The Image of God

You can see by the Foreword how I came to write this book, and I intended the title to be, "Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage and Membership in the Church of the Living God."  But as I wrote, the image of Christ began to emerge as the hub around which all else revolved.

My purpose then took a different direction: not so much to "prove" something, but rather to remind the people of God that His militant church (those congregations dwelling on this earth at any point in time, no matter the names, who stubbornly refuse to follow any other Shepherd, who aggressively search out the old paths) is to show forth to the world the image of God in the person of His Son Jesus Christ in all her constituted rules of order.  It is the only image for which God will have respect and the only image at which the world will wonder, although with hatred and persecution.  This persecuting hatred will turn to mocking and contempt once the Bride of Christ seeks to adopt the world's own customs.  Indeed it has already done so; the image of her Husband is marred, and the world turns back to its own concerns finding no threat of judgment in this foolish wife.

The scriptures that most emphatically uphold this truth are found in the message sent to the last age of the church on earth -- the only message sent to a church of a people.  All the other messages are sent to churches in or of a place.  But this last church has become the church of the Laodiceans (Rev. 3:14-22), a church who needs fresh, white raiment, eyesalve for spiritual discernment, and a refining fire to burn away the dross collected in lukewarm worship which the Lord says He will spew out of His mouth -- not eternally, but until her refinement is accomplished in the tribulations preceding the appearance of her Lord--

--(If the writing of divorcement could have broken the first marriage bond, there would have been no defilement attached to the second marriage.)

Why, then, does this law exist?  Because when laws were written, Mercy was there. Mercy, legally protecting the hated wife and legitimizing her children. Mercy, preventing the men from committing worse crimes in order to satisfy their lusts. Mercy, allowing them both to live in a state of adultery upon which the death sentence could not fall. 

Since no death was allowed under the law of divorce, the true, God- joined marriage bond remained unbroken, and the defilement of remarriage prevented the wife from ever returning to her former husband.  The law says also that the wife's defilement remains even though the second marriage comes to an end (Deut. 24:3,4).  This is a hard saying, but the price of a legal privilege to remarry at the expense of God's holy law is high.  Paul explains further that since she has broken God's law, her defilement remains as long as that law binds her which is until the death of her first husband (Rom. 7:1-3); therefore, she shall be called an adulteress as long as her first husband lives (even though she might be put away by her second husband or even if he dies).  If her first husband is dead, she is no more an adulteress (even though she still lives with her second husband).

Paul's words to the New Testament church are in perfect agreement with the law in Deuteronomy:  the law of the first husband binds the wife as long as he lives.  If she marries another, she shall be called an adulteress (only because of that law under which she is still bound).  Since she is to be called an adulteress as long as her first husband lives, she cannot return to him to clear her name.  Again, Jesus makes it plain that this is true for both men and women (Mark 10: 11,12).