This is blog #6 of a continuation of my response to a missive/blog posted several months ago entitled "Why I am a Christian Who Supports Gay Marriage." Please Google it and check it out before continuing.
The Problem With Judging Marriage By Old Testament Events, Standards And Failures.
The author writes in her blog that her biggest issue of all is that marriage, as defined in the Bible, has a long and complicated past. She goes on to give examples of many men (she conveniently left out women AND added an example of women-initiated incest which had nothing to do with marriage) from the Old Testament who repeatedly ignore God's marriage guidelines as if it is the norm for the whole population, rather than snapshots of the trials and failures of even those men and women whom He chose to use in leading His people to Jesus and the New Testament/Covenant, as if God was giving tacit approval of their behavior by using them as such. The problem is she fails to mention that in all of the cases mentioned, the perpetrators of these deviations to God's plans suffered devastating consequences for their actions and/or their complicity in their numerous violations of God's moral standards. The Problem With Judging Marriage By Old Testament Events, Standards And Failures.
You see, here is what we must understand about the Old Testament and why it is included in the Bible: The Old Testament/Covenant is a showcase of Man's (including womb-man, or woman) inability to live a righteous enough life on his own to restore his pre-Fall connection and relationship with Almighty God on his own, even when He gives them laws to live by, without the indwelling presence of God's life in them. Jesus Himself tells us in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John that the Old Testament scriptures point to Him (Jesus) for that restitution of righteousness and eternal life. All of the failures of the Old Testament point to the New Testament for the only solution to the condition of Mankind, which is pretty well summed up like this: Christ gave His life for us (to eliminate the punishment for sin), so that he could give His life to us (when we become born again, He gives us Life), in order that He might live His life through us (we become ministers of reconciliation).
But there is another very important factor - a practical issue, really - which had an important impact on the development of the Sacrament of Marriage, the marriage covenant and sexual mores in general, especially as concerns issues of incest and intermarriage. That factor is that early civilization (specifically, Noah and his sons) was given the command to "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth."(Gen 9: 1, 7) Essentially, in the beginning, the population HAD to engage in such practices as polygamy and certain forms of familial and clan inbreeding in order to quickly establish a sustainable, wide-spread population base. Needless to say, it didn't take long for Man's appetite for sex and pleasure to start resulting in excesses and abuses, not to mention the inevitable development of genetic problems. Keep in mind that there was no God-given or -ordained laws for hundreds of years after the Fall, so Man only had his own customs and codes and the laws of nature to restrain and guide his behavior. Finally, as things got out of hand the second time around (the first resulted in the Great Flood), especially among His chosen people, God provided The Law (including the Ten Commandments) through Moses, as they made their way to the Promise Land, the new geographical area He had set aside to be the home for His chosen people, the Nation of Israel. This new Law provided statutes, rules and regulations, as well as associated punishments for violating them, for individuals and communities to live by if they wished to live under God's protection and provision. But, as you can imagine, and as we have seen in many of the Old Testament Scriptures, old habits and ways are often hard to change, especially where intense pleasure is concerned, and where such huge limits are placed on behavior that was once unregulated, for the most part. But God knew that the Commandments were just a starting point for controlling what only His indwelling presence in the form of the Holy Spirit could resolve...Filling that God-shaped hole for infinite love that all people are born with. That is what the OT Book of Jeremiah prophesied (especially in chapters 13 and 31), and the NT Book of Hebrew proclaimed (specifically in chapter 9).
You see, the crux of the matter is this: In the Old Testament, God did not live inside any man except Jesus; not even those men and women who were considered to be righteous in God's eyes or who attempted to live in a righteous manner had the Holy Spirit of God living in them, so they were doomed to eventually fail to live according to God's standards no matter how hard they tried. That's why they needed a Savior. However, in the New Testament, those who become born again (become saved) become temples of the Holy Spirit, both in the flesh and in the spirit. 1 Cor 6:19-20 puts it this way: "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies." Do you not see that when we engage in sexual practices that our body is not designed for we are dishonoring God with the body He created for us? And that by legalizing such things as same sex marriage we are creating an environment which perpetuates dishonoring God with our bodies? Of course, those who are not born again are dishonoring God with their prideful lives anyway, so it doesn't really matter what behavior they engage in because they are dead to God and become susceptible to the often deadly consequences of their actions in this world, as well as eternal damnation spiritually for their prideful disobedience.
What we Christians of this day and age must realize and understand is that our relationship with Almighty God under the New Testament/Covenant is based on WHO WE ARE (i.e., either alive in Christ or dead in His absence) as opposed to being under the Old Testament/Covenant, which was based on The Law and one's actions and behavior under it. Ironically, God uses the concept of "traditional" Marriage in the writings of Paul in the New Testament (such as in Ephesians chapter 5) as the ultimate example of the relationship Christ wants with His Church and His people. Now I ask you, do we really want to mess with that dynamic?
By the way, doesn't Homosexuality also have a long and complicated past?
