Marriage And The Consummation of All Things

Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, you are a good and wonderful God. I pray that you would help us to understand you in all your greatness and all your perfection as we study your word this morning, in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, so we are continuing our study of marriage for those who have not been with us before during this. We looked at Ephesians 5, what it says about marriage between man and wife being modeled after the union between Christ and the church, and specifically how salvation itself should dictate how husbands love their wives, how wives submit to their husbands.

And then taking that to heart and walking through everything the Bible says about salvation, everything it says about the history of salvation, the Historia Salutis, and applying it to marriage and trying to draw applications to marriage.

So we have this lesson and then one more after that. So we started all the way before the foundation of the world with election. We've gone all the way through judgment, and today we are looking at marriage in the consummation of all things.

But actually, now that I just remembered, there were some parts of judgment we hadn't done, and I did not print out notes for that, but let me pull those up, if I can find that. So we have a little bit of leftover from last time.

All right, so last time we had talked somewhat about judgment. One other aspect of judgment is the vindication of the bride. So part of the reason why Christ judges the world is to judge the bride innocent and vindicate her.

Revelation 19, 8 says,. Okay, so a husband should honor his wife and speak well of her, just as Christ does. He should cover her weaknesses, highlight good works. This is especially the case as others speak poorly of her and dishonor her, and it should be his aim to counter any ill speech with truth or goodness.

Yeah, many times, for example, wives will face criticism from especially her in-laws or family. Those are especially times that a husband should defend the honor of his wife. Sometimes those criticisms have merit, so it's not the case that someone should deny what is true, but still there are ways of protecting one's honor, even when criticisms are true and you're not denying the truth.

Proverbs 31, 28 says,. Moreover, a husband should learn to praise her more substantial qualities, because many focus on the superficial. A husband should honor what runs deeper. Proverbs 31, 30 says,.

So I would say that a husband whose praise of his wife is really just isolated to her beauty or something like that is not really praising her the way that a good wife should be praised, according to Proverbs 31.

Now also, you have the aspect of Christ's jealousy in that judgment. Anything that threatens the union between Christ and the church, he has a hatred of, and this is referred to as jealousy. Nahum 1, 2 says,.

All right. Most frequently, yeah, jealousy refers to one party's opposition when the other party in the union threatens it. So a lot of times it's not just something external threatening it, but something internal where one party is threatening the union and there's a jealousy from the other party, a hatred of that which would threaten the union.

So he does not permit his, God does not permit his people to go after other gods. That's a situation where you have God's people threatening the union between them and God. Exodus 25 says,. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.

Exodus 34, 14 says,. It's a jealous God. And then one more verse, Deuteronomy 4, 24. For Jehovah your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God. Okay, so all this applies on the day of judgment. Judgment is not merely targeted at the external enemies of the union between Christ and church, but even against the church itself in some way.

Though we will have the mercy of Christ because we will be perfectly forgiven, we will have to give an account of every time that we threatened that union. Second Corinthians 5, 10 says,. Romans 14, 10 says,.

All right, so applying this to human marriage, it's right for husbands to be jealous. This especially applies to husbands. It's true both of wives and of husbands that they ought to be jealous for one another.

But this especially applies to husbands in their roles of protectors over the marriage. So if a husband's role is to protect that union, especially even more so than the role of the wife, then yeah, he should certainly be jealous against that, which threatens the marriage either externally or internally.

There should be an opposition in the marriage toward any kind of inappropriate behavior that would threaten the marriage, especially when it comes to interactions with the opposite sex between one of the parties in the marriage, excessive familiarity with the opposite sex, suggestive speech with the opposite success in modest clothing, etc.

In Jim Neuhauser's book on marriage, he lists several rules for interactions with the opposite sex that I thought I'd just write down and read to you. All right, so the first one is, spend no time alone with a member of the opposite sex at work, in a car, at a restaurant, etc.

An exceptional situation should involve prior agreement from the other partner. There should be no absolute privacy in conversations with the opposite sex via email, chat, text, social media or phone.

If such communication must take place, share it with your spouse. Three, do not engage in any flirting. There is no such thing as innocent flirting. Four, show appropriate reserve in touching or hugging.

Five, do not discuss personal matters, especially a relationship with your spouse with someone of the opposite sex. If you need to pour out your heart to someone other than your spouse, find a godly same-gender friend.

All right, of course, this jealousy is inappropriate when it is without self-control. So when a lot of people talk about jealousy as being a negative thing, as opposed to that thing which reflects God's own character, they're talking about it existing without self-control or existing beyond what is appropriate.

So those who distrust their wives without warrant damage the marriage in their own way. And if the whole point of jealousy is to hate that which threatens the union, then an excessive or not self-controlled jealousy is itself something that should be jealous against, right?

Because that is something that threatens the union in its own way if it's just fraught with distrust toward one another. All right, secondly, this also applies to the wife's jealousy, not just the husband's jealousy.

The judgment is a matter that the saints themselves will participate in. First Corinthians 6 says, or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life? In other words, it's not just right for the husband to be jealous over the union, but as you see Christ delegate judgment to the bride to do this judgment.

So it's the case that the husband's protection of the marriage, in a sense, is delegated to the wife, and she should likewise have jealousy over these things. All right, yeah, he should trust his wife too.

He should delegate to his wife the responsibility making these determinations, etc. Yeah, the duty of protection doesn't fall solely on him such that he should not trust her or that she has no role in this.

I will also add that we've pointed out several times that what happens in this analogy between Christ and the church and human marriage is that Christ is perfect. The church is absolutely worthless apart from him.

And when we're talking about human marriage, we're talking about something very different on that spectrum. So with a human wife, it is right for her to be jealous against her own husband when he is threatening the union.

There's never a time where that would be appropriate between Christ and the church because Christ would never threaten the union. But in human marriage, yeah, those rebukes could go both ways. All right, sorry.

So that was leftover from last time when we were talking about judgment and didn't finish. Now we're going to talk about the consummation. Tim, could you hand me a tissue there? Yeah, thanks. All right, let's talk about the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Could I get someone to read Revelation 19, seven through nine? All right, James. And then once you read that, stay there because I'm going to have you read something later on in that passage too.

Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

And the angel said to me, write this, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, these are the true words of the God.

Okay, so the Bible describes the marriage between Christ and the church as being inaugurated by a wedding feast. And this is not only a time when the union itself is celebrated, but also the work of Christ in judgment that makes that union possible.

If you could also read verses 17 through 18 that talk about that.

Then I saw an angel standing in the sun and with a loud voice, he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead. Come gather for the great supper of God to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and the riders and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.

Okay, so this is interesting because you hear the way the supper is being described. First, it's like a very traditional marriage supper. The second time you see it, it's very different, right? It's more like a sacrifice that's being made.

This great supper of God is dead bodies on the ground with the birds of the air coming to eat. This very much alludes to a similar passage in Ezekiel where Gog and Magog are destroyed and the birds are feasting on this sacrificial meal.

So yeah, not just celebrating the union, but also the work of Christ in judgment that made it possible. Okay, so let's talk about wedding feasts in particular. Who is providing the wedding feast here?

We might say it's the father. It seems to be more proper to say it's the son given that picture that we just saw. He is the one who is going out in judgment, slaughtering in order to provide for the wedding feast.

Typically in scripture, we see that the groom provides the wedding feast. Judges 14 .10, and his father went down to the woman and Samson made a feast there for so used the young men to do. Esther 2 .18, then the king made a great feast for all his princes and his servants, even Esther's feast, and he made a release to the provinces and gave gifts according to the bounty of the king.

And note that at the wedding in Cana, Christ is the one who makes the water into wine, but the groom is considered responsible for this. John 2 .9, and when the ruler of the feast tasted the water, now become wine and did not know from where it was, but the servants that had drawn the water knew, the ruler of the feast calls the bridegroom and says to him, every man sets on first the good wine, and when men have drunk freely, then that which is worse, you have kept the good wine until now.

So he speaks to the groom, right? The groom is the one who seems to be responsible for the feast, even though he wasn't really the one who did it, he's regarded as the one responsible. Now there's a variation in a parable where it is a king providing the wedding feast for his son.

Matthew 22 .2 says the king of heaven is likened to a certain king who made a marriage feast for his son. So all these examples, it's either the groom or the groom's father in providing that. Okay, so can anybody think of an example where it's switched?

There is one example in scripture where it is the wife's husband who provides the wedding feast. It's in Genesis.

Anybody? Going once, going twice. Yes, it's Laban, it's Laban.

All right, so yeah, that's the only example we have, or that I'm aware of anyway, of, you know, I tried looking through a lot of examples. That's the only example we have of the wife's father, the wife's family providing the wedding feast.

Genesis 29 .22 says, and Laban gathered together all the men of the place and made a feast. But we've talked before about how backwards everything was in that situation, right? The fact that Jacob is longing for his father's house, that this seems to be the pattern of men going to their father's house and marriage.

You know, even Christ, you know, I go to prepare a room for you, or a place for you. There are many mansions in my father's house, et cetera, right? There's something right about that. And there was something that was backwards about this.

And then on top of that, remember the whole, all this trickery from Laban. Okay, so first of all, what happens when Laban makes this wedding feast? What does he accomplish in it, right? He swaps brides.

So he, through making this wedding feast, he tricks Jacob into marrying the wrong bride. And this all seems to be some kind of retribution on, or some kind of discipline at least, on Jacob for his former trickery on his father.

Where instead of allowing his father to make that blessing, he allowed his mother to subvert it. So here you have Jacob having gone to his mother, swapping the roles between husband and wife. And then what is the penalty for this later?

More swapping of roles that's coming back to haunt him. So I wouldn't take Genesis 29 as being a positive example that scripturally it's considered equal for either side to provide the wedding feast. I think it's trying to show someone something that's backwards.

Now, what we've been doing as we've been going through this is trying to make applications for our own traditions. Now, it's kind of hard to, I'm not necessarily giving steps that you need to personally take, but I am trying to say, these are customs that I think are good.

And here are some customs that I think do not reflect, aren't necessarily reflecting anything in scripture. I do think it's good for the husband or the husband's family to be providing the wedding feast.

Now, in our own culture, it's typically the bride's family often that's providing the wedding feast. And there's some senses in which that seems right because the bride's family, because the wedding is highlighting the beauty of the bride and obviously they would care about that.

A lot of times though, it's not a healthy consideration of how God created man and woman though, but a vain desire for the daughter to be sort of a Disney princess for the day, right? She really wants this and the parents really want to support that.

And so they invest in that sometimes very significant amounts of money. I feel like I saw a statistic recently that said the average wedding cost in the U .S. was 30 ,000. It just seems, yeah, I don't know if that's, I assume that's saying like true weddings as opposed to, I'm assuming that's not including all the, many times people just elope and don't have any kind of real feast or ceremony beyond that.

But still a lot of people invest very, very large amounts of money that where vanity is a bigger part of the rubric of success than other things. So yeah, if the groom is to be the provider, it makes sense for him to be the one providing the wedding feast.

Once again, yeah, I'm not trying to make statements about like, oh, this is absolutely wrong the way our culture does it. But at the same time, if we want to reflect what God, yeah, what God has, if our marriages are supposed to reflect marriages between Christ and the church, I think it is a very good tradition to have the man supply this rather than the wife's family.

All right, any questions about that before we move on? By the way, you can raise your hand at any time and ask questions.

Yes, okay.

Well, we did talk about bride prices right before, right? The bride prices are common in scripture. They even, Christ pays the bride price of his own life to purchase her out of slavery, right? We have, I don't think that even the notion of a bride price is wrong.

It's something that acknowledges her value as well as highlights his ability to provide for her. So maybe it does look like that, but I don't think that needs to be such a concern. Now, obviously, there are ways of doing that in extreme manner where she's just a piece of property and it's not really showing her value, but her lack of value.

That's obviously a problem, but I don't think it has to be that way.

All right, all right, wedding dresses. Let's talk about wedding dresses.

The bride in Revelation dresses in white. It represents the righteous deeds of the saints. We just read Revelation 19, 7, which had said, and it was given to her, sorry, this is Revelation 19, 8. And it was given to her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

Psalm 45, 13 says, the king's daughter within the palace is all glorious. Her clothing is in wrought with gold. She will be led to the king in embroidered work. The virgins, her companions that follow her will be brought to you.

All right, so yeah, these different verses talk about a bride being dressed beautifully on her wedding day. So it is good for brides to be dressed beautifully on their wedding day. This is not, this is something that would be immodest in other occasions, right?

And by immodest, I don't mean the way we often use that term to mean revealing, but to mean just proud, right? If someone wore the equivalent of a wedding dress, like just every day, you know, out and about, that would just be very ostentatious and proud, right?

It wouldn't be appropriate. But because the purpose of the ceremony is for her beauty to highlight His glory, as we see with Christ in the church, it is right for her to be dressed beautifully. Yeah, and we had discussed this some with 1 Corinthians 11, 7.

If you remember, that says, for a man indeed should not have his head covered since he has the image and glory of God, but a woman is the glory of the man. And so if the woman is the glory of the man, there's a special way that she radiates Him, right?

And 1 Corinthians 11 had even discussed this with the Father and the Son, right? There's a way that the Son is radiating the Father. So it is, this is a proper role for the wife in this event that highlights their union, as opposed to other times when she's just out by herself, right?

Then it's not necessarily, then it's just highlighting her, and it is just proud, and it is just ostentatious. Okay, so just looking at that tradition of a wedding dress, you know it is good for there to be a beautiful dress.

All right, second, it talks about the color of the wedding dress, right? Is linen bright and pure? That means it's white. In our own culture, traditionally, women have worn white wedding dresses to symbolize their virginity.

And traditionally, it was only those who actually preserved themselves from marriage in chastity who would wear white. Now, very few avoid wearing white, right? Just everybody wears white, doesn't matter whether or not they've been sleeping with their boyfriend for the past two years.

It's just something that everyone does. And really, the only examples you would see otherwise would be typically in remarriage, but even in remarriage, I don't think it's that common to wear something else.

I'm not sure, I haven't seen a lot of examples of this. I do know my mother and father, so they were a widow and a widower, and so she wore some kind of light green color or something, she didn't wear white at that wedding because she had already been married previously.

To her late husband. So it is something occasionally where people do not wear white. White is not worn at every single wedding. And I think it would be good to preserve this for it to actually demonstrate some kind of true chastity and purity.

A lot of people think it would be cruel to call someone out for their past sins, but a culture that doesn't have a place for any kind of notion or shame has no place for any kind of honor, right? Okay, any questions on that?

And once again, I'm not necessarily saying that what we need to do right now is to start enforcing any specific changes. I'm just saying that a culture that does certain things would be better than a culture that does not do things.

I'm not necessarily telling you the path to get there given the culture we're in. Okay, any questions?

Yes, right.

Yeah, Christ has done something wonderful and miraculous in making us pure. That's not something that happens in human marriage even if there is forgiveness. Yeah, this is definitely something where we're not talking so much about hard and fast rules as we're talking about what ways can the way we approach marriage honor what scripture describes marriage as.

And I'm just saying that if you see the dress that is white representing good works and purity, then it would be good for that to truly represent that in marriage and not just be just some kind of tradition that's arbitrary, right?

Oh, it's white. It's just as good as any other color. Yes. No, there's no statements about that. I mean, you have a description of him wearing a turban in Psalm 45, I think, but yeah, there's no explained significance of this stuff other than he's dressed well, right?

And same thing with here. You don't have significance described to her being dressed beautifully other than, you know, okay, well, it's white. We do see a lot of emphasis on white throughout scripture.

You know, there's the great white throne that alludes to Solomon's throne of ivory and shows this purity of great judgment, et cetera. So in as much as you see meaning invested in those things, then it's important to take it into account.

There's not a lot of meaning invested into the turban or anything. Yeah, all right. The consummation. All right, so all things will fulfill their purpose in this final judgment. And some translations refer to this as the consummation.

You see that in 1 Corinthians 15. Sometimes they'll refer to that as the consummation because it's the completion of all things. But it's not without reason that that word consummation is also associated with the beginnings of marriage.

It is at the consummation that the church is fully built into the maturity that is required for the full unity between Christ and the church. 1 Corinthians 15, 27 says, for he put all things in subjection under his feet.

But when it says all things are put in subjection, it is evident that he is accepted who subjected all things to him. And when all things have been subjected to him, then will the son also himself be subjected to him that subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all.

All right, so this is describing all things coming together, that God may be all in all, the purpose of all things might be finally realized, right? We're in this state right now where God is doing a wonderful work of salvation to bring things where they are all supposed to be, where everything reaches its full completion.

Ephesians 1, 9 through 10 says, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in him, and the administration of the fullness of the times to sum up all things in Christ, the things in heaven and the things on earth, in him I say.

All right, so recall that Paul speaks of this consummation as a mystery, right? Ephesians 5, 31 through 32 said, for this reason will a man leave his father and mother and will join with his wife and the two will become one flesh.

This mystery is great, but I speak in regard of Christ and the church. Now on one hand, a lot of people read this and they think about human marriage being the mystery, right? And there's a sense in which it is a mystery.

Proverbs 30, 18 through 19 says, there are three things which are too wonderful for me. Yes, four which I do not know, the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a maiden.

Now on the other hand, this isn't exactly mysterious in the way that the Bible frequently speaks about mysteries, which is something that is hidden that has yet to be revealed. And so when Paul speaks about this mystery of the two becoming one flesh, he makes it clear, he says that he speaks in regard of Christ and the church.

It is that union that is mysterious and has not been fully revealed yet. Yes, we are in union, the church is in union with Christ. At the same time, the fullness of that union is not yet manifest. There will be a consummation, a bringing together of husband and bride.

Though we enjoy union now, there is a completion of that to enjoy his full presence. Okay, so first, let's talk about what this means for our eyes, for purity of vision. The Bible often talks about this, this fullness of the union between Christ and the church and the enjoyment of that as the beatific vision.

Well, sorry, the Bible doesn't, this is more of a theological phrase, but the Bible talks about us seeing God, right? Or us seeing Christ. Beatific means blessed, right? Like the beatitudes, blessed are the peacemakers, et cetera.

So beatific vision is the blessed vision of God. The Bible is clear that we can't see God and yet at the same time, it does talk about us fully experiencing him as strongly as it would be with the sense of sight when we see Christ.

Yeah, 1 John 3, 2. Beloved, now we are children of God and it is not yet made known what we will be. We know that if he will be revealed, we will be like him for we will see him even as he is. All right, so that sight of him will be transformative.

It will be the full enjoyment of him. It will be, though we enjoy this union now, we don't have the full experience of him that we will have there. One important aspect is that because this is reserved for us for that time, we should not attempt to have that vision now, right?

And that's essentially what idolatry is, right? Idolatry is I want to experience God. He seems too far, too distant from me. I'm going to create something that I can see with my own eyes and I can touch with my own hands and experience here, right?

And so if you've never considered this, I know some of you have heard me talk about this before, but I really do consider images of Christ to be pornographic, right? Like not sexually alluring, but given that the Bible talks about the union between Christ and the church as being a marriage, that to have this kind of sight of him with images that are not truly him prior to this time when it is appropriate to see him and enjoy him fully is it's very analogous to what pornography is in this life, right?

It is laying your eyes on something that is not for you at this time because that union has not yet been established, all right? So obviously the application to marriage here is in purity of eyes that you should not be, obviously you should not be looking at any nakedness beforehand, but that includes the nakedness of the one that you are engaged or betrothed to even.

Yeah, there's a special temptation with there. You know, it feels a lot of people think of the commitment as already being established sufficiently that it would be appropriate. Just now that you're going to be together forever, you know, those boundaries aren't as important anymore.

No, those boundaries are still supposed to be there. Job 31 .1, I made a covenant with my eyes. How should I look on a virgin? All right, any questions? Okay, let's keep moving on just to intimacy in general, more broadly considered.

Okay, so 1 John 3 .2, I read that a moment ago. It reports that beatific vision will make us like him, right? When we see him, we'll be like him. Similarly, spousal intimacy is an important way of building unity, togetherness, and even similarity in thought and mind.

And by intimacy, I'm referring to more than just sexual intercourse. I'm referring to a manner of interaction that's not shared with others, that is transparent and vulnerable. And so, yeah, while husband and wife, when they talk to each other, they shouldn't just say everything on their mind in the sense of like, you know, if you have like bitter thoughts or evil thoughts, you don't just like spill those out everywhere.

At the same time, and you don't break confidence with those who you owe confidence to, husband and wife should speak transparently with one another, and it's something that you should grow in. And being vulnerable like that means learning to communicate well.

That sort of transparency is something that most people only experience within themselves, right? You're the one who's most intimate with your own thoughts and concerns and desires and dreams, et cetera.

And if you only have experience cogitating those in your own mind, not actually putting words to them, it can be difficult to be intimate with a spouse. And so you might wonder, well, how do you learn to communicate your deepest thoughts?

Some people do that by like journaling or writing poetry, right? And this is, you know, this is why poets are considered romantic, right, is because they're expressing those intimate thoughts. However, one simple way is just to cultivate this is to speak your prayers out loud and to be intimate with God.

You know, he knows you more deeply than your spouse will ever know you. You should, and the more I've thought about this, the more I realize I really do withhold myself. You know, it is really a temptation to withhold yourself even in prayer and to not express, you know, the fullness of yourself or your concerns or your weaknesses to God, to want to somehow withhold that from him as though you could.

And so you can develop, you know, an ability to communicate well intimately by praying with God with the fullness of self-disclosure. Yes. Sure.

I guess, are we to, because again, there's a lot of thoughts that we have that are simple, are we to give, share those with the Lord, knowing that, again, some of these thoughts like, I, you know, I've yelled at the Lord in my prayers, but I also know that that's not proper, but there is a transparency in that.

What are your thoughts? Yeah. So I think, first of all, we have a lot of good examples in the Psalms of people being very unsettled and uncertain and angry, right? And so those give us good models, first of all.

Secondly, you should certainly confess those emotions to God, and you can do that in a way that is not giving vent to them, but actually actively fighting against them, right? And so I think that's the way to approach it is to confess them in a way that is tamping them down as opposed to giving vent to them in a way that's fueling the fire and putting more oxygen on it.

All right. So now, beyond broad intimacy, let's talk about sexual intercourse. The Bible speaks of the final gathering of the church with Christ as a marriage consummation. Ephesians 5, 31 says, for this reason will a man leave his father and mother and will join with his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

This mystery is great, but I speak in regard of Christ and the church. So Paul speaks of this as a mystery. So we don't know what that final consummation consists of. We don't know what that experience of being fully united to Christ, or yeah, I should hesitate to say fully united because there's a sense in which we are, you know, united, but we don't get to experience the full blessings of that union here in this life.

So, yeah, if the church's union will be complete, then it will be finalized in a way that is more profound than that, the nature of the union we currently enjoy with him. It's a mystery. We don't know what it will be like.

Just as, yeah, wonderful and marvelous as sex is compared to just other kinds of communication with your spouse. This is what we have something much greater in store for us. Okay, so for a marriage to be a true marriage, there must be that fullness of the union.

This analogy between Christ and church and consummation and that union reinforces, just as it says in Ephesians 5, that there needs to be a becoming of one flesh. It needs to begin the marriage post-betrothal and it's something that continues so long as health permits.

Now, this is contrary to most of the doctrine taught by the early reformers. Okay, go read Calvin, read a bunch of the early reformers, and a lot of them were actually opposed to the idea that you needed sexual intercourse in order to form a marriage.

Now, does anybody know why that is? But I think there's a reason for that blind spot. I do think this is a blind spot, and I think there's a reason for the blind spot. There was a piece of Romish theology they were holding on to, something that a lot of them believed that Rome taught regarding Mary.

Anybody know? Perpetual virginity. Yeah, you read Calvin, you read a lot of the others, right? And they believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. Yet Mary was married to Joseph, right? And so they believed that Mary and Joseph were married all their life without any intent to ever come together in sexual union, right?

So if you believe that, you are going to say that, yes, a true marriage is possible apart from what the Bible describes as being one flesh. Now, I don't know why they held on to that so tightly. The Bible's pretty clear that Jesus had other brothers and sisters.

Mark 3, 31,. And there came his mother and his brothers, and standing outside they sent to him, calling him. And a multitude were sitting about him, and they said to him, Behold, your mother and your brethren without seek for you, right?

So his mother and his brothers are there for him. Mark 6, 3,. Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended in him.

We also have this in John 7. John 7, 1 says,. And after these things, Jesus walked in Galilee, for he would not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him. Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles, was at hand.

His brethren therefore said to him, Depart from here and go into Judea, that your disciples also may behold your works which you do. For no man does anything in secret, and himself seeks to be known openly.

If you do these things, show yourself to the world. For even his brothers did not believe in him. Just saying his own family was doubtful, right? His own brothers. Acts 1, 14,. These all with one accord continued steadfastly in prayer with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

Galatians 1, 9,. But I saw none of the apostles except James, the Lord's brother. Okay, so a lot of passages talking about, and these are not just talking about spiritual brothers, you know, these are talking about physical brothers.

He had physical brothers. Mary with Joseph had other sons. And so sexual intercourse, the way the Bible describes it, is part of the essence of being one flesh. First Corinthians 6, 16 says,. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body?