Someone once said, “Marriage is a life existent in two persons.”

Our pastor general has said, “Marriage is the foundation of the family” and “appreciate the beauty of the family.”

Herbert W. Armstrong taught strongly about the family and marriage—as prophesied in Malachi 4:5-6.

As the marriage of Christ and His Bride draws ever closer, pressure on physical marriages, especially in physical Israel, grows daily. As in the world, this pressure invades God’s Church.

Marriage is a living thing—and any living thing must be fed. For God’s people, that means eating from the tree of life in order for that marriage and family to bear fruit.

As the future kings and priests leading the imminent world ahead, our marriages must grow as God-plane relationships.

For those in God’s Church, we are building more than a physical marriage relationship with our spouse; we are building our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Marriage and family are the primary areas of Satan’s attacks. Satan attacks God our Father and our Husband, Jesus Christ, by seeking to destroy any marriage or family he can. Satan wants men disillusioned with family.

In God’s Church, our marriages are closely linked with our spiritual development, even if your mate is not in the Church.

In Genesis 2:24, God commands, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

Here there are three principles established for a stable marriage: 1) leave, 2) cleave, 3) become one.

Looking at that third principle, Christ said that He and His Father were one in everything (John 17:21). Our marriages must demonstrate oneness within the roles of husband and wife.

Ephesians 5:21 explains further: “Submitting yourselves one to another”—that is, each submitting to his or her God-ordained role.

By developing in this oneness, this God-plane relationship is designed to teach us the fundamentals of divine love—agape love. After all, God is love (1 John 4:8).

That love is expressed through law. God’s laws show us how to love Him and, in turn, how to love each other in the laws of marriage.

Families and their examples are a great strength in our congregations, and that strength needs to grow.

To grow in a marriage, we need to grow in our spiritual focus. Human customs and concepts are, of themselves, not a reliable guide to the Christian family. And we can’t look to the world—we must come out of this world (Revelation 18:4).

God has not left us without information. The pattern of the perfect marriage is outlined through Ephesians 5:21-33. We must act on this daily, or this knowledge is of no value.

We as Christ’s Bride have the perfect pattern—direct from God’s mind. If we use it diligently, our spiritual growth will excel. Each person’s spiritual condition within the marriage affects his or her mate.

Ephesians 5:21-33 give the pattern of government and the administration of that government from a God-mind level. Government in the family is vital; it cannot be a God-plane relationship without that Ephesians 5 pattern.

In his last Feast of Trumpets sermon (1985), Mr. Armstrong said: “Again, let me tell you—two cannot walk together except one is the leader, the boss. People don’t believe that today. God made the husband the head of the wife. You’ll never find a real happy marriage unless the husband is the head of the wife. They might get along to a certain extent. They might kid themselves they are happy, but they are not as happy. They don’t know real happiness unless they are happy in the way God intended them to be. Now the wife is equal with her husband. She is a human being the same as he is. She’s an heir of salvation the same as he is, but he is the leader. Jesus is equal with God the Father. He is God, but God is in charge. They are not equal in authority.”

Without government, the Kingdom of God would not work. Likewise, without government, the physical family will not work.

Men and women have equal spiritual potential and capacity for rulership in God’s Family.

Masculine and feminine differences are designed to be complementary in marriage, fusing into one! Society today denies God’s pattern of government in the family.

The principle of “whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” is a cardinal rule in marriage (Matthew 20:27). The government is there for each to serve the other.

The key to successful relationships really gets down to the responsibility of each other’s role. That is, for someone to say: I cannot choose how you treat me, however, I can choose how I will respond to you.

To become one within these roles of husband and wife, it is vital to understand what these two roles are.

Next time, we will discuss these roles more specifically. Meanwhile, take time to think on a tree of life, God-plane marriage.

From the archives: “Tree of Life Marriage (Part 1)”

2006 Philadelphia News