Read Part One HERE
I came across an article in which a pastor taught on the ETERNAL submission of women. The article is named "Relationships and Roles in the New Creation" and was written by Pastor Mark David Walton of Glenwood Baptist Church, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. It was published in the Spring 2006 issue of the Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and afterwards placed on their website.
It is a very lengthy article so I will quote some of the statements made in that article as follows
Mark David Walton: "The question sometimes surfaces, "Will we know one another in the new creation?" The response of many theologians is "Yes." .
Mark David Walton: "What then of marriage? It is most unlikely that marriage will continue in the new creation it its present form. Yet, when it is remembered that the intimate relations between the first man and the woman were part of God's original-creation plan, we realise that it is not so much that such relations will altogether cease, as that they will be replaced, transformed into something befitting the new creation."
Mark David Walton: "Given then, that relationship between those married on earth will in some sense remain in the new creation, will husbandly headship and wifely submission still obtain in the new creation? To answer that question, we must go back to how God ordered creation. It is true that both the man and the woman were created in the image of God. However, in the ordering of His creation, God formed the man first and gave him responsibility and authority as the head of the human race. This headship, far from being a result of the Fall, is a central feature of the divinely created order. Because the new creation is, fundamentally, a return to the divine order that prevailed before the Fall, it follows that male headship will remain in the new creation."
My Comment
As for believers knowing each other in eternity, I believe that to be the case as the Scriptures may indicate in
1 Corinthians 13:12
"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."
And 1 John 3:2
".... But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."
As for marriage, it seems Pastor Mark David Wilton implies that in the new creation marriage in some form will continue. However, that is in opposition to what Jesus says
in Matthew 22:30
"At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven."
Furthermore, as far as the first man is concerned,we know from Genesis 1:26-28 that God gave the man responsibility and authority over Creation as follows
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them, God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
Moreover, from the above passage we know that God gave that same responsibility and authority to the woman.
Therefore, this teaching that the headship (meaning authority) of the man over the woman is a central feature of the divinely created order, is a man made teaching since God never gave the first man authority over the woman at the time of Creation. Consequently, male headship will not remain in the new creation. We do know that at the time of the Fall the man began to rule over the woman because of his then sinful nature (Genesis 3:16d). We know that, sadly, this still happens even though Christ has come to reverse that situation, including in the Church. However, it will most certainly not continue in the new creation.
P.S. We will continue to look at some statements of Pastor Mark David Walton in relation to the ETERNAL submission of women in my next post.
Read Part Five HERE
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