intimacy is a learning process. 4) Economic compatibility is agreement on how to handle finances. 5) Social compatibility. This is an important compatibility in the attraction stage.
Avoid getting married under peer pressure. It is better to take your time and avoid making a mistake.
Do not marry a mentally unstable person, which is dangerous to the soul and mental compatibility. This type is too unstable, too emotional, too hysterical, too self-centered, and too self-destructive to adjust to marriage. Marriage to a neurotic person never works out.
Do not marry a divorced person except under those circumstances dictated by the Word of God: their former spouse has died; they divorced their spouse prior to salvation; their former spouse has remarried; they are the innocent party of adultery; the divorce involved the desertion of their former spouse. If you have already violated these principles, stay married and work on your spiritual life. And single ladies, do not marry any man unless you can follow his spiritual leadership.
Premarital Intimacy
The couple involved in premarital intimacy destroys the very standards of virtue required for a successful marriage. Premarital intimacy substitutes emotion for Biblical standards, and no marriage ever succeeded based solely on emotion. Emotion plays a part in love when responding to normal things, but irrational emotion destroys love. Love and romance are irrational when they are based solely on emotion. Emotions have no doctrinal content, no ability to reason, no ability to apply doctrine, no common sense, and no content for solving problems and perpetuating love. In premarital intimacy, you drop the standards of Bible doctrine for the emotional revolt of the soul. Premarital intimacy in the attraction stage of romance can destroy the possibility of reaching the compatibility and rapport stages of marriage. Biblical warnings against premarital intimacy are found in I Corinthians 5:11, 6:18; I Thessalonians 4:3-4; Hebrews13:4.
God had good reasons for forbidding intimacy before marriage, but everyone is responsible for their own decisions. The more a believer learns about grace as the divine policy, the more they take responsibility for their own decisions. God is not unkind, unfair, or trying to deprive you of any fun in life. He knows the end from the beginning, and He knows the problems that result from premarital intimacy. Marriage therefore is more than finding the right person, marriage is being the person that God wants you to be.
Divorce and Remarriage
Two grace principles must be cited. First grace principle: any sin or failure regarding marriage, divorce, etc. before a person became a believer was blotted out at the moment of salvation. Therefore, you are obviously not held accountable for any sin or failure before salvation. Second grace principle: if you have violated the biblical teaching, do not try to resolve the problem through divorce. Two wrongs do not make a right. You should carry on with your Christian life inside the Divine Dynasphere.
There are two categories of Biblical divorce. First, divorce which gives each spouse the right of remarriage. Second, divorce which does not provide any right for remarriage. In category one divorce, either innocent spouse has the right of remarriage for these reasons: 1) adultery 2) desertion or 3) the death of your spouse. In category two divorce, there is no right of remarriage when a spouse divorces for any other reason, unless one spouse of the former marriage violates this principle and remarries. This gives the other spouse the right of remarriage. (I Corinthians 7:25-40)
All of this adds up to a greater principle: without God’s power system, the Divine Dynasphere, Christian marriage will not be truly successful. There is no way for a believer to thrive in marriage apart from having the doctrinal ability to do so, and that is virtue. Anyone who approaches marriage with the idea that marriage is a panacea, a problem-solver or the road to happiness is thinking incorrectly. To get married for all the wrong reasons is to think like a loser believer and to act like a loser believer. But the good news to loser believers is the fact that they don’t have to stay in that status. No one has to remain a loser believer because God has given us the solution at salvation called the Divine Dynasphere, and the system that is going to be the source of deliverance from a loser believer to a winner believer.