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Prostituting the Anointing of God! A Copyrighted Gospel Sold in the Den of Thieves! Part 2
(Ver 2.0) I will get back to teaching on faith and healing very soon. However, I will warn you again today up front that this Bible lesson will potentially offend some people. This is now Part 2 of a lesson series that I have been teaching about a modern day problem that has been running wild in almost every Christian church and ministry in the world. I was not going to write a part 2, but the Spirit of God did not allow me to drop the subject, so here I go again today. We live in a complex world with vast numbers of pressures that are presented to men and women of God and we must all have money to survive and pay our bills. But, this mentality and pressure has caused many Christian ministries of God to justify a selling of the Gospel that only allows for a few rich people to hear and learn the truth of God and it places unjust limitations upon all those who cannot afford to buy it. There are a few exceptions that I can name like Keith Moore who runs Moore Life Ministries and Andrew Womack who runs Andrew Womack Ministries, who both allow you to copy their ministry materials and freely give them to others. They both also freely distribute the Gospel for free. I guess I should point out some minor differences between the two; Andrew Womack has an online store where they post suggested prices for their materials but I assume if you cannot afford those prices they might send them to you anyway. They do say that on their TV show, that if you cannot afford the CD that they are talking about that day that they will send it to you anyway. I also learned today that they have many of their materials available as a free download as MP3 files. Prais God for them! Keith Moore is more technology savvy and will post the entire MP3 file and the WMV video file of his meetings on the internet to allow you to watch or listen to them on your iPod or MP3 player device. Search the internet and look for churches who give away MP3 files of their sermons for free for you to download and listen to and you will see that there are a growing number that have purposely chosen not to prostitute the Gospel for a few dollars so that everyone in the world can hear it for free. These are all examples of innovative new types of ministries of God who care more for people than they do for money. However, it is funny how God works when He sees people who care for what He cares for. It seems that God will always meet the needs of those who are reaching out to people for free and cause them to prosper. You see Keith Moore, who does not charge for the Gospel, flies a jet airplane and is significantly blessed by God and this is an awesome example of God’s blessings on a man who is teaching others the truth and being blessed to do it. This is how it supposed to work in every ministry. Jesus taught us very clearly “freely you have received, so freely give” and if you are not doing this, then you are guilty of spiritual prostitution and I will talk about this directly today.
If you have not read “Part 1” I would truly advise you to start reading there first and then come back and continue with this lesson so that you will better understand what I am preaching today. Many times the Bible and the Truth of God are very difficult to swallow for some people. Some Christian people and even ministers see things in their minds as being acceptable, but in the eyes of God and the eyes of men on the outside it is self-evident to be the wrong approach. Today’s Bible lesson is about the Christian Prostitution of the Word of God and that is a potentially offensive subject to many today, yet this subject needs to be preached regardless of what people think of it at first. A prostitute in the natural world is usually a female who sells herself to others for the sexual pleasures of those who pay her money for what they desire. If you do not understand what prostitution is, you are either blind or extremely naïve. Prostitution is legal in Nevada and some other countries in the world, but just because something is legal does not mean it is right in the eyes of God. That is why I can preach against ministries who are selling their Gospel using the laws of the government to justify their approach to the distribution of the Gospel. Just because Spiritual Prostitution is legal in this country, it does not make it right in the eyes of God either. There are two questions that enter into my mind when I think about the subject of prostitution. First, what makes a woman do this? And second, what makes a man want what she is selling? For the woman, it is usually a desire for the money. For the man who is buying it, it is usually just a lust or the fact that he has a very strong desire for sexual gratification. He obviously sees value in what she is selling and is willing to pay her price. What am I preaching about today? When a man has sex with a woman it is called “knowing” her in the Bible. The Bible says Adam “knew” his wife and she conceived a son (Gen 4:1). This natural sex act is often times called “carnal knowledge”. The “knowing” of a woman is the covenant act of marriage. This is true whether you thought it was true or not. It is also true if she is a paid prostitute or your real wife (1 Cor 6:16). But, we can also have spiritual “knowledge” of God by hearing His Word taught by a preacher or a teacher and this is why I am teaching you about prostitution. There is a direct correlation in the Bible between natural sex to spiritual knowledge if you did not know it! The Word (Logos) of God is called His “seed” in Luke 8:11 and 1 Peter 1:23. The sperm of a man is also called ‘seed” in Leviticus 15:16-18 and Numbers 5:28. Therefore we can conclude the Word of God is His spiritual “seed” sown to give man the knowledge of the truth. So I am discussing a very mature subject today when I describe people who are on the internet selling the “knowledge” of God for money. The selling of the knowledge of God’s Word is equivalent in the spiritual realm to the natural sexual knowledge of a prostitute if it is done for money or profit. Getting or giving the knowledge of God is exactly like having sex in the natural. You need to get a hold of this concept very fast if you are a preacher who is selling your knowledge of God for money! I believe that this is a very serious subject and that is why I am preaching it today at the risk of offending my spiritual brothers. If you know of anyone that is doing this, please share this message with them ASAP!
What makes a prostitute think that she is worthy of this money that she earns? It is usually because she is attractive and does not know of any other way to get money. In other words her looks make her desirable to others and this causes her body to have monetary value. If no one wanted what she had, there would be no prostitutes in the world today, this is just how it works. Here is the major problem that I am talking about today. The Word of God is a highly desirable substance to many people like me. Over twenty years ago I began to hunger for the knowledge of God, so much so that I spent thousands of dollars to obtain this knowledge. I valued what many men of God were teaching so much that I bought it like a natural man after a sexy prostitute. Since this was the fastest and only way that I could get this knowledge, I paid their price. Since I was not a rich man that limited me to what I could give in offerings to them. But, I sacrificed the one for the other. So if I was the John looking for the “knowledge” of God, what does that make these ministers who were selling this knowledge? Wow, that does not leave too many choices does it? Obviously there are many ministries in the world who are spiritual prostitutes of the knowledge of God. This is why when I asked Kenneth Hagin Ministries for permission to copy their materials and give them away for free, that I was shocked when they said to me “NO”, I could not do that. They obviously liked the money more than they liked to help people learn about God. For a ministry that teaches “faith” predominately I do not understand why they do not live by what they preach. You see if there was no demand for this ministry’s materials, there would be no prostitution going on by them selling it. However, since God’s Word has great value to many people in the world they have a golden opportunity to sell their knowledge for a great price. This may be not what they think they are doing, but nonetheless it is what is going on. Jesus actually spoke of this in terms of a man who sold everything he had to buy the pearl of great price. The pearl of great price is actually the knowledge of God that He was speaking of in parable form (Mat 13:45-46).
You see I do not preach against the message that is being taught, it is a great message. I know I have over a 1000 of them on my MP3 player. But, how much do think that it cost me to get all of these? Do you think I got them for free? If you go to their website you will find that they sell MP3 files for $5 each, Tapes and CDs for $7 each and DVDs for $15 each. You do the math and see how much you think I spent. Now, some of these tapes that I bought did not come from them directly. I bought some of them off of eBay and those usually cost me more than what they would have sold them for but, since they were discontinued sets and they did not sell them anymore, I had to do what I had to do to get them. You see the Unnamed TV Ministry has created an artificial state of demand by limiting their materials. Much like the world diamond market controls the number of diamonds on the market so that they can cause the prices to rise. Anytime you put limits on what you are selling this is what you are doing regardless of what you think you are doing. Since you cannot find many of the tapes anymore on their websites, you have to buy what comes up for sell by the chance of people selling them that do not know what they have. Many times people would die and leave their tapes to their children and they would not have a clue what they were so they would sell them in a garage sell or on eBay. This is where I would buy them. For example, Unnamed TV ministries has two yearly meetings where they have a week of intensive training and Bible studies. I have nearly every set of tapes of these meetings going back 25 to 30 years. Sometimes I paid upwards of $10 a tape to buy them off the internet. When there are 16 to 20 tapes in one set, you do the math and tell me how much it cost me. So why did it cost me so much? It is because I was bidding against 10 other people who knew the value of the information on those tapes. It would be like having one hot prostitute and 10 Johns bidding to see who was going to have her tonight. I’m sorry if I’m too blunt sometimes, but somebody needs to wake up to see the truth!
Modern technology permits people to spread the Word of God for the cost of pennies and the majority of the ministries on the earth are still charging many dollars for their valuable spiritual copyrighted information. If you look at my picture that I have included in this paragraph you will see a very small computer chip that I own. On this computer chip I have 500 Kenneth Hagin sermons. So I still value these like the great Words of God that they are. These are the pearl of great price that I have sought after with my money and these are not all of the sermons that I own. I will tell you that I have nearly 2000 of just Kenneth Hagin messages and then I have many other Bible teachers of God for a total of over 10,000 MP3 sermons all together. God knows my heart and sees my hunger to know the truth and God has blessed me tremendously more than I could say. So I appreciate all that I have and I wanted to share it with others around the world and I have been struggling because of the resistance that I have been getting from ministers of the Gospel found in the body of Christ.
About 20 years ago, I was a part of a very large church in a city located in the Bible belt of America. This was a church that was growing and had increased in size to be one of the largest churches in the city. Our senior pastor was on TV teaching the Word of God and ministering to people nationwide, and making a lot of money from it. Our Sunday morning church service was broadcast live to the city on TV. Our church had over 5000 members in it and we thought we were doing very well and were certainly in the perfect will of God. Over time the ministry was attacked by Satan and the news media and things started to change and deteriorate quickly. The senior pastor was under such pressure that he isolated himself and started surrounding himself with ungodly council and advice. He eventually got deep into error, departing from the Word of God and abusing his anointing from God to go in a different independent direction. In his eyes he was just fine and thought nothing was wrong with him. Even after leaving his wife and taking up with another woman he thought he was justified in what he was doing. Well that church does not exist anymore; it went from over 5000 members to zero in a matter of a couple of years. That church building was sold to the city and it is now a convention center. Please learn from the mistakes of this ministry example that no man is justified to do what is right in his own eyes and think they will always have a ministry that can never fail or cease to exist. I know, I was there and I saw it firsthand. I tried to help and do what I could, like I am doing right now but I was pushed out like an enemy of the church and ignored. So it is today in my fight against my brothers in Christ who seem to deny what they are doing is wrong by selling their copyrighted Gospel.
I have learned one very important lesson that if it was not for God and His grace, I would not be doing what I am doing today. Therefore, what I teach and preach is not mine to control, copyright or limit. I am smart enough to see that if it were not for the knowledge of God and the anointing of God I would have absolutely nothing to teach that is worth a dime to anyone. Too many times preachers begin to think too highly of themselves and their abilities and they fall into a trap of believing that they have accomplished and created such a great ministry by their own abilities and talents. When you fall into this trap, it is very easy to think that you own what you are teaching and not give God the credit for what you have that is so valuable to others. When I see the anointing of God on me and what I teach, I stand in awe of the Greater One who is at work and I do not dare to think that I can copyright it since it was not my words to begin with. This is the error that too many ministries have fallen into and they are now so deep in it that it will be extremely difficult for them to get out of it unless they fall on their faces and repent quickly and change.
In my first Bible lesson on this subject, I taught the message of Jesus casting out the money changers from the temple of God and I related this to what is happening today because these men were using their knowledge of God and His Word to create a business. Today I want to continue this Bible lesson with another story that is found in the Bible that certainly applies directly to what I have been teaching you. You can turn to this story in the Book of Acts and find it in chapter 18 so please turn and read it with me and observe what is being said very closely:
Act 8:18 And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money,
Here is a man named Simon and he observes the anointing of God in action in the lives of the apostles. Peter is basically laying his hands on new believers in Christ and they are being filled with the Spirit of God with the evidence of speaking in other tongues and Simon offers them money for the power to do this also. Since I am preaching about money, the anointing and ministers today this story certainly applies, doesn’t it? Or at least it should, if people would open their eyes and see what is going on:
Act 8:19 Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.
So Simon desires to have the same power and anointing that is present on Peter to do what Peter was doing, but he is wrongly motivated primarily by greed. He is thinking within himself that with this power, he will be able to get rich. By buying the anointing he will be able to do exactly what Peter was doing and use it for a new spiritual business. Wow, I hope and pray that you can read and see what God is saying here! Here is Peter’s reaction to this offer of prostitution from Simon. You did hear what I just called it, didn’t you?
Act 8:20 But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.
Apparently Peter was not motivated by money and he saw things differently than a lot of modern ministries on the earth do today who seem to be motivated or stimulated by money offers that are coming to them. It is very obvious to me that Peter did not take any money for what he knew was not his to begin with to sell. Are you still listening to what I just said?
Act 8:21 Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.
When you do something wrong does it matter the intentions of why you do it? Then on the other hand can you have perfectly good intentions and still do the wrong things? Both of these are certainly possible today. Here is where it begins to get infinitely more complex. People do many things in the world today out of ignorance even though they are still clearly the wrong things to do. I hope and pray that this is the situation for the ministries that I have named in these lessons and all of the others that I did not name. That is why I like to think that modern ministries are not willfully and intentionally prostituting the gift of God that has been given to them to make a profit from it. However, Peter was smart enough to see that it was wrong either way and that it was not wise for him to partake of the money that was being offered to him. Having the right knowledge of God is the power to say no when a situation is presented that appears to be very good on the surface. Modern ministries today have been presented a very attractive offer for the use or I should say the abuse of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and they have fallen into the trap that has turned the selling of that which does not belong to them into a positive thing for the benefit of what they are doing for God. Could not Peter think the exact same thing in Acts 8? Couldn’t Peter had justified, that this money could be used to help spread the Gospel, so he better take it and just let God figure out what to do next with Simon. Think with me, Peter was a called man of God. Peter was an anointed man of God. Peter was taught by Jesus himself! So Peter had the same things going for him that preachers like Kenneth Hagin or Kenneth Copeland have going for them. I guess I should clarify that Kenneth Hagin went to be with the Lord in 2003, so he is not technically in charge of his ministry anymore and his son runs it today. His son Kenneth W Hagin is on TV and this is probably a part of what is feeding the problem. Maybe you think I am being a critic because I do not like these ministries, but since you do not know me, you would think wrong. It is only because I like them so much that I mention them at all. You see I consider Kenneth Hagin to be a spiritual father of mine, so it hurts me to no end that I have to teach what they are doing is wrong! You have no idea how much I cried when I wrote the first article.
What I want you to learn today is that Peter was in town preaching the Word of God and ministering to the people when he was offered what appeared to be a large sum of cash to give what he did not own to another man. If you do not understand how this applies to the modern world, then you are a spiritually blind man or woman. If you are selling your anointed teaching or preaching materials for a profit you are accepting money for something that you did not produce or could produce without the power of God’s participation. Maybe some of my readers do not understand what the anointing is and we should back up briefly and talk about that. The anointing is God’s Power and Ability for you to do what you have been called to do. The anointing of God is a gift of God like Peter was discussing in Acts 8. In other words, you might have been called to preach, but yet if you are trying to do it all in your own abilities and talents you are laboring in vain and wasting your time (Ps 127:1). To “anoint” is a Bible term that means to smear or rub with oil. The oil is usually viewed to be a type of the Holy Spirit in the Word of God. So to anoint with oil, is a concept that is an outward representation of something that actually transpires internally in our hearts (spirits). That was a brief lesson on the anointing and I know I did not cover it very well. But, since I’m teaching about Peter in Acts, let’s review a statement that Peter makes in his letter to the church:
1Pe 4:10 As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
1Pe 4:11 If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
I hope that you can see what God is saying to the church in these verses. Since Peter is the scribe for these words, they directly apply to what we just read in Acts 8. Peter basically says that it is the ability that God has given to him that has caused him to do what he has done and it was not him that was doing anything. Think with me about the life of Peter recorded in the scriptures. It was not the same Peter in Acts chapter 2 who stood up and preached to thousands that it was the Peter who denied Jesus 3 times in John 13. What changed or happened to Peter to cause such a drastic transformation to a man who was fearful of other men to a man who was bold to preach the Word of God? The change occurred when God anointed Peter with the Baptism of the Holy Spirit which gave him supernatural power and abilities. I do not mean he could fly like a superman, I mean he had the Power of God upon him and working through him to do things that his natural man could have never accomplished. This is the anointing and the gifting of God that he was describing.
I use to be like the Peter who denied Jesus three times. You see I use to know nothing; I use to have no understanding of the Word of God and I use to have no teaching ability. I may have been called by God as a young child or even still in my mother’s womb as it says for many men of God in the Bible, but, I could not fulfill my destiny using my own determination or skills. It was not until the Holy Spirit came into me, filled me, then anointed me to teach and taught me what to teach that I could dare to teach the Bible at all. This is an essential lesson to learn for anyone in the ministry. It is always the anointing of God that must be present to produce anything of any spiritual value for others. So if you are teaching the Bible without the anointing you are just an entertainer that is making money and you ought to charge admission to your shows. But, if you are anointed by God then you are a man or a woman that is depending on Him to show up and work through you.
Most modern ministries with any integrity would never think of charging you an admission or an entrance fee into one of their meetings like it was a rock concert or a Broadway show. To charge money to allow you to hear the Gospel message of salvation would be a clear violation of the Word of God. However, to charge you money for past Bible lessons that they have recorded seems to be another story entirely in today’s world. I really do not understand how they see these two things to be different. A live teaching and a taped teaching contain the same words, the same message, the same meanings, the same anointing and the same power to save, heal or deliver the people who are listening to it. Why is it permissible in their eyes to charge great deals of money for these old Bible lessons that they do not charge for their new live ones? Why the gift of God is not sold live, but is sold in copies later, I really do not understand? That is a very narrow minded interpretation of the scriptures if you think one is permissible and the other is not. That is being inconsistent and ignorantly irresponsible of what God has given to you as a free gift. Do you not understand these concepts? Am I speaking empty words to empty heads? Or have you closed your mind to what the truth of God is telling you because we live in a modern world? Heaven help us all to get on the same page and work in unity and harmony to reach the entire world for God. I hope that you learned something from this series of lessons and if you agree with what I am saying, please share it with others so that the truth will prevail. God Bless you!
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 8 The Bride in the New Testament 2
(Ver 1.1) This is now Part 8 in the series of lessons on the Bride of Christ Revealed. I have been going through an intentionally designed set of information to step you through a process so that you could clearly see and understand the identity of the Bride of Christ. We have discussed a lot of subjects and a lot of scriptures. These are absolutely critical for you to understand so that you know who you are in Christ. By knowing who you are spiritually, it clearly indentifies you and your responsibility in the spiritual realm. If you have not read these blogs from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you go back and start with Part 1 The Introduction and then continue forward in progressive blogs so that you can clearly see and understand what God is saying.
I heard a minister say that speaking of Saul in the book of Acts when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, that those scriptures prove we (the church) represents Christ. Jesus says to Saul “why persecuteth thou me” in the book of Acts and if Jesus said you are doing something to me that proves we are Him. But, you see the reason that Jesus could make that statement, is because it says in Corinthians that the church is one spirit with Christ because they were joined or married to him. So we are not Christ, but have been joined to him by a marriage covenant, making us His body. This is the law of Genesis 2 concerning marriage, where God said the two will become one body. I tell you if you ignore these easy scriptures, you are going to have a lot of problems with the harder stuff in the Bible. In the last lesson we looked at the verse in 1 Corinthians:
1 Cor 6:17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
This verse says that the church was joined to the Lord and became one Spirit. To be joined to someone is different than actually being someone. A wife is always joined to her husband and she becomes his flesh and bone. But that never means her role changes. She is never the husband or the head in the relationship. This is just basic reasoning and logic based upon scripture that we have read in Ephesians. Look at the Greek G2853 word translated as “joined” in the Strong’s dictionary:
G2853
From κόλλα kolla (“glue”); to glue, that is, (passively or reflexively) to stick (figuratively): – cleave, join (self), keep company.
The word translated as “joined” means to glue, cleave, or to stick together. This is another clear definition of marriage which is the act of taking two separate distinct people and making one out of them. That’s marriage in the clearest form of God’s definition given to us by God himself in Genesis 2, Matthew 19:5, Mark 10:7-8 and Ephesians 5:31. The two shall become one flesh. Glue is the joining substance and this could very well represent the Holy Spirit. But the purpose of glue is to take two separate and distinct pieces and join them or put them together and make one piece out of them. It is interesting that this Greek word is different than the previous Greek word that we looked at and since I am not a Greek language expert I don’t really have an explanation of why and how it is different. However, I did notice that the Greek word G4347 which is used in Ephesians 5:31, Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:7 in the marriage law from Genesis comes from G2853 so they are definitely connected and definitely related and they definitely say and mean the same thing.
I don’t know how to make this any clearer. So if you think the church is still not the bride based upon these great witnesses I sure hope you will begin to see it someday. There are certainly more scriptures in the Bible that indicate that the church is the bride of Christ and I will give you some more for the stubborn and those who have chosen to close their eyes to the truth. Here is one that I found that I thought was very interesting and certainly fits together with a bunch of what we have been studying. This scripture is found in the book of Revelation and here we have Jesus himself again speaking to the church. Notice the words are in Red and then notice closely what Jesus is saying to us.
Rev 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
I want you to first notice who this is written to, to whom is Jesus speaking? According to verse 13 of chapter 3 it is written directly to the church. That is certainly a critical point to understand up front. Then let’s go back to verse 12 and see what Jesus said to the church. The primary subject or theme of the verse appears to me to be a name changing operation. He says to them that have overcome, He will do what? He is going to give these people a new name. From what I see it could be three different names or all three new name references could also be the same. But did you notice the relationship to the new Jerusalem? This is definitely a part of the naming process. Who gets a new name in a normal wedding and marriage? Of course it has traditionally been the bride that takes the name of their husband. If the church was already the body of Christ, I don’t think there would be any need to write a new name on his body if the head already has a new name, then the body also has a new name. But, somehow Jesus finds it necessary to write a new name on the church, that sure sounds like a marriage to me. Putting the pieces of the puzzle together correctly sure seems to make things work together better. One of the main take away from this verse would be to see the association of the name “New Jerusalem” to the church. Are you one of the overcomers Jesus is speaking to? Jesus is telling you if you are, then you are the New Jerusalem of God. You are the city called New Jerusalem. You are the new house and temple of God. You have become a pillar in the temple of God. A pillar is a key part of a structure that holds the other parts together and keeps it from falling down. That is a major responsibility being given to us. What I wanted you to see was a verse of scripture that implies a marriage between a bridegroom and a bride. The bride should be willing to take the new name of her husband and this is what Jesus is telling us to do. What we have is a confirmation to the fact that the bride of Christ is a spiritual city of people called the New Jerusalem. This New Jerusalem is a New Covenant marriage between Jesus Christ and the church.
I want to show you some verses in the Bible written to the church that clearly reveal us to be a chosen woman. Do you realize that when a man asks a woman to marry him, that man has already made a choice. Out of all the women on the planet, that man chose this one. That was a selection of one and the rejection of all the rest. This is what Christ has done and you can find that in the Bible if you look for it. Let’s read this verse:
2Jn 1:1 The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth;
So what do you do with a verse like this? It is easily explained away or it can be taken and understood to be very profound. God is writing a letter to the church through the Apostle John and he calls all of us the “elect lady”. If you think only naturally you will try to say this is a letter written to a dear friend of John or maybe his wife. It is a great error to conclude that based upon the context of the words that are written. The “elect lady” being called “her” is the spiritual church of God. A lady by definition is a woman with character and moral standards. It would be the opposite of calling a woman a “whore”. Uh oh, I guess I won’t go there.
2Jn 1:5 And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.
As you can see John and God calls the church a lady. The commandment of love was the same new commandment that Jesus gave to John and the rest of the disciples. This commandment is now being passed on to the rest of the body of Christ. However, you have to see that the church is called “a lady”. A lady certainly qualifies to be the bride of Christ.
It seems that there are numerous other scriptures that imply marriage even though they don’t say it directly. Here are some of those that I have found, you of course can disagree and ignore them if you like. Remember in the Old Testament the word “Knew” was used numerous times for a sexual act between a husband and a wife. It says “Adam knew his wife Eve and they had a son”. That of course represents a covenant act between a husband and his wife as we have seen before. There are numerous scriptures in the New Testament that could very easily be taken to mean the same thing but in a spiritual context, not a natural physical act. After all God is a Spirit. His Spirit resides in the believer and as we have seen they become one Spirit with Him.
Gal 4:9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
You can see from this verse that there is a two way street being spoken of. We the church are now said to know God and now God also knows us. This is spiritual knowledge and represents a spiritual consensual covenant act. This is marriage in the purest spiritual form. We can easily ignore verses like this or overlook them or we can figure out what they are saying and believe them. Here is another example of God knowing us the church.
2Ti 2:19 Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
We can again see a covenant act of consensual spiritual knowledge being expressed in this verse. It said the Lord “knows” them that are his. It would be the same as saying Adam knows his wife and they had a son. I guess some might say we shouldn’t be talking about this kind of stuff in a lesson about God. I think they forget who invented and created sex. You can see God all over it if you look at it the right way. The other critical piece of information in this verse is the reference to a name change again. Again this describes a marriage covenant act of a name change performed by the bride. This verse in 2nd Timothy 2:19 says that they (everyone) have taken the name of Christ. Here we can see another reference to how the church became the body of Christ, by taking his name in marriage. Moving on to a couple of other example, I found in the book of 1 John these verses.
1Jn 2:3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
1Jn 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
As you may or may not know, John wrote and delivered a thematic message of Love. Love was his primary theme throughout all of his writings. We again see the covenant act portrayed in verses like these in direct relationship with love. This of course fits precisely with God’s definition of a covenant marriage. It’s amazing how many verses you can find that speak of the church in terms of the Bride if you look for them. I hope I am helping you to see these verses in a new light. Here is another interesting scripture reference that also speaks of the church as the bride of Christ in a clear but indirect reference:
Rom 9:24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Rom 9:25 As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
You can see in verse 24 of chapter 9 of Romans that it is speaking to those God has called? I cannot speak for you, but I know that is me. He then informs us that this group of called individuals are made up of both Jews and Gentiles. That is correct, isn’t it? Then in verse 25 He speaks of the prophecy of Hosea and that is an interesting reference that we really haven’t explored very much. Let me first point out the last statement in that verse, that says I will call her my beloved who was not my beloved. That sure sounds like a marriage to me. If you recall, Hosea was commanded by God to marry a whore. He went and bought her out of whoredom and married her. While this could indirectly relate to the Gentiles, we know for sure that it is speaking of Israel as being the whore. The Old Testament quote is given that I will call them my people who were not my people. Right here we miss something that is implied and is dramatically different than what I’ve heard many teach. Many preachers speak of the nation of Israel as being God’s people today. I certainly believe that in the Old Testament, Israel were God’s people. But this verse says that I will call those that are not my people, my people. Do you understand the reciprocal truth given here? What is an inverse or reciprocal truth? I’m not sure if you’ve ever thought about that question or not. It is mathematical in its roots. The inverse or reciprocal of a number is the measurable opposite of what is given. In other words it is the opposite or negative truth of the positive truth that is given. It means the verse says more than what is on the surface. If the people who were not God’s people are now God’s people, what happened to those that use to be God’s people? The inference is that they are now not God’s people and can never be God’s people again because they were once God’s people. You see something that is pretty hard to grasp if you are not a logical, mathematical type thinker, grasping concepts and laws that are based in these verses can be difficult.
Since Israel is not my primary subject, I really can’t elaborate any more on verses like that one in this blog. I will recommend that you do some additional research on your own about Israel and their fate. I think where we need to go now is to review some more Old Testament types and shadows of the bride of Christ. So let’s dive into the Old Testament. In my next blog we will go back into the Old Testament and look for patterns, types and shadows for Christ and the church as the bride. We have already seen the Old Testament reference to the nation of Israel as being a woman, a wife and a bride to God in the Old Covenant. That is certainly a great pattern for the New Covenant, but there are other verse in the Old Testament that we should also be aware of. So until next time I hope you are having a great day.
If you would like to continue reading this series, you can go to “Part 9“.
Understanding Bible Covenants! Part 5 Until Death Separates Me from Thee!
(Ver 2.3) This is now Part 5 in the advanced study series on Understanding Bible Covenants. If you have not read from the beginning, I would recommend that you go and start with “Part 1“. We have been discussing Bible covenants as being a marriage covenant relationship between two individuals. We can see that these individuals can be either spiritual beings, natural beings individuals or groups or any combination of them. Covenants with God always result in God being the husband and the people in covenant as being the wife in the relationship. We know that Jesus is the mediator of the New Covenant (Heb 12:24). Jesus is therefore the Bridegroom and the church is His bride. Many have agreed with the scriptures in the New Testament that declare the church to be the body of Christ without understanding how the church became the body. This transformation was accomplished by marriage, when God declared in Genesis “that the man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and they two will become one flesh”. One flesh is a synonymous term for one body. Therefore one flesh refers to one body. A body consists of flesh and bones. Adam was opened up and his wife was taken out of him and Jesus the Last Adam was opened up and His wife was joined to him on the cross. The Bible actually says we were crucified with Christ, yet none of us hung on the cross physically as He died.
So in the eyes of God a covenant is a marriage and a marriage is a covenant. I gave you many scriptures that confirm this reality. As a marriage God provided us natural things to help us to understand spiritual things. Marriage covenants are a complex system of many dependent and interrelated aspects. Sex is one aspect of a marriage that demands and expects faithfulness of those in the relationship. Faithfulness is an essential aspect of marriage that applies to a covenant relationship with God. As your spouse trusts and expects you to be faithful to them, God expects and trusts you to be faithful to Him.
We can clearly see that the natural nation of Israel was not faithful and as a result had spiritual intercourse with other gods, religions and idols. This unfaithful infidelity resulted in God divorcing His Old Covenant wife. The net result of the divorce was a termination of the marriage/covenant relationship without any hope of reconciliation. I base that statement on the law of divorce given to us in Deuteronomy 24 where it says the first husband is forbidden to marry his divorced wife again after she has been married to another. I then attempted to give several scriptures that showed that Israel according to established spiritual laws was in a covenant relationship to another spiritual being other than God.
These are all very deep things that God has taught us from the Bible and I know it will be difficult to get people to see them. It is not my responsibility to make you understand or to make you see the truth. I simply present the information found in the Bible the best that I can and it is up to you to prove it, accept it or reject it. That is the way God designed the system and I can’t improve on it. I have found that people can read the same verse of scripture and pull out whatever they want to hear and close their eyes to whatever they don’t agree with. It is funny that God wrote a book that allows people to believe wrong. God will always enforce our right to be ignorant and foolish. God never forces us into knowing the truth. We are free to act and believe foolishly and God will not stop us. Ok, let’s get back to our subject.
I know there are many other aspects of marriage that also apply to the subject of covenants and perhaps someday I will expand to include them in this teaching. A marriage covenant is the establishment of a new family unit. Marriage always results in a new household, with a new head of the house. These two married covenant individuals enjoy a sexual knowledge that is only experienced between the two in covenant. Physical sex is just a pattern of a spiritual knowledge that Jesus desires to have with His wife. I showed you earlier that Adam “Knew” his wife and they had a son and I told you this was a pattern for the Last Adam, Jesus and his wife. These are all new concepts, new ideas and new thoughts based upon a new perspective from God’s Word. You can read the Bible and study it for yourself. All of this has been a review of stuff that I have already covered so I hope you understand them.
UNTIL DEATH DO US PART!
In this lesson we want to explore another aspect of marriage and covenants to show us some new information based upon what we have learned about the subject so far. This section will be about the subject of death as a legal separating force/power that terminates a covenant relationship between two legally bound parties or individuals. I’d like to begin this section with the foundational verses from the book of Ruth:
Rth 1:16 And Ruth said, Do not beg me to leave you, to return from following after you. For where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.
Rth 1:17 Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May Jehovah do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.
These are covenant words being spoken by Ruth to her mother-in-law Naomi. Ruth pledges “faithfulness” to the God of her mother-in-law Jehovah. She places such a strong commitment that she claims that only death could separate her from the God and religious ways of over mother-in-law. If we read the rest of the book of Ruth and the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew we will discover that she is blessed and rewarded by God tremendously for making these covenant statements of commitment. She becomes the wife to Boaz, a type of Jesus Christ, and the great-grandmother to the great King David.
I believe this is a good time to introduce the fact that Bible covenants are entered into by speaking words. Words can be spoken to initiate a good covenant with God or an evil covenant with Satan. For example, if we read Romans 10:9-10 God informs us how we entered into a covenant with Jesus Christ by believing in Our heart and confessing with our mouth the LORD Jesus. Then in Proverbs 6:2 God informs us that humans are taken captive prisoners by also speaking words. In Proverbs 18:21 God declares that “life and death are in the power of our tongue”. Jesus informed us in John 10:10 that the thief came to kill, steal and destroy us, but that He came to give us life and that life in more abundance. God appears to be teaching us that our words spoken matter.
Knowing God gives us life and knowing Satan gives us the sin punishment of death (separation from God). Speaking right words are one key part of entering into Bible covenants wit God. These words can be called vows, promises, commitments, oaths, pledges or guarantees. Speaking words and entering into covenant relationships with anyone should be taken very seriously and never lightly or casually. I believe that God holds us responsible for our promises made to Him and to each other. There are numerous examples of this found in the Bible.
For example a famine of three years occurred to the nation of Israel in 2 Samuel 21:1-2. When David inquired of the LORD why this was happening, the LORD told him it was because of bloody Saul that attacked and killed the Gibeonites. God informs King David that Israel had made a covenant with these people a long time before. God obviously believed that this covenant that was made before Saul or David was born was still in effect and could not be terminated by either of the parties in the covenant. Therefore, judgement fell upon the natural nation of Israel for something that happened long before King David became king. Wow, this sounds very important to know in our education of understanding the serious nature of Vows and covenants. The covenant was entered into by Joshua and it was disavowed by Saul and the negative consequences fell upon Israel during King David.
Most modern marriage ceremonies include speaking words to each other. These words are often called “vows” and many of them are based upon Bible covenant principles. For example, many say “until death do us part” in their wedding vows. Wedding vows are considered covenant words of complete commitment made to each other. Just as Israel violating a covenant that they had made with another nation had consequences, I believe the breaking of covenant vows today will also result in negative verdicts of judgment at some time in the future. We just learned that Saul had murdered a people in covenant with Israel and Israel in the next King’s reign reaped a famine. I believe that this is possible even today that two people ending a marriage covenant can cause judgement to occur on future descendants. But, that is a different subject for another lesson.
We can clearly learn from the book of Ruth that death represents a legal termination of a covenant relationship and commitment. If one spouse dies, the other is said to be free to marry another. So death represents a legal point of covenant division. It represents a separation of the two that were said to be one when they were joined in covenant by the Law of Genesis 2:24. I’d like to cover an essential set of N.T. verses that confirm this truth. We will be reading from the book of Romans and chapter 7:
Rom 7:1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
Rom 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
Rom 7:3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Rom 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
Wow, these verses help explain our subject of covenants and the power of death separation precisely. Notice that Paul in verse 1 is speaking to believers that “know” the law. This phrase “to know” represents covenant relationship. Paul in this short passage was directing the next few verses to only former Jewish Old Covenant people. God writes this to teach them that because Jesus died (God in the flesh) on a cross, they were now freed from the bondage of that covenant in order to legally remarry in covenant the risen from the dead LORD Jesus Christ. There are people that claim Jesus was not God but 1 Timothy 3:16 informs us plainly that “God was manifested in the flesh”.
Paul was writing in Romans 7 by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to teach us the legal fact that since Jesus (God manifested in the flesh) experienced death for them all, they could now be legally joined in Covenant marriage with risen Jesus and not be called an adulteress. This truth simply confirms that a marriage is a covenant and a covenant is a marriage and if they enter into another covenant while their husband was still alive, God called this adultery. Therefore we have all the subjects that we have been learning, marriage covenants, faithfulness, death separation and termination and remarriage in a New Covenant. Wow, Wow & Wow!
Can we begin to see what these verses in Romans say and learn how they apply to covenants both natural and spiritual? I believe these are amazing and especially important to how God eliminated Himself from the covenant of Israel and the angelic beings.
MARRIAGE, DEATH AND WIDOWHOOD
I alluded in previous lessons to this subject when speaking of the Heavenly Jerusalem who was described to be a free woman that came from an allegory given to us from Galatians 4. This Genesis allegory used Sarah’s relationship to Abraham. This relationship was a physical picture and representation of God’s spiritual relationship to the city called the Heavenly Jerusalem. I concluded that this free woman was the first wife of Jehovah God and therefore in covenant with God long before Hagar. In looking at other verses in Hebrews 12 we determined that this Heavenly Jerusalem consisted of the angelic beings too numerous to count. This means that Lucifer the top angelic being in the past was included in this covenant relationship. So how does God terminate an eternal marriage covenant relationship to eternally created angelic beings without the law? We know that the earthly Jerusalem (type of Hagar) is now in bondage with the law and that God used the law to end/divorce the Old Covenant marriage relationship because of her continued unfaithfulness (Isa 50:1, Jer 3:8).
But the heavenly Jerusalem was called the free woman or the woman outside of the law. We also learned from verses in the New Testament that without the law there is no punishment for sin. So how does God terminate a marriage covenant relationship with a group of sinful eternal spiritual beings that cannot ever die, without any law or legal precedence? It is a fascinating problem to consider and it is very perplexing puzzle to solve, but God always has a plan and an answer. We should be able to answer this question already but there are two solutions presented to us that can be utilized. The first solution is to get Satan to place himself into a covenant with the Law. The second potential solution is for the husband in the covenant to become a a being that could experience death on a cross to terminate all previous covenants.
If we recall from the previous lessons, we saw numerous scriptures from Galatians 4 that spoke about these two women in marriage covenant with Jehovah God. The one bond woman (Hagar) was directly said to be the natural nation of Israel and corresponded to the earthly city of Jerusalem. We just read about her in the last section of this lesson that was now freed from her covenant by the death of Jesus. Wow again! Then the other woman was the free woman and she is called the heavenly Jerusalem. It is essential to understand that both covenant women were married to the same God Jehovah and their covenants overlapped for a short time just as the allegorical type of Hagar overlapped with Sarah’s marriage. Now recall this O.T. quotation concerning this allegory:
Gal 4:27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren (Heavenly Jersualem) that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate (free woman Heavenly Jerusalem) hath many more children than she which hath an husband (bond woman: natural Israel).
What we can see in Galatians 4:27 the presentation that the bond woman had a husband with the implication that free woman did not. In fact the Greek word translated as “desolate” in this verse literally means “lonesome” and “solitary”. This is describing a woman that is not in covenant with anyone. Notice also the Greek word translated as “barren” is transliterated as “steiros” and we get our English word “sterile from it. These words are used by God to describe the Heavenly Jerusalem covenant wife. Finally, notice the prophecy that tells this woman to rejoice because her children will be many more than the children of the bond woman (Earthly Jerusalem). Who were we told that these many more children were? God teaches us in Galatians 4:26 that the spiritual free woman’s children were all of us in the church. That confirms and explains why Jesus said in John 3 that we must be “born again” in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. Everyone in the church has been first born naturally into the world and then next born supernaturally into the Spiritual Kingdom of God. It is important to note that if we are born once we can die twice, but if we are born twice we can only die once.
Galatians 4:27 seems like a paradox or a contradiction to what was said that both of these women were in covenant and married to God in the past. What happened to the husband of the woman in heaven? And I thought God divorced the woman natural Israel and here He says she has a husband. These are a really good questions. We have already explored how natural Israel may have entered into a covenant with Satan. But, let’s figure out the other question by going back to the Old Testament.
Isa 54:1 Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD.
We can see that these are the direct words of God himself spoken through the prophet Isaiah. We can see again this verse is speaking of two different women. I find it fascinating that nowhere in these verses does it claim this is an allegory of Sarah and Hagar. However, God reveals this to Paul in Galatians 4. This is just one way that God hides truth in the Bible.
We could conclude that only one of these women is now married by just reading this verse. However, we know from God’s explanation in Galatians that these women are Sarah and Hagar, and both were married to Abraham. If we recall from New Testament verses that were discussed in previous lessons, if anyone has sex with someone, God considers them to be married to that someone (1 Cor 6:16). Having casual sex has major covenant consequences in the eyes of God because of the experience of having “carnal knowledge” of that person. So far this was some review, but as we read down in the rest of Isaiah 54, we can begin to see the solution to God’s puzzle. The answer to what happened to the husband of the Heavenly Jerusalem is found in context of verse 1:
Isa 54:4 Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more.
Here in verse 54:4 of Isaiah we see the answer to the question. The heavenly Jerusalem who was called the barren wife and the free woman in Galatians 4, is now declared to be a widow in the context of Isaiah 54:1. What exactly is a widow? This is not a trick question. A widow is a wife whose husband has died. Uh oh? That sure makes life difficult for many ministers that we have heard, who claim that God can’t die. Have you ever heard this before? That claim appears to contradict verses that we have been studying.
What is death? That is of course the million dollar question? We know from the book of Ruth that the only separation of Ruth from her mother-in-law covenant was going to be by death. We know Ruth said to Naomi, “until death part me from thee”. Without death we know that the wife is bound to her husband and if she marries another while her husband is alive then she is considered an adulteress.
We saw in Romans 7 that Israel can only be called an adulteress if while her covenant husband God is alive, she has sex with another man and becomes his wife. We know this harlotry is what happened in the O.T. many, many times. But, Romans 7 says because Jesus died Israel was now freed from that covenant to marry the risen from the dead LORD Jesus in the New Covenant.
No one can deny that based upon scriptures in Jeremiah, Isaiah and Hosea that Israel is called a whore, harlot and adulteress because she has committed sexual union and become married to other idols and gods while God was alive and in covenant with her. The Living God then divorced Israel His wife, and ended that covenant using the law. We also know that this heavenly woman if she was married to God, she would be bound by the law of marriage as being one spirit with her husband also. So if this heavenly Jerusalem consisted of good and evil angelic beings, how would God get rid of the evil angels, while keeping the good angelic spirits? Fascinating, isn’t it?
By Jesus Christ being crucified, God accomplished a major accumulation and combination of things simultaneously. This was God’s demonstration of His true wisdom and power. Through the death of Jesus Christ, God multi-tasked salvation for us with the termination of His covenant relationship with Satan, simultaneously. Through this death, it resulted in the heavenly Jerusalem becoming a widow. She is now free to marry another. The heavenly Jerusalem was now the widow and that makes it legal for her to marry another by the definition from the Word of God. But by Satan becoming entangled with Israel under the law, we now see that his relationship with God has now completely ended being separated the separation of death. Because Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, God died in Jesus Christ. I guess I could say God tasted death through the body of His son Jesus Christ hanging on the cross (Heb. 2:9), since spirit beings do not actually die as in cease to exist. Nevertheless, we can see that Satan’s future was sealed due to what transpired on the cross. So while it is technically impossible for a spiritual being to cease to exist, it is not technically impossible for a spiritual being to experience death. Through death, He destroyed him that had the power over death (Heb 2:14). This is why the Bible says if Satan would have known the consequences, he would not have crucified the Lord of Glory (1 Cor 2:8).
We should be able to easily begin to understand now why the Heavenly Jerusalem is called a widow and why God did this. God would have been one with this spiritual city and all of its inhabitants (angels). So God could not have legally punished Satan without punishing Himself along with Satan.
CONCLUSION
God found himself with a problem that needed to be resolved. Without the law of divorce how did God terminate His covenant marriage with Satan and his evil angelic beings? I really hope we are seeing this spiritual reality. Death is a legitimate separation for every covenant. Because Christ died, we died. Why was it necessary to be born again? To be born again represents another new beginning and an opportunity for a fresh start. Jesus was called the first born from the dead, so being the firstborn He is the head of this new family. Jesus now had preeminence over all other spiritual beings. In heaven Lucifer/Satan use to be the one with the Father, but he is now no longer in covenant with God because of the death of Jesus Christ. Since we were also crucified with Christ, we too are no longer in covenant with death, hell or Satan, either. The work of God was full and comprehensive. By Jesus being crucified on the cross, God accomplished 1) salvation for us, 2) the full payment for sin past, present and future, 3) reconciliation of our relationship with God and 4) the termination of our and His former flesh covenant relationship with Satan. God is so much smarter than we are and if we can see these things that was just described, we will increase our understanding of the Word of God by leaps and bounds above where we use to be.
Jesus said if you continue in my Word, then you will be my disciples and then you will know the truth and then Jesus said the “truth” that you “know” will set you free. I pray that the eyes of your understanding will be enlightened in the knowledge of Him.
Understanding Bible Covenants! Part 3 Divorce and the Law
(Ver 2.1) This is Part 3 in the series on the very important subject of Understanding Bible Covenants. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you go back and start reading with “Part 1“. We have covered the Bible subject of covenants in a new spiritual light. In the first lesson we saw scriptures that defines a Bible God kind of covenant is a marriage relationship normally between a male and a female. In God’s covenants He is always the husband and we His people are always the female. In the second lesson there was featured a modern unfamiliar quality called “faithfulness”. This quality of “faithfulness” is where trust is placed in each covenant participant to remain faithful to their covenant partner. When unfaithfulness occurs the resulting infidelity normally causes the intended everlasting relationship to become strained, ineffective and even fail. Which brings us to today’s specific topic called “divorce”. Using this new perspective of “unfaithfulness” we will be exploring the Bible using God’s created concepts found around the essential subject of “faithfulness” in marriage covenants. Because it is so radically different than anything we have probably heard before it may be difficult for many to accept. It is interesting that this is the same response that Paul got in many places that he went into to teach the Word of God. Here is a scripture that describes Paul’s experiences:
Act 17:11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
This scripture describes two different groups and types of people. It speaks of one group being more noble than the other. The term noble is a symbol of royalty, those of nobility. These people were more noble than those in Thessalonica because of two qualities that they did. Or actually to be more precise it was one featured quality or attitude that they possessed and one action they performed. The first difference of these more noble people was they received the Word of God with an “open mind”. Meaning they were willing to listen and hear something totally new and radically different without prejudice. But instead of accepting everything that was taught them by faith and blindly following Paul, they did something else to prove what was being taught to them was actually what God said in the Word. It says they searched the scriptures daily to see if what Paul was saying was really in the books they called God’s Word. In those days they only had the Old Testament books and scrolls so that is the only verification that they had to search from. Today we can see that this also includes the New Testament writings. You can learn so much by following the example of the more noble group of people. You see there is nothing new under the sun, what was, is that, which shall be again. What you have seen before, is that which will occur again. God does things the same way today as He did in the days of the early church. History has always run in cycles that repeat specific divine patterns in human experiences and events. So when someone like me comes along and teaches something so radically new, what should you do? You should start by keeping an open mind to what is being said and then you must search your Bible to see if it is actually true. That is all I’m asking you to do.
In the last lesson we were talking about sex and infidelity in the context of a covenant marriage relationship. We saw that physical things gives us patterns into spiritual things. People who follow physical faithfulness probably have an easier acceptance with spiritual faithfulness. There has been an increased awareness of natural unfaithfulness due to a well know unnamed sports figure that has recently been caught up with the seeds that he had been sowing. Then before that we had a President that was caught up in an embarrassing White House sexual scandal. But, these were just popularly reported news examples that occur often in many natural human experiences. No human is perfect and all have sinned in some way.
Without God no one really has a chance to be perfect, we have all been there and all share in mistakes that we have made. Also, in the last lesson we referred to the fact that divorce was not legally permissible from God’s law unless a spouse had been unfaithful. I guess these two famous wives certainly had grounds for a divorce. I’m sure neither was happy or content with their covenant relationship. As far as the President’s wife, I believe she endured and stuck around the marriage for some future benefits. A wife will always have the right to choose. But, one thing that we can count on is the faithfulness of God. God will always be faithful to us. Therefore, the only opportunity for covenant failure in a relationship with God, will be on us. This does pertain to the subject today.
GOD’S OLD TESTAMENT COVENANT DIVORCE
So we have been looking at the natural nation of Israel as being called the unfaithful wife in the Old Covenant. She was accused of spiritual adultery and literal whoredom by following after and pursuing other gods by worshiping idols (Isa 1:2, Eze 6:8). There is really a very sincere lesson to learn from this, if we think about it. Recently on the news I saw a story that spoke of many so called Christian churches starting to introduce other foreign practices into their congregations. I don’t know if they were attempting to draw more people in or what. But the net result will be disastrous. These churches wanted to bring in yoga and far eastern mind altering religions. Things like far east meditation and mind relaxation and control techniques that just open people up for satanic interaction. By introducing these foreign religions into their churches they are succumbing to the same result that the natural nation of Israel fell into. This spiritual infidelity will result in spiritual sexual covenant relations with other gods just like Israel. I hope you are hearing me and understand what was just said.
So today I want to open a new can of worms that I know will not go over big with a lot of people, but I really have no choice. I believe I need to teach what God has taught me from the Bible. In the last lesson I gave scriptures about God’s wife Israel being unfaithful to her husband and God said I divorced her (Jer 3:8). If a covenant is a marriage, then a divorce is the termination of that covenant! This is absolutely critical that w see this and understand it. According to O.T. verses God is NOT in covenant with the natural nation of Israel anymore or ever will be again. I know that is a shocking statement, but we look it up in the Bible and verify what God says. Natural Israel now has the same opportunity to marry into the new covenant with Jesus, but the old covenant is over. Here is another witness to this fact:
Isa 50:1 Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill (H5612) of your mother’s divorcement (H3758), whom I have put away (H7971)? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.
We have seen that the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah, both have declared the termination of the marriage covenant relationship between God and the natural nation of Israel. Notice that this verse in Isaiah also implies a selling of Israel to another buyer or owner. This sounds like Israel has entered into a new covenant relationship with someone besides Jehovah God, to me. I will tell you up front it was not to be in the new covenant with Jesus the Son of God. The Lord God says “I have Put Away your mother”. Those are terms for divorce based upon Israel’s foolish acts of infidelity. So we can conclude that the divorce is now final in the eyes of God.
Today I want to show you what God’s law says about marriage and divorce. It is so relevant to our discussion that I hope you can see it. The law concerning divorce is found in the book of Deuteronomy in chapter 24:
Deu 24:1 When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill (H5612) of divorcement (H3748), and give it in her hand, and send (H7971) her out of his house.
Here is exactly what we read in Isaiah and Jeremiah that God did to Israel. It is an exact representation of what happened to the natural nation of Israel. This verse says a man shall take a wife and marry her. We know that God took Israel by the hand and led her out of Egypt and married her (Jer 31:32). Then it says if the man finds “uncleanness” in her and we know that God found His wife natural Israel unfaithful following after other gods and worshipping idols repeatedly. So we know that according to the law, the man (God) then can write his wife (Israel) a bill of divorcement and give it to her to end the covenant. God did this using His prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. These were His two witnesses for Israel’s whoredom. You then see that this verse says that the woman is now not a part of this husband’s household anymore. She has been kicked out of the relationship due to her unclean acts of wickedness. This is precisely what happened to the nation of Israel. Let’s look at the next verse in the law:
Deu 24:2 And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife.
I read these words and see how God foretold what was about to transpire with His wife. This verse says this divorced wife can become the wife of another man. We saw scriptures that implied strongly that Israel was another man’s wife now. I could give you many other scriptures that would also confirm this but I just don’t have the time right here to include these. I’ll skip over verse 3 because it is about her new husband divorcing her. What I want you to see is the next verse and what God says:
Deu 24:4 Her former husband (Jehovah God), which sent her away, may not take her (natural Israel) again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD (JEHOVAH): and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.
You see according to the law, it would be illegal for God to marry the natural nation of Israel again. God said it would be an abomination for Him to take back a wife that has defiled herself with another man. It is therefore illegal, according to the law for God to enter into covenant with the nation of Israel again. I am glad I didn’t write the Bible, I just read it and see what it says. But, I don’t see how He could take her back and not make himself out to be a liar.
I know these are very strong words and the implications are very far reaching. Nevertheless I didn’t write the Bible so please don’t throw stones at the messenger. You have the opportunity to embrace what the Bible says or you now have an opportunity to reject it and ignore what God said. I suspect I’ll have both reactions. The Bible was written in an encoded fashion that forces us to correctly divide the words to come up with the truth. That means some will see it and some will not. That also means everything in the Bible is not always self evident or self revealing and since I don’t know everything maybe there is something that I don’t know yet that could change the outcome of Israel. I will humbly admit that truth that I’m not God and I don’t know everything. If God wants to keep something hidden it will remain hidden, if God wants to reveal the truth to someone or through someone then nothing will stop Him from doing that either.
A NEW TESTAMENT CONFIRMATION
I would like to briefly teach a New Testament confirmation for what we are reading in the Old Testament. I believe God will always confirm whatever is important in the Old Testament in the New either directly or indirectly. This reference that we will be going over is fairly direct but often easily misunderstood. We will be reading from the book of Galatians and chapter 4.
Gal 4:22 For it is written (prophesied), that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
Gal 4:23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh (natural); but he of the freewoman was by promise (Spirit).
Gal 4:24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai (natural Israel), which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
Gal 4:25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem (natural Israel) which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
Gal 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all (Jesus and the Church).
Gal 4:27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
Gal 4:28 Now we (the Church), brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise (Free Woman).
Gal 4:29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit (the Church), even so it is now.
Gal 4:30 Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman (Natural Israel) and her son: for the son of the bondwoman (Natural Israel) shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
Gal 4:31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.
This is an amazing passage of scripture filled with untold revelation. There are two women being compared as mothers with sons. The LORD just keeps uncovering new information from these verses the more we study it. Has anyone missed what the LORD said after reading these verses, I will tell you that one woman is Hagar a young Egyptian slave woman and the other woman was Sarah the older barren wife and God says these two represent allegorical types of spiritual realities. Hagar represents natural Israel that came out of captivity in Egypt. Sarah is spoken of as a spiritual type of free woman that gives birth to the church. Abraham the covenant making husband to both women is also a type in this O.T. story. Abraham represents God the Father also known as Jehovah LORD. That was a very quick overview, so let us explore some of the important details for out subject of covenants and divorce.
Notice how God uses a real literal Old Testament story of Abraham as a spiritual allegory to reveal a greater unseen truth. If we read closely, we will discover that God is likening natural Israel to be called a model, type, pattern, or a shadow of a natural Egyptian “bonds woman” named Hagar. God equates her position of natural bondage to Israel’s servitude to the Old Covenant Law. It is remarkably interesting, to note that this Galatians 4 passage is speaking of this Hagar woman as a typology of natural Israel being in covenant with God. It is important to note that the natural people of Israel were taken from Egypt by God through Moses. Then God also gave them the law through Moses on Mount Sinai and later they possessed the land where Jerusalem eventually becomes their capital city.
I will not teach the entire set of verses. There are other Bible lessons on this website that have more detail if you are interested. But I do want us to focus on verse 30. This is a quotation from Genesis 21:10. What does this verse say so clearly? God tells us it is written “Cast out the bond woman (natural Israel) Hagar for her son will not be an heir with the son of the freewoman”. When we go back and study the original verse God uses the Hebrew word H1644 which is translated as “cast out”. Strong defines this Hebrew word as “to drive out from a possession”. But this Hebrew word also carries the meaning of “divorce” and a “divorced woman”. Wow, that is amazing confirmation to the verses we have read from Jerimiah 3:8 and Isaiah 50:1.
Galatians 4 is a New Covenant confirmation for what has happened to the Old Covenant people. Natural Israel is now no longer in covenant with God Jehovah even while still being in bondage to His written Law. There is a further confirmation found within Galatians 4. Remember when I showed implied O.T. references for divorced natural Israel now being in covenant marriage with someone other than God Jehovah? Did you notice Galatians 4:27? What is God saying in this verse?
Gal 4:27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren (Sarah a type of the Heavenly Jersualem) that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou (Sarah a type of the Heavenly Jersualem) that travailest not: for the desolate (free woman Sarah a type of the Heavenly Jerusalem) hath many more children than she which hath an husband (bond woman: Hagar a type of natural Israel).
This verse is another O.T quotation from Isaiah 54:1. I placed in quotations the unstated allegorical references revealed to us by God in Galatians 4 to help us understand who He is speaking of. I pray that everyone observed that this verse says the bond slave woman (Hagar the type of natural Israel) was cast out of God’s marriage covenant but is now being referred to as a “married” wife. But if her husband is not Jehovah God, then who is it? Go and read Isiah 54:1 and we will find God Jehovah is the one speaking about these two women. Notice that He does not claim in Isaiah 54:1 to be her husband. In fact, it was only 4 chapters before this prophecy that Jehovah gave natural Israel her bill of divorce.
Galatians chapter 4 is very profound. God has just confirmed that natural Israel is no longer in a covenant with Him. It further implies by indirect reference that she has no possibility to return to the covenant that she was in with Him. If we study the entire Bible for direct references to Hagar, we will find only 14 times her name is given by God. The last time she is mentioned in the O.T. is Genesis 25 where God gives the genealogy of Ishmael to have 12 sons. Before this mention is Genesis 21 where Abraham “sends her away with her son Ismael in verse 14. The Hebrew word “send away” is H7971 that was translated as “put away” in the law of divorcement we read in Deuteronomy 24 and the divorce decrees we read in Isaiah 50:1 and Jeremiah 3:8. These connecting words and subjects are not a coincidence. God is teaching us that natural Israel will have the same end as the natural Egyptian slave woman named Hagar.
CONLUSION
We have seen scripture that declares natural Israel’s covenant relationship with God has been terminated because of her continued unfaithfulness. We then saw the law of God that declares this relationship is over for good. We cannot blame God for ending the covenant. It was natural Israel’s repeated bad choices to commit whoredom with other gods that finally caused the consequences. Remember what God says in Galatians 6:7 “Be not deceived, God is not mocked whatever a man sows that will he reap”. Israel finally reaped what they had sown for hundreds and hundreds of years. A crop of failure will eventually come to anyone that does the same. God was extremely patient, forgiving and kind to the natural nation of Israel. He is the same today to us. Thank you Jesus!
I’ll end this lesson with this last statement, there is more in the Bible that we don’t know than what we do know. I don’t care how long we have studied the Bible or how much we have memorized and we can quote. Quoting scripture does not mean we know it and understand it. The term to “Know” means understand and I guarantee that we (me and you) don’t understand very much of the Bible. God’s intelligence level is so far beyond ours. Every word in the Bible has significance and meaning and most of the time we just read them like they don’t mean anything. The one reality that I am faced with every time I study the Bible is this: “The more I learn, the more I find out I don’t know”. If you are not there yet, then you don’t realize yet that you have a lot more to learn. In the next lesson, I’ll attempt to explore natural Israel’s new covenant relationship.
If you would like to continue reading in this series you may now go to “Part 4“.
Understanding Bible Covenants! Part 2 Sex, Infidelity and Divorce
(Ver 2.2) This is now Part 2 in the series of Understanding Bible Covenants. The Word of God is so awesome, I just love studying the Bible more than anything. I hope you are as excited about learning about God as I am. Please understand that I don’t say this because the main subject is about sex. I think I may know where some people’s mind is going. This is a very serious subject and I will warn you that it could be offensive to some. If you do not consider yourself a mature Christian maybe it would be best if you do not read the rest of this lesson. Just take that into consideration. In today’s lesson we want to continue talking about understanding Bible covenants. I want to provide several new established scriptures to expand our foundation for a sound understanding of what a Bible God type of covenant is. Today’s subject as you can tell by the title will certainly be different than most anything that you have probably heard before and represents an advanced study on the subject of covenants intended for mature Christians. If you are not a mature Christian then please just go read someone else’s Bible lesson for today. That was warning number two. Also if you have not read from the beginning of this series, I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with Part 1 dealing with Covenants and Marriage.
INTRODUCTION & REVIEW
In the first lesson in this series, we were introduced to some of the basic concepts and parts of what a Bible covenant is and some of what a Bible covenant is not. we learned that a Bible covenant is like a binding legal contract relationship between two separate individuals but yet it is certainly much more than this. We then described this legal contract to be equivalent to a natural marriage between a husband and a wife. We were also introduced to the fact that a Bible covenant relationship can be between any two of the following:
- A spiritual being (God the Father, Jesus, Lucifer, etc.)
- A physical being (Abraham)
- A group of natural beings (natural Israel)
- A group of spiritual beings (church, angels, etc.)
A covenant will always be between at least two of these categories of individuals of any combination. I should also point out that a covenant can be between two individuals of the same type. For example, a spirit being to a spirit being or a physical being to a physical being, or even a nation of people with another nation of people. It is of course difficult to think of a group of people as being a single united entity, but that is what the Bible declares so I’ll stick with that. In the last lesson, we saw examples of the natural nation of Israel being in covenant with the creator God. In these verses, we found scriptures that God called this covenant a marriage relationship. We can see that in a covenant with God, God is always the Husband representative and the nation, group or individual in covenant with God is always the female wife representative. This pattern established in the Old Covenant was continued in the New Covenant with Jesus being the husband (bridegroom) and the church being His bride and wife.
In the last lesson we were also introduced to the concept that when two people or individuals are married, that they become one flesh and/or one spirit. We found and read scriptures that describes God’s law of marriage that was first given to us in Genesis chapter 2. I will warn you the third and final time that today’s subject matter is of a very mature nature. If you didn’t realize it before now, God created physical things like sex as a pattern for us to understand hidden spiritual truths. If God created natural sex, it must be good and have a very good purpose more than just making us feel good and making babies.
NATURAL SEX – A COVENANT PATTERN
We will begin by saying that sex was of course designed to be limited within the boundary of a covenant marriage between a husband and his wife. Since we have been talking about covenants as a marriage, it doesn’t take long to realize that sex is a integral part of God’s designed marriage covenant relationship. This is exactly why Satan wants to pervert sex and make it a casual normal indulgence for anyone and everyone at any time, even younger youth dating. We can’t watch TV or movies without seeing sex glorified and promoted in a very prevalent and a dominate fashion. If Satan wants to pervert the subject, it must have a legitimate purpose and reason for existence for God’s glory. What we need to begin to realize is that the physical union of sexual intercourse and intimacy should point us to a greater spiritual covenant relationship within a much higher spiritual dimension.
So, what does sex have to do with Bible covenants? I want to talk first about the human sexual organs. As most know these are called the male penis and the female vagina. Remember I warned you. What does a male penis have to do with a covenant? For many mature Christians that study the Bible they already know the answer. The answer is circumcision. God introduced circumcision to Abraham in Genesis 17:
Gen 17:9 And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.
Gen 17:10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.
Gen 17:11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.
This is the first mention of circumcision in the Bible that I know of. It is also the first direct mention of the male penis that I have found so far. The male and female sexual union act is first mentioned in Genesis 4:1 and we will talk more about this soon. Notice in verses 9, 10 and 11 of Genesis 17 God calls this His covenant that Abraham and every generation of male seed that they will keep. Now, remember what circumcision is and what we discovered in the first lesson. What is a key component of covenants with God? There is a verbal agreement made and there is a direct cutting of flesh followed by an immediate flow of blood. Wow, that makes circumcision to match the pattern of divine covenants, doesn’t it?
Now we need to move to the female sexual organ called the vagina. God designed the male sexual organ to fill with blood (uh oh, that sounds important) to become erect, and then to enter into female’s vagina to have carnal knowledge with her and this was designed by God to produce offspring (seed from seed). Now, we need to get into more detail. The first time a female vagina has carnal knowledge of the male sexual organ, something happens that does not normally occur ever again. As you probably remember this is the flow of blood and we are not speaking of the female monthly menses cycle. Although this monthly cycle applies because of the involvement of blood, as a type of cleansing, this is not the blood flow that represents the covenant between a male and female. Humans do not normally have sex when a woman is in her monthly cycle.
Ok, let’s get to the main point. There is a small piece of skin Called the hymen that exists for no apparent reason or purpose within the opening of the vagina of every normal female. When the male inserts his blood filled sexual organ inside his wife’s vagina for the first time, this medically unknown purposed skin tears and bleeds. This causes an immediate temporary flow of blood that humans have lowered in importance by labeling it as “popping her cherry”. This is a major conquest for the ungodly male that doesn’t understand what really just happened in the eyes of God.
This piece of unnecessary female skin that was ripped and torn to bleed is called the hymen. I believe we can easily begin to see that it was placed in the female vagina by God for the creation of an eternal covenant bond between that human male and his wife. One reason why this first sexual act is legally binding forever is because the woman does not grow back a new hymen ever again. It is a one and done covenant. At least that is what God intended when He created Adam and Eve. Adam only had one wife with one hymen and that covenant bond lasted them their entire existence on the earth over 900 years. Wow, we should learn that this was God’s design for every human covenant marriage. But, this truth soon became perverted shortly afterward in their following generations.
I pray that was not too graphic and that we all received something new to think about when considering who to have sex with. Just take note of the presence of blood and how many times it was just mentioned. We have the male covenant with God revealed to be a token by the visible cutting and removing of the unnecessary male foreskin. We have a female that when she becomes able to bare children begin a monthly flow of blood exactly where the male organ full of blood enters. Then we had the hymen another unnecessary piece of skin that is torn and bleeds whenever the husband’s first penetration occurs and this act by God’s design produces a husband and wife blood covenant bond that remains in effect until one of them dies physically.
Can we begin to see the power of the blood of God in all of these covenant making connections and parallels? Can we also begin to see the reasons oof Satan’s attempt to make sexual unions a trivial and meaningless temporary pleasure? We are going to talk more about this later but we should begin to know that in the eyes of God everyone that we have had sex with who is still alive physically we are in a marriage covenant with that person. But thank God for the blood of Jesus. I know what many of you may be thinking. How do I undo all of the mistake covenants that I have entered into before I knew all of this? We can simply bring these up to God’s Court in heaven and repent for them, ask Him to apply the blood of Jesus to cleanse us from these unrighteous acts and God’s word in 1 John 1:9 says that “He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. Thank you Jesus!
NATURAL SEX PATTERNS FOUND IN THE
NEW COVENANT SPIRIT REALM
Let us continue by understanding that a spirit does not have physical sex. Yet this natural sexual act is still found as a pattern for a greater spiritual truth. Let us go to the Bible and use the law of first mention and see what God reveals to us on the subject of sex. I already mentioned this verse in the last section, but the first mention of physical sex that I have found in the Bible was Genesis 4:1:
Gen 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
This verse in Genesis represents God’s higher way of describing physical sex experienced in the covenant relationship between Adam and his wife Eve. Recall that since this was the first mention of Adam having sex with Eve her hymen had to be torn and this produced a lasting covenant as well as their “firstborn son” named Cain.
Believe it or not, here we have a pattern of Christ and the church. Adam, the first man was a created pattern (figure) of Jesus Christ (Rom 5:14) who was to come into the world to die and forgive our sins and then be raised from the dead to marry in covenant His bride, the church. Jesus implements this covenant by having His flesh pierced, torn and ripped to shed His blood for us. That is just a quick introduction to the New Covenant. Let’s get back to our study of the first directly mentioned human sexual act in the Bible.
There is a fascinating concept given to us in this verse in Genesis. To “know” something or someone, what does that mean? I’ve often heard the term for sex to be described as having “carnal knowledge of” them. Carnal knowledge is just another synonymous term for natural covenant making sex. The actual Hebrew word YADA (H3045) that was translated as “knew” is defined as follows: “to ascertain by seeing”. It seems to be a form of gaining knowledge, but going further than just a casual surface knowledge of something or someone. Because to YADA someone means to understand them intimately and personally. It would be like someone saying “I know of the President” but to really “YADA” the President we would need to spend a lot of personal time with them to really understand them.
There are many varieties of knowledge in the world. To know a friend is not the same as for you to know your wife, or at least it shouldn’t be. Let’s think about a different form of knowledge other than physical sex for a moment. You see, we can also go to school to learn some specific subjects. For example, we can sit in class to know algebra, to know geometry or to know trigonometry and these are all representative types of having sex within the confines of a physical marriage according to God’s selection and usage of the word. However, people can memorize facts and still not “KNOW” what they mean or how to apply them. For example many people know Einstein’s theory of relativity is E=MC2. But to understand what it means and how to make it useful is not to YADA it.
This word to know (YADA) can apply to either type of interaction by God’s design. You can know a subject intimately so that it becomes a part of you and you understand it and this is representative of a covenant relationship, to know and to understand husband or a wife subject intimately. Do you remember what Jesus said to us in Matthew 5:27 and 28? The subject is about extramarital sex which is inline perfectly with our Bible study subject today. Jesus said “You have heard (in the law) you shall not commit adultery”. “But, I say to you that a man that looks at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery already in his heart”. Wow, this sounds like it is time for many of us to repent and ask for forgiveness. What Jesus is doing is comparing spiritual adultery with natural adultery. One is the physical realization of the fantasy that we had in our heart and the other is simply the fantasy in our heart that Jesus said makes us guilty already of the sin before we act on it. Wow, this is amazing and should be an eye opening encounter for us all. Uh oh! I can hear minds clicking away to say “well if I already thought about her this way, I should go ahead and just do it since I am already guilty in the eyes of God. Please don’t be stupid and foolish to fall into that trap of Satan. Hebrews 11:25 teaches us that Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures of in sin for a season. I guess we will move on.
What we have to see and understand are the concepts given to us by God in His Word. Understand that there are parallels to knowing a subject (or even fantasizing about someone) and how that is related to the act of participating in physical sexual knowledge of someone. God when He was in covenant with the natural nation of Israel, wanted them to know Him so He gave them the law and the words of the prophets. Jesus wants the church to know Him so He gave us the Gospels and the Epistles. By us studying and having intimate knowledge of Jesus and embracing His Holy Word is the spiritual form of the natural wife having a physical relationship with her natural husband. In our covenant marriage case we are His wife and He is our husband. We are intimate with Jesus when we pray and when we read His Word to Know and spend time with Him.
Some might be struggling with the concept of what is being taught today so we are going to read over some key scriptures to help us come closer to a better understanding of the subject of physical sex in relationship with spiritual knowledge more clearly. We’ll turn to a verse that we may have never studied to learn what God desires for us to understand:
1Co 6:15 Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.
This verse represents the very complex subject of covenant relationships utilizing different phrases, words and terms. Hopefully we can all see that this verse is comparing two opposing types of spiritual covenant relationships. The first spiritual covenant is between the church and Jesus Christ. We can see that there is an inferred meaning that the church is now married to Jesus Christ in this statement because of the reference to being members of His body. Remember when Adam saw his wife he said “she is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” in Genesis 2:23. That made Eve the woman the body of Adam the man. This is what the Law of God says in marriages.
We can see that since we have become the body of Christ (by God’s law of covenant marriage), that we can still go and commit spiritual adultery to make the member of Christ the members of a spiritual harlot simultaneously. We learn that this is a sexual but spiritual type of knowledge encounter with this woman called a “harlot”. We can see that it is still possible to be joined spiritually with another besides Jesus.
Again we understand that this is a direct application of God’s law of natural marriage from Genesis 2 being restated and applied using different words in a spiritual application. According to God, the author of the Bible, to become members of a harlot is to be spiritually connected through having knowledge of) her. This statement is actually a parallel to some Old Testament realities that transpired many years before Paul wrote these words. What we can observe and understand from this is an implication that if one wife can commit adultery, then any wife in any covenant relationship (including with Jesus) can commit adultery. Let’s look at the next verse to learn more confirmation to what is being taught by God:
1Co 6:16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.
In this next verse we can see some more outstanding spiritual implications and parallels being given to us by God. We can very clearly learn that sexual relations with a harlot in the eyes of God is the exact same thing as a covenant marriage. That means that having casual sex or a one night stand with any woman whether she is a whore (paid money) or not will cause the two people to be in covenant relationship with each other. This is not really that complicated. Everyone that has been alive on the earth for a period of several years understands that people do not pay a prostitute to get married. No, the transaction and the exchange of money is for a brief pleasure of having sex. So what people do not realize is that this is not how God views the acts. God says in verse 16 that the two having this relationship have been joined in a marriage covenant. The literal Greek word G2853 translated as “joined” literally means to “glue” together two separate pieces. I do not believe people see it this way since it looks like it is just a temporary pleasure.
In the eyes of God having sex is a marriage and a marriage means there should have been sexual intimacy between a covenant husband and his wife. That is some very strong words I know, but you can read it for yourself. Study it out and see if this is not what God is saying. According to God, even a casual one night stand causes the participants to be in a covenant binding relationship.
We know recently in the news that a prominent sports figure was accused by several women to be in relationship with all of them. These fourteen or more women all accused this married man of having had sex with them. I also heard a rock star brag that he had sexual encounters with over a 1000 women and girls while touring with the rock band. He literally boasted that he had photos to prove it. But, according to these scripture verses that we just read these men now have a bunch of wives. These physical realities are parallel to the spiritual realities that God is attempting to get us to see and to understand. We can verify all of this in the next verse:
1Co 6:17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
You see in verse 17 we see another implied reference to Christ being married to the church. The verse speaks directly that the church is “JOINED” to the LORD. That is a marriage term and is the same word that is translated in other places as “cleave” to his wife. This verse then declares that the church is One Spirit with our husband Jesus Christ. Again more marriage terminology. We can understand that this new covenant marriage is suppose to be a spiritual type of sexual relationship just based upon the context of the surrounding verses speaking about people who have sex with harlots at the same time as being in covenant with Jesus Christ. In fact these verses are a warning written to the spiritual bride of Jesus telling her not to be involved with joining herself with other gods, idols, the worldly desires and lusts or whoever or whatever.
There are certainly many things to consider about these statements and we can apply them to both natural and spiritual covenant relationships. These constitute concepts of physical faithfulness and they should apply to us in our spiritual relationship with Christ as well. The bottom line of these verses in 1 Corinthians 6 point us to being faithful to Christ Jesus our husband and not to wander off with a deception or trick of Satan.
SPIRITUTAL SEXUAL INFIDELITY AND ADULTERY
These are all very stout and strong words and concepts given to us in the Bible concerning being in binding covenant relationship with the right and wrong individuals. What we thought was only a temporary pleasurable encounter has been raised to a very serious level of critical importance. I pray that everyone is learning the significance. These concepts and words appear to have not been clearly understood before now by very many Christians . But, before we go to the Old Testament let me show the law of marriage again restated differently for us in the New Testament which introduces us to a new concept called adultery which we should see and know as the act of being married to multiple covenant sexual partners at the same time:
Rom 7:1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
We can see new meaning in these words when we apply what we have just learned about the term “know”. To know something or someone is a sexual term that denotes a covenant act in a covenant relationship. So this verse is written to those that were in covenant with Jehovah God and His law and this could only be the natural nation of Israel. We know this because the Law was given to them by Moses on Mt Sinai after coming out of Egypt. Let’s see what God is saying to them that “know” the law:
Rom 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
These are some interesting words given to us from God. These words declare that a woman that knows the law is legally bound to the covenant law of her husband as long as he is alive. We know from previous study that Israel is called the wife of God in the Old Covenant (Jer 31:32). So we are told by God that this group or nation of natural people were bound (in bondage) by the law of God as long as He lives. God says very clearly that only when the husband is dead is she free to marry (enter covenant) again.
Rom 7:3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Here we have God’s definition of an adulteress. I do not understand how people have not put these things together, but I guess they are just hard to accept so they refuse to see them. Any way verse 3 of chapter 7 says if her husband is alive and she marries another man, then she shall be called an adulteress. An adulteress is a noun title for a woman who has committed a sexual act of adultery. Adultery is defined as “an extramarital sexual affair” and this “infidelity” is known as unfaithfulness. This is what is called the state of being unfaithful to your covenant spouse. Are we following these concepts?
How do we apply these physical things to spiritual things? We know that the natural nation of Israel did not have physical sex with other gods, idols or religions, but God said numerous times in the Old Testament that they were very unfaithful to Him. So apparently spiritual sex follows after a pattern of natural sex and is treated no differently by God. In fact in the eyes of God it is exactly the same. Spiritual sex would involve worshipping false gods, idols and other such unfaithful acts. These spiritual acts of the knowledge of foreign gods are covenant acts of infidelity in the eyes of God. This was Israel, His wife making herself in covenant relationship and being joined with other gods as we have just learned from the New Testament. Let us start looking at some Key Old Testament verses that speak about this subject:
Jer 3:1 They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD.
Yet more difficult words to swallow from God. It is a struggle to understand how Israel the natural nation of people are said to have committed adultery with many lovers. In fact this verse actually says that Israel has become the wife of another man by being unfaithful even while being married to the living covenant God. Remember what we read in 1 Corinthians, that the sexual act itself causes you to become married in covenant with the harlot. This verse in Jeremiah calls Israel the harlot and the wife of someone else and this husband is not God. The implications to these statements are huge and very powerful. The ramifications and consequences to Israel’s acts of unfaithfulness are enormous. Who is this one that Israel is accused of having spiritual intercourse with, and is in covenant with, if it is not with God? It will certainly be a new thing to research and consider using the Word of God.
Studying the Bible on this subject is incredibly difficult, because it implies so many heavy and deep things for us to consider. Many ministers in the church teach and preach such favorable things about the nation of Israel and I guess that they gloss over and ignore statements in the Bible about her infidelity and unfaithfulness. As we continue with this lesson it will not get any easier for me to teach or for you to accept. Let’s continue with this verse also in Jeremiah 3:
Jer 3:8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
In Malachi 2:16 God makes the statement that he hates divorce, however in Jeremiah 3:8 we see a direct statement that God has just divorced Israel, because of her repeated adulteries. If you recall from the definition of an adulteress in 1 Corinthians, an adulteress is any woman who has sexual knowledge outside of her covenant marriage while her husband still lives. God says backsliding Israel has committed adultery while I yet lived as their husband. What are the consequences of those transgressions? Here is a statement by God that directly breaks and terminates the old covenant marriage with the natural nation of Israel and completely ends the relationship. When God gave these words to His Prophet Jeremiah, the nation of Israel was divorced by law and no longer could be called the covenant wife of God but she is called the wife of another man in this book and others because of her sexual relationships with those gods. Because of Israel’s infidelity she has become the wife of another by the simple act of spiritual adultery. I told you that this wasn’t going to get any easier to accept. We are now heavy duty into the subject of divorce as it relates to the subject of marriage covenants. What gives God the right to divorce His unfaithful wife Israel? Let us confirm the divorce for the naysayers so there is no confusion: Please read another witness from the prophet Isaiah:
Isa 50:1 Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.
Here we can clearly see God speaking about His covenant wife Israel. This verse was written to the Lord Jesus speaking to Him to ask His mother about her divorce. What I want you to see that God very clearly says “I have put her away”. This Hebrew word translated as put away means to cast out. Also in this verse God uses the Hebrew word H3748 that is only used 4 times in the O.T. This word is translated as “divorcement” here and it literally means a cutting of the marital bonds. The only other time this word is used is found in Jeremiah 3:8 that we just looked at and in the Law of Moses written in Deuteronomy 24:1-3 where God permits divorce because of the hardness of the hearts of the people of Israel according to Jesus in Matthew. Let’s look at that verse quickly:
Mat 19:8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.
Notice what Jesus teaches about covenant relationships. Jesus said there was a time when this was permitted but it was only because they were hard hearted. Then Jesus says very clearly that this was not the intended design of God from the beginning. This would help confirm to us why God wrote in Malachi 2:6 that it is written that God hates divorce. God does not want to divorce anyone. God also does not want anyone in the world to divorce each other either. Divorce is far from the perfect will of God. God only permitted divorce under the law because of Israel’s repeated unfaithfulness while committing whoredom over and over and over. Let’s look at another verse that Jesus directly speaks concerning divorce in Matthew:
Mat 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
Jesus enforces God’s right to divorce His unfaithful wife Israel here in this verse in Matthew. Here we have Jesus speaking of divorce as not being a legitimate alternative to end any covenant relationship except for the reason of “fornication”. The Greek word G4202 that was translated as “fornication” here actually means “Harlotry” or “whoredon”. I have not heard many or any Christian leaders, preachers and teachers teaching these concepts. I wonder why? Do they exist in the Bible? It is also interesting that harlotry is the physical or natural meaning of this Greek word, but it also conveys the spiritual meaning of “idolatry” in the case of natural Israel. In the case of God’s relationship with natural Israel His wife, the sole legal reason for His divorce to her is based upon Israel’s constant interaction with other gods, religions and their idols. They worshipped false gods and idols instead of the true and living God. They became those that worshiped the creation more than the creator. Wow does that sound familiar?
Jer 3:20 Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD.
Here we have another incredible scripture that relates Israel to be the wife of God. The word “as” is added to the verse by the translator thinking that they were making a comparison, but Israel was the covenant wife by God’s own admission that God was speaking to in this verse. It goes on to describe her as a woman that has “departed” and “left” her husband. God does not like that one bit. A wife should not depart from her loving husband ever. In this verse it is implies that she (Israel) has left her husband for another man. I wonder why these scriptures are not taught and have been overlooked and ignored in the Bible? Are these verses written in the Holy Book? Did Israel commit adultery and fall into a covenant with another spiritual being? How could this be and who is this spiritual being that is now in covenant with natural Israel? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you should. They are truly important to your understanding of the Word of God.
I have to limit the number of verses that I could include on this subject due to lesson length. But please understand that just because I gave you a few verses, it doesn’t mean that there are not many, many others that say the same thing. You are welcome to search and find them out for yourself. You can find many verses of the whoredom of Israel in Jeremiah 3, 16, Ezekiel 16, 20, 23 and 43 and the book of Hosea to name the major references. Go read them and study them all for your self and learn what spiritual adultery represents. This was a woman that has left her husband to go and commit an act of sexual knowledge with another god besides her husband.
What I did was attempt to give you a foundational overview of a very complex subject, showing you how natural things are directly related to spiritual things. Marriage, sex, infidelity and divorce are all subjects that you should be familiar with in the natural. But, knowing how to apply them to God’s designed spiritual things is the challenge we are all faced with. I have shown you that God’s Old Covenant wife was unfaithful to Him and as a result, God has divorced her. That at least implies that this old covenant is over and done with for God the Father but not for natural Israel because of the law. Let’s go back to Romans and see a verse that I did not give you yet about this subject of covenant marriage:
Rom 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
Here is a complex verse that does not make any sense if you do not see that it was only written to those that “knew” the law. God says you that knew the law have been freed from that bondage of covenant relationship because your husband God died on the cross in the flesh. Then God says directly to these people that were bound to that covenant that they could be married in covenant with another man named the risen from the dead the Lord Jesus Christ. You see this verse does not make any sense for a Gentile that was never in covenant marriage with God. It can only apply to the natural nation of Israel. Any way we look at it, the natural nation of Israel must enter into the marriage covenant with Jesus Christ or they will not enter into everlasting life. Jesus declared quite literally that He was the only way to the Father and that no one could enter in by any other way and that means covenant also.
There are multiple implied verses given to us in the Bible that the woman natural Israel is now married to another spiritual being and this could be the reason why Satan wants to wipe Israel off of the face of the planet. If you didn’t already know that you must have been living in a vacuum or a bubble. Satan is trying diligently to wipe Israel off the map and probably will attempt something dramatic very soon. As soon as countries like Iran develop nuclear weapons, Israel is in deep trouble. These weapons are not for defense, they are for the sole purpose of eliminating Israel. Many Christians view natural Israel and call them God’s chosen people and assume that is why Satan wants to kill them. I would suggest that Satan may want to kill them for a different reason. Perhaps in my next bible lesson we will get into more verses concerning this unfaithful woman that was in covenant with God but, appears to be married to another now.
If you would like to continue reading this series on Bible covenants, you can go to “Part 3“.
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