Reconstructive 'surgery'

(sorry for absence and will definitely have a new post tomorrow. At the last second I rented a car (mine has busted radiator) and drove up to Chicago on Monday to enjoy a few days of my church's summer Bible conference. The car Budget gave me for "economy" price was a brand-new Kia Soul SUV. Boy, did I get a taste of luxury and the gas mileage was better by quite a margin than my 2005 Nissan Altima. When preachers tell you it's much better to be at a service in person they ain't a kidding. Below is an article from 2011 that I actually forgot I wrote. It appeared in my recently read list today so I thought it was worth reposting.)  

In Luke 24:39, Jesus says, “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” Paul says in I Cor. 15:50, “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”

Richard Jordan explains, “This is where the idea of blood poisoning came from. (Adam and Eve) had something flowing through their veins but it was not contaminated blood that had to be shed for remission of sins as you find later on. ‘Male and female created he them,’ we’re told.

“Well, the man is the initiator and the woman is the responder. The man is the intellect; he’s the one who is to think and operate on volition. The woman is the emotional side. She is to respond to his will. Just like in you there is a will and your emotions are to respond to your will and when that functions properly you function the way God intended it.

“The man is the determiner and the prime mover. The woman is the emotional comparison. Men are more cerebral and women have more of an emotional intuition. It’s an ability to FEEL things that’s intuitive. You need to dwell with her according to knowledge, Peter says. You need to understand her makeup and that she’s made to be a responder and she’s going to respond and give you back what you give to her. When they do that, they’re one flesh, verse 24 says. One complete humanity. One person.

“Marriage is the reconstruction of man; it’s the completion of man. Man has that part that was taken out of him and put back in him and they become one functioning unit. Eve put back into Adam in marriage results and the reconstruction of the original item and the ability to function the way God created them to function.

“Neither the man nor the woman can be completely whole without the other because they’re interdependent, but since the fall sin has so disrupted this divine order that the oneness is never completely achievable. You’re never going to completely, totally achieve it in this life, but you can get close, and the more compatible you are with walking in the Spirit (the way God intends you to walk) the closer you get to it.

*****

“There’s an idea that floats around that says Adam’s original wholeness was he was male and female and he was bisexual and that’s just nonsense. The teaching is then said that because Adam’s made in the image of God and the likeness of God, therefore God is male and female in one. Again, that’s just not true.

“When you take two elements and combine them together they have qualities and a nature of their own. You take oxygen and hydrogen and you can combine two hydrogen and one oxygen molecule and you come up with water. Now you can’t breathe water; it will suffocate you. But it’s got oxygen in it that you need to live!

Oxygen and hydrogen are compressible gases. Both of them you can compress them, put them in cylinders, compress them down, put them under pressure and store them. You’ve seen hydrogen cylinders and oxygen tanks. But you put them together to form the compound of water—water is non-compressible.

“So you take two compressible gases, put them together and it forms a liquid that is non-compressible. When you combine two separate things you form a new nature.

“So it isn’t that Adam was talking to himself inside and feeling some female and male hormones. Adam was Adam, out of whom could be taken . . . Adam was neither simply male nor simply female; he was Adam, out of whom those male and female elements could be separated and they are separated now.

“When you put the man and the woman back together you’re recreating that wholeness. That can be understood in some measure when you understand what marriage is in its ultimate. Don’t let somebody take a passage like that and say therefore God is male and female and all that kind of stuff.

*****

“From the family you separate off the marriage unit and you can’t have a successful family without it being built on the institution of marriage.

“You leave your father and mother, folks, and then you cleave unto your spouse. You separate yourself and establish yourselves as a new and separate entity and a man must accept the responsibility for accomplishing that, including establishing a marriage wherein his wife is protected.

“In the issue of marriage, the husband is the head and the wife is the helpmeet. The wife comes along with her husband and is joined to him and her purpose is to fulfill him; to make him a larger, bigger person than he is by himself. To complete him; to be his helpmeet. The one who mirrors him. The one who answers to him. Adam is no longer sufficient and complete in himself; he needs this woman to come along and to complete him.

“God created Eve for the purpose of being married to Adam. It’s a creation institution and it’s the basic stabilizer of the human race and of society and, folks, families won’t function without the institution of marriage as its base.

*****

"You read the passage in Genesis 29 and there ain’t no doubt about it, there isn’t no ‘I Dos’ there. I mean, here’s Jacob and he’s worked for seven years--he’s got an agreement with Rachel’s daddy that he can have her to be his wife but he doesn’t get Rachel; he gets Leah. The old man tricked him.

“The daddy had a daughter he wanted him to marry first so he tricked him, but the point is when he went in unto her who had been his pledged wife, he went in expecting it to be Rachel and it turned out to be Leah, and going in unto her and having the intimate relationships that he had with her, as far as the situation in Scripture is concerned, she became his wife and there wasn’t any ceremony and any ‘I Do’ kind of a thing. It just was done.

"There’s more involved in marriage and the reason we call the consummation of marriage ‘the marriage act’--the reason that thing is there is that’s involved in marriage.

“In the Bible, marriage is more than a church institution. You see the church, especially the Roman Church, is the one who instituted the ceremony of marriage as a religious institution. It’s one of the seven sacraments of the Roman Church and that’s where that kind of a thing comes from where, if you hadn’t stood in front of a preacher or priest and had the thing blessed by the church, then you’re not really married.

“On the other hand, there’s more involved in it than just going to bed with each other. Sex and sexual relations are not what marriage is in the Bible either. Marriage demands this kind of a vow and a covenant.

"Malachi 2:14 says, ‘Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.’ That means being his helpmeet.”