Narrow Way with Steve Phillips Restituting Ruins
You see them often, wretched waifs of absentee fathers who beget and abandon, father and forsake. Some hawk pure water in daily desperation. Others are market rats, aimlessly roving about as petty thieves. These pitiable impoverished young souls are the unwilling victims of Restituting Ruins.
Their mothers have been cast out of their pleasant dwellings as corrupting chattel, as defiling blights to their now “enlightened” husbands. Enlightenment there was none. Rather, they came under the spell of a handcrafted christ, a deity of delusion. That compassionless monster requires Ruins of Restitution.
The stern edict of this heartless and uncompromising tyrant is this: Polygamous men, drive away your junior wives or salvation will never be yours; otherwise you will perish. No hope of heaven awaits you who don’t forsake these adulterous women vainly imagined to be wives: so decrees Restituting Ruins.
Restitution is an evil man-made doctrine, nowhere taught in the Scriptures, and void of a single example of it ever being done throughout its pages. By it families are fractured, children accursed, and wives are flung into destitution by the ravaging requirements of this reigning Regent: Restituting Ruins.
Let us establish two facts: Polygamy is sin against God and should not be done. Restitution is sin against God and should not be done. Both are sins; both are a violations of God’s revelation in His Word.
Restitution did not originate from the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The language of the Scriptures are plain: God calls the second or more women taken in marriage wives, not adulterous partners. This is where the handcrafted deity of Restitution and his followers go astray.
Without controversy, one woman for one man and that for life is the pattern for marriage from the beginning. “A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” – Genesis 2:24. Christ reaffirms this as the standard of marriage for all in Matthew 19:4,5. Paul reiterates the same, quoting Genesis 2:24 in Ephesians 5:31. Moses, Christ, and Paul all agree.
God has never approved of polygamy; neither has He ever approved of adultery. Neither has He ever approved of Restituting Ruins. The standards for all have been unchanging since the beginning.
Here’s the summary of this error of Restituting Ruins: [1] God only recognizes the first wife as being a true wife. [2] Any other women taken as wives are not wives at all, but only adulterous partners. [3] Adulterers will not enter heaven. [4] Therefore, junior wives must be divorced and sent away or a man will never be able to be forgiven and enter heaven. That is the essence of this hateful erroneous doctrine.
But it is wrong on all accounts. The inspired language of the Scriptures cancels the false assumptions of points 1 and 2. God says consistently that the second or more women taken in marriage are wives, not adulterous partners. Deuteronomy 21:15 clearly states: “If a man has two wives…” The Holy Spirit here conveys the reality, though not the approval, of polygamy. The man had 2 wives.
Jacob had 4 wives [Genesis 29:21-28; 30:4,9]: that is God’s description, not man’s. Of the man after God’s own heart, God says: “David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem” -2 Samuel 5:13. Solomon had “700 wives and 300 concubines” -1 Kings 11:1,3. “Gideon had many wives” –Judges 8:30. This is the inspired language of the Word of God; they were wives, not adulterous partners.
Hannah was one of two wives. Yet she was a holy woman who loved God, trusting in the Lord’s salvation [1 Samuel 2:1,2]. The Lord heard her prayer for a child, she conceived, and Samuel was born.
Since they are wives, it is not possible for their own husbands to commit adultery with them. A man can only commit adultery with someone who is not his wife, but never with his own wife.
Exodus 21:10: “If a man marries another wife, he must not neglect the rights of the first wife to food, clothing, and sexual intimacy.” Clearly here, Restituting Ruins is a man-made delusion.
Point 3: Adulterers will not enter heaven. That is true. But Abraham, Jacob, Caleb, Gideon, David, Solomon, and many others had more than one wife and were not adulterers. But these men are in heaven and not hell. Polygamy did not exclude them from eternal life. Hebrews 11 testifies to their saving faith.
Point 4: Neither did any of them participate in Restituting Ruins: not even Abraham. He did not “Restitute” Hagar. She was sent away because of God establishing His covenant with Isaac, not to “save” Abraham. Galatians 4 makes this very clear. Abraham had other women as wives and concubines besides Hagar during Sarah’s lifetime and afterwards [Genesis 25:5,6]. Let us abandon these Restituting Ruins.