Genesis 2:22-24, "Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. 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."

First:

First, I will be covering some of the basic truths or biblical doctrines concerning the Divine Decrees, found in my book: The Divine Decrees.  This will help to lay the foundation for our immediate topic.

"The Order of the Divine Decrees:

 

God Decrees:

1.)    Out of delight in His own perfections (Jesus Christ) and Divine Nature, to create the full displaying of His Glory, by making Himself to be the only living fountain, the Head, the Supreme Preeminence in all things in His created universe.

2.)    To give infinite happiness to a particular number of persons (this decree creates these people) by communicating to these the greatest possible good and love from Himself by having these brought into and made one into His Son, Jesus Christ. (Election of Love)

3.)    Out of the predetermined wisdom, to give the greatest height of His love to these particular persons, establishes (decrees) this will be accomplished best by tangibly expressing the richest level of His Mercy and Grace for them eternally to hold, cherish, and worship.  (God decrees, in a general sense, to communicate His love by the means of Mercy: to show the height of love by the depth of mercy.)

4.)    In general, to create other particular persons whom He will not show the deepest intensity of His love and goodness but instead planned, in general, for destruction, so that the love and mercy given to the others is heightened.  Furthermore, in general to permanently communicated His Greatness and Holiness. (God simply decrees to create particular persons whom He has no intention of fully and completely loving.)

5.)    To imprison the whole human race to the slavery of sin and disobedience, so that this becomes the means by which, in particular, the previous two decrees may be achieved.

6.)    To elect His Son, Jesus Christ, to come into the world and provide perfect righteousness, complete forgiveness, and the purchasing of the Holy Spirit (gift of faith) for the particular persons whom He created to express infinite goodness and love toward.

7.)    To elect out from the entire disobedient human race the same particular people, whom He decreed originally to crown with His infinite love; to elect these now sinners into the mercy and grace purchased by Jesus Christ, His only Son.  This election into the mercy of Christ insures the faithful applying of that mercy to these persons. 

8.)    To specifically decree the precise degree of sanctification for each of the children of His mercy.  This in retrospect creates the particular rewarding of these persons in Heaven, in all their varying degrees (kings, priests, martyrs, etc.).

9.)    To fulfill the general decree for the reprobate, by specifically decreeing the level of wickedness that each of these will fall while on earth.  Then, for every specific sin, which each individual person committed, He now decrees to punish them to hell, in all their specific tormenting degrees.

 10.) The sending of His Son a second time for the final separation of the people of reprobation and children of His creating love, so that God will have all evil closed off from His presence and the final intimate gathering of His chosen people (and all elect creatures) to Himself.

 

Scriptural Defense:

 

To start, I will defend why point 1 of my model of the Decrees is stated like it is.  Ephesians 1:9-10, "having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the (completion) of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth-in Him."

Whatever a persons final goal is, it was their first desire and all other desires are to support that first desire and goal.  These verses state the ultimate goal for why God created everything in the most direct English there is in the Bible.  The mystery being talked about in verse 9 is the gospel of Jesus Christ being wrapped up in the communication of God's Glory.  Verse 10 tells us the long-awaited mystery for why God decreed the gospel to happen.  The verse acknowledged it as God's "will" and "purpose."  This will and purpose is the most fundamental desire and decree of God that gives way to all others after it: to "gather" all things "in Christ," whom Christ is in the Father.  This desire and decree of God is the ultimate reason for all things exist in this universe, both physical and spiritual.

      Here is why: God has a "purpose" for the "completion of time."  This means God had a particular goal so that when all things are completed, a specific thing is accomplished.  Now, what is this thing God sought after to be achieved?  God's chief goal for all things is to have everything summed up in Christ!  There is another verse, which states this same thing, but the English is a little clearer in this meaning.

Colossians 1:18, "And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence (Supremacy)."  Colossians states in clear English that the outcome of God gathering all things in Christ, in Him, is that it showcases God to have absolute Supremacy and Preeminence.  In others words, the act of God to make known His Supremacy is the greatest way in which God makes known the fullness of His Glory.  Therefore, I conclude all other decrees ever decreed are a supporting of this desire and initial decree of God.  As I have stated earlier, this is the reason why I believe God sums up His dealings with the church as simply "the praise of the Glory of His Grace."  God's grace to us through Christ is the greatest display of our absolute dependence and enjoyment on God and, therefore, leads to the greatest display of His absolute Supremacy, His Glory!

 

 The decree of God to have all things summed up in Christ gives the second (Point 2) foremost decree of God.  This decree is to have humans "gathered" and made "one" into Christ.  This decree is, in the general sense, to have human children of His love gathered into Christ.  The order is this: God wanted to have His Supremacy made known; therefore, He decreed to have all things in Christ.  Then God decreed to create children of love so that He could have people to gather into Christ.  These first particular persons are the affection of His direct fullest love.  His love actually creates these people in Christ.  God's love reaches out in desire to gather all things in Christ and actually gives these particular people their eternal being and happiness in Him.  This is what I call the primary creating or electing love of God.  God's good "will" and "purpose" stretches out and gives existence to a certain number of persons to gather into His Son, Jesus Christ.  This electing love of God is where it all starts for the entire elect church that will one day populate the heavenly Jerusalem with their God.  

To confirm this even more, I would point my readers to Ephesians, chapter 3, verses 1-11.  Here, you will find Paul talking about God's "mystery" (ver. 3,4,9). Paul teaches this mystery is the gathering "in Christ" of the "gentiles" (ver. 6).  Then, in verse 9, the mystery is that God "created all things through Christ."  Therefore, Christ is truly the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega.  All things were created in Christ, or began with Christ, so that the mystery might be revealed: All things will be gathered into one in Christ, in the Father.  Next, verse 11 talks of this mystery as the "eternal purpose" which is the same "will" and "purpose" of God, talked about in Chapter 1:9.  This "eternal purpose" is simply stated as "accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Then in chapter 5 of Ephesians, the mystery is referred to the uniting of the church to Christ.  I say this to make an observation.  Paul in Chapter 1 states the foremost purpose of God's will is that all things will be gathered into Christ, so that it fully communicates His Supremacy.  Throughout the same book of Ephesians, when Paul teaches about the mystery of God, in some manner, it refers to people being "in Christ."  My friends, this is not by accident!  Therefore, when Paul specifically talks about the mystery of the gentiles being gathered in Christ, this is nothing more than a specific continuance of God's general decree to "gather in one all things in Christ."  God creates a certain number of people, in love, to gather into Christ; this decree was before the fall.  Finally, the decree to gather gentiles, out of mercy, into Christ was decreed after the fall as a specific continuance of God's first general decree of good pleasure and love.

I would simply like to point out why this is so important to know.  This means God, as the second most forerunning decree at least in the general sense, determined to graft the human Children of His Love into His Son!  This is where almost all other specific decrees afterward find their starting point.  I believe this is about the most important verse to understand on this subject, for it tells us so much about the foundation of God's ultimate "will" and "purpose" of the "completion" of "time."  Most misconceptions about the order of God's decrees start here."

(To finish reading the scriptural explanation please see my book)[2]

In the quote above the main thing I wish to explain is how God created the church[3] when He was decreeing out or ordering the future before He made all things.  Concerning the Church God, because God has already decreed and willed to sum up all things in His Son, so that His Glory is fully displayed, God therefore, created the Church from His Son Jesus as part of Him.  This is why I say that God's mere love is what gave existence and life to all the elect Church, because they were originally made in Christ, Who is sun of the Father's love.  Because the Church was made from Christ to begin with is why God's had such love for them and why the mere energy of His love creates them.

God's love reaches out in desire to gather all things in Christ and actually gives these particular people their eternal being and happiness in Him.  God, if you would, reaches out in the greatest loving desire into Jesus Christ and creates the church from Him (before time and before the decreeing of the fall of man) and therefore, for Him and to Him.  Much like God reaching into Adam to create Eve, so God also reaches from great love into Jesus Christ and creates the elect church.

Second:

(A) Ephesians 5:28-32, "So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he ... nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. We are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This is a great mystery, concerning Christ and the church."

As wonderful as Ephesians 1:10 touches on this subject, by barely skimming the surface Ephesians 5 does by diving straight into it.   In Ephesians 1:10 we largely see God had a goal to display His glory.  Furthermore, that the most particular way for God to accomplish this was to have all things summed up into Jesus Christ.  Therefore, this meant that God before anything else was decreed[4] willed to already have the church very specially and gloriously brought into Jesus Christ. 

Now, in Ephesians 5 we read the deepest reason and beginning of the church recorded in the bible.  What we are about to learn is not the ultimate reason why God saved the church and had mercy on her.  God ultimately saved the church, because doing so would exalt and glorify Himself.  Yet, in the greatest wisdom God did something incredible to set up the stage so that His human children would be grafted in a way into His Son as no other creature was or will be.  And what God did was in a very particularly way was create the church from Jesus, in a way no other created creature or angel had been.  What we see here is that the church was not only Divinely grafted into Jesus by His death and resurrection, as no other was, but also she was Divinely made from Jesus in a way no other was.  The doctrine is this:  (1) the church as made from Jesus in a special way and therefore, (2) is also reunited into Jesus in a special manner by His death and resurrection for her.  This is what we learn from Ephesians chapter 5.

"Husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he ... nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church."  First of all, why should a husband love his wife as his own flesh?  Genesis 2:22-24, "Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. 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."   The answer why a man should love his wife as his own body is because in a strong sense she is his flesh!  That is the point why God did the strange act of creating woman from Adam's rib; it was ultimately to show how they Church came into existence.  The church is apart Christ's flesh and body!  Therefore, we have the reasons why man and woman marry!  Because the man is missing part of his body and needs to be united to it, which is the woman.  This is why the scripture then records:  "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."  One flesh, because the man is missing part of himself and so together they finally make one flesh.  This is why in part, man and woman long for each other and long to be united in marriage.  This also why homosexuality is so evil, or it distorts the glorious truth from where the church came from. [5]

Yet, the amazing thing about all of this is the little phrase in our verse which says, "just as" Jesus loves the Church.  The verse does not say, "in a ball park figure" but "just as."  God does not reveal the specifics to how, before time began, He reached into His Son Jesus, and out of great love created the Church from Him.  But God does reveal that He did do such an indescribable thing with the Church.

Let me state this now.  When Ephesians says that all things will be brought into Jesus, in a special way (because of the cross) this does include angels and all other created things.  Yet, not to the depths that the church is by dying with Jesus in His death and be raised together with Him in His life as part of Him.[6  Likewise, the ange]ls are called sons of God, and therefore, in a sense were created from God like children are from their parents.  Yet, not in the depth that the church was, for we were literally, in a mystical Divine way made from Jesus Christ's mystical body.

"For this reason a man shall be joined to his wife." This is a great mystery, concerning Christ and the church."  God says because part of man was taken from him, which is woman that they must leave their parents and be joined together as one.  This is the mystery that Paul is directly pinpointing here in our verse.  Because the church was made from Jesus, therefore, the church should be reunited back to that from where it came from: Jesus Christ the magnificent.

Because Jesus Christ is God, although we were made from Him this does not mean Jesus is somehow incomplete without us.  This is where the analogy stops.  The Church being made from Christ is primarily teaching us about the Churches origins, and not truths about the Divine Nature of Jesus Christ.  The scriptures record in fact that it is Jesus Christ who fills "all in all" and that He "completes" all things.  Furthermore, He is an endless "fountain" of infinity.  It would be blaspheme to say that Jesus was incomplete without us.  Yet, there are many wicked persons who would like to wish such things are true, because they love nothing more than to exalt themselves.  The bible even makes a complete metaphysical statement about all man, including the church, if you would before they were saved, that all mankind is: "counted less than worthless," to God!  (Isaiah 40:17)  This simply means God needs nothing and no one.  Christ is not merely complete in Himself (with all possible good, power and happiness) but over-flowing and infinitely complete to the point He flows out like a glorious fountain.  The church although made from Him, like Eve was from the rib of Adam, does not take away anything from Jesus, because He is infinity itself.  The church being created from Christ is like a fountain overflowing in astonishing goodness of crystal streams; it does not diminish the effulgence or infinity of the Fountain or the Source itself.  Yet, the Church was not merely made from the light from the Sun of righteousness, but from the fire itself in a Divine and mystical way that no created thing was. 

(B) The truth we learn is that we are incomplete without Christ in a magnitude that most do not see.  It is staggering to the mind when one sees how entirely incomplete we are without Jesus.  Some reduce or dishonors the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, although unknowingly, by saying when we are saved Jesus fills the God-shaped-hole in our lives.  Furthermore, Jesus completes us in a way that we were 90 percent and Jesus completes us by filling in the last 10 percent.  This simply is a massive understatement.  What we learned from Ephesians is far more soul searching!  We are more like .0001 percent and Jesus literally fills us 100 percent.  The reason nothing in this world satisfies us is because we came from Jesus and are literally missing the majority of our body that we came from.  Nothing therefore, will work or satisfy until we are put back into in glorious Son from where we came from.  The truth is not merely that we were designed for Jesus, but because we actually came from Him, our souls are screaming to be united to the glorious fountain where we started from.

I could easily dive into a long practical application for what this means but will only give this brief encouragement.  Many secular and God hating persons have said over the long stretched out years how their spouses completed them.  Therefore, how unbefitting it is if Christians say they belong to Jesus Christ their Master and Husband, when they so publicly belong to the world showing that the world completes them not King Jesus.  These persons will find a divorce certificate at heavens gates waiting for them, for they played the harlot with their glorious God.  Do not be numbered with such and be just another statistic.  If you truly recognized how much only our wonderful God absolutely completes you, then feed, hold on, seize, place yourself and nourish your soul in Him.  He being your Divine Husband does freely offer all of Himself to you, for all help, all grace, all nourishment, to fill your soul with His loving satisfaction.   Understand how deceitful this world and the evil one is!  Sin seems to satisfies and even completes for a brief moment, yet it even last!  Not only that but its stair-path leads straight into hell, where your soul will never find the competition it longs for.

(C) Jesus loves His own body:  "husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he ... nourishes and cherishes it."  One reason Jesus loves the church so much is that we are part of His body, in a mystical Divine sense even before the world began.  Then on the cross when Jesus died for our sins and as the Father raised the church up with His Son in the resurrection the church became even more (more about this next) deeply made apart of Christ's Divine body.  Our Lord Jesus loves us because we are apart of His body.  The same Divine blood that nourishes the HEAD (Jesus), with love, enjoyment and everything, so to flows to the rest of the body (church) and supplies it with the Divine joy and satisfaction.  Christ often said He came to seek and save that which was lost.  The church, in their rebelling was lost and dead in their sins.  Therefore, Christ came to restore back to Himself that which rightfully belonged in Him begin with. 

Christ love us so much because we properly belong in Him, which is why we were accordingly made for Him.  But do not let this cause you to exalt in our pride!  The only reason God created us in Christ, making us so beloved being in Him, is sheer astonishing grace and kindness from God's heart.  Its staggering to think that the Supreme Being, Who needs nothing or no one, what so kindly create a creature form Himself as He did with the church!  Therefore, all the shocking and wonderful things that have been discussed leads only to one place and one thing: To the thanks, praise, boast and all honor being given to God.  David seeing the incredible kindness that God showed him in exalting him led him to praise the heart of God, the source of all goodness and blessing.  Samuel 7:21, "According to Your own heart, You have done all these great things, to make Your servant know them."

This is why our uniting to Christ is even more than a restoring of our basic relationship and friendship to Him.  See, our entire soul, being from the Divine Christ, was always meant to be fully immersed into the waters of life itself, where it belongs.  But also this is why rejecting our Lord Jesus Christ is double the insult and blaspheme!  Who knows the horrors that await such?  Who knows the pleasure that await those who believe in His Name and will one day be united so closely to Him as a rib being placed back into the flesh from where it came; into Him who is infinite happiness and life itself?  Even the mighty langue and eloquent word, yes, even they, lose all their power standing before such Glory to describe it!

(D) On the cross Jesus much more brings us into Himself. I will not spend long here since I have written extensively on this subject in many of my pervious writings.  The point is this: as much as we were divinely created out of love from Christ, Yet in His death and resurrection for us, He united the Church much more gloriously into Himself than in our initial creation in Him!  One of the obvious ways is that Jesus went way of out His way, humbling Himself, uniting Himself to our human nature.  Although we were righteous in Christ before our fall and sin (being made from Him), Yet Jesus Christ gives us His perfect righteousness lived under the law.  He did this as a human and with infinite love given to the Father in it.  Christ gives His Church this perfection and so unites us into Himself even more.  In essence we become much more transformed into Jesus Christ than ever before.  We are more transformed into the Divine flesh or Nature of Christ.[7]   2 Corinthians 3:18, "But we all, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, by the Spirit."  Because Jesus, who is the infinite image of God the Father, displayed the fullness of God's glory in human form, did display more radiance and colors of God's glory than if it were merely spiritual.  In beholding this it more translates and transforms the Church into Jesus than ever before.  I could go on more but the point is made.  Now I wish to answer a question or two and then encourage, you, my readers.

Some who are understanding might ask the question: does this doctrine mean that the sinners who never believe in Christ, who were never made from Christ (as the church), have less of the image of God in them than the church?  Do the people who were not the absolute object of God's love not being made from Christ have less of the image of God in them on this side of the fall?  The answer is: no they do not.  Bearing the image of God the Father means in the greatest sense how well you reflect the truth and glory of Him, much like the moon reflects the sun.  This is why Jesus is called the "exact image" of God, because being God He perfectly shines out the truth and glory of His Father.  Being made in the image of God is not mainly about having a soul and mind.  Being made in the image of God is having the ability to shine the glory of God through our mind and soul!  Therefore, on this side of the Fall of man's sin and death into sin, both the church being made from Christ and the others (reprobation), are both equally unable to shine the glory of God and therefore, equally not the image of God.

If the church was made from Jesus like Eve from Adam, then it would be impossible for the church to end up in hell, for the church is part of His body?  All analogies have their stopping points and this is one of them.  The whole reason why God would even dare create the church form His Son and tell us about it is to kindly show us how loving and gracious He is toward us.  To stagger us like drunk men under such knowledge of His riches of love and grace to us.  We are not to take such wonderful knowledge and abuse it to think more highly of ourselves, for it is solely meant for us to think more highly of our Great God and Savior.  And if we think it is impossible for God to send every one of us sinners into hell, then we have ruined and trampled on His infinite wisdom and grace to us in Christ.  For although we were made from Jesus, yet Jesus is infinite in Himself and has infinite happiness in the fellowship with His Father: He does not need us in anyway. 

It is for the very reason the church was made from Jesus Christ that the insult of our defying God's right to rule over us is much greater and thus, the reason for Him to leave and punish us is greater!  Yet, because the church was made from Him, He did have great pity and compassion to save His enemies and bring them back to Himself where they belong.   God did all this to magnify both His love and humble mercy to us!  May we all see it better and love Him better because of it!

Application:

            Simply love your Wonderful God with all your heart.  Ponder afresh the greatness of your awesome God! Dear reader do you realize the greatness of the love you have coming form your God and Savior Jesus Christ to you!  Then do not seek this world and covet worthless things that do not satisfy!  There is One who stands before you now, Who carries a fountain of grace in one hand and a reservoir of love in the other!  Why turn to another?  Dear sinner you are a created person, did you know that?  You were made from and for another, who has life overflowing in His veins and is asking you to come and fill your soul with His love and mercy by being united in Him.  Repent and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and He will save you, redeem your life and translate you into His glorious image; Who be blessed with Honor and Everlasting Power forever. Amen!

 [1]1 Corinthians 8:6, "Yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live."

Romans 11:36, "For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen."

Ephesians 1:12, "that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory." 

[2]  The Divine Decrees, by Oshea Davis, PublishAmerica, 2007, pages 121-123.

 [3]The Church I am referring to is the biblical one, which only includes all the specific persons who will populate the heavenly Jerusalem on great day.  These were the only persons who were created from Jesus Christ before time began.

 [4]Mainly referring to the fall of mankind and the specifics of our salvation.

 [5]This is also why God condemns homosexuality, because man was not made from man, and therefore, even if 500 man marry together there still would not be a whole 100% complete man, simply because it as woman who completes the man, for she is his missing flesh.  This is why homosexuality is so perverse, because not only does it violate the human being, who does it, but it horrifically distorts the picture of how the church came from Christ.  God made the world, and therefore, it is His right to set up man and woman the way He did.  To go against this is to defy God's right to rule over you, and so many to this very day have seen the wrath of their king!

Homosexuality is equitant to self-raping and corroding your soul.  Proverbs 6:32, "Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; He who does so destroys his own soul."  Infidelity, between man and woman, at least has the physical completion in it, homosexuality has neither the physical nor emotion completion.  Furthermore, is lacks the spiritual completion as well.  This is why it destroys and corrodes the soul of man faster than other wise.  It would be like me telling a poor person every day that I was going to give him a million dollars and for him to actually believe me only for me to destroy his soul with disappoint everyday by not doing so.  Homosexuality tells the soul and body of man that it will find completion only to utterly rip the soul with deep disappointment by failure, because woman was made from man, and even more so, man was made FROM Christ, and therefore only here is happiness and completion found!

 [6]Romans 6:1-5

 [7]2 Peter 1:4, "that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature."