Our Relationships: Why they Fail and why they Succeed

What does it take to maintain a thriving relationship or marriage? Several websites contain quotations identifying many essential ingredients. Some quotes emphasized sacrificial effort:

• “The difference between an ordinary marriage and an extraordinary marriage is in giving just a little ‘extra’ every day, as often as possible, for as long as we both shall live.”

• “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”

• “The greatest marriages are built on teamwork. A mutual respect, a healthy dose of admiration, and a never-ending portion of love and grace.”

• “A great marriage isn’t something that just happens; it’s something that must be created.”

• ‎”No one can go back and change how it started but a new future for any marriage can begin the moment one person begins to invest in it.”

Similarly, others emphasized commitment and acceptance:

• “Once we figured out that we could not change each other, we became free to celebrate ourselves as we are.”

• “A long-lasting marriage is built by two people who believe in -and live by- the solemn promise they made.”

• “Marriage is a commitment- a decision to do, all through life, that which will express your love for one’s spouse.”

• “A happy marriage doesn’t mean you have a perfect spouse or a perfect marriage. It simply means you’ve chosen to look beyond the imperfections in both.”

Other sayings emphasized the importance of forgiveness:

• “A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.”

• “Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.”

• “To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up.”

• “A successful marriage isn’t the union of two perfect people. It’s that of two imperfect people who have learned the value of forgiveness and grace.”

Forgiveness is so critical. When one partner refuses to forgive, bitterness and disappointment reign, and these undermine a relationship at its foundation. Curiously, though, I didn’t see any quotes stressing apologies - confession of wrongdoing. Without these, there cannot be any real healing or reconciliation. I can forgive my wife in my heart, but the pain, disappointment, and resentment might remain until there is a genuine humbling to admit the wrongdoing.

I think that real apologies have become a dying breed, and, along with them, real reconciliation. Why? I think that there are many reasons:

Admitting that we are at fault is difficult. Too often, our sense of self – our self-esteem – depends on being right. When we get into a fight, we are inclined to blame the other. This is easier to do than to take the blame upon ourselves.

We are taught to believe in ourselves. However, in order to believe in ourselves, we have to think good things about ourselves and to deny the negative – our wrongdoing.

However, I have found that the more highly I esteem myself, the less I will esteem others and my wife. The less I esteem myself, the more I esteem my wife and am grateful to have such a woman, despite her failings.

We believe that we should be easy on ourselves. This means that we shouldn’t hold ourselves to a high and scrupulous moral standard.

This too is problematic. For example, if my wife tells me, “You are speaking harshly to me,” but I respond, “Well, you’re just too demanding of me,” we will not be reconciled. Her hurt feelings and my guilt feelings remain. Besides, we will continue to obsess about how right we both are! Instead, reconciliation requires humble and sincere confession.

If, instead of apologizing, I take my wife out to dinner and buy her a new dress, this will fail to penetrate to the place of the hurt. In fact, all of the other things that go into making a good relationship – respect, commitment, and devotion – will also fail to address the source of the problem.

It is interesting to find that the problems we encounter in our relationships serve as a reflection of the problems with have with our Primary relationship. Serving God entails commitment, respect, and hard work, but even more fundamentally, it requires us to confess our sins. Repeatedly, God instructs us to take a careful moral inventory in regards to Him:

• “Return, faithless Israel, declares the Lord. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the Lord; I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the Lord your God and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice.” (Jeremiah 3:12-13)

God doesn’t require that Israel first pay Him a great sum of money or make exhaustive sacrifices before He will forgive them. Instead, He asks for one thing – acknowledgment of their guilt.

In the end, when Yahweh pours out His Spirit upon Israel, the result will be a mourning over their sins:

• “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him [Jesus] whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.” (Zechariah 12:10)

From contrition will come forgiveness and restoration. The great prayers of the Bible reflect an understanding of this principle – that confession must precede reconciliation (1 Kings 8; Dan. 9). Where there is a refusal to confess sins, there is also an absence of mercy.

In the end, God will unilaterally restore and transform Israel:

• I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.  And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. (Ezekiel 36:24-29)

However, God’s unilateral action on behalf of His people must be associated with confession and mourning over their sins:

• Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations.  It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. (Ezek. 36:31-32)

• I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God.” (Ezek. 16:62-63)

Shame is a necessary God-given emotion. It instructs us about ourselves and our relationships. It also directs us to take corrective action – confession of sins – in order to bring true reconciliation and joy.

Perhaps, even in heaven, we will need to recall how we had been in rebellion against God. I am growing in appreciation for my wife, but this only occurs as I take a good and deep look at myself.

Without Confession and Repentance, there can be no Salvation

There are many verses that assure us that if we seek God we will find Him (Mat. 7:7-8; Deut. 4:29). However, there are other verses that warn us that there are some sinners who seek God and not find Him:

• “Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me, since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord.” (Proverbs 1:28-29)

Proverbs makes it seem that some seekers are disqualified by their rebellious past. Hosea had echoed a similar message:

• When they go with their flocks and herds to seek the Lord, they will not find him; he has withdrawn himself from them. They are unfaithful to the Lord. (Hosea 5:6-7)

I too have been unfaithful to the Lord. What assurance do I have that I will “find Him?” When we come acknowledging our sins, we can be assured that He will receive us (1 John 1:9-10). Despite his chilling warning, Hosea also affirmed this several verses later:

• “I will go away and return to My place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face; In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.” (Hosea 5:15, NASB)

Without acknowledging guilt, we are still in rebellious denial. We come to God only for His help and afterwards, we turn our back. Instead, when we “earnestly seek” God, we seek Him in truth from our inmost being. This entails confession of sin. Anything less is disingenuous and offensive before God. So when we come to Him, we must bring sincere words of truth:

·         Return, Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to him: “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously.” (Hosea 14:1-2)

How do we return to God? With words of truth – words of confession of sin! If sin had been our problem, then confession of sin must be part of the answer.

For Jesus, repentance and confession of sin had always been the answer:

• “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.” (Luke 17:3-4)

Without confession and repentance, there could be no true forgiveness and restoration, only dis-fellowship:

•  “If they still refuse to listen [and confess their sin], tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 18:17-18)

According to Jesus, what applied to the church also mirrored the heavenly reality. A refusal to confess real sins before the church was like a refusal to confess before God. In both cases, restoration to relationship depended on confession and repentance.

In order to demonstrate the necessity for humble confession, let’s take an example. Your friend has destroyed your reputation by gossiping behind your back. Meanwhile, whenever he sees you, he brings you expensive gifts. Will the gifts suffice to maintain the relationship? No! Nothing short of sincere confession (and perhaps also a willingness to repair the damage) can bring real reconciliation.

Heidi Mund and Speaking Truth to Power

What would you do if you went to church one Sunday and found that an imam who was attempting to Islamize your country and to bring your faith under subjection to Islam was giving the opening prayer? What would God have you do? And what if you had been seeing many other churches, compromising with secularism and religious pluralism, losing their Christian witness?

This is what happened at the Memorial Church of the Reformation in the Rhineland city of Speyer, built to honor Martin Luther:

• When the Muslim imam began his call to prayer during the concert, he was interrupted by a small woman [with her banner] in the balcony proclaiming that "Jesus Christ alone is Lord of Germany.”

Others tried to reassure Heidi Mund that "This is a concert for peace." However, she understandably remained adamant:

• "No it's not! Allahu Akbar [which is what the imam had prayed] is what Muslims scream while murdering people! Don't be fooled! Don't be fooled! This is a lie!" 

As I thought about this, I envisioned parasites eating at the foundation of my home, and no one seemed to be concerned about it as long as the house was still standing. I could imagine someone reassuring me, “Don’t worry. Soon the termites will be full and will stop eating.”

I knew that that wasn’t true. They would only stop eating once there was no more house to consume! Instead, I likened myself to the priest Phineas, who, when seeing the Israelite men cavorting with the Moabite women, determined to stop this horrid defilement of the people of God at any cost, even with a spear (Num. 25:7).

However, would Phineas’ methods coincide with the teachings of the New Testament? Would Mund’s methods coincide? I recalled the many verses calling for gentleness, patience, peacefulness and non-offensiveness.

I began to wonder whether the peaceable New Testament was so radically different from the combativeness of the Old, but perhaps not. Jesus never shied away from confronting others with their sins, sometimes using highly offensive words like “hypocrite” or “children of Satan.” And He even resorted to physical force, overturning tables and driving the traders out of the Temple with a whip. Should His life be a model for us?

But perhaps Jesus’ example doesn’t apply to us. After all, does things that are inappropriate for us. He calls the dead out of the grave and judges. So perhaps we would be mistaken to follow His example in every regard.  However, the Apostles also weren’t kittens. They were bold in carrying forth the will of God, especially when it came to the governing of the church. Let’s look, for example, at Paul’s instructions to Titus about the selection of elders:

• He [the elder] must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach. (Titus 1:9-11)

Paul taught that elders had to silence mouths/teachings for the sake of the church. In light of this, perhaps Mund’s interruption was a matter of righteousness. However, she wasn’t an elder. Did this disqualify her?

In the Book of Revelation, God gave seven churches the results of His spiritual examination. He criticized two of these churches – at Pergamum and Thyatira – because they had tolerated teachings they shouldn’t have tolerated:

• “But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit acts of immorality.”  (Rev. 2:14)

• “But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.”  (Rev. 2:20)

There are clearly limits to tolerance and peaceable-ness. Besides, it wasn’t merely the pastors or the elders who were held to account but the entire church. Each was their brothers’ keeper, and, consequently, all were responsible for the health of the church. Similarly, our Lord praised the church at Ephesus for their exercise of spiritual oversight:

•  “I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot endure evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false.” (Rev. 2:2)

We “cannot endure” false doctrine within the church. Nor would Heidi endure this! As Paul taught Titus, such teachers “must be silenced,” since they were “disrupting whole households” with their teachings.

However, Paul also made a sharp distinction between our conduct towards those in the church and those on the outside. In His letter to the Corinthian church, Paul chastened them for not taking the appropriate action against the sin in their midst, warning them that just a little bit of unchecked sin will undermine the entire church (1 Cor. 5:6):

• I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—  not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.” (1 Cor. 5:9-13)

According to Paul, those who are part of the church must be disciplined if they remain unrepentant. However, God would discipline those outside of the church. In a similar way, James taught us to correct, not simply tolerate, the brethren:

• My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins. (James 5:19-20)

All of this argues that we should be more proactive about our church involvement, even to the point of defending the Gospel (Jude (3). However, Mund traveled to another church and disrupted their service.  Did she overstep scriptural boundaries? There is nothing in Scripture that would suggest that our responsibility for the church stops outside of the walls of our own church. Instead, we are all brethren, all part of the same spiritual body headed by Christ.

Perhaps then, Mund had a biblical responsibility for all those who consider themselves brethren, but she was also disruptive. Are there any Scriptural grounds for this? Yes, in certain rare, clear, and extreme circumstances. For example, Paul opposed Peter in the midst of a church fellowship:

• When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray… I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel.  (Gal. 2:11-14)

Paul justified this public correction of Peter in several ways:

1.     Peter was clearly wrong.

2.     His actions were harmful to the church and Gospel.

3.     He was acting in a hypocritical way and was leading others into this same hypocrisy.

4.     It was a situation that was presently taking place and, therefore, needed to be addressed in the present.

Mund’s bold intervention was in line with all of these concerns. Extreme apostasy requires extreme measures. The German church and the German Christians have become apostate – as have many Christians in the West - and require some extreme shaking. In light of this principle, we can better appreciate Jesus’ harsh words against the religious leadership:

•   “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” (Mat. 23:33)

However, our responsibility to boldly proclaim and embody the Gospel does not stop within the walls of the church. The Apostles had been forbidden to openly preach Christ. However, this is just what they did! They opposed the authorities of their day. However, they were able to justify their “disobedience” in terms of their allegiance to a higher Authority:

• But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20)

•   Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings! (Acts 5:29)

When our responsibility to God collides with our responsibility to the State, God must be honored, even if it places our lives in jeopardy.

Heaven Knows Nothing of Darwin

Marrying Darwin to Scripture is to promote an extra-marital affirm. Both entail unfaithfulness and the destruction of any harmony. For example, when Jesus returns, He will restore the earth to how it had been before the Fall, just as the Apostle Peter had preached:

• He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. (Acts 3:21)

Jesus’ return is the object of great hope. Therefore, His “restoration” will not involve a return to the initiation of the Darwinian life and death struggle of the survival-of-the-fittest. Instead, it will be a glorious restoration to a world where there had been no sin and death – to the way God had always intended things to be, in which all God’s “very good” creatures had been herbivores:

• I have given you every plant-yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree that has fruit-yielding seed; it shall be food for you…and to everything that moves…I have given every green plant for food. (Rev. 1:29-30)

The theory of evolution presents an entirely different worldview, in which God’s “very good” creation (Gen. 1:31) depended on sin and death to evolve us from single-celled life-forms.  From this perspective, death isn’t the result of sin and the Fall but of God’s Darwinian plan. Therefore, death isn’t a curse but God’s chosen instrument to guarantee the survival of the fittest genes.

Such a worldview turns morality on its head. If death and the Darwinian competition for life is a good thing, then who can blame Adam and Eve for attempting to gain a competitive edge by eating the forbidden fruit? Who can blame Cain for killing his naïve, unsuspecting, and less fit brother, Abel?

The biblical teachings of heaven are equally opposed to Darwin’s marriage to the Bible. The last chapters of the Book of Revelation contain the most thorough portrait of heaven – a portrait that fails to extend even the slightest invitation to Darwin. Instead, these chapters serve to bring closure to the first three chapters of Genesis.

Genesis commences with the creation of “heaven and earth” (Gen. 1:1). Revelation addresses this beginning with its own “beginning” – a new (or renewed) “heaven and earth” (Rev. 21:1). It also addresses other teachings of the creation account. While God creates night and day in Genesis 1:5, in Revelation, He dispenses with both the night (Rev. 2:25) and the objects God had created for light (Gen. 1:16) – the sun and the moon (21:25).

Genesis 3:1 identifies the “serpent” as the agent of sin and deception, not God’s for natural selection, while Revelation brings closure to this subject. God will bring an end to this serpent – a Devil surrogate (Rev. 20:2,10).

Revelation also addresses the effects of the Fall. Instead of the flimsy fig leaves that Adam and Eve used to cover their sin (Gen. 3:7), God will clothe His people most exquisitely. An angel informed John that he would show him “the wife of the lamb” – the people of God. However, in doing this, the angel showed John the city of Jerusalem coming down from God, clothed in the most costly stones (Rev. 21:9-10) instead of fig leaves and even skins.

Heaven does not represent a remedy to natural selection, but to the effects of the Fall! Once Adam and Eve sinned, they no longer could endure the light of the presence of God (John 3:19-20) and therefore hid from His presence (Gen. 3:8). In Revelation we are shown that this condition would be reversed. Whereas before, humanity attempted to escape the light, they would now come to the light: “The nations will walk by its [Christ’s] light” (Rev. 21:24).

Because of their disobedience and failure to confess their sin, Adam and Eve were cursed along with the rest of creation (Gen. 3:17). However, in heaven, the curse will be banished (Rev. 22:3).

However, according to evolution, the problem hadn’t been a curse, but the death and suffering, which had always been a part of life. But, according to the Bible, the problem hadn’t been instituted by God; it was of our own doing! We would die because of our sin: “for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17).

Because of their sin, God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden (Gen. 3:23), from the presence of God, where they had enjoyed unbroken fellowship with their Maker. However, Revelation promises that this fellowship will be restored: The dwelling of God would again be with humankind (Rev. 21:3) and:

• He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Rev. 21:4)
  
  

The effects of sin and the Fall will become history. Clearly, the focus of the Book of Revelation and of heaven isn’t upon undoing God’s evil plan of natural selection but our evil! It also regards the Fall as historical unlike Christian evolutionists.

Lest humanity would try to undo the effects of the Fall by sneaking back into the Garden to eat from the Tree of Life, God blocked their way with angelic sentries (Gen. 3:24). However, God will re-introduce this Tree (Rev. 22:2-5) for the healing of the nations and return to His original plan of immortality.

Where is Darwin in this heavenly portrait? He is entirely absent, even worse, he is entirely unwelcome. He doesn’t belong. He has no eyes for the mysteries of our God or His divine harmonies. Darwin is an intruder who breaks the theological flow of Genesis through Revelation. Instead, by the grace of our God, those who have eyes to see will reign with Christ (Rev. 22:5) and render judgments over the nations (1 Cor. 6:2-3; Jer. 3:16-17; Isaiah 2:2-4).