Marriage and Divorce


God ordained the five-fold ministry "to equip the saints for the work of the ministry (I Peter 3:15) for building up the Body of Christ; till we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God that brings mature manhood, tending toward the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:12-13). Every elect is to represent Christ to the world by having the "Token" or evidence of His Life on display at all times, for judgment must begin at the house of God.

In Israel the Levitical priesthood was separated to God from the twelve tribes to minister the Word of God and keep Israel sanctified and separated from profanity. They type the Bride of Christ who is separated from her non-elect kindred and the things of the world (I Peter 2:5). Whereas the nation of Israel was the Bride of Jehovah whose union was conditional to obedience, the true Church is the Bride of Christ individually united to the Word through an indissoluble bond in the Spirit God calls an invisible marriage union between our soul and Christ the Word wherein we are one in the Holy Spirit as a man and his wife are one in the flesh (I Corinthians 6:17; Genesis 2:23-24).

Israel could be put away in divorcement as indeed he is, for Israel is God's servant and "the servant does not abide in the house forever as his tenure is conditional: but the son remains forever without conditions" (John 8:35). We know from the type in the Book of Ruth that Christ had to redeem Israel as a nation before He could marry the Gentile Bride yet only an election of individual Israelites in the Land is accounted as the nation. Counting from 780BC we are now well into "the third day" of one thousand years in which Hosea 6:1-3 prophesied all Israel—all 144,000 of them will be restored to divine favour in one day (Joel 2:32; Romans 11:26; Isaiah 66:8; 30:26; Jeremiah 3; Hosea 2). However their indissoluble bond of the Spirit will be that of servant, for the marriage of the Lamb will end at the Sixth Seal (Revelation 14:1-5; 19:7).

In Malachi 2:1-9, God reproved the Levitical priests for profaning His Name in the eyes of the people by teaching for hire, for having respect of persons, and by misleading with false (Talmudic) expositions of the Law thus plunging Israel into sin, guilt, and perdition. They had made the Law into a stumbling-stone instead of a light and lamp for their feet (Isaiah 8:13-22; I Peter 2:6-9; I John 2:10).

God's ministers should be men of understanding in His Word, keeping knowledge for, not from His people, and equipped to instruct those unacquainted with the revelation. This knowledge must be in their lips to "preach the Message urgently at all times, when it is convenient and when it is not; to reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine" (II Timothy 4:2) because without faith even the most sincere worship is void, and our offering of worship must be as unblemished as Israel's lamb, for the offeror and his sacrifice are one and by a defective sacrifice he is himself rejected.

How many lives have been destroyed through sin (i.e. unbelief in the revealed Word of God), particularly in this era of secular humanism, situational ethics, free love, no fault divorce, pornography, homosexuality, and "comme ci comme ça" ecumenism, because ministers possess seminary learning without faith to instruct their people? Brother Branham said, "By lack of this revelation is why we have so many different divisions among us and so much mockery, so much division among us, is because the people lack that revelation. See, they lack that revelation: the teachers." I have always attended church, believed and loved the Lord, but because of false ministry and false history for the first thirty-three years of my life I was without faith; and now that we are at the end of the age Lucifer's minions have made it a penitentiary offence in many once Christian nations to publicly express Bible faith and historical truth.

Malachi 2:10-16 introduces a new subject not unrelated to the first because it stems from the delinquent teaching ministry of the Levites that caused the people to stumble. As Hosea 4:6 prophesied 500 years earlier, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being priest to Me: since you have forgotten the Law of your God, I will forget your children." God rebukes the men of Judah for unlawfully divorcing their wives in order to marry foreign idolatresses, "violating the covenant made by God with our fathers," by which it was ordained that Israel should be separated from all other peoples (Exodus 34:11-17; Leviticus 20:26; Deuteronomy 7:3). Intermarriage with the heathen would defeat this purpose of God, who was the common Father of the Israelites (Genesis 12:1-3; Isaiah 63:16; 64:8)—brothers and sisters—in the sense that He had not yet revealed Himself to the heathen.

This one Father created Israel to be His peculiar people and a Light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 42:1-7; I Corinthians 8:6), yet the Levites were dealing partially in administering the Law. This is illustrated in Matthew 19 where "The Pharisees came to Jesus, tempting Him, and saying 'Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And if not, why did Moses command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?"

It was for miscegenation that God destroyed the world by Flood. Balaam's teaching that "we are all the same," brought Israel into miscegenation through fornication, which God never did forgive. Israel's rejection of the Holy Spirit at Kadesh was the putting away of Jehovah. The World Council of Churches, Charismatic and Ecumenical movements promote this sin through spiritual fornication today (Amos 3:3). God hates hybridizing, whether it be adding to or taking from His Word or the cursed multicultural agenda of the globalists, intermarriage with the children of Cain (Genesis 6:1-4; Matthew 24:37). The sin for which Malachi rebuked Judah is the sin of Christendom today (I Thessalonians 4:3-6). Christ's Church is called to a total separation from denominational unbelief (Matthew 25:6; Revelation 18:4).

God regarded all Israel as His beloved holy nation, wives equally with their husbands. Malachi 2 exposes the lie of God's unschooled critics who commonly condemn the Bible as chauvinist, supposing Hebrew wives were chattel slaves with no privileges. Whereas Oriental women were generally degraded and today's 'liberated woman' is often the enthusiastic mistress of her own degradation, under God's Law the women were honoured. Men who unjustly repudiated Hebrew wives committed an "abomination" classed with idolatry, witchcraft and adultery, and stood to be "cut off out of the tents of Jacob." Unlawful divorce became a national sin so no one should escape judgment, both the Levites with the authority of teaching and the laymen their pupils or "scholars" were guilty of "doing this . . . abomination." This emphasizes the need for we Christians to heed the admonition of the noble Bereans to "receive the preaching and teaching with all readiness of mind, then search the Scriptures daily, whether those things are so" lest we rest our eternal destiny on a second-hand religion (Acts 17:11).

Malachi 2:10-16, "Have we not all one Father? has not one God created us? why then do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?"

Judah was dealing treacherously against their wives under the Covenant God made with the Patriarchs to be His peculiar people; profaning the Covenant by dealing treacherously against their brethren in order to satisfy their lust for "daughters of a strange god" who were alien to the Covenant of promise (Ephesians 2:12). This was a profanation of the holy seed (Ezra 9:1, 2; 10:2; Nehemiah 13:23) for natural Israel like Spiritual Israel, the true Church, was holiness unto the Lord (Jeremiah 2:3; Matthew 25:6; II Corinthians 6:14-18; I Thessalonians 4:16; Revelation 18:4).

"In Judah, and in Israel, and in Jerusalem there is treachery; for the men of Judah have profaned the holy Temple of the Lord which He loves by marrying heathen women who worship idols. The Lord will cut off from His Covenant to the last man, whether minister or layman, all who have done this sin."

Marrying wives who have neither understanding in nor knowledge of Israel's God, or the presence of anyone or anything unconsecrated to Him, such as an idolatress, is regarded as profaning all that God has entrusted to His people, and God excommunicates them from Israel and deprives them of access to the Temple courts. This was not marriage to just any foreigner but to one who leads Judah astray to "serve foreign gods" (Deuteronomy 17:1-7; 3:6-11) and a repetition of what had previously brought about Israel's downfall (Deuteronomy 31:16-19; II Kings 17:7-41; Jeremiah 5:19; 8:19).

Malachi's prophecy was delivered in 397BC. The great national disaster of 586BC, when Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple and taken the people away captive, had been forgotten. What had been entrusted to the renewed community—the Land of their fathers, the people, and the revived sanctuary (which had been rededicated only in 515BC) was again being profaned.

"And this have you done a second time, covering the altar of the Lord with the tears of your forsaken wives." The first charge condemned marriage to Serpent's seed women, and idolatresses, (doubtless in polygyny which was permitted under the Law), the second charge is unfaithfulness to "the wife of your youth," who is divorced rather than supported, causing her to weep, pouring out her heart before the God who witnessed her covenant of marriage thereby compounding the sin of the husband's treachery against God's covenant with Israel by his treachery against his covenant with his wife. The Lord will not receive his sacrifice of prayer nor bless him.

Refusing to be ashamed, and to confess their guilt, the men shamelessly ask the reason for their rejection. Malachi 2:14, "Because the Lord witnessed the vows between you and the wife of your youth [for life], against whom you have dealt treacherously: she is the companion you swore to care for and keep, and the wife of your covenant."

A sin against a daughter of God's Covenant is a sin against God. The church ceremony is NOT the marriage, but a public testimony in which we ask God to bless us before the witness of family and friends. We are married when we exchange vows one to another, a transaction that takes place some considerable time before the ceremony is planned. God is bound by His Word which is the expression of His unchanging thoughts, and He holds you to your word.

"And did not He make one? Yet had He the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That He might seek a godly race. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth".

Malachi now appeals to the prophet Moses, and God's purpose in creation. Genesis 2:18-25: "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help suited to his needs. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every kind of beast and bird; and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: and whatever he called them, that was their name".

"So Adam named all cattle, and the birds, and every beast of the field; but still there was no proper helper for the man. Then the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and took one of his ribs and closed up the place whence he had removed it; and made the rib into a woman, and brought her to the man." The word "made" is the Hebrew banah, meaning to re-build or extend. For woman is not a part of God's original creation but a by-product made from the man after creation had been finished—a perfect type of Christ and His Church. Whereas Jesus is the beginning of the new creation of God—less than 2,000 years ago—the Church is a continuation of the same creation, being formed from the Holy Spirit taken from Jesus' side after God put Him to sleep on Calvary as Eve was formed from a rib taken from Adam's side after God put him to sleep.

"And Adam said, Eureka!! She is part of my own bone and flesh! Her name is Woman, because she was taken out of Man. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife such that they become one (I Corinthians 11:1-16; Ephesians 5:23). Now although they were naked, neither the man nor his wife were embarrassed or ashamed".

This helps us to understand Malachi 2:15, "And did not He make one? Yet had He the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That He might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth".

God's whole purpose is to manifest His own attributes to express what He is so He might fellowship with those attributes in the form of His glorified Family through the harmony of faith (which is the mind of God in us). His plan was sealed in the first Adam who fell and in the last Adam Who overcame. God had finished His creation long before He formed the woman as a by-product. A careful reading of Genesis reveals that Adam would have been about 110 years Eve's senior. When God formed Adam, his wife was in him, and when the Logos was made flesh in the last Adam, His Wife was in Him.

Genesis 5:1-2, "This is the Book of Life, the genealogy of Adam. In the day God created man in His likeness." (God's likeness is His divine nature or character as we learned from the stature of the perfect Man (Ecclesiastes 7:29; Ephesians 4:11-16; II Peter 1:1-11). God created man in His great thinking before the foundation of the world; therein He foresaw all men and women of Adam's race; and being part of His foreknowledge we were spirit—Genesis 1:26-28; Revelation 17:8). "He created them male and female, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created".

Attributes, the mind of GodFrom the beginning God foresaw and foreknew you and me and every member of Adam's race, and God blessed us. Think on that! Adam was one of God's thoughts or Attributes before God formed him a body in the image of animals from the dust of the earth. Then he was expressed as Word, and all of his seed was potentially in him when that Word was made a living soul. Then Eve was taken from Adam's flesh and they were reunited in marriage to produce an entire race through holy wedlock. "A godly seed." Recognize yourself a son or a daughter of God, and live up to that high calling. Act out your part of God's Word by becoming a written epistle of the present Truth. If your life proves you are an Attribute of God (signified by one of the dots in the circle that represent God's expressed thoughts, the Logos), you are eternal Life and will display the Token of His Life. Then whoever blesses you will be blessed of God; and whoever curses you is accursed of God for you are an overcomer for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed (Genesis 12:3; II Corinthians 5:19).

"Yet God had residue of the spirit." His creative resources were not expended. He might have made Adam many wives, a veritable harem, but He planned for a monogamous partnership of one pair or couple. Through their word of agreement, or covenant of marriage, God makes a man and his wife one again. God took the feminish nature from Adam's mortal spirit and placed it in the woman so that through the marriage union they should re-unite their spirits and their flesh and pro-create as "amateur gods" through agreement in their own word, the antitype of His Own creative Word, and a type of Christ and His Bride. Trust, fidelity.

For us, a most instructive application of the term "residue of the spirit" is to apply it to free moral agency and discipline. Through our marriage vows we separate ourselves from all others only to our spouse. We forgo the "residue of the spirit" or free choices that may be in the offing for the mutual benefit of the marriage relationship, for godliness and to produce a godly offspring. The purpose of marriage is the fulfilment of God's one eternal purpose of multiplying and rearing children who will hold fast His Word—"a godly seed" or race in the new creation of God-men.

A bastard (the seed of adultery or incest) will never enter the kingdom of God, which is the election. Deuteronomy 23:2, "A bastard shall not enter the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation" (that is, never). While the ungodly seed of Cain's lineage is without salvation at all.

A godly people should reproduce godly seed. God's law of reproduction in Genesis 1:11 requires that "everything bring forth of its own kind whose seed is in itself." And God's commandment at the start was that His children should "Be fruitful, and multiply, fill and subdue the earth" (Genesis 1:28). His purpose is defeated when the wives and mothers of Israel are "daughters of a foreign god." Therefore, the man must take heed to his "residue of spirit" and control his passions so he does not commit adultery against "the wife of his youth".

"For the Lord, the God of Israel, says, I hate divorce: for one covers cruelty with his garment, says the Lord of hosts; therefore control your passions so that you do not deal treacherously with the wife of your youth".

As Adam and Eve attempted to hide their faithlessness behind garments of fig leaves, men try to cover their injustices and ethical wrongs behind a veneer of outward respectability in remarriage. God hates divorce, and permits it only in the case of some unclean thing (Deuteronomy 24:1) for the Law requires a husband to maintain a hated wife who is innocent of any uncleanliness (Numbers 5:13-31; Deuteronomy 21:15-17). God will not justify divorcing one wife to marry another in order to serve a man's lust, which would be to condone treachery against the faithful wife of his first choice. His sole purpose is to gather glory unto Himself by manifesting His Attributes through a holy people who have come under pre-eminence by the obedience of faith for fellowship in unity throughout Eternity. Paul said, "You are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God." So it is no longer you or I but Christ living in us, willing and doing His Own good pleasure.

Fellowship has been defined as two fellows in the one boat, but how can two sail together unless they are perfectly joined in the same mind and in the same judgment (Amos 3:3; I Corinthians 1:10)? The natural types the Spiritual. You men should unite with the mortal spirit of your future bride before you receive her body as Christians unite with Christ's Spirit before we receive bodies like His own glorious body and enter the intimacy of His physical Presence. When a man chooses a Bride, he should look for character. Her outward beauty will fade. But if she has character, it will mature and blossom with the years. God is looking for a people of character. Men and women of their word. Fidelity!

Matthew 5:31-37, "It has been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, makes her commit adultery (because she will re-marry and a woman can only have one living husband): and whosoever marries her (not him) that is divorced commits adultery" (because she already has a living husband).

"Again, you have heard it said by men of old, You shall not perjure yourself, but shall perform unto the Lord your oaths: But I say, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: nor by the earth; for it is His footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. Simply give a clear Yes, or No! Your word is sufficient, for to strengthen your promise with a vow is indicative of lurking evil".

God expects your word to be your bond. Think carefully before speaking, know and understand what you are talking about, and mean what you say. Your conversation should be a firm unequivocal "Yes!" or "No!" so as not to create uncertainty. When a man and a woman covenant in marriage, they are bound by their word. She must confess any unclean living before she accepts his proposal of marriage, otherwise she has perjured herself. Should he subsequently learn of fornication she did not confess before the marriage, her vow is null and void and her husband can put her away for unconfessed fornication. Take the case of Joseph and Mary:

Matthew 1:18-20, "These are the facts concerning the birth of Jesus Christ: when His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they consummated their union, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being just, determined to divorce her, but privately to avoid her public disgrace. But while he thought on this, he fell into a dream and saw the Angel of the Lord Who said, Joseph, son of David, don't hesitate to take to yourself Mary your wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost".

Joseph was her husband because he had proposed marriage and she had accepted. Before he could know her as his wife he discovered she was already pregnant, and suspecting she had been in fornication he was preparing to divorce her. But privately, lest she be stoned to death.

Deuteronomy 22:13-27, "If any man marries a wife and after consummating their union he accuses her of premarital intercourse with another man, saying, I took this woman, and found she was not a virgin, then her father and her mother shall bring forth the tokens of her virginity to the city judges: and her father shall say, I gave my daughter to this man to wife, and now he despises her, and has accused her, saying, she was not a virgin when she married; yet here is the proof of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city."

"And the judges shall take that man and have him whipped; and fine him one hundred shekels of silver to be given to the girl's father, because he has falsely accused a virgin of Israel. She shall remain his wife and he may never divorce her."

"But if this thing is true, and the tokens of virginity are not found, the judges shall take the girl to the door of her father's house where the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has defiled Israel by playing the harlot while living at home under the headship of her father. So shall you put evil away from among you."

"If a man is discovered lying with a married woman, both he and the other man's wife must be killed; so shall you put away evil from Israel."

"If a virgin who is betrothed to a husband is seduced within the walls of a city, both she and the man who seduced her shall be taken outside the city gate and stoned to death. The girl because she didn't scream, (being in the city, for had she cried out someone would have heard and come to her aid); and the man, because he has humbled another man's wife: so shall you reduce crime among you." So you see, the betrothal is the marriage!

"But if a man finds a betrothed girl in the country (where her cries for help would not be heard), and forces her, only the man shall die: the girl is as innocent as the victim of a murder; for it must be assumed that the betrothed girl screamed, but there was none to hear and rescue her".

The case is different if the woman is not betrothed. Verses 28-29, "If a man lies carnally with a virgin who is not betrothed, and they be surprised, he must pay a fine of fifty shekels of silver to the girl's father, and he shall marry her; he may never divorce her".

The demon-possessed infidels who run the entertainment industry in the once Christian world are of "the synagogue of Satan" sending billions to hell, promoting promiscuity, adultery, filthy communications, and sodomy. Christians should not have a television in the house. Woe betide backslidden ministers with their feet on the desk who lack the audacity to admonish their congregations and "shun to declare the full counsel of God." They will answer at the judgment where there will be no repentance.

Deuteronomy 24:1-4, "When a man has married a wife and he finds some uncleanness in her: let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it to her, and send her away. If she then remarries, and the second husband also divorces her (because he also discovers unconfessed fornication), or if he dies, her former husband may not marry her again, for she has been defiled; and that would be an abomination bringing sin upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance" (Jeremiah 3:1).

There is but one condition for which a man can put away his wife in divorcement, and that is unconfessed fornication. Once a woman has been divorced, and has remarried, there is no ground upon which the former husband may re-marry his divorced, remarried wife, even if her second husband is dead. Oh, how lax our ministers have been. How evil they are for not thoroughly instructing their congregations from an early age on the true message of marriage and divorce.

He can put her away in the case of unconfessed fornication even though they've been married for ever so long. But she cannot put him away and still re-marry.

I Corinthians 7:1-11, "Now concerning the things of which you wrote: It is good for a man not to touch (i.e. have carnal knowledge of) a woman (but to stay unmarried). Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife her conjugal rights: and likewise also the wife to the husband. For a wife no longer has full right to her own body, for her husband then has his entitlement to it: likewise the husband no longer has exclusive right to his own body, for it belongs also to his wife. So don't refuse these rights to one another except by mutual agreement, and for a limited time, so that you may consecrate yourselves to fasting and prayer. Afterwards, come together again for marital relations, lest Satan tempt you through lack of self-control."

"I am not saying you must marry, but you certainly may if you desire. I wish everyone could get along without marrying, even as I do. But we're not all the same (see Matthew 19:10-12). To some God gives the gift of a wife or a husband, and to others, that of remaining happily unmarried. So I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is better to stay unmarried like me. But if you can't contain your passions, you should marry. It is better to marry than to burn with lust."

"Now, for those who are married I have THUS SAITH THE LORD: let not the wife depart from her husband. But and if she separates from him, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife".

That is THUS SAITH THE LORD. If a woman leaves her husband she may not re-marry so long as he lives. And a man may only divorce his wife and re-marry another while she is living if the cause is unconfessed fornication, or for adultery, or if she has left him (Esther 1-2), or is deceased.

I Corinthians 7:26-28, "Here is the problem: we Christians face impending dangers (Paul was perhaps referring to Jewish persecution and to the famine under Claudius) and in times such as these I think it is best for a person to remain in their present situation. If you are bound to a wife do not seek release. But if you are free from a wife, do not seek marriage at this difficult time. But and if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. However marriage will bring additional responsibilities that I wish you didn't have to face right now".

A divorced man may re-marry under the conditions outlined above. Paul says nothing about a divorced woman remarrying. He speaks here only of virgin women marrying. And says that widows may remarry.

I Corinthians 7:39, "The wife is a part of her husband according to the Law as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be remarried to whom she will, but only if she marries a Christian." ("Be not unevenly yoked together with unbelievers: for what common ground has righteousness with iniquity? And what fellowship has Light with darkness" – II Corinthians 6:14; Amos 3:3)?

Acceptance of his proposal is the marriage, for our word is to be our bond, so if she did not confess her unchastity before accepting his proposal she was never his wife but was already joined to Tom, Dick, or Harry. The marriage union is not the church ceremony, it is our word! If she perjured herself, the covenant was not made in good faith and is void; her husband may divorce her and marry another; and under such circumstances she can marry another man. But and if she confesses her unclean premarital life and the man forgives and takes her responsibility upon himself, he can never put her away.

Numbers 30:13-16, "Her husband may establish or nullify her vow, but if he keeps quiet for a day concerning her pledges, he has confirmed them, because he said nothing to restrain her on the day he learned of them. But if he waits more than a day and then refuses to permit the vow, then he shall be responsible for and bear her iniquity. These are the statutes the Lord commanded Moses concerning relationships between a man and his wife, and between a father and his daughter who is living at home".

Man and woman are no longer co-equal; since the Fall they are under two separate covenants with God "but the woman being deceived was in the transgression" (I Timothy 2:1-15). Under the Old Covenant the token was fleshly circumcision but as it is not possible to circumcise a woman the only way she could come under the blood of the sacrifice was by her father's Token, or through marriage to an Israelite who was in the Covenant. Thus she is under the authority of her father until she is married after which she is bound to her husband so long as he lives; he is to rule over his wife and she must obey him (Genesis 3:16; I Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:22-24).

Spiritually, the Law as a husband ruled over the Israelites, and while Jesus "blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross" (Colossians 2:14, 20; Ephesians 2:15; Hebrews 8:13), "He magnified the Law and made it truly glorious" (Isaiah 42:21). Thus Paul applied it to the new birth or invisible union of the souls of the New Testament saints with Christ the Logos, which is the Spiritual antitype of marriage, for the soul is the feminine of God. So Paul instructed the Israelites and proselytes in Rome that before their soul can be born-again, or re-married to the new Man, Christ the anointed Word, their old husband, the Law, must be dead to them.

Romans 7:1-4, "Don't you understand, my Hebrew brothers in Christ, that when a person dies the Law no longer holds them in its power?" To illustrate, when a woman marries, the Law binds her to her husband so long as he lives. But if he is dead, she is no longer bound to him; and the laws of marriage no longer apply to her. Accordingly she may remarry. But if she marries another while her husband lives, she shall be an adulteress (and subject to stoning): but if her husband is dead, she is free from that law; and may legally marry another man."

(Your husband and lord used to be the Law of Moses, but you are accounted dead through your fellowship with Christ in His death (II Corinthians 5:14; Colossians 3:3). Galatians 3:10, "For all who depend on the works of the Law live under a curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all that is written in the Book of the Law and do it." Therefore "through the Law you died to the Law, that you might live unto God" — Galatians 2:19).

"Accordingly, my Brethren, you also, as the widowed wife, were made dead to the Law (and released from the marriage covenant which was nailed to the Cross); it is dead and has no more authority over you. Then you revived with Christ and resurrected to newness of Life in Him, and are a new person. Now you are married to the One Who rose from the dead you can bring forth fruit unto God".

In representing the Law as the husband or ruler of the soul Paul types the fidelity of the Spiritual relationship with the fidelity of a wife to her natural husband. As the natural husband is ruler over the wife through the covenant of marriage, the Law has dominion over all who have entered into covenant relationship with it. Everyone who is delivered by the new-birth from the Law as a covenant, is married to Christ by the Spirit of Life, and delivered from the bondage of sin which shall never more have dominion over them (I John 3:9; 5:18).

It would be spiritual adultery for one bound by Mosaic Law and with no provision for loosing their soul to take a new belief, as it would be natural adultery for a woman bound in marriage to take a new husband. Hence when Israel "joined herself to idols," God "put her away and gave her a bill of divorcement," then Judah "committed adultery with stones and stocks" (Jeremiah 3:8-9) so He put her away also, for it is in the power of the husband, not the wife, to repudiate the relationship (Deuteronomy 24:1-2).

Do you see how important words are? One word can condemn us to hell fire, whilst another Word can make us joint heirs with Jesus Christ. We must respect words. Words carry spirits, for they are the expressed thoughts of people ruled by One Spirit or the other. Words can make you the Bride of Christ or a harlot daughter of mystery Babylon. Colloquial language is full of slang, jargon and filth when spoken. When written the spelling is atrocious, there is no order in grammar or syntax, and the integrity of its message is lost in "political correctness".

Jesus told us to enunciate what we mean, and honour what we've said. As the words of her marriage vow bind a woman to obey her husband so long as he lives, the Word of the Old Covenant bound Israel so long as the Covenant was in effect. When Israel took to serving strange gods, she committed adultery against Jehovah. And when the church which claims to be the Bride of Christ (by the New Covenant) adds to or takes from His unchanging Word, she has usurped His authority and committed adultery with another spirit (Revelation 22:17-19). Like Israel before her, she is called an adulteress: a whore, and the mother of harlots, whose end is to be stoned from heaven and burned in the Lake of Fire (Revelation 17:1-5; 2:21-23; 13:10; 18:1-20).

Before you speak, be sure your words are His Word, and honour your commitments. His Word is Spirit and it is Life. Anything more or less is not His Word, and is death. "But if her husband be dead, she is free from that Law; and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress".

The prophet Paul said, "sin shall not have dominion over you; for you are not under the Law but under grace" (Romans 6:14-15).

Galatians 2:19, "Likewise, my brethren, like the widowed wife you were made dead to any duty to serve your old husband the Law, whose requirement of a life for a life has been met and it has passed away".

As a Divine revelation the Law had to grow old and vanish away; however, as a human ordinance, it has itself inflicted death and therefore still retains its former historical and ethical (though not religious) force toward those who are not dead to it by a new-birth. "For as many as seek justification by the works of the Law are under the curse because they are bound to keep all of the precepts of the Law" (Galatians 3:10; Deuteronomy 27:26). Fellowship with the death of Christ embraces freedom from the curse of the Law and this includes the death of our old nature (Romans 6:6).

Romans 7:4, "We are no longer married and under dominion to the Law and are free to marry Another—even Him who is raised from the dead." So not only are we His purchased possession, but having been dead with Him, as risen again, we can be united only with the Risen One. We died in Christ on Calvary and were raised together with Him to live in newness of life (Ephesians 2:6). Therefore our continued connection with the Law of this mortal life would be a misalliance.

"We are now married to our new Husband, the risen Word, in order that we should bring forth fruit unto God." By passing the Life through the Body we bring forth children to God—"Spirit babes," thereby fulfilling God's command to "be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth" (Genesis 1:28).

"But when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions of sins which were brought to our consciousness by the Law, were constantly producing sinful deeds, so that we brought forth fruit unto death." Spiritual bastards! Denominational children born of carnal creeds and not faith.

"But now we are delivered from the Law, being dead to what once held us captive [as souls in prison], so that now we serve in the new relationship of the Spirit by faith, and not in the old relationship of literal obedience to the letter".

In the natural application of marriage and divorce, "the Law has dominion over a person as long as they live." And through the marriage vow the man and his wife are one flesh (Genesis 2:24). But the husband is the head of the body and is to rule over her because he is a spoken Word whereas she was made secondarily for him as a by-product from him (Genesis 2:18, 21-22; 3:16; I Corinthians 11:3-16). And she is bound to serve him so long as he lives. But when the head is dead the body is freed from his dominion.

Matthew 19:3-12, "The Pharisees came to Jesus, tempting Him, saying, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?" (The same hypocritical spirit on our denominational cousins today tries to fault God's elect by quoting His Word out of context when they are not prepared to receive correction themselves). "Jesus answered, Have you not read, that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female, (or matched pairs —Genesis 1:27—the woman was created and named in Adam—Genesis 5:2). Because of this a man shall leave his father and mother, and be inseparably united to his wife (as if stuck with glue): and the two shall be one flesh".

(The man leaves his father and his mother to unite with his wife but she must first obtain her father's permission since she lives under his token and headship (Genesis 2:24; I Corinthians 7:36-38 and Numbers 30:1-5). The consent granted, she has lawfully left her father and mother and formally come under the headship of her husband, even before the wedding ceremony, for the betrothal is the marriage. To this day, when a man wants to marry a girl he must ask her father's permission. But because the church is apostate and ministers know all about denominational traditions without faith in God's Word, they don't understand the revelation behind these customs which is a witness against them).

"So they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder".

(Those who are born-again have been joined together with God in Christ the revealed Word. They have "eternal security" and can never be separated from their Lord (Romans 8:28-39; Ephesians 4:30). Those who think they've been joined by catechisms, first mass, Christenings, baptisms and man-made creeds, are still married to the world and God can put them away at any time, just as a man and women who've been united by some backslidden pastor or half-drunk magistrate can be separated. There's no glue of the Holy Spirit to bind them permanently together).

"Then why, they asked, did Moses say that a man may divorce his wife merely by writing her a letter of dismissal?" Jesus replied, "Due to the hardness of your hearts Moses permitted you to put away your wives: but it was not so from the beginning."

("In the beginning", Adam's heart was not hard but tender toward Eve, insomuch that he voluntarily joined her in death in order that she would be redeemed. However we are not "in the beginning" today).

"And I tell you, that anyone who divorces his wife, except for fornication, and marries another, commits adultery: and whoever marries her commits adultery" (because she already has a living husband). "His disciples then said, If the man is bound to his wife—whether she be quarrelsome, petulant, prodigal, foolish, barren, an alcoholic or troublesome by numberless vices—he is better not to marry at all." (As Paul advised—I Corinthians 7:1, 7-8, 26-28, 37-40).

"Jesus replied, The gift to conquer the natural desires of the human constitution is not given to all. For the gift of continence is given to three sorts of persons:-

1. To some who are eunuchs by dint of birth—without their choice.
2. To some by violence of men against their choice.
3. To others by grace and choice that they may wait upon the Lord without distraction and glorify Him in a single life."

In the case of her committing adultery, she has put him away! She is dead to him as if she were stoned under the Law, and he can marry again (Deuteronomy 22:22-27). Or if she refuses to bear her husband children he can marry another because by refusing to bear a further part of Him in a godly seed she has put him away and renounced their union; refusing to procreate life which was God's commission (Genesis 1:28).

When Vashti refused King Xerxes he put her away and took Esther as his queen. Likewise at the end of each of the Church Ages Jesus Christ put away His espoused denominational wife who repudiated the present Truth by impersonating a past Move of the Spirit that could no longer produce Life. The natural types the Spiritual: Christ divorces nominal Christians who refuse the Word for their hour because in refusing to receive His Life, be fruitful, and multiply, they have rejected the Holy Spirit which is the unpardonable sin and are dead to Him (Matthew 12:32; I John 1:7).

When Wesley's Message added Sanctification to Luther's Message of Justification by grace through faith and the Lutheran, Presbyterian and Anglican churches refused impregnation by a further measure of the Holy Spirit, they denied Christ His offspring and He put them away (Isaiah 53:10; 63:23; 28:13; Genesis 2:18; John 6:63). When God added the Pentecostal Message, the Methodists, Baptists and Nazarenes refused Him, so He put them away. Finally, when the revelation of the Seven Seals brought Christ back to earth in W_O_R_D form His rejection by the Laodiceans put Him outside the door of all denominations. Since He is no longer a Mediator for PART-Word He cannot get back in, and without the end-time Message their people cannot cross the chasm to Him (Revelation 3:17-20; I Corinthians 13:10). So Jesus is now calling the virgins to "Come out of the great Roman whore and her harlot daughter churches with their adulterous creeds and traditions"  (Matthew 25:6; II Corinthians 6:14-18; Revelation 17:1-6; 18:1-4).

With the exception of the human race, all creatures were created in pairs, male and female. "In the beginning," God created Adam then He made Eve and joined them together, and so long as they were at one they were co-equal in nature: "The Lord God warned the man, saying, You may freely partake every tree of the garden but the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil—for in the day you partake of that Tree you will certainly die" (Genesis 2:16-17). The man could not break the Covenant because he was God's Spoken Word created in the image and glory of God. Woman is not a spoken Word but a by-product of man, made for his glory and co-equal in the Covenant with liberty to choose obedience and Life, or self-will and death. Not being Word she could be deceived on the revealed Word, but so long as she remained under pre-eminence in union with her Word husband she would not err and could not fall.

They were co-equal so long as they were at one in God's Covenant by agreement in His Word (Genesis 1:27; Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 4:13; Hebrews 8:11). "But the woman being deceived was in the transgression" and crossed the Word from Eternity into time according to the curse: "the day you partake Lucifer's wisdom you will certainly die." So when Eve separated from the Spoken Word and her man she lost her co-equality in nature and God placed woman under a separate Covenant, forbidding her to preach and to teach His Word or to usurp authority over the man. From now on she must be in subjection and her husband is to rule over her.

After "the beginning" they are no longer co-equal in nature and God introduced a polygyny covenant with all nature. One male could have many females; one stallion many mares; one rooster, a yard full of hens; one David after God's own heart and five hundred wives; and one Solomon with a thousand wives typing Christ and His Bride. But not one of those women could have more than one living husband.

Now natural life will be born by women through sexual desire, bringing us into time and death (Job 14:1). After testing by the Spoken Word of the hour an election will receive Spiritual Life by a second birth through faith in the Man, redeeming them back to eternity, resurrected in a glorified body not born of sex but called from the dust of the earth like Adam.

In summary:

Amos 3:3 inquires, "Can two walk together, except they be agreed"? God's whole purpose is to fellowship in the common faith through eternity with His Own expressed Attributes manifest in the glorified flesh of His Family. These are they who cast down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ.

It is far later than we think. The end-time Message of God's prophet has restored the apostolic faith (Malachi 4:5, 6b; Matthew 17:11; Acts 3:21-23), finished the mystery of God (I Corinthians 13:10; Revelation 10:7), and is now calling His elect out from all denominational teachings into oneness with the their Husband, the Word, for the manifestation of the Sons of God and the great translation (Romans 8:19-22; Matthew 25:1-13; I Thessalonians 4:16; Revelation 18:4; 22;17-19). By coming under pre-eminence to the Word the last Adam's Bride will accomplish where the first Adam's Bride failed.

Since Christ is no longer a Mediator for the ignorance of part-Word and we now have the perfect interpretation of the Word through the revelation of the Seven Seals, when she comes to maturity and the Seventh Trump sounds, the end-time Bride will be co-equal in the Word with her Husband Who is the Word. He will have the pre-eminence, and what she says God will do in the manifestation of the Sons of God. bb950823.htm (revised)

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