Relational Dynamics
God began kingdom with Adam and Eve. He started by differentiating male and female and creating kingdom covenant marriage. The kingdom culture operates with relational dynamics. The primary relational dynamic is kingdom covenant marriage.
The microcosm of kingdom is not a nuclear family. The relational dynamics of God’s oikos include lineage. Relational covenants make sense only as they relate to oikos. The oikos of God is a spiritual matrix or ecosystem designed and defined by heavenly norms.
This is the mystery between Christ and His ekklesia. As a mystery is something hidden, not something unreal. In fact, a heavenly mystery is more real than a physical manifestation of it. The relational dynamic between Christ and His ekklesia explains the meaning of marriage and ekklesia.
The meaning comes from kingdom culture not human culture or church subculture. If we begin to explain that relational dynamic with a human culture, we err. If we begin to explain that relational dynamics with church subculture, we err. We cannot define God’s eternal principles from our present experience or presuppositions. We must alter our presuppositions to fit revelation. We must interpret and alter our present experience to fit God’s norms.
God does not fit Himself to our culture. God operates in kingdom culture. “As it is in Heaven, so in the Earth.” Begin with Heaven. Transform the Earth. Heaven does not transform to Earth.
So, we cannot properly say, “Here’s is marriage by our way of thinking. This is how we will best understand Christ and His ekklesia.” We must say, “His relationship remains hidden until we do marriage like Jesus does marriage. He designed and defined it as part of kingdom culture.
Oneness
Oneness is the goal of all kingdom culture relational dynamics. Oneness is the ultimate expression of Heaven in Earth. The cosmic order of this world cannot know Heaven except through the kingdom culture. And, they cannot recognize Christ’s representatives until they reach oneness.
Unity is not the goal. Unity efforts always fail at unity and never even countenance oneness. The highest unity would never answer the prayer of Jesus for oneness. This doesn’t mean unity is wrong. It means unity cannot lead to oneness. Unity will often be the limitation for oneness. Unity voids the essential process that produces oneness. Unity must be forsaken at some point to achieve oneness.
Most marriages find solace in unity when God’s design for marriage is oneness. The cultural basis for unity in marriage limits the spiritual basis for oneness. The kingdom culture without a vanguard of marriages in oneness will settle for unity. That will fail to produce God’s purpose at every level. Unity cannot survive lineage. Oneness is necessary to the generational inheritance of purpose that lineage makes possible.
So, marriage is the point of contact we have with Heavenly culture that most powerfully settles us as a kingdom culture. No matter how well we do all other relational dynamics, the kingdom culture cannot rise above the level of oneness in the marriages of that culture.
Spiritual Conditions
This does not mean that poor marriage relationships negate spiritual maturity. To the contrary! We often witness strong spiritual conditions when leaders and participants have no oneness in marriage at all. That is why we miss the point so badly. We look at one side of the equation of kingdom culture with satisfaction while ignoring the essential other side as if it means nothing.
We can be so enamored with spiritual power and authority in leaders or participants in kingdom that we ignore their horrifying dysfunctions in relational dynamics.
Our reasoning is something like this: “God wouldn’t allow such spiritual power and authority where dysfunction prevails.” In this we are so stupored that we attain stupidity. Our stupor arises from a satisfaction with God void of an accompanying dissatisfaction with ourselves. We are happy that God is doing His part while oblivious to our own part. In fact, we celebrate our failures. We rewrite the ultimates to accommodate our failures. We plan for failure in the very things God invests spiritual power and authority to produce.
So, we assume God has little interest in strong marriage except as it relates to our personal wellbeing. We assume that God just wants us happy. We ignore the strongest implications of what Paul says about marriage; namely, that God assumes it is our plumb line for kingdom culture. We fail to recognize how Paul equates that relational dynamic with the norms of the Ecclesia.
We fail to connect the heavenly norms with earthly norms. Yet, this is exactly what Christ is all about!
“Seek God’s kingdom and His kingdom culture as primary priority.” We conveniently avoid the “His righteousness” part of that directive. We dismiss it as “kingdom gospel” for a future ultimate. We make a refrigerator magnet of the first and ignore the second. We have a “Honk if you seek kingdom” bumper sticker. We have no “Seek His culture” slogan anywhere in our lives.
We assume that all Jesus wants is a spiritual relationship with us. He will lead us to personal peace and future joy. He will help us endure life without Heaven. He has no plan for Heaven on Earth.
We are as good as rewriting Scripture to fit our perspective as the generation that killed Jesus. We are certain that “neither do I condemn you” is the key note verse of all time. We are sure it means that He gave up on the idea of kingdom culture. He just made a way for us to get to Heaven. He has no thought of representing Him by establishing that kingdom and culture here and now.
We presuppose He became a Man because He gave up on mankind. We forget that He planned to become a Man before He created anything. He did so to guarantee what He created would be Heaven on Earth.
Marriage in Family
You cannot build your marriage on you children. You cannot “stay together for the children” and obey God at the same time. You cannot say, “Well, I’m sure God realizes we did the right thing” because you didn’t divorce.
God does hate divorce. God did not become satisfied with dysfunctional marriage. God didn’t give upon the norms He designed and defined for His kingdom culture. He did not ever say, “Well, I know what I expect is far from your capacity for success.”
Remember, that kingdom culture includes lineage. Marriage is not about producing children for lineage. The lineage aspect of kingdom covenant marriage begins with generational purpose.
Marriage is not defined or designed with your personal happiness in mind. Happiness and joy are always byproducts of relational integrity. Joy is a fruit of spirit available without consideration of natural conditions. Joy in marriage comes from spiritual oneness when relational dynamics are a source of spiritual joy.
God never says, “Marriage is your gateway to happy, happy, joy, joy.” No, marriage is the highest order opportunity for character development available to humans. Marriage is you learning something about Christ you cannot see without oneness.
