Corrie

Cheryl,I just ordered the DVD and I am looking forward to hearing what you have to say about this issue.  The clip on youtube was very good and what I would like to know is how Ware handles the fact that Jesus specifically tells His disciples to ask Him anything and it will be done for them.  I am currently concerned about an article I read on the CBMW site that teaches we will have eternal headship of husbands over their earthly wives in heaven and that women will be eternally and perfectly subordinate to men.  The Bible clearly teaches that there is no marriage in heaven and Jesus illustrates this perfectly when He talks about the woman who had 7 husbands and how NONE of them will be her husband in heaven.  It seems that those who want to lessen the deity of Christ by making Him eternally subordinate and less than the Father are also those who want to use this new doctrine to teach that there is eternal headship/subordination and eternal marriage in heaven.  It seems more like Mormon teaching than it does that of orthodox Christianity.http://www.cbmw.org/Journal/Vol-11-No-1/Relationships-and-Roles-in-the-New-CreationAs you can tell by the title of this article, it is about relationships and ROLES in the new creation.  The article causes me to believe that people who oversee CBMW and their site are not that concerned about sound doctrine or this would have NEVER made it onto their site and in their Journal!This author asserts that “functional distinctions will remain” as far as “what we shall do” in the new creation.  “We might express this view in the form of a syllogism as follows:

(1) Functional equivalence is necessary to equalityand,(2) Equality is necessary to the new creationtherefore,(3) Functional equivalence is necessary to the new creation.

If premises (1) and (2) are true, then it must follow that there will be functional equivalence in the new creation. Gender-based differentiation of roles and responsibilities will have no place in the new creation.There is a problem, however, with the syllogism. The first premise is false because functional equivalence cannot be necessary to genuine equality. “It seems that they are using their new doctrine on the Trinity to sneak in this new doctrine about male headship and female subordination to earthly spouses in heaven.  The Trinity has become their Trojan Horse.They do not believe that the end of marriage equals the end of headship which is about as bizarre as anything I have heard.  If one is no longer married, one no longer is a head or has a head.  Do they not understand that only a husband is called a head to his wife while they are married?  He ceases to be her head when he dies or she dies or they are no longer married.  “But to deny the very concept of male headship in the new creation on the false assumption that it is incompatible with creation ideals is, at best, reckless theology. Of even greater concern, however, is the hermeneutic that must be employed in the interpretation of the biblical texts in order to justify such conclusions.”Male headship in heaven even though there is no marriage?  What theological gymnastics must one perform in order to make this statement?”Although Scripture does not speak directly to the question of the effect gender will have on the lives of resurrected believers in the new creation, it does offer sufficient evidence to affirm that gender will continue to be a significant aspect of our lives in the eschaton.”These sorts of baseless claims are scattered throughout his paper.  He states as fact something he never bothers to prove with Scripture.  That, imho, is dangerous.And, why did Jesus de-emphasize family relations in His kingdom if these family relationships are what makes us “the people we are”?  Where is this concept in the Bible?  He also tries to tell his readers that because God made man to not be alone, that means, in Heaven, the same concept of helpmeet will be waiting for him in Heaven.He continues to insist there is a possiblity we will be married in Heaven even though Jesus dispelled that notion.And here we get to the point- the eternally subordinated Jesus is replicated in the eternally subordinated and HUMBLED wife:”Finally, consider that in the new creation, those who were husbands in the former dispensation will, at last, be unencumbered by the flesh. They will be able, as never before, to genuinely love “as Christ also loved the church” (Eph 5:25). They will, as never before, have the capacity to relate to those they love “in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life” (1 Pet 3:7). Consider, moreover, that in the new creation those who were wives in the former dispensation, will have the mind of Christ, “who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and . . . humbled himself” (Phil 2:6-8). They will see in the example of Christ, as never before, the beauty and glory that inheres in gracious, selfless submission. With both man and woman thus perfected and transformed, are we to suppose that the new creation will abandon the order established in God’s original creation? I think not. Rather, such relations will bring to each true joy, and to God, more glory than before.”And I thought that ALL believers were commanded to possess this same mindset of Christ?  Silly me, it is only women who are to be possessing the mindset commanded in Phil 2.