Many patriarchs had many wives. All of them are pleasing unto the LORD. But Herod, Anania [sic], Pilate, Jeroboam, Nebukadnezzar [sic], and Haaman [sic] married only once. Jehovah did not like such monogamous brides. Why do you say that?

Context for our Answer: [Hebrews 13:8] Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Thank you for your statements and honest question. We disagree with your opening statements, “All of them are [were] pleasing unto the Lord.”; “Jehovah did not like such monogamous brides.”

God is the same yesterday, today, and forever and always believes with complete unchanging righteousness about ALL things at ALL times. God was NOT pleased with the violation of His command concerning marriage faithfulness, one man / one woman for life.

Our Concise Summary Answer:

– Acts 17:30-31 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked [temporarily, ie., did not judge by death immediately] but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man [Jesus] whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him [Jesus] from the dead.”

Clarification Support: God has never changed in His unmistakable establishment of His marital commands and His declaration that marriage should be entered into by one man and one woman for their entire physical life. God, from the beginning of man’s creation, declared that anyone who enters into a polygamous marriage is committing sin, the disobedience of His declared will.

The facts you listed are not supported by the one historically accurate document which we believe holds the truth about God and His will for man. This document is the Scripture [Bible].

In the Bible, we have no record of the first patriarch, Adam, together with his wife, Eve, ever violating God’s commands concerning marriage. In the beginning Adam + Eve only had one command to obey: [Genesis 2:16-18] And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

Adam + Eve disobeyed God. To disobey ANY of God’s commands is to sin which always produces death.

• James 1:13-15 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

Adam + Eve sinned and received the promised death penalty of their physical bodies at the appropriate God-ordained time.

• Genesis 5:3-5 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were

eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.

Adam + Eve both died but we do not read of them violating God’s command to remain faithfully committed to one man / one woman marriage for their earthly lives.

Adam + Eve’s sin introduced into the human bloodstream of all their descendants the sin- virus of death. All humanity, all of Adam’s descendants, will physically die. In addition all humanity will one day stand before God in judgment for their own individual sins, UNLESS they have chosen in their lifetime on earth, to believe and love Jesus Christ as their Savior and trust Him to have physically died in their place, paying their rightly deserved death penalty.

One of the Judgment Indictments which will be brought against those who reject Christ will be their disobedience to God’s command that marriage should be the faithful union of one man / one woman for life.

Clarifying Comments:

To adequately frame our discussion, we must first agree on governing supreme truth principles. For us to come to the one correct, absolute truth that will answer your question, both of us must embrace the same foundation principles upon which we build our conclusions.

If we do NOT agree on the following truths, we will be guilty of falling into a useless quagmire of simply exchanging between us only the “ideas of sinful, fallen men” which place our ideas above the written truths from the One who made us, Creator God.

Truth Statements which all people MUST either Accept or Reject:

1. Jesus Christ is God the Son who came to earth, assumed the body of a Perfect Man for the purpose of: 1.) Declaring Holy God to mankind and to 2.) Offering Himself, as Perfect Man, in death to pay the death penalty for the sins of all who would believe, trust and follow Him. 3.) Showing Himself to be God the

Savior, the ONLY mediator between God and men.

• 1 Timothy 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of

godliness: God [Jesus Christ] was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory.

• John 14:9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

• John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
  • John 3:14-17 . . even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that

whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

• 1 Timothy 2:3-6 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and

men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

1. The Bible is the inspired, infallible words of God for the benefit of all humanity and to declare God’s will for mankind to receive the highest blessings from God in this lifetime and the next eternal life.

• 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Why is it critically important for us to agree on these truth statements?

If you reject any of the above statements our answer to your question will have no “ring of truth” to undergird the words. Unless we believe the same about the Scriptures, our words will be simply “words uttered into the air” which cannot penetrate your heart and produce saving belief.

If you accept and agree with us that these truth statements are accurate and binding upon all people, you will then be given the ability by the Holy Spirit of God to understand our answer to your marriage question.

It is the Holy Spirit of God who announced these true statements and had them recorded in the Bible. Upon hearing, every individual is forced to either accept or reject these truths. Of course, accepting or rejecting these statements has eternal and vastly different consequences.

Do you see our point? We are going to answer your questions by directing you to the inspired words of God recorded in the Bible where God the Son, the Creator of all mankind and all the universe declared the truth about monogamous marriages. If you do NOT believe Jesus is the Son of God and if you do NOT believe He spoke the following truths about marriage, then, certainly, you will reject our answer.

We do NOT appeal to any human logic but ONLY QUOTE what infinite Creator God, Jesus Christ, declared to be true about marriage.

When God created Adam and Eve, God declared the very best blessing for man and woman to be united in their one unique marriage as long as either one is alive.

• Genesis 2:23-24 And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my

flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

• Matthew 19:3-9 The Pharisees also came to Him [Jesus], testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” And He [Jesus] answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”

Again, Your Question: Many patriarchs had many wives. All of them are pleasing unto the LORD. But Herod, Anania [sic], Pilate, Jeroboam, Nebukadnezzar [sic], and Haaman [sic] married only once. Jehovah did not like such monogamous brides. Why do you say that?

Our First Answer: Acts 17:30-31 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man [Jesus] whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him [Jesus] from the dead.”

Jesus explained God’s mind of love and forgiveness by summarizing the union of Law and Grace in His judgement of marital unfaithfulness and sexual immorality in the account of a woman caught in adultery [John 8:1-11]

• John 8:3-5 Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?”

• John 8:9-11 Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman,

He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

What did Jesus, God the Son, illustrate in His judgement?

God’s mind has never changed. Multiple wives and the breaking of the marriage covenant through sexual immorality is sin and deserves the death penalty. Jesus came to pay the death penalty for sinners. Jesus paid the death penalty for all sin as the perfect Lamb of God. Jesus’ death satisfied the Law’s requirement for death for ALL sins, thus, Jesus, as God’s Representative, can forgive every sin and violation of the Law.

Jesus did declare that there is ONE sin which is unpardonable. What is the sin which can never be forgiven?

Unbelief or disbelief in Jesus Christ which is declared to be blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

If a person rejects Jesus as Savior and Lord, there is no other sacrifice available to save that person from everlasting torment in hell.

• Matthew 12:31-32 “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven

men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.

• Hebrews 10:26-27 For if we sin willfully [blasphemy of the Holy Spirit] after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.

Our Summary Conclusion: Adam + Eve and all their offspring were given an incredible gift of a “free-will” choice to either love and obey God or reject God and disobey His instructions for them to enjoy unimaginable blessings. Of course, this “free-will” gift affects every decision we make, including what we believe to be true about marriage and God’s clear declaration of one man, one woman sealed in holy marriage for life.

God never approved of multiple marriages but, as He has done for many of our rebellious acts against Him, God did CHOOSE to work through man’s sinful choices to bring about His ultimate good of redeeming and reconciling mankind back to Himself by bringing His Son, Jesus, into the world to pay for the God-rejecting sins for those who would love Jesus.

To us your question is best answered by God’s original design for marriage, one man to one woman for life. Why did God not immediately kill the patriarchs when they sinned against His original intent for marriage?

The answer is held securely in the unfathomable love and grace that perfect God demonstrated when Adam and Eve sinned which brought physical death to themselves at God’s sovereignly appropriate point in time, and to the entire human race from that moment on.

God, who needs nothing, desired a family to live with Him in perfect love and joy forever. Love must be voluntary, it cannot be coerced. God created mankind in His image with a “free-will” choice to love and obey Him. With their “free-will” man rejected God and His love, choosing to love themselves and their own will above God’s.

At the moment Adam + Eve sinned, God put in motion His plan from all eternity past to bring His sinful children back to Himself. Jesus became a Perfect Man who would die for the sins of Adam + Eve, and, indeed, for any human being who will receive Jesus Christ as their Savior, Lord and Friend. This is a personal, individual choice.

• John 3:14-17 . . even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

The answer to your difficult question, as we see it, is summarized which came after Jesus, God the Son, came to earth to declare in person the exact truth about God:

• Acts 17:30-31 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked [temporarily, ie., did not judge by death immediately] but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man [Jesus] whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him [Jesus] from the dead.”

Now is the time in our visit together where our question becomes very personal: Do you personally know the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ?

Will you, individually, obey God’s command to repent and believe and trust Jesus?

Even though Jesus’ death was sufficient to pay the sin-required-death-price of the whole world, this blessing-beyond-imagination must be appropriated INDIVIDUALLY, one eternal soul at a time.

• John 1:10-13 He [Jesus] was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive

Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Here is the question you must answer for yourself now: Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and Friend? Have you received Him?

• Romans 10:9-11 . . that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”

We prayed for you as we sent this reply. If you have received Jesus as your Lord, Savior and Friend, please write back to tell us so. If you would like for us to continue to pray for you, please indicate that request in your answer.

All our love to All,

In Christ –

Jon + Philis + Friends @ WasItForMe.com