I thought the comments by Anonymous blogger were very well written and insightful. So, I decided to use them and my responses as the next page of my blog site. I hope it may spur even more discussions on the subject of, was Jesus Christ married?
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Anonymous,
I can certainly appreciate the expression of your beliefs and I certainly don't mind your doing so on my blog site. In fact, I welcome religious discussion as long as it can remain respectful.
You said some interesting things:
1) Jesus was both "fully God and fully man."
I agree with that statement and don't see any reason that would prevent Jesus from being married. Keep in mind, I'm not saying He WAS married, just that I believe He could have been.
2)"Christ's purpose was to ransom the Church with His blood, which is His bride."
Metaphorically, yes. Christ is the bridegroom, the church, in a metaphorical sense, is the bride. Still I see no reason He couldn't have been married.
3) "Human relationships here are a shadowy, flawed reflection of that holy love Christ has for His own."
Huh? I disagree with that statement. Jesus's relationship with us is ultimately personal, not a shadowy, flawed reflection of anything. I used to be a Protestant and I've never heard of that doctrine, even in the Catholic church.
4)"There is also the fact that being fully God as well as fully man, any children He fathered would have been of the same substance as God, meaning they were also God, which would have really been impossible to reconcile the Trinity to."
I don't think so. In my belief structure, Jesus was both mortal and immortal. He had the ability to die, or He could have lived forever, but rather he gave his life voluntarily on the cross for us.
It's His mortal half that would have sired children, assuming there were any. I don't see any conflict there with the God Head, or as you call it The Holy Trinity.
5) "Jesus' other relationships were spoken of, but nowhere is a wife mentioned, and the husband/wife relationship supercedes the parent/child relationship. If He had been married, it certainly would have been mentioned. Since the biblical teaching is that the marriage bed is holy in the eyes of God, there would be no reason to "hide" a marriage in the original texts or the immediate copies after. People would have been able to accept a marriage, because it was acceptable and holy."
A wife is not mentioned out of respect and love for her. Can you imagine what infidels would do to her name, or even to her personally, if they even suspected He had a wife. Consider the kinds of things they already say about Jesus and his Father. I think, if Jesus had a wife, he kept her out of the public eye for her protection as well. If the Jews knew who His wife and children were, don't you think they would have tried to use them, even abuse them, to get at Jesus somehow?
I think, as I said in my original posting, that the fact that the Jews did not ridicule Jesus for NOT being married is evidence that He probably was. It was a rule, if not a law, among the Jews that in order to be a rabbi, a man had to be 30 years of age, which is when Jesus began His ministry, and had to be married. Not mentioned, possibly for the reasons I stated above.
Anonymous, I appreciate your comments. They're insightful and indicate a true love for our Savior.
Thank you,
Paul
When I said human relationships are a shadowy flawed reflection, I meant that husband/wife relationships are a picture of something better between Christ and His people. The marriage relationships we have here are flawed because of our sin, which taints everything, but there can still be seen in good marriages some shadow of the beauty of the relationship between Christ and His bride, the Church. I didn't mean that the Christ/human relationship was flawed. Maybe I wasn't clear. :)
ReplyDeleteGranted, marriage relationships are ALWAYS flawed, we are flawed. But the institution of marriage is devine, ordained by God, and thus perfect. By our free agency, we tend to foul up everything God has made, but that doesn't mean the institution itself is flawed.
ReplyDeleteDuring the incident on the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter was given the keys to the church. Along with them, Jesus told him "whatsover thou shallt seal on earth, shall be sealed in heaven, and whatsoever thopu shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (my paraphrasing may not be the exact wording. I don't have the scriptures with me at the present.)
I believe God intended the marriage covenant to last into eternity, i.e. "whatsoever you shall seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven...." That is why the marriage covenant is so sacred.
As I said in my earlier posting, the first commandment God gave to Man (Adam and Eve) was to be fruitful and multiply. In other words, it is a commandment to be married and have children. That being the case, how could Jesus Christ ignore, or disobey, if you will, His own commandment. Jesus was the epitomy of obediance. That's why He was baptized. That is why He obeyed every commandment ever given to man. To do otherwise, He would have ceased to be God and would have frustrated the great plan of our Heavenly Father.
However, Jesus obeyed every commandment, and thus brought to pass the possibility of salvation and exaltation of all mankinid if we too obey the commandments.
Fascinating thread!
ReplyDeleteI personally believe it's very possible that Christ was married, because He came to earth to set an example for us and understands us intimately. How would He know how to succor us through the marriage process if He had never been married?
But, when it all comes down to it, this is information we have not been given, and so to me, it would make sense that it's not information we should worry about. We have been given everything that we need at this time to establish a relationship with Christ and with our Heavenly Father, and so we need to use what we've been given until the time comes for us to receive more. It's questions like this that can distract us from the real purpose of our existence here, when we get caught up in what we don't have yet and stray away from what we do have. I believe this question will be answered when the time is right.
Tristi,
ReplyDeleteThanks for responding.
You're absolutely right. I appreciate your keeping the important things in perspective.
The DiVinci Code is fiction, pure and simple. Anyone who goes off believing in what Dan Brown made to seem so real, is a fool. Brown simply did a pretty good job of creating a story where people who read it (or saw the movie) were able to suspend unbelief long enough to enjoy it. What Brown himself believes is not my concern. He wrote a compelling novel, even if I could find lots to criticize.