IN THE IMAGE OF

This year, Julia and I will be married 25 years. I just wanted to write a quick note (ok maybe not so quick) about Christ in a marriage and show you, what I believe to be, powerful allegories in my marriage.

The chiastic structure in ancient literature is very common; especially in the Bible. Many relate this structure as Jewish poetry. In Gen 1:27 you see a example of Jewish poetry.

So Elohim created man in His own image,
in the image of Elohim created He him;
male and female created He them.

Everywhere the passage talks of creating, we color that blue, while the remaining we color red. We notice that each of the first two lines, the red is focused on the image of Elohim. Yet, according to Jewish poetry, so does the third line. The marriage of male and female is to be an image of Elohim.

When Julia and I started dating, I was an alcoholic, I drank my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She never hounded me, she never fussed, she said anything. One day on our way home from a ‘date’, a friend was driving because I was too drunk. I was feeling poorly, to put it lightly, and I had my head laid over on Julia’s shoulder. She quietly caressed my hair, not saying a word. That evening, while alone, I ended up in deep thought about her love and my actions. I knew that if I continued, I would eventually push her away. It was at that moment I made a decision to stop drinking. I immediately put down the alcohol with no problems and no with-drawls; thus showing that love is more powerful than any addiction. It’s our love for Adonai, and not wanting Him to withdraw from us (Ps 51:11), that compels us to keep His Laws (Ex 20:6, Jn 14:15).

We got married while she was finishing up high school. I was still immature and was leaving her at home doing homework while I was out having fun with friends. I wasn’t cheating on her or anything to that sort, but I was not spending enough time with her; my wife. We are warned the church will be a harlot, it will be a bad spouse to her groom; Y’shua. She will spend more time in the pleasures of this world, then with things of Elohim (2 Tim 3:1-5). They will also cling to the doctrines and traditions of man, rather then following the Word of YHWH (Mark 7:7-9).

As time moved on I started to loose that feeling I once had. Because, being selfish and not giving her what she needed for good feelings, I felt that I had to feel the feeling; therefore I started to stray. As I started pulling away from my wife, she started to pull from me and I lost that feeling more. The church continues with this belief and thought that we are suppose to feel something, yet true love is the striving to make the other person feel. When they loose that feeling they first had, they start to look in other area’s for that feeling. These could come in the form of worldly things as sports, TV, video games, computer and more outside the church. It can also come in the form of false doctrine, music, and feel good sermons inside the church. When we praise, it should not be for our benefit. To give praise is to desire a move within the person we are praising; we should be desiring a move within our Elohim. Yet as the church continues in it’s selfish behavior to feel something, it pulls away from YHWH towards these worldly things, then YHWH pulls away also. We understand this to be the opposite reaction to when we draw near to Him, He draws near to us.

Julia, knowing what I was doing, waited patiently for me to come to my senses; she waited for me to love her again. While I did not keep my side of the covenant we made, to be faithful, she keep her side, till death do us part. While the church plays the harlot with the things of this world, Christ our groom, waits patiently for us to love Him again. We fail in our side of the covenant, to be faithful only to Him, yet He is keeping His side of the covenant, till death do us part; in this case the second death that separates.

Now here we are, 25 years after standing before the justice of the peace and I’ve learned to love. I’ve learned to love because of my desire to learn more about God, so it’s of the words written in the Word of God; as the Word teaches us what true love is.

The reason that man and woman, joined together as one flesh, is the image of Elohim is because in a proper and right marriage, with Y’shua at the center, there is: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. When the husband cares not about himself, but only his wife: And the wife not about herself, but only her husband; neither go without and a bond is built like no other. They then mirror that life to those outside the home; and the Image of Elohim is revealed.
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