Thesis: If we want to have good teaching about the place of marriage/relationship in the Christian life we must start with serious reflection on the Persons of the Trinity.
At the heart of the Creator God there are relationships between three Persons bound together by a mutual indwelling of Love. These Persons do not exist as mere modes of an ultimately unknowable divine being, but this God has His being substantially in three Persons - Father, Son and Spirit. These Persons are not confused though they are united in the one Godhead. Christians worship a God for whom love and relationship are foundational rather than secondary activities. Each Person is in ordered relationship with the other two Persons. The creative and redemptive activity of God is an outworking of this reality.
Notice that in the New Testament two of the Persons are given the familial descriptions of Father and Son. A proper understanding of the funtion of divine analogy means that we cannot think of these titles as being projections of our limited experience of family relationships onto the divine, but that the created order reflects what is in accord with the divine nature. Human fathers and sons, therefore, are analogies of the higher reality, rather than the reverse. Since God has chosen to reveal Himself in familial terms we must approach any discussion of the question of family and relationships with the utmost seriousness. It is unfortunate that books on marriage are frequently filed under Christian Living rather than Theology in our bookstores. This may be an indication that the authors mistakenly feel that serious theology has no place in these texts. I would beg to differ.
The consequence is that when humanity is created in Genesis 1:26-27 they are deliberately brought in to a sphere of already existing relationships between God and Creation. They are not merely creatures, but are intended to share in the rule over Creation that God as Father, Son & Spirit already enjoys. They are more like their Creator than what He has created. They have the capacity to relate to what is Other. They are given blessings before they are given instructions (Gen 1: 28-30). The commissions to fill the earth and rule over all animals should be seen as expressions of the Divine-Human relationship rather than separate from it.
The primary purpose of created humanity was not to be either gardeners or procreators, but to enjoy and participate in the sphere of divine relationships. Male and Female were created not for each other but for God. In the tasks of each they celebrate the other-person centred love that they were meant to enjoy with God.
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