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Date:         Tue, 28 Jul 1992 12:11:41 EDT
From:         Leo W <Leo_W@QM.CIRCA.UFL.EDU>
Subject:      Home & Business #3
X-To:         Christia <christia@asuvm.inre.asu.edu>

This series is reproduced with permission from a booklet, "Christ and the
Church in Home and Business (Eph. 5:22 - 6:9)," by Charles H. Welch circa 1964.
 Quoting from the forward on page one, "This booklet is sent forth in the hope
that it may help wives and husbands, children and parents, and servants and
masters, to see their proper relationship to each other, and thus to "walk
worthy of the vocation" wherewith they are called."

------------------------------------

THE PHYSICAL AND THE SPIRITUAL

Throughout this passage the physical interchanges with the spiritual as type
with antitype.

Physical   Wives submit
   Spiritual   As the church
Physical   Husbands. So ought men
   Spiritual   Even as the Lord the church
Physical   Wives and husbands. One flesh
   Spiritual   The mystery. Christ and His church

The union of husband and wife is looked upon in Scripture as something deeper
than a civil or religious joining together of two persons in marriage.  Every
true marriage harks back to Eden:

"For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined
unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh" (Eph. 5:31).

This quotation from Genesis 2:24 is also seen in 1 Corinthians 6:16, where the
type, "for two, saith he, shall be one flesh", sets forth the antitypical
relationship, "he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit".  This antitype
is to be mentally supplied in Ephesians 5:31,32.  Moreover the argument
concerning a man nourishing and cherishing his own body (Eph. 5:28,29), finds
its alternative in that sin which is against his own body (1 Cor. 6:18).  If 1
Corinthians 6:15-20 had been carefully weighed with Ephesians 5:28-32, a great
deal of irrelevant matter need never have been written.

There are some who, in their zeal to establish the doctrine that the church is
the bride, resort to this passage for proof.  The fact that they pass over the
repeated emphasis upon "the body" and "the members" with Christ as "Head", also
the specific statement that the goal of the church is "the perfect husband" -
and not "the perfect bride" - reveals the weakness of their arguments.  While
we remain in the flesh, whatever our church position may be, there will be
husbands and wives, and such will need instruction.  Moreover, the use in
Ephesians 5 to prove that the church is the bride proves too much, for by the
same argument, the church is a "child" or a "slave", as in chapter 6.

It is an established truth that the church of Ephesians is "the Body" and "the
New Man".  Now the Scripture uses figures with discretion.  The bridal
relationship to Christ belongs to another calling.  In Ephesians we are dealing
with the bridegroom, if such a figure be allowed at all.

The passage before us is not discussing the title of the church of the
dispensation of the Mystery, it is dealing with the relationship of husbands
and wives who belong to that dispensation.

THE GREAT MYSTERY

When Paul draws to the conclusion of his exhortation to wives and husbands, he
says, "This is a great mystery, but I speak with a view to Christ and His
Church" (Eph. 5:32).  That there is a mystery in marriage let anyone decide
after reading Matthew 19:5,6 "And they twain shall be one flesh".  Such is the
quotation from Genesis two.

"Wherefore they are NO MORE TWAIN but one flesh", is the comment of the Lord
Himself.  But, says the Apostle, granting the sanctity and mystery of marriage
under the thought of "one flesh", the great mystery I have in mind is that
great union with the Lord which makes "one spirit".  Nevertheless, turning back
to the typical union of man and wife he continues:-

"Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as
himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband" (Eph. 5:33).

We have not felt called up on to enter into a detailed examination of the idea
that the church of the Body is also the Bride, not wishing to spend time
disproving an obvious failure to discern things that differ. If however we have
misjudged our readers and there are those who have misgivings on this point, we
draw attention to the booklet,"The Bride and the Body"

(TO BE CONTINUED)