Intermarriage Part I

Intermarriage

Matthew Benoit

January 2011

Introduction

“Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” Acts 17:11

“You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true.” –R.C. Sproul

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           Before beginning, I want to express that my hearts desire is to love and serve God as he desires to be loved and served. I believe the Bible is his Holy, unerring, and infallible word. I want to obey his commands no matter what the cost. That being said, my belief concerning intermarriage is not what it is because it is popular in our culture, or anything of the sort. I believe what I do about intermarriage, because I believe with all my heart that it is what the Bible teaches about the issue. I do not write the following with a spirit of contention, but with a spirit of contrition, longing to see God glorified as he ought to be glorified. It is not my belief that those who teach falsely in this area or who believe that different races ought not marry are not Christians. I believe they certainly may be, but that their vision has been clouded by their tradition. It is my hope to be an instrument of defogging, a biblical windshield wiper, to clear the eyes of those who read what I’ve written so that God will be worshipped according to what his Word says about him and his commandments. If his Word teaches that different races are not to intermarry, than that is what I will believe, but if it teaches otherwise, then I challenge the reader to examine their tradition in light of the Scriptures, and to stop examining the Scripture in light of their tradition. So I continue with the spirit of the Berean Jews, let us examine the Scriptures to see if these things are so.“To the law and to the testimony, what saith the Scriptures?”

I’ll begin in part 1 by looking at some places in the Old Testament where The Israelites are told not to intermarry with the other people around them. Next I’ll explain why they were told not to intermarry. In part 2 I’ll examine some places in the Old Testament where intermarriage occurred and was honorable and acceptable, and we will see how the family of Jesus descends from a mixed-race background. I will conclude in part 3 by briefly examining what two specific passages in the New Testament have to say about intermarriage, 2 Corinthians 16:4 and Galatians 3:26-29. I will demonstrate throughout that when the Bible speaks about intermarriage, it is consistently talking about mixing holiness and unholiness, belief and unbelief, light and darkness, those who are Christ’s, with those who are the Devil’s. Intermarriage is not blacks and whites or Hispanics and Asians or Americans and American Indians.

I entreat the reader to continue through the length of the work, reading the examples, cross-references and footnotes I provide, as they will be aids to understanding, and the paper makes it’s point as a whole, not in parts. I’ve included the selected passages in both the King James Version as well as the English Standard Version. As well as italicizing Scripture quotations, I have also underlined, emboldened and colored all references to Scripture as a visual aide.

May Christ be glorified by my words and thoughts, and may he protect your eyes from reading anything I say that is not in accordance with his Word.

Injustice on God's Part?

A while ago, a fellow named John Moore, in a response he gave to me in a discussion regarding whether or not God is in control of the evil that occurs and whether or not he acts based not on the actions of men but rather out of the supreme council of his will said,

“Your idea of God makes Him the most unholy being in the universe- the cause of all wickedness and misery.... Shame on you.”

Similarly, Jeremy Hiltz, a friend of Mr. Moore, in an article titled “Unconditional Reprobation: A Divine Injustice states that,

Certainly, a person ordained from all eternity to be punished without any reference to their moral choices is far from justice. Surely no one would condone a man being punished for the good pleasure of a totalitarian dictator without any regard to criminal charges. Such behavior would immediately be repudiated by anyone familiar with Biblical justice. (Paragraph 7:Sentances 4-6).(Full Article Found Here)[1]

First of all, it is completely fallacious, to think that if God does something only for his pleasure then he is the same as a human dictator who does something for his own pleasure. God is God and is pleasure is by nature “good,” and since he is God, he has the Divine right to do anything he wants merely for his good pleasure. The mere pleasure of a totalitarian dictator would not be “good pleasure.” Don’t make Equivocations between God’s pleasure and man’s pleasure.

Secondly, Equal Ultimacy, that is, the doctrine that God with equal and, in both cases, positive force saves and damns, is a fallacy and not representative of the Reformed position.

Thirdly, as will be demonstrated, active punishment is entirely conditioned upon the actions of the criminal and the charges placed upon them due to their willful violation of God’s law. This statement by Mr. Hiltz is an example building a giant straw man and trying to blow it down with a bendy straw, the opponent isn’t real, and the attack is ridiculous.

Our Life and Hope

I love History, as a subject and as an idea.  When I look at old things, the age of them amazes me.  To think that someone else, somewhere else, many many years ago, crafted, wore, and valued the item I’m looking at is incredible. Mankind is vastly outlived by its legacy. These items are not just items, they are products of an era, and their design and existence reflect the thinking, the fears, and the dreams of the times that produced it. They are a part of the bedrock that produced who we are and what we go through. Great men and women, secondary causes of the purposes of God through history, existed alongside them, held them and crafted them. One item in particular that amazes me and has lead me to praise God for his work, is Charles Spurgeon’s Bible on display in The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s library. In it are the very words made of the very ink on the very pages that our Lord inspired the great preacher with, as well as the beautiful and meticulous handwriting of Spurgeon written in the margins of the pages. When I look at things like these, the world around me fades and becomes a crafted vision of the past, where heroes and giants of the Faith and times work to form history. I imagine their fingerprints living out beyond their body, stuck to the silver, gold or wood, fingerprints that are slowly replaced by others.