The most important point to bring out here is that each believer, as part of the Church’s body of Christ, is to participate in an overall process of maturing for the whole body, so that the eternal prospects God deems to come to pass occur as He has spoken.
Eph 4:11-13 (AMP) And His gifts were [varied; He Himself appointed and gave men to us] some to be apostles (special messengers), some prophets (inspired preachers and expounders), some evangelists (preachers of the Gospel, traveling missionaries), some pastors (shepherds of His flock) and teachers. These five ministry gifts are afforded to the body by Christ and given to those who are called of the same spiritual union. All by faith are given birthright by Jesus through the Holy Spirit, and none become sons or daughters except in Christ. All receive gifts, but none are in a euphoric position of authority.
No one is set apart; all are, by the same Spirit, parts of the same body, with different functions, individually assisting in an overall growth process from the word of God, by the Holy Spirit. 12 His intention was the perfecting and the full equipping of the saints (His consecrated people), [that they should do] the work of ministering toward building up Christ’s body (the church), The principal purpose of these gifts remains, to this day, to equip all believers with every aspect of service so that they actively participate in reconciliation. This process must continue as deemed by the Holy Spirit within the churches as an auxiliary extension of Christ, while all attain a like faith, especially in marriages.
13 [That it might develop] until we all attain oneness in the faith and in the comprehension of the [full and accurate] knowledge of the Son of God, that [we might arrive] at really mature manhood (the completeness of personality which is nothing less than the standard height of Christ’s own perfection), the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ and the completeness found in Him. Jesus expressed that the Father’s image was in life, and He did this not as one who had Deity but as the Son of Man, obedient to reveal it in nature and character that imaged the one who was. Hence, it is a measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Let me characterize this for you. God has designed that, outside the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and the Temple in Jerusalem, and a Church’s physical dwelling, is His anointed covenant of union with anyone by faith in Christ. Marriage provides a place where two or more may abide in the presence of the Spirit of God, and defines the most intimate aspects of that covenant, whether amidst Christ and the Father by the Holy Spirit, or the male and female amid their offspring. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is the one who can promote such activity among all anointed covenants, nurturing life to reveal Zoe, and not one prone to sin or any living fashioned by the world’s ways.
Under Christ’s leadership, the unity of all sons and daughters is to appear. The body of Christ is not a place for its parts to gather and act as if they had it all together spiritually. But it is where all parts unite as His spiritual offspring, transformed by the Holy Spirit and the word of God. Acts 4:32 (MSG) The whole congregation of believers was united as one heart, one mind! They didn’t even claim ownership of their own possessions. No one said, “That’s mine; you can’t have it.” They shared everything. The Church existed early on as a body of believers before Christ’s ascension. Anyone who by faith said Jesus is the Son of God became part of it even before the work of the cross. Remember all those who by faith believed in the coming Messiah are listed in the book of Hebrews. Every one of those people was counted as righteous in stature by faith.
The anointed marital covenant you have with your spouse is a co-op of living in unity that originated on the day Adam accepted Eve as his wife. Together, they formed the first marriage covenant, and God anointed it, establishing it as a place to nurture His future eternal offspring by the Holy Spirit. The Tabernacle in the wilderness, the Temple in Jerusalem, Synagogues, and now today’s churches are all entities built for the presence of the Spirit of God. However, what I say next is not accepted by churches or ministries.
Your level of spiritual nurturing and maturing that reveals knowledge and understanding, whether among Israel or today’s believers, is anointed to occur through the tutoring of the Spirit of God within the confines of a church, but is more effective within the confines of marriage and family. Why say, family? It is simple when you think about it. Every time a believer walks into a church building or attends a ministerial event, an episodic occurrence usually occurs. These events are relevant to spiritual growth, but the Holy Spirit is continually in and with a believer as he/she comes and goes. He is the one who matures us, not the pulpit, the church building, or any ministry. The truth comes from Him and Him alone.
Such a statement sets the stage for every believer to continue to mature in knowledge and understanding of the truth. It is man who determined that buildings and names are the essence of maturing your faith in Christ. If that is true, then no one could be a believer in Christ without their authority. And yet, we see that all are to be by faith in Christ through the earnest guarantee that the Holy Spirit is with and in you. What should occur is parents tutor their children to learn about God by the Holy Spirit, concerning ancient days, Jewish laws, and the traditions and customs He instructed Israel to observe, as illustrated in the Old Testament. And as they teach them about those truths, they bring light to the gospel of Christ and the New Testament concerning spiritual matters for life today, all to build faith to trust God at His word, and call Jesus, Lord and Savior.
He does not rely on the leaders of churches as the only means of imparting the truth that brings about His eternal purpose for humanity. He purposely ordained marriage from the beginning, long before the Church or the nation of Israel existed. He is still relying upon it today, but we, as believers, bow to religious doctrines that remove the eternal purpose of marriage and replace it with ordinances of traditions and customs or statutes.
Alright! I need you to come down out of the ceiling tiles for a moment: While the Church corporate has a purpose in the spiritual maturing of God’s offspring, the ministerial pathway to accomplish this is founded in His offspring, in covenant with Him through Christ. The Spirit of God does not mature a denomination, religious sect, or any ministry; He matures those within them. Although pulpits are taught to believe it is, the church was never meant to be an intimate, nurturing place, like a marriage or family relationship. The truth is that only sheep conceive and give birth to more sheep, as God purposed them to be within His creation; therefore, only spiritual offspring He calls His sheep can conceive and give birth to more spiritual offspring – sheep.
Confused? Before anyone can become a child of God, they must first be born in the flesh and then born again in the Spirit. A process that can occur outside the confines of a church (building and/or name). In today’s warped sense of righteousness, believers say the local church pulpit is the only place where God’s power and authority prevail. Thus, diligently flock to it, seeking an appearance of the Holy Spirit. The truth is that God’s authority and power existed among humanity long before the Church appeared. And the Church, as defined by Jesus, is something He says He builds, Matt. 16:18, a body of believers. As they were then and are still today, churches are to reveal Christ through His ministry of reconciliation, founded upon a covenant union with the whole family.
Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, David and Jesus, God’s Son, were all brought through covenants either prophesied or naturally derived from a family heritage established for His eternal plan. I cannot nor do I even want to end the Church and its eternal part in God’s plans, but I can make known that there is a truth about the purpose of marriage that, unfortunately, by pulpits, has been diminished to the bedroom and sexual intercourse. Marriage is not the precipice of life in Christ, but it should be the pinnacle of an eternal promise exercised by an authority given to all spouses, moving in God’s power by the Holy Spirit.
1 Peter 3:22 (GW) Christ has gone to heaven where he has the highest position that God gives. Angels, rulers, and powers have been placed under his authority. If you look at the order of God’s authority within scripture, you will see that the Church is positioned through Christ, within the Theocratic structure from God to humanity. However, marriage also has a stated position in which God’s authority is present, one that has existed from the beginning. Eph 5:22-33 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
The positional stature of righteousness for both the husband and the wife is that of members of the Church body, defined individually under Christ, but united in authority by the marriage covenant. And defining this status a little more. These verses are about a position held by an allotted statute that God determined. In the case of Jesus Christ, by His sacrifice for all, and those counted as His spiritual body, He was given the position of Head of the Church. A believer, as a husband in a marriage covenant, is counted by God as the head within the ordained union. God’s authority in a marriage is for bringing forth spiritual offspring to Himself.
Mal 2:15 (MSG)GOD, not you, made marriage. His Spirit inhabits even the smallest details of marriage. And what does he want from marriage? Children of God, that’s what. So guard the spirit of marriage within you. Don’t cheat on your spouse. Spouses as believers are a part of His body, and the authority and power of Christ are to flow through them by the Holy Spirit. Not via a denominational transcript. If they are faithful, the first place of manifestation of power and authority is their covenant union, grounded in the principles that reveal God’s image.
So, with all this truth from God’s word concerning marriage, isn’t there a marriage described as the final union in Christ at the end? Rev 19:7-9 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. 8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. 9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
Jesus revealed to John that this revelation is true because God said it would be so. A significant truth to be learned, or in this case, a mystery to be revealed, about who the Church is to Christ is that it is a spiritual body that completes His eternal purpose for humanity. Similarly, what is a wife to her husband or what is a husband to his wife, as together they complete a union for His spiritual offspring who attend this final marriage?
Eph 5:30-32 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. 31For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. The anointed presence of the Holy Spirit completes the marriage union for an eternal purpose of offspring becoming God’s. This was stated by God long before the Church existed. Mal 2:15. Today, the church appears to discard the purpose of marriage and replace it with the dexterity of world-minded activity, nullifying its true purpose. As a result, a sense of sensual interaction, rather than a supernatural work of power and authority, occurs among husbands and wives who are ignorant of this truth.
Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. The eternal purpose of marriage is about a union of males and females procreating for the replenishment He decreed in the beginning by only two sexes who were to fulfill His eternal plans. Beginning with Adam and Eve, then His chosen nation, and then a body of believers in Christ, He calls the Church.
No worldly order or dynamic overture can divert the supernatural presence of authority and power that arises through faith in Christ, as God purposed through the Holy Spirit. Authority and power emanate from the churches of Christ because of the believers who make up its body, who, not denominations, religious sects, or ministries, have access to them through the presence of the Holy Spirit. If upheld by faith in Christ, marriage is the perfect place for the Spirit of God to work out even the smallest details. Mal 2:15.
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