My wife, my sister.

[gordon 2]

Is there a concrete expression in any spiritual tradition that one's wife becomes one's sister spiritually, or one's husband becomes one's brother spiritually? Is there good literature on this? I have heard and read that Christians say that they are brothers and sisters in Christ and so one body, but I would be interested in a more specific union more unique to husband (male mate-partner) and wife ( female mate-partner) and so the union said husband and wife would be type of the spiritual union of man with God.

Some of the items that interest me in this context, or that pick at my interest, is when Abraham said to the Egyptians that his wife was his sister. I have usually interpreted this to be a lie, but now I wonder if this was in fact a lie? Or in other words from Abraham's perspective that his wife was his sister and a spiritual truth or fact and reality for him.

Also my interest in the case stems from the idea of adultery as spiritual transgression of the spiritual union between husband and wife, but also between man and God and less due to vows of union in the civil-social context?

"At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven" Matthew 22:30

So if someone can share leads say that Jews, Hindus and others had or have views of the ideal that spouses ideally or in fact become spiritual bother and sister to each other, please share. And Of Course if there is vigorous Christian information please share links and indeed your ideas--if you care to do so.

I post this here because the elastic seem to be worn out of the briefs in the other forums.

 

[Madman]

It is an interesting thought, but I believe it is settled that Abraham’s declaration was a lie.

I know that some Roman Catholic sects have allowed Anglican priests to convert but if those priests were married they had to take a vow to live with their wife as “brother and sister”.

I know nothing of any religion having a spouse as a brother or sister. In Christianity the purpose of marriage is to have children.

“The lily is beautiful, but it’s purpose is not to be beautiful, it’s purpose is to produce more lilies.”
G.K. Chesterton

 

[gordon 2]

It is an interesting thought, but I believe it is settled that Abraham’s declaration was a lie.

I know that some Roman Catholic sects have allowed Anglican priests to convert but if those priests were married they had to take a vow to live with their wife as “brother and sister”.

I know nothing of any religion having a spouse as a brother or sister. In Christianity the purpose of marriage is to have children.

“The lily is beautiful, but it’s purpose is not to be beautiful, it’s purpose is to produce more lilies.”
G.K. Chesterton

It seems to me that the idea that the marriage purpose is a biological function is so foreign to Christian thought or any human thought if you cared to research the topic simply because it is not fact in reality (lived) nor in the RC thinking presently. It seems to me that the RC agree with science when the science is valid. I know that recently the church has backed down on married people who partake in " intercourse" outside of the purpose of making children. It seems that they accept sciences' findings that there are many wholesome benefits other than gaining progeny.

Also, I did not know that Anglican priest had to be like prize fighters before their matches when they got into the Catholic ring. I will have to ask my locals on that one.

The lily is a drive true for the bee. Its purpose is to draw the bee in so it can make other lilies. I have a black berry bush that draws in thousand of bees of different kind. It is like Golden Coral Buffet and Grill to them only its a drive true. I had raw honey this morning with a bit of lemon and a bit of garlic... all in support the lily's sex drive.

Sometimes what we think is settled is not settled, like gravity being constant. Or, the meaning of "lech lecha" in Genesis ( God's directive to Abram) and so the English language translations especially and so the implications for us all.

 

[Madman]

It seems to me that the idea that the marriage purpose is a biological function is so foreign to Christian thought or any human thought if you cared to research the topic simply because it is not fact in reality (lived) nor in the RC thinking presently. It seems to me that the RC agree with science when the science is valid. I know that recently the church has backed down on married people who partake in " intercourse" outside of the purpose of making children. It seems that they accept sciences' findings that there are many wholesome benefits other than gaining progeny.

Also, I did not know that Anglican priest had to be like prize fighters before their matches when they got into the Catholic ring. I will have to ask my locals on that one.

The lily is a drive true for the bee. Its purpose is to draw the bee in so it can make other lilies. I have a black berry bush that draws in thousand of bees of different kind. It is like Golden Coral Buffet and Grill to them only its a drive true. I had raw honey this morning with a bit of lemon and a bit of garlic... all in support the lily's sex drive.

Sometimes what we think is settled is not settled, like gravity being constant. Or, the meaning of "lech lecha" in Genesis ( God's directive to Abram) and so the English language translations especially and so the implications for us all.

But there needs to be the chance of children. Most Christians have fallen so far from the foundations of the faith they have no understanding of why they even exist.

 

[Artfuldodger]

I've never looked into this. I think some other men in the Bible also referred to their wife as their sister. Reading about Solomon, It was more of a term of endearment. “How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride!”
In some denominations they call each other Brother Smith or Sister Jones. My grandma and my step grandpa called each other Mama and Daddy. They didn't have any kids together, and their kids were all grown when they married.
When a man has more than one wife, the wives call their unity "sister wives." I think just a term of endearment. Yet their husband isn't considered their brother.
Beyond all that, when we do get to Heaven we will see Jesus and become like him, He in us and us in him. So there is some type of unity that we can't see yet in forms of brotherhood or sisterhood.

 

[gordon 2]

But there needs to be the chance of children. Most Christians have fallen so far from the foundations of the faith they have no understanding of why they even exist.

I've never looked into this. I think some other men in the Bible also referred to their wife as their sister. Reading about Solomon, It was more of a term of endearment. “How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride!”
In some denominations they call each other Brother Smith or Sister Jones. My grandma and my step grandpa called each other Mama and Daddy. They didn't have any kids together, and their kids were all grown when they married.
When a man has more than one wife, the wives call their unity "sister wives." I think just a term of endearment. Yet their husband isn't considered their brother.
Beyond all that, when we do get to Heaven we will see Jesus and become like him, He in us and us in him. So there is some type of unity that we can't see yet in forms of brotherhood or sisterhood.

"How fair is your love, my sister, my spouse! " At first read I have to wonder if the love here was limited to physical-emotional love, or that Solomon's by marriage became to his in-law's a son and therefore his wife was now his sister or that it was meant to some degree a love not void of some spiritual reality

Eve was of Adam's blood so one shameless relationship and wholesome even at some point and marriage is so sacred even now, ( after the fall) that it types back to that initial relationship that we instinctively like Solomon can find we are wedded to our sister as per God original purpose. Maybe... ???

I'm gona have to find a Rabbi maybe....? "Why did Solomon call his wife his sister?"

 

[Madman]

"How fair is your love, my sister, my spouse! " At first read I have to wonder if the love here was limited to physical-emotional love, or that Solomon's by marriage became to his in-law's a son and therefore his wife was now his sister or that it was meant to some degree a love not void of some spiritual reality

Eve was of Adam's blood so one shameless relationship and wholesome even at some point and marriage is so sacred even now, ( after the fall) that it types back to that initial relationship that we instinctively like Solomon can find we are wedded to our sister as per God original purpose. Maybe... ???

I'm gona have to find a Rabbi maybe....? "Why did Solomon call his wife his sister?"

Who would be closer than a sister? One who never leaves, one who is true family. A man and wife become one flesh.

A beautiful analogy.

 

[Artfuldodger]

Keep in mind that the marriage analogy is used by Christ to explain his relationship with us. Are we Christ's brothers yet the son's of God?
Back to marriage, how does our marriage to our wives compare to Christ's marriage to His bride?

 

[gordon 2]

Keep in mind that the marriage analogy is used by Christ to explain his relationship with us. Are we Christ's brothers yet the son's if God?
Back to marriage, how does our marriage to our wives compare to Christ's marriage to His bride?

Well both must be of profound spiritual intimacy, union and spiritual power in the here and now, my suggestion for now. In other words they are "The" spiritual unions acting on earth and in the world as both present themselves to every saved generation since Pentecost. Both are grace witnesses and ministers by default and design perhaps. I will look it up in the conservative sense, however. Personally I have heard this so often that it is almost a bromide or a taken for granted idea. I think I might come from Paul ideas of the Church as a one Mystical body and so as marriage where also the wedded become one flesh mystically.

I read it again last night when I was to a forum and asked the question "Why did Solomon call his wife his sister?". One Christian woman instinctive reply was, after we cleared it up that it was not only Abraham who said it, ( LOL) that it was a statement of love that adds to( or a declaration who his wife is more profoundly that simply being enchanted by a wife) She said it was a declaration of the most intense assessment of who his wife was to him.

I found this interesting that it was her off the cuff reply. I did not press if she had a source for this other than her experience as an in love with her husband woman and very much in Christ woman.

Since It was a forum with many participants someone mentioned that Christ said that marriage and the church were mirrors of each other. But I did not follow up...on this: The bride( Mystical body of believers) and Christ are one on earth as married people are one entity at least in time... Both are witnesses of their Creator.

 

[Madman]

Keep in mind that the marriage analogy is used by Christ to explain his relationship with us. Are we Christ's brothers yet the son's of God?
Back to marriage, how does our marriage to our wives compare to Christ's marriage to His bride?

We can surmise, but it is a profound mystery.

Ephesians 5:32

 

[gordon 2]

We can surmise, but it is a profound mystery.

Ephesians 5:32

If it is simply a profound mystery, and not a mystery, we should be able to get to the bottom of it simply for who we are in Christ. I seem to sense that Paul knew it was too profound for his audience to appreciate either at the time or for its required elaboration to them at this point in time, but he knew that it was profound for the reason he had sounded it spiritually--other wise he would not have said so.

It seems to me logically that if people don't marry in Heaven, but Christ is married to his bride on earth then it follows that there is a common spiritual link between the two that is marriage in general and Christ married to his bride, the mystical body or the Church and that link is God's intimate relationship in both unions. It is the heavenly( all spiritual) uniting with the earthly or precisely with human life to create entity that is impossible without this union. The mystical body or Church was created since Pentecost and the marriage union since Eve was created from Adam's rib. I suspect that for most individuals it is more difficult to see God's relationship with Adam and Eve as one entity than to see the relationship that is the heart of the Mystical body. The reason for this might be that we are still in part in our hearts and minds creatures reasoning in the designs of our fallen nature. And more we believe that there is no need to rid this way of being and willing to accept the Mystery ever impossible to understand--- as our salvation is sufficient in itself.

 

[Artfuldodger]

I think trying to see the unity within our diversity is hard to do. I guess the best example might be a brother and a sister but a better example is a husband and wife. We are one, yet we are two.
Maybe the Trinity is a good example of Unity within diversity or diversity within the Trinity with a whole lot of Unity thrown in for good measure.
I have yet to have anyone explain it all any better than I can fathom it all. Some people have decided to just let the mystery be and others say you can't even get to Heaven if you don't see it.

Paul said; For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

 

[gordon 2]

YeT... Solomon could call his wife his sister! I think we give to much credit to mystery and not enough to our day to day lives as Christians motivated by Christ in us. The born again life is a mystery to the one yet unborn again spiritually--yet that individual's life be fully spiritual.

It is not a mystery to the born again why life is no longer the same as it was when they were not born again. Someone that has had an intimate encounter with Jesus like the lady in scripture that touched the hem of His robe, or that sawed off tax collector, or the Apostles is not interpreting scripture or the new life like they did the day before the encounter. Many things that were mysteries and left as mysteries are no longer so as feet and life shift off the ground and ascends into the heavenly and so the new heart of Christ within the saint beats from its new chambers.

I don't think Solomon called his wife his sister from an ordinary understanding of what one biological sister is. "The heart has reasons that reason does not know" perhaps, but the heart's reasoning is to be paid attention especially that God prophesied that he would put his heart in man, this heart, His and ours must have significant importance I would think. Now the heart that has been formed and informed by the spiritual life must shape our words and their meanings. It is my suspect that Solomon's term for his wife is from this fact, that it was a spiritual term and an important term of scripture, which need not be a mysterious term to Christians and others.

 

[gordon 2]

How about the possibility that Solomon and his wife were of "one heart" or one heart. In the sense of the oriental idea of Yin Yang or the interconnectedness of two halves formed as one entity their two hearts now forming one new entity thus giving rise to the term sister which was one with rather than wife of. Physically the couple are male and female, yet sister and brother as spiritual form* by the interconnectedness of their intense love for each other and so spiritually they are fully man as in male and female constitutes man in scripture. It is also this kind of relationship of interconnectedness saints have with God where marriage is said a type of the union that God has for his people and his people for Him. It is a relationship of one with rather than one of as in being a "believer" or "follower". We can follow and believe and not be one with, right? The spiritual form* sister in this case is not unlike the formulation "brothers" to indicate the relate of our union to the body of the faithful. This term comes from our interconnectedness spiritually and its veracity is said from spiritual discernment rather than the observation of our associations as to a group or tribe or sect or an intellectually discerned interconnectedness of like kind in worship.

?

 

[gordon 2]

I am thinking that possibly the declaration of "sister" towards the wife is a statement of equality between the spouses and I have not given up on a rabbi's ideas regards the use of "sister" in the context here. When I find one willing to reply I will relay here.