Marriage and grace and life in general

Please let me start out by saying that I am sure that I don't hold the absolute truth on any of this - the Lord will no doubt correct us on everything when we get to Heaven, but grace and divorce both have to be at the top of His list of human errors. We try to make little rules and tiny boxes for things that span the heavens!

"By grace are ye saved... not of works", "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved". I truly believe that *salvation* is a matter of belief and of faith. Having given one's heart to God, it's given. I rest my hope of Heaven on the blood that was spilt for me. I don't rest it on anything I've ever done - eesh, I'd never sleep at night if I thought that salvation had anything to do with ME. My works, the works that I see in other Christians, they are *signs* of conversion... but only God knows the heart of man.

I am sure that there will be folks that I think hopeless sinners in Heaven, and other folks that I thought were God-fearing who end up in Hell. It's all about that moment when you put your hope of heaven in Christ - your faith in Him. The more you contemplate His sacrifice, the more you fall in love with Him, the more you earnestly desire to obey His commandments.

But obedience to His commandments is not, and is not meant to be, something that humans can do outside the power of the Holy Spirit. I know that every day I fail at "be not anxious for tomorrow..." does that lose me my salvation? Again with the eeesh... I should hope not! (And talk about a mindset that would make me permanently concerned with tomorrow - thinking that I had to follow a zillion rules on my own strength would do that for certain!)

I love my Lord, and I know it displeases Him when I fail... and so each day I give over more of myself to Him. It's not like I don't fail at it - giving over self, surrendering to Him, letting the Spirit work through me... those are not things that come quickly to anyone. I strive, for He has told me to strive, but my strength is not where I put my faith. In fact, the moments when I have knelt, broken, at my Lord's feet in prayer are the moments when I feel that my faith was the truest. The moments when I *knew* that I was only saved by His grace, that I was utterly unworthy to whisper His holy Name.

So. That brings us to marriage, and in it I see grace as well.

First let's look at the purposes of marriage. Procreation, social support, intimacy, friendship, stability, and a vision of the relation of Christ and the church (among others). Ideally, a man and woman marry and support one another through life - the family was the original social support system. You *need* someone to be with you when you're sick, when you're grieving, who knows your weaknesses and still loves you, is still committed to you. Even when marriage was much less about love and much more about the business end - your spouse was the one who was *expected* to have your back, no matter what.

God doesn't want us to throw all of that down the drain for just anything - and as we can see from today's world, people will cheerfully do just that given the opportunity to do so. More in former times, but still today - women get the short end of the stick financially after a divorce. Divorce is *fundamentally* unfair. You are breaching a life-long contract that is meant to be the center of your mundane existence, the thing you take for granted, the thing you depend upon. People who *expect* to be married til death can behave differently than those who expect to be discarded if things "don't work out".

None of that, of course, speaks to the abusive or ugly marriage... and I don't know what to say on that except that for His own reasons, God didn't give an out for that in His Word. Perhaps it's part of how you deal with an abusive master if you're a servant? To serve as you would serve God, and give your service to God in serving the one who hurts you?

For the folks that have been victims of adultery - they are given an out because in the act of adultery you form another primary bond, and you break the first one. "...members of an harlot" says Paul in relation to fornication - so one can assume that it *is* the act of intercourse that makes that bond. When you take an adulterer back, you forgive the sin and then you re-form the intimate bond between you. But you are free not to do so...

Remarriage? Since I think it's the act of intimacy that forms the metaphysical side of the marriage, how could I think that any marriages were "adulterous" or not?? I don't think that's part of grace *at all*. I mean... it's over, you know? If the other person is already remarried or won't take you back when you repent of the divorce - it's over. Ideally, again, you're neither one remarried and can marry each other again, but how often does that happen? Further, saying that the second marriage is adulterous, should be repented of and essentially dissolved is missing the point of marriage in the first place. Once you are *married*... you're married. You should just stay where you are. The one person a OT divorcee was forbidden to marry was her first husband...

I guess the metaphor is that if I throw a baseball and break a lamp, I should first try to fix it, and if it's not fixable, then I should get a new one. The theory that you cited seems to say that if you break the lamp and can't fix it, you should live in the dark.

Some may, indeed, be so called... but it's a hard walk, and such things scare many a convert away. I would take such a sensitive issue on my knees to the Lord in prayer, not for one day but for many, and with fasting as well. After all, that's Who our primary *eternal* relationship is with... God. Should we not consult Him in all things?

One final thought... in Heaven we aren't married, nor will we be given in marriage. Sentimentalist that I am, I pondered, and came up with this: God wants that primary relationship to be with HIM, to free us finally of everything so that we can be individuals, chained not by infirmity of body nor circumstance, free to worship Him for all eternity and rejoice in His love.

I wandered, hope this made my end a bit clearer. :)

- Hearth