I’m no social activist. Jesus Christ was no social activist. He came, offered Himself as the Truth, and left us to decide. But with common sense nowhere in sight and the greatest legal minds of our time making it up as they go along, it is difficult to stay silent. Whenever there is a 5-4 decision, it has nothing to with the law. They have just traded in their black robes for the emperor’s new clothes. But to the dismay of many, there are immutable laws that man cannot distort. For sure, if I speak out on the institution of marriage disagreeing with current convention, it will no doubt be labeled as hate speech. And then watch all those professors of love show their unloving side. Oh well.
A quick google search on the origin of marriage babbles on how it evolved from animalistic polygamist sharing to its use building alliances to social necessity and so on. Love ranked last. Ignoring all of the day’s band wagon pontificators on love and marriage and being a simple minded person, I’ll just go back to the true origin documented in the Bible which Jesus had to remind the people of His day that tried to distort the truth:
Matt 19: 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
So what is marriage really all about? I am going to take an excerpt from The Lost Coin, a Christian novel that debuts in October about Sam, the protagonist, searching for the true meaning of Christ in us. The setting is right after Sam has asked Mo to marry him. Mo, a knower of truth, engages him in a group of knowers who explain what marriage is really all about. Let’s pick it up there with Mo asking Harry to explain:
“I think, Harry, if the group doesn’t mind,” she said looking around,” that our engagement might be a great segue to talk about what marriage is really all about, what it means spiritually. You know, our union with Christ and why God said ‘the two shall become one flesh.’”
Sam nodded. “I’d really like to know more about that.”
“Excellent topic,” Harry began. “Biblical marriage is another earthly picture of our union, our spiritual marriage to Christ.”
“Sorry, Harry, to be so dumb, but what do you mean our spiritual marriage to Christ?” Sam asked.
“There are no dumb questions, Sam,” Harry said. “Our earthly marriage is how God reveals something much greater, a heavenly truth—a spiritual marriage. Two becoming one flesh is a picture of two spirits becoming one spirit. Most don’t realize but we have always been in a spiritual union. In the beginning, we, through Adam and Eve, were married to God. We were one with Him. When they ate of the apple, they rejected God and were tricked into a marriage union with Satan.
“That is the miserable dilemma that all mankind has to start with. I say miserable, but the world at large has no idea that they are in this marriage or that it is all that bad. They buy into Satan’s delusion of independence and that they can be good people on their own. Others realize that is impossible and earnestly crave a solution. But it’s not so simple. We can’t do it ourselves. Someone else has to do it for us. God provides that way.
“According to God’s immutable Law, neither the earthly nor the spiritual union can be undone as long as we live. There is only one way out. Paul explains how in Romans 7— how through the Law we can be freed from the Law. Remember, he is again speaking in earthly terms of spiritual things. He says as long as our husband lives, we cannot be separated or divorced to marry another. But if our husband dies, then we are free to marry another. There it is— your way out—death! All you have to do is die and you are freed from your bad marriage and free to marry another— Christ. ”
“Death?” Sam exclaimed. “You’re starting to lose me. How do you die to live?”
Harry softly smiled. “This is the good news. Christ did it for us. When you believe that Christ died for us, died for our sin, by hanging on that cross, then you died that day also. You ask me how? I don’t know. It’s a spiritual mystery, but it’s true. Jesus did it for us as us, before you and I were born. We were there.
“Once we believe, we are free to enter into a spiritual union with Christ. That is why He is called the bridegroom and the church the bride. We become one with Him. 1 Corinthians 6:17 say, ‘ But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.’ One! Not two!”
Harry paused and looked around the room. Silent eyes were glued on Harry. “Any questions . . . Sam?”
So there you have it. It’s a picture of a spiritual union. It’s about the union of the positive (God) to the negative (us). Ever tried to connect two magnets with the same polarity? It doesn’t work. What happens when you connect the positive with the negative? A union of the two.
All people are loved by God the same. He is no respecter of persons. And they all have the same choice–to receive the Truth or not. To receive Christ or not. That is the only issue out there to be considered. And that is not being talked about.
Note: The Lost Coin, due out in October, is a book about Sam Season, a young man disappointed by rote Christianity that doesn’t work. He is unexpectedly handed a mystical coin that guides him to unraveling the true mystery of Christ. Sam is unaware that his brother, obsessed with wealth and status, is on an opposite path determined that his grandfather’s inheritance will not be split with the undeserving Sam, whatever it takes.
It is a story of love and redemption beginning with Sam as the parable’s lost coin and ending with the ultimate sacrifice of love for one last unlikely lost coin. The coin appears at revelatory moments confirming God’s truths. Sam learns that only Christ in him, as him, can truly love and live the Christian life.
The Lost Coin by Samuel Hayes Sherwood now available on Amazon. Buy now!
