Question: Is it possible, in the Bible, to have an intimate life outside
of marriage? From what time is a marriage considered valid: After making a
decision to live together? After first intimate relationship? After you sign up
for a registry or a church wedding?
To respond to these more burning issues now, consider 5 points from a
Bible perspective. The solution to this problem, like many others, is not one
single verse but is supported by several contexts.
1. Marriage and gender
God established a marriage in the creation of a man. It was his will and
good intention: "It is not nice to be a man alone;" "To be
assisted by an assistant to him" (Genesis 2.18). Marriage is established
as a life - saving communication (Matthew 19.6) and after a rite of wedding it
is valid forever, because it has consequences for eternity.
In establishing this God - established communication, man and woman the
creator said: "Wherefore, leave the man of his father and his mother, and
cleave to his wife;" "And there shall be one flesh" (Genesis 2.24).
It also means physical, sexual life. Two people with different life paths so
far have the closest relationship that exists. They become "one" in
their senses, in their thoughts, and also spiritually and physically. Paul is
the gift of God, and marriages, according to the Bible, are not only a means of
childbirth:
"Do not evade each other, by agreement, to exercise fasting and
prayer, and then to be together again, so that you do not tempted your Satan to
abstain in your" (1 Cor 7.5).
"Thy source shall be blessed;" And comforting the wife youth
of thy, kind blade and beautiful sernoju; Her breasts are watering you at all
times; "The love of her enjoy all the time!" (Proverbs 5.18-19).
"Enjoy your life with the wife You Love" (Ecclesiastes 9.9).
The Bible gives advice on the correct sexual activity. It is separating
both from stiffness (song 4) and from ever (Jer. 5.8); The terms and limits are
love and respect (Col 3.19, 1 Pet 3.7).
2. Marriage and the Church as God's establishment
There are many forms of human communication in our world, from which
marriage and the family, the church and the state (Rom 13.1-7) are from God.
The Church of Jesus Christ and marriage are special determinations of God, and
therefore, contrary to the opinion of some, in no way are human inventions:
they are both are maligning in this godless world (1 Tim 4.3, Rev 2.9). Since the
creation of the world, there has been no human culture without a family. It
will never Otzhivala and always live, against the hostile currents and
erroneous opinions of people, for it is created for man and under God's
guardianship. Likewise, the church, by the promise of God, will not be able to
conquer the gates of Hell (Matthew 16.18).
3. Marriage as a way of doing
The Bible often identifies faith and relationship between God and a man
with a relationship. "As a young man is combined with parthenos, so is thy
sons;" "And as the groom rejoices about the bride, it shall be of joy
to thee thy God" (mi 62.5). So the marriage is the way (Greek.)
"Mjusterion" is a secret of Christ's relationship to his church:
"Husbands, love their wives, like Christ loved the church and betrayed
itself for it ... So should husbands love
"Their wives like their bodies: loving their wife loves
themselves" (Eph 5.26,28).
Of this analogy, the word of God tells us, "The Mystery is
great!" (Eph 5.32). From the Ordinance of marriage for eternal
communication with Christ, it follows that marriage is a lifetime of
communication. Every divorce creates a unspolied picture of God's beliefs and
destroys the ordinance. Therefore, the uncompromising position of Jesus on the
question of divorce is understandable: "So they are not two, but one
flesh." "So what God combined, that man does not separate"
(Matthew 16.18 and 5.32 - the only reason for divorce may be adultery).
4. The fornication as a way
If a conjugal life based on love and loyalty is a model of God's
attitude towards his people, then the apostasy from God and the worship of the
gods and idols of the Bible calls fornication, or fornication:
"Have you seen what you did apostate, the daughter of Israel?"
She went to every high mountain and under every branching tree, and there
bludodejstvovala. And clearly blududejstvom it with the Earth, and're with a
rock and a tree "(Jer 3.6, 9).
"I saw adultery your and furious lust your improper and your
abominations on the hills in the field" (Jer 13.27).
5. What is fornication?
For the words "fornication" and "filth", the New
Testament uses one expression - Greek. "Pornejja". The word
"debauch" is used in the New Testament, on the one hand, against
furnificators and homosexuals (e.g. 1 Cor 6.9), on the other hand, as a generic
concept for any satisfaction of libido outside the established The God of
conjugal communication (e.g. 1 Cor 6.18, 1 Thess 4.3)
These include:
- Premarital sexual relations (Lev 19.29)
- Intimate relationships with a foreign wife (Lev 18.20, Jer 5.8-9, Matt
5.32)
- Homosexuality (Gen 19.5, Rom 1.26-27, 1 Tim 1.10)
- Incest (1 Cor 5.1)
- Bestiality (Lev 18.23)
Who are engaged in fornication and debauchery awaits the harsh
punishment of God: "no sexually, no idolaters, no fornicators, no male, no
needy ..." "The Kingdom of God does not inherit" (1 Cor 6.9-10).
"The marriage of all shall be honest and the bed immaculately;"
Sodomites and adulterers Judge God "(Heb 13.4). "And the adulterers
and the murderers, and the idolaters and all loving and untruthing" (Rev
22.15).
Conclusions:
In these Biblical principles we find answers to the questions we have
asked.
Cohabitation of unmarried partners, as well as premarital or
extramarital sexual relations, the Bible characterizes the fornication and
warns that these kingdoms of God are not inherited unless they are torn down
and repent.
What is the point of marital life? As people increasingly drift away
from the commandments of God, it is more and more often observed that unmarried
couples live together, forming such a conjugal, but "free" union.
However, they are not spouses, although some do not see the difference between
such cohabitation and marriage. In the concept of fornication, we have already
stressed that God condemns such a relationship.
From the Bible, we learn that the beginning of a marriage is considered
to be:
It is not the intention of the couple to start a joint life journey.
Jacob wanted to marry Rachel. When he served his marriage for seven years,
Jacob said to his father-in-law Laban, "Give me my wife;"
"Because I have had time to enter into it" (Genesis 29.21). It was a
sexual relationship. The context should:
(a) Before marriage, Jacob had no Rachel sexual relations;
(b) Their marriage has entered into force on the date of the wedding.
- not the fact that couple had sexual intercourse. In Israel there was a
procedure: if a man oporochit a girl, he was obliged to marry her and,
according to the custom of that time, to pay the ransom (Deuteronomy 22.28-29).
Sexual relations were prohibited until the marriage was officially concluded.
Definition of the beginning of marriage:
A marriage is considered valid (including before God) from the time when
the husband and the wife passed through the formal marriage ritual established
in their society.
This definition becomes clear in the case of weddings described in the
Bible. It is based on the following principle of Bible interpretation: from a
multitude of individual events, the common denominator extracteded as a single
biblical doctrine. This definition is just as applicable in any remote tribes
with his own, officially recognized ceremonies, and in our society with the
People Office of the Registry.
In all cases, it is important that others be officially aware that the
couple is married. In this way they are no longer considered possible partners
of others.
According to the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus Christ, if a man looks at
a woman with lust (or vice versa), then he (she) becomes adulterer4 (Matthew
5.28). Jesus told a woman at the Jacob well that the husband she has is not her
husband (John 4.18). If she was officially "registered" with him,
Jesus wouldn't talk to her like that.
The Bible Nowhere defines the external forms of marriage, but there is a certain wedding day from which husband and wife formally belong to each other. In the time of Abraham this was different (Genesis 24.67) than in the days of Samson (The wedding feast lasted seven days - Judges 14.10-30), or during the mortal Life of Jesus (the marriage in Qana - John 2.1-11). In many countries, the socially and legally recognized form of the start of a marriage is only its official registration. It is considered to be valid and before God, as we have seen above from the definition based on the Bible.
