i dont care about writing sex in a post, you all were focusing on the sex factor, my main area is the in love area.
Also
Now I agree with you that one flesh does not mean sex, a meaning which I believe is evidenced against in Scripture (1 Corinthians 6:15-16; Matt 19:3-6; Mark 10:2-9).
This talks about one aspect of being one flesh, sex is an aspect of being one flesh, and is the main concern of the time, with the way marriages were and such, being in love was not really a huge concern and probably not fully understood to alot of people, in the times you just bought whichever wife you wanted or it was arranged and so on, normally with little care about love as it was more about money, land, and power.
Yet, I disagree that heaven is a restoration to the Garden of Eden, and disagree that the Bible teaches everything was "perfect" in the beginning. God only calls His creation "good" and "very good", but never perfect. What was perfect however, is humanities relationship with God, and by a perfect relationship I mean there was no barrier between us and God because of our sin.
All the elements of the Garden of Eden are found in Heaven, or rather the new earth and new Heaven, God's presence, the tree of life, teh river of life, paradise.
The Bible does teach that Adam and Eve would have lived in the Garden forever had they not sinned. Genesis 2:9,16,17 Genesis 3:22
I believe that God is perfect, and that He doesnt make mistakes, I also believe that God gave us free will, the ability to choose to obey Him or to disobey Him, to accept Him or reject Him.
God doesnt do things just because He knows what we are going to do, if He did, this world would never have existed and He would have just thrown those He chose to save into Heaven, but He loves us so much He allows us to have our choice and our will and gives us time to turn towards Him, there are several places, OT and NT, where it shows that God allows more time for people to accept Him and repent. Therefore I do not believe that God made a mistake in the Garden, He intedend it to go on forever had we not sinned. If the Garden would have gone on forever if we hadnt sin and God fully allows for this, then to think that He has to change something of His original creation in order for it to last forever would mean that He didnt do it correctly to begin with, something that i do not believe since God is perfect.
Now as to "one flesh" being a "love relationship," I don't believe such is exegetically accurate. Yet, I'd allow the implications of this to be in the Genesis 2:24 passage (i.e., in the "cleaving/uniting" portion), but I can't exegetically read it into the "one flesh." While Paul appears clarify the "uniting" as a sexual union in 1 Corinthians 6:15-16, this need not mean such is necessarily disassociated from "love."
God is love, and teaches us to love, I believe very much in being IN love, and as that being more than just love, there is evidence of this everywhere, as most agree that it exists and have a belief in it, though they may not be able to say from where it comes... people have a basic search in them to find the one person they are in love with, just as they have a basic search to seek out God, but of course this doesnt always happen exactly as it should, people may not find such things, or the sin of this world may make them think differently, that because of the sin there is no God, or because of sin and death there is no IN love, etc.
Also I hate to break it to you, Paul isnt perfect, he may be inspired by God, but all true Christians who receieve the Holy Spirit are, as it is teh Holy Spirit that leads them and guides them. Paul is speaking on one asset of being one flesh. However, since you allowed a love relationshp to exist as far as cleaving and such, then you would have to say that Paul saying that marriage is basically only for sex in 1 Corinthians 7, is also then not fully correct to the whole truth.
Just because God inspires someone does not mean He gives that person the whole truth of things, such as Moses who wrote the law of divorce, whcih for a time worked and was allowed, but not should not be.
'd agree, but would add we must not glim over Romans 7:2-3, where Paul argues that marriage is binding up until death. He says:
For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.
As for this we simply need to look at the context of which Paul is talking, Paul is talking about the law, not about God's ways, and if we read a little further we see this:
4So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.
6But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
Paul saying that a woman whose husband dies is allowed to remarry has nothing to do with God's will or His way, it is used to show that we too now are not bound by the law. It is saying by law the woman can do this, but then it turns right around to say that the very law that allowed her to do that we no longer are bound by, now he is not saying it is wrong for her to marry, but he is saying that the law of man is not the way of God, for now we are free from that law in order to bare good fruit for God, so the law of the times cannot be taken into account for this discussion as we are now free from that law, and as we have seen with Moses' divorce law, it is not fully true and accurate.
In some respects I'd agree that sin causes a lot of problems, but as previously stated I disagree everything was perfect, and I disagree that "sin" has the power to destroy creation if God intended it to be perfect. Such a belief, though common amongst Christians, is to make God out to be impotent against sin, in which case, how can Christ conquer sin?
you say that sin doesnt ahve the power to destroy creation, you are right, look around, creation is still here, but it is corrupt, and it is not sin that destroys this world it is God as we see in Revelations. But as you stated yourself sin does have the power to cause problems, adn to corrupt things, such as our relationship to God, and as you would say throwing a barrier up between our relationship to God, but sin also threw barriers up between all of our relationsihps as well as our actions. God does have the power over sin, that is made clear in the Bible adn through Jesus, I do not think that Christians believe sin can destroy God or His creations, but we do understand that it corrupts His creation, God is good and so cannot be near what is not, God is love and God is life, to fall away from God is to fall away from life, so the earth and everything we were given is degraded and corrupted until God sees fit to restore it to His glory.
So i dont believe that your side is valid, i believe that God and the Bible much more supports there being an in love relationship in Heaven, people believe that there mother and father will still be there mother adn father dont they? Your relationship to the one God created for you to be one flesh for, is even more important than that relationship, because without that person you are not whole and complete, so surely that relationship will be in Heaven, and far better than it could be here.
Also my first time trying to use quotes and such, but i think it worked alright, when you do it did you put my name in first for the quote or how do you get it to say who your quoting? Thanks.
