Fraught Posted September 7, 2007 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 2 Topic Count: 105 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 1,741 Content Per Day: 0.28 Reputation: 28 Days Won: 0 Joined: 07/23/2007 Status: Offline Birthday: 07/30/1959 Share Posted September 7, 2007 Whether or not this is relative to your studies, sherman, i can't leave the thread without emphasizing the fact that the idea of marriage or the picture of a husband/wife relationship is most importantly a picture of the God/human relationship. The OT patriarchal marriage being more symbolic of the Law/Jewish believers while the NT portraying Christ/Church. repeating 31 "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.", i see a beautiful picture of Christ, having emptied himself of the divine to become human to join with his wife, the church. (you and me) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OopsMartin Posted September 7, 2007 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 0 Topic Count: 4 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 829 Content Per Day: 0.13 Reputation: 3 Days Won: 0 Joined: 12/25/2006 Status: Offline Birthday: 07/26/1943 Share Posted September 7, 2007 Whether or not this is relative to your studies, sherman, i can't leave the thread without emphasizing the fact that the idea of marriage or the picture of a husband/wife relationship is most importantly a picture of the God/human relationship. The OT patriarchal marriage being more symbolic of the Law/Jewish believers while the NT portraying Christ/Church. repeating 31 "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.", i see a beautiful picture of Christ, having emptied himself of the divine to become human to join with his wife, the church. (you and me) I see a disconnect there. You are correctly noting that Christ's love for the church is equated or compared to the intimate self giving relationship that Paul just painted a picture of in chapter five. But the picture cannot be reversed to say that our human marriages and the frail incomplete selfish love we most often share shadows a picture of God's love. (use that in an evangelistic message and few would ever become Christians). Our marriages are not a picture of God and human, man being god and woman being human, because we are both only human. It's a dangerous idea to equate a husband as representing God to his wife. Only Christ represents God to us. Christ as the God-Man the model of perfection and ultimate Love CAN indeed emulate for us the love that a husband should have for his wife and the responsive trust, support and yieldedness that a wife would gladly give in return. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sherman Posted September 7, 2007 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 6 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 278 Content Per Day: 0.04 Reputation: 5 Days Won: 0 Joined: 01/21/2007 Status: Offline Birthday: 02/22/1962 Author Share Posted September 7, 2007 (edited) Marriage is used as a metaphor to help us understand the mystery of Christ's relationship with the Church. Of course, shepherding and fishing are also biblical metaphors of spiritual realities. This is not meant to demean marriage, but to look at it realistically. Marriage and family are the foundation of the social order, but God is the source of life. Edited September 19, 2007 by Sherman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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