Skip to content

Category: marriage

53

Published on 53 Comments on God is not triune – the Devil’s great lie. Part 3

This is the third of a three part article by Rich Owen,
minister at City Evangelical Church, Leeds.

 

In the first post, we saw how the creation was a magnificent preach. It’s pinnacle moment was in the creation of a uniquely vivid image and witness to the Divine Life, Man and Woman. A loving community of persons, ordered, relational, loving and *echad* in union.

Then we saw how Satan moved in to destroy that witness. His plan to seize power was to break this image. Corrupt the Doctrine of God and it all falls down into his greedy hands.

So today we will reflect on this:  The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devils work.

Jesus is the dazzling, glorious and eternal image of the Invisible God. He is the Lord, the Living Word, the eternal expression of the Father, the Anointed One. So how does he pulverise Satan’s head?

The Angel of the Lord who ascends and descends in heaven’s fire, the Living Rock upon whom and in whom all creation holds together, this time descends as baby.

He sums up the human race into himself, assuming, owning, taking responsibility for humanity’s sinful self-love. He came from the Father’s side and became incarnate of the virgin Mary, fully divine, fully human so that as an Adam, He could live a human life from beginning to end in total devotion to his Father and in totally ecstatic (that is, out from Himself) love, a love for the poisoned race of Adam.

Satan even presented him with his master plan. Do what Adam did. Take your lead from another, one who is not your head… me. Take my lead and serve yourself. Become like me, a needy monad. A power hungry, glory seeking parasite and give yourself what YOU want.

But He destroyed the Devils work. He continued to love, He continued to do his Father’s will. He continued to pour himself out even to death, delighting even in that moment in his Father and with joy in His great heart as He considered His eternal inheritance! A Bride. A new Eve!

He wasn’t going to betray who He is. After His resurrection, He carried on. At His Father’s command, He breathed out His Spirit onto the old Adam so that it could be joined to the new. The loving Two sent out the Third. And they gave out the Third. The Living God went forth and multiplied!

The Father gives us the Son. The Son gives us the Father. The Father and the Son give us the Spirit and the Spirit gives us to the Father, in the Son.

He set His love upon the unlovely, so that the unlovely could be made lovely in Him.

So lets draw some points for rumination:

  • The Trinity is the gospel. God’s triune life is good news for a monadic, image-of-Satan world.
  • The life of God is love - other centred, generously giving love
  • Satan wants you to believe God is not loving, and not Triune. That’s all.

So perhaps you might want to ruminate in the following direction. Knowing is not enough. Live it:

  • Are you Trinitarian?  I don’t mean in theory, but in practice. Do you read, preach and speak as a Trinitarian? Reading the OT as a Trinitarian will minister to your soul and give such freshness and light to your study as you never had before. Remember – God didn’t suddenly declare his Trinitarian nature 2000 years ago in Bethlehem. He declared it when He spoke in Genesis 1.
  • Do you give yourself in love to others? If you are married do you serve, love and cherish, *know* and delight in your spouse?  Whether married or not, do you give yourself to those who are not like you – in church and where you live and work? Do you go out of yourself, seeking to beatify and serve the really nasty people? The “chavs”, the office weirdo? Do you do the unglamorous jobs at church *because* there is no glory for *you* – putting the chairs out, washing the cups, cleaning the loos?

Know and live the Trinitarian life. Image Him – be who you ARE.

53

Published on 53 Comments on God is not triune – the Devil's great lie. Part 3

This is the third of a three part article by Rich Owen,
minister at City Evangelical Church, Leeds.

 

In the first post, we saw how the creation was a magnificent preach. It’s pinnacle moment was in the creation of a uniquely vivid image and witness to the Divine Life, Man and Woman. A loving community of persons, ordered, relational, loving and *echad* in union.

Then we saw how Satan moved in to destroy that witness. His plan to seize power was to break this image. Corrupt the Doctrine of God and it all falls down into his greedy hands.

So today we will reflect on this:  The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devils work.

Jesus is the dazzling, glorious and eternal image of the Invisible God. He is the Lord, the Living Word, the eternal expression of the Father, the Anointed One. So how does he pulverise Satan’s head?

The Angel of the Lord who ascends and descends in heaven’s fire, the Living Rock upon whom and in whom all creation holds together, this time descends as baby.

He sums up the human race into himself, assuming, owning, taking responsibility for humanity’s sinful self-love. He came from the Father’s side and became incarnate of the virgin Mary, fully divine, fully human so that as an Adam, He could live a human life from beginning to end in total devotion to his Father and in totally ecstatic (that is, out from Himself) love, a love for the poisoned race of Adam.

Satan even presented him with his master plan. Do what Adam did. Take your lead from another, one who is not your head… me. Take my lead and serve yourself. Become like me, a needy monad. A power hungry, glory seeking parasite and give yourself what YOU want.

But He destroyed the Devils work. He continued to love, He continued to do his Father’s will. He continued to pour himself out even to death, delighting even in that moment in his Father and with joy in His great heart as He considered His eternal inheritance! A Bride. A new Eve!

He wasn’t going to betray who He is. After His resurrection, He carried on. At His Father’s command, He breathed out His Spirit onto the old Adam so that it could be joined to the new. The loving Two sent out the Third. And they gave out the Third. The Living God went forth and multiplied!

The Father gives us the Son. The Son gives us the Father. The Father and the Son give us the Spirit and the Spirit gives us to the Father, in the Son.

He set His love upon the unlovely, so that the unlovely could be made lovely in Him.

So lets draw some points for rumination:

  • The Trinity is the gospel. God’s triune life is good news for a monadic, image-of-Satan world.
  • The life of God is love - other centred, generously giving love
  • Satan wants you to believe God is not loving, and not Triune. That’s all.

So perhaps you might want to ruminate in the following direction. Knowing is not enough. Live it:

  • Are you Trinitarian?  I don’t mean in theory, but in practice. Do you read, preach and speak as a Trinitarian? Reading the OT as a Trinitarian will minister to your soul and give such freshness and light to your study as you never had before. Remember – God didn’t suddenly declare his Trinitarian nature 2000 years ago in Bethlehem. He declared it when He spoke in Genesis 1.
  • Do you give yourself in love to others? If you are married do you serve, love and cherish, *know* and delight in your spouse?  Whether married or not, do you give yourself to those who are not like you – in church and where you live and work? Do you go out of yourself, seeking to beatify and serve the really nasty people? The “chavs”, the office weirdo? Do you do the unglamorous jobs at church *because* there is no glory for *you* – putting the chairs out, washing the cups, cleaning the loos?

Know and live the Trinitarian life. Image Him – be who you ARE.

1

Published on 1 Comment on God is not triune – the Devil’s great lie. Part 2

This is the second of a three part article by Rich Owen,
minister at City Evangelical Church, Leeds.

 

Since their arrival, what has humanity only ever experienced from God? Love! Generous, outward focused, other centred, creative love

Their great commission – “from your oneness you must create, love, cherish send out more and look after it, look after all this garden. Do you best for it so that all of the life you give and the love you have is like mine for you. You are my image. Just don’t eat from that tree over there, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

And so Satan makes his move on Eve and Adam. Not Adam and Eve, Eve and Adam. This is part of Satan’s plan to corrupt the image, to pervert the world’s view of God away from how He really is.

Jesus says that He does His Father’s will. Not the other way round. The Father wills, the Son does.  The Father speaks out his Word. The Word is from the Father’s side. Not the other way round. In other words, the Father is the head of the Son.

And so Satan’s plan to corrupt the image begins. He is so crafty, so skilled at this. There are so many layers of evil to this terrible moment in history. Can he get the image of the Son to command the image of the Father? Can he trick Eve into being the head of Adam?

The insipid corruption of God’s image and witness is looming. Headship and order were being threatened. But it’s not happened yet. This isn’t the seat of corruption, just a fruit which comes later.

Here is the seat of corruption. Eve sees that this fruit is *desirable* for gaining wisdom. There is a *desire* which rises in her which is not for Adam and not for the Lord God. The desire was to gain wisdom for herself.

A new love, a new desire had entered. It was a perverted love… an inverted love. It went against the flow. It was not outward but inward. It was unnatural and ungodly. The corruption began. Satan was achieving what he set out to do. He sparked in Eve an new love, a wicked invader.

The image was now self loving, self obsessed and so she threw off her role, gave the fruit to Adam and he too acceded. An ungodly love lead to an ungodly action. The corruption was complete.

Eve, and her husband after her, set their desires and affections onto something which was entirely outside this created order and image. Sin had entered and ravaged the great image and witness to the loving, creating and ordered community of Three Divine Persons.

As soon as their love went in instead of out, they felt shame. They hid from the Word of Lord.

Just meditate on the shattering moment. They hid from the Word of the Lord.

The world now had a witness which was self loving, not other loving, a witness which has no concern for order and headship – in other words, an independent monadic witness. The world now had a witness which went solitary and which removed itself from The Divine Life. Satan introduced unitarianism to the world.

And the consequences flowed.

Adam *blamed* Eve. Prior to this Adam only ever *knew* Eve. He loved, nurtured, served, lead and rejoiced in Eve knowing her intimately through sexual union. But now he blamed her. He *accused* her.  He now bore the image of an accuser, not of the Living God.  Adam on his own looked like Satan now.

This is the great crime of the fall. A massive corruption of the Doctrine of God. A Satanic collapse.

So do we see what it is that Satan does?

He leads people to loves and desires which are inward in focus.  He wants to draw your affections away from the Triune God and to self satisfaction, self gratification. Self love. He wants you to think of yourself as an island – solitary and your own source of order.

Why? Because he hates God.

Satan wants to corrupt your view of God. That is all. Once he does that, he has you. You are now his child, you bear his image, you live his life.

More tomorrow...

Published on Leave a comment on God is not triune – the Devil's great lie. Part 2

This is the second of a three part article by Rich Owen,
minister at City Evangelical Church, Leeds.

 

Since their arrival, what has humanity only ever experienced from God? Love! Generous, outward focused, other centred, creative love

Their great commission – “from your oneness you must create, love, cherish send out more and look after it, look after all this garden. Do you best for it so that all of the life you give and the love you have is like mine for you. You are my image. Just don’t eat from that tree over there, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

And so Satan makes his move on Eve and Adam. Not Adam and Eve, Eve and Adam. This is part of Satan’s plan to corrupt the image, to pervert the world’s view of God away from how He really is.

Jesus says that He does His Father’s will. Not the other way round. The Father wills, the Son does.  The Father speaks out his Word. The Word is from the Father’s side. Not the other way round. In other words, the Father is the head of the Son.

And so Satan’s plan to corrupt the image begins. He is so crafty, so skilled at this. There are so many layers of evil to this terrible moment in history. Can he get the image of the Son to command the image of the Father? Can he trick Eve into being the head of Adam?

The insipid corruption of God’s image and witness is looming. Headship and order were being threatened. But it’s not happened yet. This isn’t the seat of corruption, just a fruit which comes later.

Here is the seat of corruption. Eve sees that this fruit is *desirable* for gaining wisdom. There is a *desire* which rises in her which is not for Adam and not for the Lord God. The desire was to gain wisdom for herself.

A new love, a new desire had entered. It was a perverted love… an inverted love. It went against the flow. It was not outward but inward. It was unnatural and ungodly. The corruption began. Satan was achieving what he set out to do. He sparked in Eve an new love, a wicked invader.

The image was now self loving, self obsessed and so she threw off her role, gave the fruit to Adam and he too acceded. An ungodly love lead to an ungodly action. The corruption was complete.

Eve, and her husband after her, set their desires and affections onto something which was entirely outside this created order and image. Sin had entered and ravaged the great image and witness to the loving, creating and ordered community of Three Divine Persons.

As soon as their love went in instead of out, they felt shame. They hid from the Word of Lord.

Just meditate on the shattering moment. They hid from the Word of the Lord.

The world now had a witness which was self loving, not other loving, a witness which has no concern for order and headship – in other words, an independent monadic witness. The world now had a witness which went solitary and which removed itself from The Divine Life. Satan introduced unitarianism to the world.

And the consequences flowed.

Adam *blamed* Eve. Prior to this Adam only ever *knew* Eve. He loved, nurtured, served, lead and rejoiced in Eve knowing her intimately through sexual union. But now he blamed her. He *accused* her.  He now bore the image of an accuser, not of the Living God.  Adam on his own looked like Satan now.

This is the great crime of the fall. A massive corruption of the Doctrine of God. A Satanic collapse.

So do we see what it is that Satan does?

He leads people to loves and desires which are inward in focus.  He wants to draw your affections away from the Triune God and to self satisfaction, self gratification. Self love. He wants you to think of yourself as an island – solitary and your own source of order.

Why? Because he hates God.

Satan wants to corrupt your view of God. That is all. Once he does that, he has you. You are now his child, you bear his image, you live his life.

More tomorrow...

2

Published on 2 Comments on God is not triune – the Devil’s great lie. Part 1

This is the first of a three part article by Rich Owen,
minister at City Evangelical Church, Leeds.

Why is it that the Devil attacks Christian marriage? Well, it’s the same reason that he is the head of the Unitarian Church. The Devil wants the world to believe that God is not Triune. That is pretty much what his work boils down to. That is why he attacks marriage in the church, that is why he seeks to build a unitarian edifice within the Christian church.

Give them the wrong view of god, and they get me – that’s how Satan is seeking to win the world to himself.

Over the next three days, I’ll give a few thoughts on this. We’ll lay a foundation for truth starting with the genesis of love, then secondly, how Satan seeks to undermine this in the genesis of the lie and thirdly some reflections and pastoral musings.

So lets kick off with what happened back in the Garden in Genesis 1-3.

In chapters 1 and 2, we have the glorious description of the creation of mankind, male and female, the image of the Living God.  So first comes the man. He is placed by the Lord God in the garden that God had personally planted. A garden appealing to the eye and good for food. What a great place to be!

But it wasn’t good.

It is not good for man to be alone. He can’t image the Living God on his own. He can’t work in the garden on his own.  So the Lord God took woman from the man’s side just as the Son comes from the Fathers side so that the image would be true.

The man says “this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”.  Or to paraphrase, the woman is the same as me – she is just like me – of one being and substance because she comes from my side, in the likeness of my Father and his Son.

And how is this likeness expressed?  For this reason and man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh.  Different and distinct persons, equally human – of the same stuff - and God says for this reason, one flesh.  And the oneness is expressed in the deepest emotional, relational and physical reality that you can have – sexual union.

The majestic union of flesh – a profound joining of the persons as one – echad just as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are echad.

Adam and Eve are then immediately charged with their task. Procreate! Bring forth a third! Let this love and unity send out another, just as the Father and Son send the Spirit.

The love between man and woman isn’t a sugar-coated, “get a room” kind of love which is shut off to the outside world. No, their outward focused love keeps flowing out and onto a third. Out of their union comes the offspring, the third person.

Only AFTER the charge to procreate are they then tasked with subduing and ruling. The out-flowing, increasing love of man and woman and their offspring gives birth to dominion.  Dominion is a function of love and is a community activity.

But before they go off to work, the Lord God has one more thing left to do. Day seven, the holy day, the day which is set apart for rest.

Are we to imagine after all this that God intended to spend this rest day on His own? I don’t think so.

The Word of the Lord takes a brisk walk in the cool of the day, looking for his beloved image bearers. That seems to be natural to the out flowing, other centred life which the creation story has already spoken of.  Jesus says come to me and I will give you rest. Rest is relational.

The One who speaks out the Word, this Personal Word Himself and the Brooding Spirit want to spend time fellowshipping with the created image, man and woman and they deliberately set a day apart to do this.

I get lost in a haze of wonder at this thought. Imagine the joy! What did they talk about? What was it like? What fellowship! What love! And what a venue!

But this is the context for chapter 3. This is the world which was very good, the life which was very good. It is into this world and this life of fellowship that the serpent slithers in. “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

More tomorrow...

Published on Leave a comment on God is not triune – the Devil's great lie. Part 1

This is the first of a three part article by Rich Owen,
minister at City Evangelical Church, Leeds.

Why is it that the Devil attacks Christian marriage? Well, it’s the same reason that he is the head of the Unitarian Church. The Devil wants the world to believe that God is not Triune. That is pretty much what his work boils down to. That is why he attacks marriage in the church, that is why he seeks to build a unitarian edifice within the Christian church.

Give them the wrong view of god, and they get me – that’s how Satan is seeking to win the world to himself.

Over the next three days, I’ll give a few thoughts on this. We’ll lay a foundation for truth starting with the genesis of love, then secondly, how Satan seeks to undermine this in the genesis of the lie and thirdly some reflections and pastoral musings.

So lets kick off with what happened back in the Garden in Genesis 1-3.

In chapters 1 and 2, we have the glorious description of the creation of mankind, male and female, the image of the Living God.  So first comes the man. He is placed by the Lord God in the garden that God had personally planted. A garden appealing to the eye and good for food. What a great place to be!

But it wasn’t good.

It is not good for man to be alone. He can’t image the Living God on his own. He can’t work in the garden on his own.  So the Lord God took woman from the man’s side just as the Son comes from the Fathers side so that the image would be true.

The man says “this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”.  Or to paraphrase, the woman is the same as me – she is just like me – of one being and substance because she comes from my side, in the likeness of my Father and his Son.

And how is this likeness expressed?  For this reason and man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh.  Different and distinct persons, equally human – of the same stuff - and God says for this reason, one flesh.  And the oneness is expressed in the deepest emotional, relational and physical reality that you can have – sexual union.

The majestic union of flesh – a profound joining of the persons as one – echad just as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are echad.

Adam and Eve are then immediately charged with their task. Procreate! Bring forth a third! Let this love and unity send out another, just as the Father and Son send the Spirit.

The love between man and woman isn’t a sugar-coated, “get a room” kind of love which is shut off to the outside world. No, their outward focused love keeps flowing out and onto a third. Out of their union comes the offspring, the third person.

Only AFTER the charge to procreate are they then tasked with subduing and ruling. The out-flowing, increasing love of man and woman and their offspring gives birth to dominion.  Dominion is a function of love and is a community activity.

But before they go off to work, the Lord God has one more thing left to do. Day seven, the holy day, the day which is set apart for rest.

Are we to imagine after all this that God intended to spend this rest day on His own? I don’t think so.

The Word of the Lord takes a brisk walk in the cool of the day, looking for his beloved image bearers. That seems to be natural to the out flowing, other centred life which the creation story has already spoken of.  Jesus says come to me and I will give you rest. Rest is relational.

The One who speaks out the Word, this Personal Word Himself and the Brooding Spirit want to spend time fellowshipping with the created image, man and woman and they deliberately set a day apart to do this.

I get lost in a haze of wonder at this thought. Imagine the joy! What did they talk about? What was it like? What fellowship! What love! And what a venue!

But this is the context for chapter 3. This is the world which was very good, the life which was very good. It is into this world and this life of fellowship that the serpent slithers in. “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

More tomorrow...

Published on Leave a comment on Husbands love, Wives respect

From Emma's Blog:

Just before my hubby and I got married, we met up for dinner with a vicar friend of ours, what's known in the trade as a 'wise old chief'. He's just finished saying grace when, mid-fork, he grabbed Glen and I by the wrist and eyeballed us in a steely glare.

'Emma', he barked. 'Respect your husband. Praise him'

He turned to Glen and continued,
'Glen - love your wife. Never, never, never put her down'.

And with that, his eyebrows relaxed and he dropped our now limp wrists. 'Pass the salt'...

Read the whole thing here.


5

Published on 5 Comments on Trinitarian community means Cross-centred community

Here I spoke about trinitarian marriages.

Here I spoke about trinitarian families.

Here I spoke about trinitarian churches.

In each case it's about differently aged/gendered/gifted people taking on different roles but united in love and common purpose.  I spoke about the heresies of arianism, modalism and tritheism which they could fall into.

But I'm just aware that these models of how community should be are Law.   Law is holy, righteous and good.  Law describes the good life - the life of the truly Righteous One.  But there is no power in Law to be able to effect what it describes.

We can day-dream about a truly Athanasian marriage/family/congregation.  And we can bemoan a Sabellian one.  But we can't create one by simply defining the Original, despising the counterfeits and trying harder.

Which is why, when the Scriptures describe trinitarian community, they centre on something that I, in my descriptions, left out.  Christ's cross.

So think of Romans 14 and 15 - a wonderful passage on crunchy community - unity with distinctions upheld by gracious deference to the other.  But at the heart of it all is the cross (14:9,15; 15:3,7) which creates such community.

Or think of 1 Corinthians 11-14.  We begin with Father-Son unity (11:3); we continue with the expression of this unity in marriage (11:3ff); we see it play out in the body (12 and 14) and in chapter 13 we see it all held together by love.  That's fantastic.  But what have I missed out?  The Lord's Supper - 11:20-34.  This community is not created by trying hard to imitate the trinity.  It is created by the cross as experienced in the sacrament.  The one loaf creates the one body - a body in which the weak and despised are received and knit together.

So anyway, just a thought that brings me back to some earlier posts:

Triune glory is cruciform glory

Participating in God means participating in the cross

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can become a triune community by trying to be a triune community.  Or can you?

Right now I'm thinking that a community created by and centred on the cross will be a triune community.  Descriptions of true triune community can diagnose problems in our communities.   But they can't solve them.

Which means maybe I should just put away my fancy diagrams and preach Christ and Him crucified.

What do you think?

.

3

Published on 3 Comments on Marriage in Proverbs – a sermon

Here are handouts from a marriage course my wife and I ran recently:

Session 1

Session 2

Session 3

What kind of oneness - part 1

What kind of oneness - part 2

.

SERMON AUDIO HERE.

On Saturday our church witnessed a tremendous picture of the book of Proverbs.  The vicar married his son to a wise and beautiful woman.  It was a very joyous occasion.  And it perfectly pictures the book of Proverbs.

Because Proverbs is all about a father – King Solomon – addressing his son, the young prince.  And he keeps saying, over twenty times, “my son, my son, my son.”  It’s a case of saying, “Now boy, here’s what you need in life.” You can almost imagine it as the vicar and his son having a father-son chat.

And as you read through Proverbs essentially Solomon’s advice to his son is this:  Watch out for the ladies!

In fact there are two ladies you need to look out for.

There’s a lady called Wisdom – get her, embrace her, marry her.  There’s a lady called Folly – avoid her, don’t listen to her, don’t be ensnared by her.

And the King keeps saying to his son, the young prince – embrace wisdom, shun folly.  All of life essentially boils down to one of two paths.  Will you go wisdom’s way, or will you go folly’s way?  The way of wisdom is the way of life and success.  The way of folly is the way of death and disaster.  Everything depends on shunning folly and embracing wisdom.

But what’s fascinating is that King Solomon does not present this choice as a matter of the intellect.  It’s not just about applying ourselves to learning and head knowledge.  And neither is this choice a matter of the will – as though we just need to be determined and resolved and just do it!.  No, wisdom and folly are matters of the heart.

Our lives are ultimately a success or a failure depending on what we love.  Or rather on Who we love.

...continue reading "Marriage in Proverbs – a sermon"

Twitter widget by Rimon Habib - BuddyPress Expert Developer