MARRIAGE GRACE

COMPATIBILITY PHASE

Abraham's Compatibility Test
Personal and Impersonal Love
The Soul Model
Spiritual Dynamics
Compatibility Phase Summary

Abraham's Compatibility Test

FIRST COMPATIBILITY TEST Abraham was married to one of the world's most beautiful woman.  She was so beautiful that she attracted attention from kings, and Abraham feared for his life because of it.  Egypt in the time of Abraham was a great empire.  Abraham with a small band of cowboys was no match for it.  When he entered Egypt because of famine in Canaan, he feared for his life because of Sarai, his wife.  In this passage Abraham is called "Abram," which means "father of high and windy places."  When he reached maturity and received his Escrow Blessings (Genesis 17:5), his name was changed to "Abraham," Hebrew !<h*r*b+a^ , which means "father of a multitude."  His wife's name was originally Hebrew, yr^c* (Sara, transliterated as "Sarai"), which means contentious or bossy.  When Abraham reached maturity, her name was changed to Sarah, which means princess, and this bossy lady became a great example of an obedient wife.

No sooner had Abraham gotten into Egypt than Pharaoh's sons saw Sara; told their father about her great beauty; and Pharaoh took her into his harem (Genesis 12:15) and made her his wife (Genesis 12:18).  This was the beginning of Abraham's Compatibility Test.  He was separated from his beautiful wife and delivered into Stress Testing.  This was analogous to the Stress Tests of Romans 5:3-5, but not the same because Abraham did not have the Integrity Envelope like the Church Age believer nor the Filling of the Holy Spirit.  He didn't know what hit him, but we can look back with Church Age doctrine and understand it.  He was taking the Compatibility Test.

The whole thing was a test of Abram's faith.  God had promised him that he would have descendants who would occupy the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:7).  At this time Abram did not even have a son.  The promises of God had not been fulfilled.  God had a Plan for his life.  How could he die?  Rather than believe the promise of God, Abram resorted to the human solution, which is no solution.  He first lied to himself:  He didn't believe the promise of God, but he did believe that Pharaoh might kill him.  So he told a half-truth - that Sara was his sister.  Actually she was his half-sister (Genesis 20:12), but Abraham's prevarication was designed to deceive.  But Pharaoh took his wife, his Right Woman, and Abram was in great suffering, although Pharaoh lavished riches on him (Genesis 12:16).

Abram was in a totally hopeless and helpless situation because it was the Compatibility Test to get him to use the spiritual solution.  Abraham began to use Faith-Rest to handle the problem because there was nothing else he could do.  He was in a real jam.  This was Female Dominance.  Sara was famous, the wife of the King, and Abram was in suffering.  When Abram rode out the suffering and passed the endurance test (Compatibility Test) by applying the spiritual solution, God sanctified the marriage relationship and vindicated Abram.  God exercised His Justice to remove Pharaoh from interfering in the marriage of Abram and Sara.

Pharaoh correlated the plagues to Sara.  He called for Abram, returned Sara, and had Abram and his family personally escorted out of Egypt.

LAST COMPATIBILITY TEST

Abraham did not complete Compatibility Testing until he was 99.  At the point of maturity he was given his final Compatibility Test.  He left home and entered Canaan at age 75, went to Egypt for his first Compatibility Test shortly thereafter, and continued in Compatibility Testing until age 99.

Abraham is still in Compatibility Testing because he hasn't learned to use the spiritual solution.  The human solution is no solution; the divine solution is the only solution.  Without the spiritual solution, the soul will be under suffering.  When Abram moved to Gerar in the Negev (southern region of Canaan, later the land of Israel), he told Abimelech that Sarah was his sister.  Abimelech seized (Hebrew jq^l* , laqach) Sarah and took her into his harem.  Sarah was 90 years old at the time.  She was probably seized not for her beauty but for her celebrity status.  So this was a political marriage.

However, Abraham was at the point of maturity.  God had promised Abraham a son, and there was no way to have that son if Abimelech had Sara.  God had already made it clear that only the Right Woman could be the source of the Escrow Blessing of the child of the promise (Genesis 17:18-19; Galatians 4:23, 28).  So Abraham recalled the spiritual solution, and God delivered Sarah.  God judged Abimelech.

Under the Laws of Establishment of the Old Testament, adultery was a capital offense.  God told Abimelech that he had taken another man's wife and he was "a dead man."  Abimelech immediately entered into self justification by claiming that although he had taken Sarah (and apparently married her), he had not gone near her for sex; and therefore he had not committed adultery (Genesis 20:4-5). In verse 6, God protected Sarah from adultery.  In delivering Sarah, God judged Abimelech with the sin unto death.  When Abraham was experientially sanctified, God delivered Sarah by judging Abimelech.  God told Abimelech that Abraham was a prophet, and in order to live, Abraham would have to offer intercessory prayer for him.  Not only would Abimelech die, but also his whole family.  The sentence of the sin unto death (1 John 5:16-18) can only be remitted when a spiritual authority (Prophet in previous ages, Pastor-Teacher in the Church Age) offers intercessory prayer (James 5:14-16). Abimelech requested Abraham's intercession, and Abraham prayed for him and he was healed.  In addition, the cursing of God was removed from his family.  His wife and female slaves had been made barren by the Justice of God in delivering Sarah. From this passage, it can be deduced that Abimelech's family had been under cursing for some time, perhaps months, before his fateful dream.  The cursing prevented the women of Abimelech's household from delivering children.  This was obviously not barrenness but miscarriages because Sarah was not in the harem long enough to draw such a conclusion. Miscarriages are due to a violation of the Right Man - Right Woman relationship.  And miscarriages are symbolic of the cursing of the Sin Unto Death.

Personal and Impersonal Love

The English sentence for expressing love may have a subject, verb, and an object as shown in the illustration.
 

Personal and Impersonal Love
Subject
Verb
Direct Object
I
love
you.
The merit or capacity may, however, lie in the subject or the object.  If the subject has the merit, it is called impersonal love.  If the object has merit, it is called personal love.  When God is the subject and the world is the object (John 3:16), the love is impersonal because God has the merit and not the world.  In the Greek the general term for love, ajgavph (agape), is used for impersonal love; whereas, the word, filevw (phileo), is used for personal love.  In terms of human relationships, the command to love your neighbor is never personal.  It is impersonal.  Friendship would be a personal love relationship.  Right Man and Right Woman have a personal love relationship.

The strength of virtue-love from the Integrity Envelope comes from impersonal love - not personal love.  There is no virtue in personal love.  Anyone can say, "I love you"; but it means no more than the person.  A strong person has capacity for love; whereas, a weak person lacks capacity.  Anyone can say, "I love you", but for it to be meaningful, the subject must have capacity for impersonal love.  A person who is madly attracted to an object, may have that love vanish overnight because there is nothing to sustain it.

In the Attraction Phase paramours may be attractive objects of love because the person does not yet have the capacity to love the Right Man or Right Woman from the strength of impersonal love.  The personal attraction for a paramour (someone other than Right Man or Right Woman) is not even love.  It is lust, lascivious, or an emotion (e.g. pseudo love fanaticism).  Compatibility Testing is designed to prove the capacity of the soul for impersonal love.  Only when there is capacity from the strength of the Integrity Envelope can God pour love; and only when there is capacity through impersonal love can there be virtue in the expression of personal love.  The personal love is no stronger than the person.  The person without an Integrity Envelope is as unstable as water.
 

The Soul Model

This illustration shows the Right Man and Right Woman in the Grace Support System.  Both Right Man and Right Woman are shown on the teeter totter two dimensional model at this point.  Both Right Man and Right Woman must operate in the Filling of the Holy Spirit, which requires signing on to the Plan of God Server.  This is accomplished through Rebound (1 John 1:9).  Rebound is just the first step.  It is like running in Disk Operating System (DOS) mode.  There will be communication with the Father, but none of the faith-applications will be running to give visibility into the Right Man - Right Woman relationship. In order to deploy the faith-application for the Right Man - Right Woman relationship, the Integrity Envelope of the Space Time Coordinate System must be active and the Hope (Z) axis must be aligned.  The first step was accomplished with Rebound, but the next step requires application of doctrine to experience.  The Intimacy Connection must be made.  The Intimacy Connection cannot be made until the Integrity Envelope is aligned.  This begins with the Hope (Z) axis.  The doctrines of authority with respect to the Right Man - Right Woman relationship must be deployed.  This is different for the man and the woman.  The man must be the authority, and the woman must submit to him by faith application.  Once the Z axis  is aligned, the rest of the Integrity Envelope should fall into place unless some flaw or hangup hinders the process.  In such cases, the Checklist can be used to insure alignment of all the axes (X, Y, Z, and Time).

When the Integrity Envelope is aligned, the Right Man and Right Woman will be connected to each other through the Plan of God Server.  The Lord will manage the relationship and pour Marriage Intimacy Love into the Intimacy Room of Right Man and Right Woman based upon their respective capacities for love.  This is the model of the Intimacy Connection between Right Man and Right Woman in the Grace Support System.  The Right Man and Right Woman joined with the Intimacy Connection have the greatest love relationship possible between two human beings.  They execute a supernatural relationship that is made possible by the Grace of God.  God wants to give the couple Marriage Intimacy Love - a love that is out of this world!  And He has provided a system in Grace to accomplish it.

Any breakdown of the Integrity Envelope will affect the stability of the Right Man - Right Woman relationship as illustrated by the Teeter Totter which breaks out of the control limits.

When the Integrity Envelope cannot withstand the pressure, it breaks and the soul is sucked into the Cosmic System.  Souls that are not stabilized will oscillate up and down between Lawlessness and Legalism.  When the emotional swings cross the control limits, which are based upon the strength of the Integrity Envelope, the Integrity Envelope will break and the person will follow the trend of the Old Sin Nature toward Lawlessness or Legalism.  The connection with the Plan of God Server will be lost, and the fantastic divine love poured into the cup in the Intimacy Room and expressed through virtue-love will be lost.  The believer under this condition in the Cosmic System is subject to the Justice of God.  The person is still under grace but will be subject to discipline and cursing rather than blessing.  Since the Right Man and Right Woman are inseparably united, both will experience the effects of a broken connection by the other one.  It doesn't matter whose fault it was.  When the boat is sinking, both have a problem. Or, using another analogy, if the spaceship is spinning out of control and flying off into outer space, both have the problem.

Most of the problems of both single and married people are not due to the Old Sin Nature and sin.  Those are only the symptoms.  The problem is often with the Right Man - Right Woman relationship that is spinning out of control.  One party can wreck the spaceship.  Two can produce unimaginable instabilities that are worse than a roller coaster.  So God placed man and woman together on the same spaceship for the purpose of great blessings; but if they don't know how to fly it, they may appear to be trying to kill each other.  If they don't learn to operate together, they will kill each other (sin unto death).

When the Integrity Envelope does not cover the loins, the absence of thought on the cerebral cortex creates a void, or vacuum, and the person is sucked into the Cosmic System.  The soul must sin before the Holy Spirit will relinquish control, but the soul without an Integrity Envelope will be weak and easily succumb to sin.  When the Intimacy Room does not contain Right Man or Right Woman, the same thing happens.  The absence of Right Man or Right Woman in the soul's stream of consciousness will leave the same void, and the person will be sucked into the Cosmic System.

The soul model that Moses used was the Head-Tail Model, which is part of the illustration.  When the head with the Integrity Envelope is not in charge, the person who has been sucked into the Cosmic System will exhibit the characteristics of a tail.  The tail has an affinity toward Legalism or Lawlessness.  The vacuum in the soul means that the head is empty, not thinking, not in control.  Under these conditions, the characteristics of the tail are exhibited.  The void in the cerebrum is filled by the emotion from the subconscious, which fills the soul with carnal thinking from the Old Sin Nature.  What was previously the head in control with the emotion subordinate will be reversed when the soul sins.  The tail will be in control, the emotion will respond to it, and the soul will be enslaved.  With the tail in control everything is upside down.

Spiritual Dynamics

The Teeter Totter Model is a two dimensional model which illustrates the bond between Right Man - Right Woman in relationship to the Justice of God.  The concepts of operating within the control limits for the relationship, male dominance, and female dominance have been illustrated with this model.  However, the Space-Time Coordinate System is four dimensional with Time included.  Both Right Man and Right Woman fit the model of the Integrity Envelope in three dimensions with a fourth dimension, the Time axis.  This model portrays the individual in four dimensions with a free will.  However, the inseparable bond of Right Man and Right Woman may not be obvious.  The Spaceship Model illustrates the relationship of Right Man and Right Woman in marriage with each having the freedom to operate in four dimensions. In the Spaceship Model the Right Man is the pilot and the Right Woman is the copilot.  Each person has the freedom to operate in four dimensions.  Each one has exclusive control of one engine and can point it in any direction and open or close the throttle according to his or her pleasure.  They can ignore each other and try to fly independently, or they can orient to the Plan of God, align their gyros, and work together in unison.  In this model the spaceship has replaced the teeter totter.  Unlike the teeter totter, the spaceship can move in four dimensions.  The spaceship illustrates the inseparable bond between Right Man and Right Woman in marriage or out.  They are united by the Plan of God regardless of whether they are married.

Now, NASA has clearly demonstrated that this model can be flown with confidence.  However, they never make a move without first aligning the X, Y, and Z axes of the Inertial Measurement Units (IMU's); and they never go anywhere without calculating a flight path and trajectory (Time axis).  They always follow a flight plan to the destination, which is analogous to the destiny on the Time axis.  Up until the Church Age, the only couple who ever learned to fly the Spaceship Model was Adam and 'Ishah in the Garden.  With the New Covenant to the Church and the encapsulated environment of the Filling of the Holy Spirit, it became possible to return to the Garden.  The paradox of "back to the future" became possible.

Compatibility Phase Summary

In the Compatibility Phase of the Right Man - Right Woman relationship, God in His grace tests the Right Man and Right Woman separately to verify the Integrity Envelopes prior to pouring Marriage Intimacy Love into the marriage. The Compatibility Test allows the man and the woman to advance up the sides of the isosceles triangle through experiential sanctification back to the Garden.  During the Compatibility Phase, the Intimacy Room for Right Man - Right Woman will be revealed.  When the Intimacy Connection is made to the Plan of God Server via faith-application, Marriage Intimacy Love will be poured into the cup in the Integrity Envelope of the Right Man and the Right Woman.  Marriage Intimacy Love provides coalescence of souls of Right Man and Right Woman.  Their soul love will be compatible.  Both the man and the woman may function on the basis of their priesthood in the Royal Family of God to pass the Compatibility Tests and thus obtain sanctification of the marriage relationship.


SPIRITUAL RAPPORT

Description of Spiritual Rapport
Destiny
The Man and Woman in Spiritual Adulthood
Spiritual Blessing
Testimony for Angels
Spiritual Heritage
Marriage Grace

Description of Spiritual Rapport

There are three means of perception:
  1. Physical - by means of the senses
  2. Soulish - by means of the thinking, emotion, Old Sin Nature, and Cosmic System
  3. Spiritual - by means of the spiritual relationship with God.
The physical means is basically animalistic.  The soulish is a realm of higher intelligence that includes thinking, reasoning, and emotion.  But the soulish realm is doomed to confusion.  Nothing is ever completely understood in the soulish realm.  Even when conclusions are drawn, they may be subject to cross examination and may be subject to deception.  The great example is the poets, who are forever writing about love yet never understanding it.  Until a matter is understood spiritually, it is never really understood.  Spiritual understanding is ultimate truth.  There is nothing higher. The soul can examine the physical and revise the perception.  The spirit can examine the soul.  But nothing can examine the spirit because God is the spirit, and there is no higher perception.  When we know what God thinks, we know the truth.  Spiritual truth is absolute.

Regarding the Right Man - Right Woman relationship, even after Compatibility Testing provides a home for Marriage Intimacy Love, the human soul will be unstable.  True stability will come only when spiritual understanding is attained.  Marriage is a wonderful relationship between two people; but as long as the relationship is just soulish, there will be confusion.  Spiritual understanding is required to grasp the truth.  Since there is only one right answer in the spiritual realm, the soul that perceives the spiritual answer will harmonize with God via the spirit.  When Right Man and Right Woman both arrive at the same spiritual truth, they will harmonize with God and with each other.

In Spiritual Rapport the Right Man and Right Woman will home in on the same spiritual truth.  They will pursue tactical and strategic objectives to the same destiny; and they will execute the spiritual life together in perfect harmony as one.  When both are seeking the same objective, led by the same Lord, and filled with the same Spirit, they will operate as a corporate unit in harmony.  And the grace blessing that God is able to pour out on two intimate partners in concert with His perfect Plan is unimaginable.  He is willing to bless to the maximum extent that the human soul can handle from His boundless realms of spiritual assets and His majesty in Heavenly realms of glory.

When two people can become one corporate unit by means of spirituality, the virtue-love and rapport will write new chapters in the spiritual annals of history to the praise, honor, and glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  The man will be able to demonstrate a love for his wife as Christ loved the Church, and the wife will obey and respect her husband as to the Lord.  The husband's leadership in the marriage by means of the alignment with the predetermined Plan of God will yield maximum spiritual production to the praise and glory of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The corporate testimony of the Right Man and Right Woman in marriage will fulfill the purpose of the magnificent grace of God who ordained marriage for the blessing of the human race.

In Spiritual Rapport Right Man and Right Woman execute the will of God; whereas, in the Attraction and Compatibility Phases, they were being taught and tested.  Spiritual Rapport is the operational phase of marriage as opposed to preparation.  Spiritual Rapport is a demonstration of Spiritual Dynamics in marriage.  Spiritual Rapport is a time of fulfilling the will of God and reaching one's destiny (spiritual calling).

Destiny

Every member of the human race has a destiny, and the destiny includes two people, Right Man and Right Woman.  Some find their Right Man or Right Woman, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and some do not, e.g. Ishmael, Esau, and Solomon.  The wild child (the child not born from Right Man - Right Woman) will inherit a life of conflict and frustration.  By way of contrast, the children of Right Man and Right Woman will be exceeding blessed.  The believer has always been given a spiritual heritage at salvation, but in the Church Age, the believer in Christ is given an Escrow account of blessings that far exceed those of any other age of history.  Every believer in the Church Age has an Escrow account in the Plan of God Server (Ephesians 1:18-19) which exceeds the imagination (Ephesians 3:20).  The Escrow account of the normal Church Age believer is beyond the inheritance of kings and patriarchs of ages past and future (Hebrews 6:9).

At the point of salvation, every believer becomes a "new spiritual species" (Galatians 6:15; 2 Corinthians 5:17), Greek  kainhV ktivsi" (kaine ktisis) and receives a new spiritual life.  The new spiritual life has a purpose, which is referred to in the epistles as "a calling."

The believer's calling is his spiritual purpose, or destiny.  Now, in the Plan of God Server, the Right Man's file will contain a Right Woman and the Right Woman's file will be linked to a Right Man.  Each has an independent spiritual life in accordance with their individual priesthood.  Then the two also have a spiritual life that merges in Spiritual Rapport.  The two believer priests have a relationship with each other that merges their spiritual lives together.  Because of the merger, the two can no longer achieve their individual spiritual destinies alone.  There is one relationship - not two separate ones.  The one relationship can only function in harmony in Spiritual Rapport.  This is the grace Plan of God.  And should there be a problem with either partner, the Integrity of God will be challenged.  But God's record is perfect.  He has never yet failed to keep a promise or meet a schedule.

For the believer-priest in the Church Age, marriage is not a temporal relationship but a spiritual one.  Marriage will only be a source of problems to the soul until the blessings of Spiritual Rapport can be achieved.  Spiritual Rapport is a place of absolute confidence, stability, and blessing.  In Spiritual Rapport Right Man and Right Woman live in harmony instead of causing each other stress and grief.  The Attraction and the Compatibility Phases are times of suffering and testing.  Marriage during these phases will bring suffering but not blessing.  Those who are already married have no choice but to ride out the storm; but those who are not married should concentrate on executing the Plan of God until they get to Spiritual Rapport before getting married.

The spiritual life must take precedence over the temporal life.  The purpose of our new spiritual life in Christ Jesus is to fulfill our calling, our spiritual destiny.  Marriage is part of the Plan of God.  It is part of the spiritual life; but if the believer is too immature to execute the spiritual life, he is too immature for Christian marriage.  If a person decides to execute the Plan of God, then the right one will come along in the right time.  God's time is the right time.  The Right Man - Right Woman relationship can then be executed as a part of the spiritual life.  To do it otherwise is to invite grief and suffering.  "Such will have stress testing from (the disadvantage of) the flesh (Old Sin Nature)"  (1 Corinthians 7:28), where "Stress Testing", Greek qli'yi" (thlipsis) is the same as the Stress Testing for endurance (Hope axis) in Romans 5:3.  The Plan of God will not stop just because two people get prematurely married.  They will be expected to have soul compatibility, which requires the Integrity Envelope.  If they do not, they will fall apart under the pressure of Stress Testing.

The Man and the Woman in Spiritual Adulthood

Spiritual Rapport is the adult phase of marriage.  While spiritual adulthood is not based upon physical age, it is based upon maturity and requires an extensive amount of doctrinal instruction and testing.  Regardless of the age that Spiritual Maturity is attained, older people are expected to exhibit mature behavior.  If they are Christians, that means they should be in spiritual adulthood.  The proper modus operandi of older men and women in the spiritual life listed in Titus 2, gives valuable insight into the spiritual life. "Older men" is the Greek, presbuvth" (presbutes), which simply means old men.  How old is old?  It is probably safe to say at least 50 or 60.  But it isn't the physical characteristics that are in view here, but the spiritual.  First, old men should be "temperate", Greek nhfavlio" (nephalios), which means to be temperate in the use of alcoholic beverages and comes to mean sober-minded, rational, clear-thinking, having self-control.  While self-control is the meaning here, it is derived from the root form, temperate.  In terms of the Space-Time Coordinates, temperate is a function of the Integrity Envelope in withstanding Ecumenical Babylon on the Faith axis, since food and drink are symbolic of spiritual food and Ecumenical Babylon is the counterattack.  Next, the old men are to be "dignified."  They should act like the royalty of the Royal Family of God.  Being dignified is associated with a relationship with other people (Love axis).  Being dignified requires handling the counterattack of Political Babylon from the Love axis.  The next characteristic is a coined phrase, "rational-without-illusion," Greek swvfrwn (sophron), which means the sound thinking of a mature person who is rational without illusion and  respectful of authority.  This characteristic is the mark of a wise person who operates under divine authority (Hope axis).  In order to have this thinking the Z axis must be aligned under divine authority. Thus, the first three characteristics mentioned cover the three axes of the Integrity Envelope, Faith, Hope, Love (X, Y, Z) and withstanding the counterattacks of Ecumenical, Political, and Cosmic Babylon respectively.

The second group of three characteristics in the verse is "sound in faith, in love, in endurance."  These are the X, Y, Z axes of the Integrity Envelope in the Space-Time Coordinate System.  The word "endurance" is the Greek  uJpomonhv (hupomone), from Romans 5:3-4.  Endurance refers to the Z axis.  From this it is obvious that old men are expected to operate from the virtue of the Integrity Envelope and to be properly aligned in the X, Y, Z axes. Thus, the second group of three characteristics is a repetition to explain the first three:  Faith, Love, Hope (endurance), i.e. X, Y, Z axes of the Integrity Envelope.

Older women are to be "like a priest in their behavior," Greek iJeroprephv" + katavsthma (hieroprepes, like a priest + katastema, behavior).  This means that older women are to operate per the modus operandi of a believer-priest.  Women and men both are priests in the Church Age.  Behaving like a believer-priest calls attention to the woman's spiritual service.  Priestly ministry is related to the spiritual life (and the air) and the Z axis of the Integrity Envelope.  Next older women should not be "malicious gossips," which is a sin of the tongue of judging others.  This sin comes from the mouth (like the frog analogy) and is therefore related to Political Babylon (Y axis).  Further, older women should not be "enslaved to much wine."  Here is an indication that excessive drinking was a common problem of men and women of the day.  This is an attack of Ecumenical Babylon (X axis) due to the body's craving to be satisfied with food or drink.  Thus, the first three commands in this verse deal with the X, Y, and Z axes.

The next phrase, "teaching what is good," really goes with the next verse.  This is one word in the Greek kalodidavskalo" (kalodidaskalos), which means teaching virtue (or principles of divine good).  It refers to a special spiritual gift found in women only whereby some older women encourage or help younger women learn how to love their husbands and their children (verse 4).  This spiritual gift is only for women helping women.  It does not carry with it the authority to teach men, which is expressly prohibited by 1 Timothy 2:12.

So men and women in spiritual adulthood should have an fully operational Integrity Envelope.  The Integrity Envelope will enable them to have virtue and to withstand any counterattack in this world.  Adult believers have stabilized spiritually by means of the Integrity Envelope.

Edification Complex of the Soul

The Integrity Envelope in the soul may be described as an Edification Complex, i.e. a building (structure) in the soul. "Edification" in the Greek is oijkodomhv (oikodome), which means a building or structure.  The edification of the soul is accomplished by a building, or Edification Complex, that is constructed in the soul of the believer through the metabolization of Bible Doctrine.  The Edification Complex of the Soul may be illustrated as a building made up of the Integrity Envelope with a roof. The roof is constructed from the isosceles triangle that represents the relationship of Right Man - Right Woman and the Lord.  According to the type, the Right Man leaves his father and mother, prepares a home for his wife, and then they are married (Genesis 2:24).  The home is not prepared until it has a roof, however.  The roof represents Spiritual Rapport.  The covering of the roof represents the believer's Heavenly citizenship (politeuma privileges), which will be covered in the next section.  Both the Right Man and the Right Woman must come together to build the home.  The Edification Complex of the Soul can only be completed when the Right Man and Right Woman come together.

Spiritual Blessing

The Church Age believer is given phenomenal blessings at the moment of salvation.  These blessings are far beyond any age of history, past or future.  The blessings are set aside in the Plan of God Server (or some such place) where they exist as written records.  Every believer has a file that contains super abundant blessings "in the heavenly places."  "Heavenly places" refers to the arena of the Angelic Conflict and draws attention to the believer, whose "citizenship (Greek polivteuma, politeuma) is in heaven" (Philippians 3:20).1  The Greek term, politeuma, was used for the rights and privileges of Roman citizenship.  By analogy, the believer in Jesus Christ has extensive rights and privileges due to his "citizenship in heaven," or politeuma privileges.  In the Angelic Conflict the Church Age believer is allocated blessings of every type and extent.

The blessings are "spiritual," which means they are God's solution.  "Spiritual blessing" does not mean all that is received is a good feeling.  "Spiritual blessing" is the highest type.  Everything in life begins in the spiritual realm; and when there is spiritual blessing, every thing else is blessed also.  When there is spiritual blessing, the soulish, the physical, the environment, history - everything is blessed.  Businesses prosper or fail; nations rise or fall; people are happy or sad because of the blessing or cursing of God - not because of anything they have earned or deserved.

Spiritual Rapport is spiritual blessing upon the marriage relationship.  The Right Man and Right Woman were specified in the Plan of God.  The Lord Jesus Christ brings the woman to the man, Attraction Phase; tests the relationship, Compatibility Testing Phase; and then gives them the "spiritual blessing" from the predetermined Plan of God, Spiritual Rapport Phase.  Every phase of the marriage relationship is accomplished by the grace of God.  He planned it, and He does it.  The man and the woman simply go along for the ride.  They are the recipients of "spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ."

Testimony for Angels

Angels observe the marriage relationship with more than curiosity.  The Elect Angels minister to believers and the Fallen Angels (Satan and his demons) oppose believers.  Marriage is a phenomenal demonstration of the grace of God in providing mankind with an intimate, fulfilling, love relationship.  Angels are very interested in this unique relationship of mankind.  They follow every development in the unfolding drama of marriage.  Perhaps millions of them watched Adam and 'Ishah.  The Fallen Angels broke out of their proper state in the Angelic Conflict and joined women for sex (Genesis 6:2).  Angels in the Church Age observe women's hair to determine their attitude toward the authority of the Right Man (1 Corinthians 11:10).

When there is suffering in the marriage relationship, e.g. during Compatibility Testing, the angels minister to the man and the woman.  Everyone has a guardian angel.  In times of suffering additional angels minister to the believer.  Demons attempt to prevent the believer from receiving his "spiritual blessing."  Believers who stick it out and execute the Plan of God, however, will receive the greatest spiritual blessing in history.  No believer under the Mosaic Law and no believer in the Millennium has what is available for the ordinary believer-priest in the Church Age.  Ordinary believers in the Church Age have grace blessings that far exceed those of the believer under the Mosaic Law.

Marriage is a new battlefield during the Church Age because the encapsulated environment of the Filling of the Holy Spirit make it possible to go back to the Garden.  The husband and wife who fulfill the Plan of God in the Church Age become witnesses for the Prosecution (the Lord) in Satan's Appeal Trial.  They demonstrate the efficacy of God's grace plan in providing the grace solution to the needs of mankind.

Spiritual Heritage

At the moment of salvation every believer receives an inheritance - all kinds of spiritual blessings for time and eternity.  The believer receives a "calling", a purpose, or destiny, for his new spiritual life.  Everyone born into the human race has a calling that includes family ties, a Right Man or Right Woman, and the hope of salvation.  At salvation, the believer receives a new calling for his spiritual life.  This new calling includes a spiritual relationship with Right Man or Right Woman.  The new spiritual inheritance received at salvation includes spiritual blessing for the marriage relationship of Right Man and Right Woman.

Some of the blessings in the believer's portfolio are so powerful that they require the capacity of a mature believer with an Integrity Envelope.  These are called Escrow Blessings because they remain on deposit with the Lord Jesus Christ (the Escrow Officer) until Spiritual Maturity when the believer has the capacity for them.  During the Spiritual Rapport Phase of Marriage, Escrow Blessings are given to the Right Man and Right Woman when one of them has mature capacity for them.  If the other one is not in Spiritual Maturity, that one will receive blessing by association.  Either the man or the woman can use their priesthood to execute the Plan of God and crack the maturity barrier through experiential sanctification.  Only the mature believer will have the capacity to receive Escrow Blessing in the Spiritual Rapport Phase.  Believers who have not reached Spiritual Maturity will receive the blessing or discipline compatible with their stage of spiritual growth.  Those in reversionism will receive the cursing associated with their level of reversionism.

Blessing in the spiritual life does not come until maturity.  That is why getting married before reaching maturity will surely bring discipline into the marriage.  The advance of the spiritual life takes precedence over everything else, including marriage.  Marriage will not be blessed when the husband and wife are not in maturity.  It will serve as an additional problem and a distraction from advancing in the spiritual life.  When the believer reaches maturity, then the Escrow Blessings of Spiritual Rapport will be delivered and the marriage will be blessed.

When a believer reaches maturity, he receives a spiritual heritage for his family.  His Right Man or Right Woman will be blessed throughout their life and the other members of the family will be blessed throughout their life.  Solomon and Isaac are examples of this.  For as long as they lived, God blessed them because their fathers reached maturity.  Solomon holds the record for trying to squander the spiritual inheritance, but in spite of all his carnality, God still blessed him throughout his life.  The blessing did not mean that he had mature status, but rather that he was blessed with blessings of maturity.  His children, however, went down to the next level and were treated as the second generation in the Four Generation Curse.

Marriage Grace

Marriage was the second Divine Institution of the human race.  It began in the Garden of Eden with the first marriage under perfection.  It survived the Fall, the Flood, and the crucifixion.  It is still operational in the Church Age with new and higher meaning than any age of history.  It will be operational in Millennium until the completion of human history.  Marriage is a gift of the Grace of God to the human race to provide them the most wonderful, intimate love relationship possible in this life.  Marriage of the Right Man and Right Woman symbolizes the love relationship between the Lord Jesus Christ and the congregation of believers - Israel under the Old Covenant and the Church under the New Covenant.

Israel in rejection of the grace of God symbolized the divorced wife of Jehovah (the LORD) (Jeremiah 3:8) while the Church symbolizes the virgin Bride of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:2).  The love relationship of the Church with the LORD symbolizes the ultimate Right Man - Right Woman relationship.  The Church Age believer is symbolically engaged to Christ and awaits the consummation of the marriage (Revelation 19:7) at the completion of the Church Age when the Church receives resurrection (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) and enters into union with Christ (Revelation 21:2) as the Bride (Revelation 21:9).

The Lord Jesus Christ personally administers marriage.  He designs the Right Woman for the Right Man, brings her to him, and administers the Attraction, Compatibility, and Spiritual Rapport Phases of the relationship.  He provides Escrow Blessings for the believer at maturity which affect the marriage relationship.  He handles all infractions of marriage and the Right Man - Right Woman relationship from the Supreme Court of Heaven (Hebrews 13:4).  He demonstrates the blessing of his grace through marriage to the entire human race.  The Divine Institution of Marriage is for believers and unbelievers alike.

Marriage is part of the spiritual life and must be executed by utilization of the divine operating assets of the Plan of God.  Sanctification of the marriage comes through application of Bible Doctrine to experience, i.e. faith-application.  Every born again believer in the Church Age is a priest - man or woman.  So either one may exercise the function of the priesthood to deliver the marriage through experiential sanctification.  Prayer is not the issue, but, rather, execution of the Plan of God.  When Right Man or Right Woman decide to obey the mandates of Bible Doctrine, it is possible to return to the Garden of Eden in the marriage.

The Edification Complex of the Soul (made from the Integrity Envelope) in the Church Age believer contains an Intimacy Room with special capacity for Marriage Intimacy Love.  The Integrity Envelope clothes the marriage with the strength of Capacity for Life and Love.  When the Integrity Envelope is capable of withstanding Stress Testing of the Compatibility Phase, Marriage Intimacy Love will be poured into the cup in the Integrity Envelope of the heart (right lobe of the soul).  Marriage Intimacy Love comes from the Lord (Plan of God Server).  Both the Right Man and the Right Woman must be Filled with the Holy Spirit and aligned with the will of God to receive this blessing.  This means that the Integrity Envelopes must be aligned in all axes (X, Y, Z, and Time).  When the integrity of the Integrity Envelope has been verified, the Lord will promote the marriage to Spiritual Rapport where there will be perfect harmony from the spiritual solution. With the addition of Spiritual Rapport, the Edification Complex of the Soul will be complete.  The completed Edification Complex of the Soul means that the Lord can deliver Escrow Blessings to mature believer as well as bless the marriage of Right Man and Right Woman.

Marriage Grace is God's special grace provision for marriage.  Marriage Grace is based upon Divine Integrity, Who and what God is.  Marriage is God's grace plan for the human race.  It was God's idea, and it can only be received in Grace.  No one earns or deserves anything.  God planned the whole thing for mankind and will bring it about according to His schedule.  Marriage has been scheduled into the life of every member of the human race.  However, God will not coerce man's volition.  Everyone is free to choose God's grace solution for marriage or reject it.  Those who receive the divine solution will not be disappointed (Romans 5:5).

The focus of Marriage Grace is the grace of God.  Marriage is a divine test, which can only be passed with the divine solution.  The divine solution is the only solution; the human solution is no solution.  Understanding marriage and its impact on the spiritual life is only possible by understanding Marriage Grace.  The problems of the Attraction Phase are numerous and much of the Bible is written about them.  The problems of the Compatibility Phase have many variations and severe consequences.  The Bible is full of instruction regarding this.  And the woods are full of those who think they have good advice for marriage.  A lifetime could be spent just studying the problems of marriage.  However, the divine solution is beyond all this.  The solution is Spiritual Rapport.

The grace solution for Marriage is Spiritual Rapport.  Spiritual Rapport is the final stage of completion of the Edification Complex of the Soul.  With the completion Edification Complex of the Soul in Spiritual Rapport, the Lord will be able to bless the marriage.  There is no substitute for the grace of God.  Only He can bless.  Only with the completed Edification Complex of the Soul in Spiritual Rapport will their be great blessing in marriage. When He provides spiritual blessing in the marriage, it will be harmonious and a source of great happiness and pleasure.  The Marriage Intimacy Love that He provides is beyond the imagination.  He will bless the Right Man and Right Woman who have an Edification Complex of the Soul to the maximum extent that the human soul can handle.  In Spiritual Rapport, the grace of God solves all the problems of marriage.  Until then, marriage will only be a source of suffering.  The study of Marriage Grace is the divine perspective of the grace solution that minimizes the problems of suffering.

Marriage Grace demonstrates God's grace provision for mankind.  It reveals His essence.  He wanted mankind to know love (part of His essence) in the most intimate and fulfilling way.  Marriage Grace is the expression of His will for mankind.  Marriage Grace is one of the focal points of God's grace solution for mankind.  It is profound.  It is intimate.  It is powerful.  It is fulfilling.  It is exhilarating.  It is human. And it is full of Divine Integrity!

AUTHOR  Larry Wood

Revised December 8, 2004