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2 Corinthians 6:14-18
Marriage and the State
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.
For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?
Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
What accord has Christ with Belial?
Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?
What agreement has the temple of God with idols?
For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”[1]
| C |
Anadians are passionate about rights.
In my brief residence in Canada, I have witnessed a transition of epic proportions.
When I came to Canada, though minorities were respectfully heard and due consideration was accorded them, the British North America Act enshrined collective rights.
This was the heritage of centuries of British jurisprudence, founded primarily upon Christian principles.
When the Trudeau government patriated the Constitution and introduced the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, I cautioned friends, colleagues and parishioners that they might be in for a stunning surprise.
I had no way of knowing just how prescient my words would prove.
Activist courts, established and abetted by a naïve and acquiescent Parliament, have changed the political landscape of this once great nation.
Instead of enjoying collective rights, a mind-numbing list of individual rights continually divide the nation into ever-smaller enclaves of individuals, each angrily bawling out demands arising from their “unique” situation.
Today, people that choose one lifestyle over another demand that the majority accept their strange and perverted positions as normative, insisting that they are a persecuted minority.
Strangely enough, we witness for the first time, minorities defined as such on the basis of lifestyle chosen in defiance of nature.
Recently, in one further act of judicial activism pushing the nation toward utter depravity, the Superior Court of Ontario ruled that the government must permit marriage for sodomites and lesbians (Halpern v. Canada).
I am not exaggerating when I say that it is only a matter of time until judicial activists normalise sexual acts between adults and children and between man and beast.
What business has government directing marriage?
Why must I be an agent of the Province?
Why must I work for the government?
The biblical proscription against mixed marriage is concisely stated by the Apostle Paul in his second letter to the Corinthian saints.
Though some will undoubtedly dispute the nuptial application of this passage, the overwhelming majority of conservative scholarship recognises its application to the matrimonial union.
God is pledged to bless the couple which makes Him integral to their union.
I cannot understand why those who will not confess faith in the Living God would wish His blessing in a religious ceremony?
Clearly, the passage prohibits the marriage of a believer to a non-believer.
My practise has been to restrict my participation in weddings to members of my own congregation.
It is a courtesy to them to share in their wedding ceremonies and it is a ministry mandated by my pastoral office to my own parishioners.
Other Christians who approach me have been gently directed back to their own church.
If, for some good reason, their pastor is unable to care for the responsibility of officiating at their wedding, I will, as a courtesy to a fellow pastor and at his request, assist through officiating.
If the couple approaching me have no church home, I attempt to speak to them of their faith in the Lord Christ.
If they have no interest in serving Him, I endeavour to assist them to discover the folly of attempting to secure His blessings without worship.
Should only one member of the party approaching me concerning marriage be a believer, I become quite adamant in my refusal to participate.
I take great pains to try to point to the foolishness of disobedience toward the God the believer professes to worship.
Today, I am severing my relationship with the government.
I will no longer participate in the wicked union of church and state through performing weddings as an agent of government.
I will request that my name no longer be gazetted in Victoria.
Whether it is or not, I will no longer act in behalf of the province.
Couples desiring my participation in the future will be encouraged to visit a marriage commissioner gazetted under provincial law.
If either the provincial or federal government has a compelling interest in the issue of marriage, then let government representatives care for the matter.
If, on the other hand, the wedding ceremony is a religious function, let the churches care for that matter without governmental interference.
As a Baptist, I am committed to the concept of religious liberty, which precludes my functioning as an agent of government.
Because too many churchgoers have but a vague idea of the role of the church in society, I am compelled to carefully set forth the basis for my decision and consider the impact that choice will have on the congregation.
Origins of Modern Marriage — The modern marriage ceremony exhibits more elements of Roman and Goth paganism than it reveals Christian influence.
The Bible knows little of the ceremony of marriage, which varies considerably from culture to culture.
The earliest marriage recorded is that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
The account is recorded in [*Genesis 2:21-25*].
/So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
Then the man said/,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
The account is notable for its simplicity, a simplicity and forthrightness which is reflected in the brief account of the marriage of Isaac to Rebekah.
Rebekah, moved by the plea of Abraham’s servant, journeyed to Canaan from Mesopotamia to be wed to Isaac.
We pick up the account as she neared the settlement in which Abraham and Isaac then lived.
The account is found in [*Genesis 24:62-67*].
Now Isaac had returned from Beer-lahai-roi and was dwelling in the Negeb.
And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening.
And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming.
And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel and said to the servant, “Who is that man, walking in the field to meet us?”
The servant said, “It is my master.”
So she took her veil and covered herself.
And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done.
Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her.
So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.
Laban prepared a feast in honour of the marriage of Jacob to Leah [*Genesis 29:22*], but the absence of formal ceremony is striking.
What is seen throughout the pages of the Old Testament, and emphasised in the pages of the Gospels, is the communal celebration which marked marriage.
Marriage, in the cultures throughout the ancient Near East, was a civil matter.[2]
The celebrations were public in as much as the families involved rejoiced and wanted their friends to rejoice with them.
There was, however, no religious requirement per se for a wedding to be performed.
There are religious instructions surrounding marriage to protect both husband and wife, but the concept of ceremony is absent from the Word of God.
Interestingly enough, the emphasis in the Bible is upon mutual commitment and love.
There is little of the emotional aspect we think of as love, but there is a great deal concerning respect and sacrifice, marks of genuine love.
What should be striking to the astute listener is the absence of ceremony.
Though the whole of the Canticles is a celebration of married love, there is nothing therein concerning ceremony.
Though Christ uses weddings as a parabolic setting for presentation of millennial truth, the ceremonial aspects carry nothing of what could be understood as command.
Biblical marriage is noted for its simplicity and absence of ceremony.
The declaration of intent to be committed to one another was sufficient to constitute a binding marriage contract.
Even under Roman law, a marriage was valid as soon as a man and woman made vows to each other, even if such vows were made completely in private and at the most intimate moments.
Secret marriages were thus simple to enter into.[3]
European culture no doubt had civil celebrations to govern marriage prior to the advent of Christianity.
As the illicit power of church and state grew, the state increasingly became the means for enforcing the will of the churches on the populace.
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