Defiled with Women

Revelation 14:1-5

And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads.

And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:

And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.

These are they which were not defiled with women; for

they are virgins. These are

they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were

redeemed from among men, being

the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.

And in their mouth was found no guile: for

they are without fault before the throne of God.

We need to be careful when we read a text, that we read it in the context of the entire Scripture. That we don’t take isolated instances or even unGodly examples, and treat them as if they were God’s will for our lives. The darkly humorous example that I have from my upbringing went like this: A man, wishing to hear from God, opened his Bible randomly and pointed to a verse. The verse was the one where Judas hung himself. A bit shaken, he did it again, and his finger fell on ‘Go ye and do likewise’.

Yeah, not a great way to look for God’s Will. And, luckily, there isn’t even a verse that promotes the whole ‘let your random finger to the talking’ paradigm. But there other passages that might be confusing if we aren’t careful. One of them is the whole ‘defile with women’ passage. Read in a very careless manner it might be seen as condemning marriage!

Fornication

I Corinthians 6:18

Flee fornication.

Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but

he that committeth fornication

sinneth against his own body.

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and

ye are not your own?

For ye are bought with a price: therefore

glorify God in your body, and

in your spirit,

which are God’s.

The first and most obvious reading of this passage is to contrast the virgins of the Book of Revelation with the dating culture of today. It is the habit nowadays, seemingly amongst Christians as well as non-Christians, for the young man or woman to engage in a variety of sexual acts, often up to and including intercourse, with a variety of partners, as part of ‘dating’.

Indeed the situation has gotten to the point where a young man or woman will describe themselves as ‘single’ when they… aren’t currently dating someone.

At the risk of being very unpopular… this is ‘defiling yourself with women’. These women are not your wives, your sexual relationship with them should be zero. It is a massive problem with our current ‘how to get married’ system that it includes defilement as one of its key components.

Adultery

II Peter 2:12-15

But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed,

speak evil of the things that they understand not; and

shall utterly perish in their own corruption; And

shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as

they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time.

Spots they are and blemishes,

sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;

Having eyes full of adultery, and that

cannot cease from sin;

beguiling unstable souls: an heart

they have exercised with covetous practices;

cursed children:

Which have forsaken the right way, and are

gone astray,

following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who

loved the wages of unrighteousness;

The next obvious application of the ‘defiled with women’ category is where the woman involved is married to another man. This is less frequent and less systemic, at least in our era, but would still count as defiling yourself with women.

Adultery is a common theme of the Old Testament, and is not missing from the New. It is often used to reference worshipping idols. It would hard to be more ‘defiling’ than that.

Not Marriage

Hebrews 13:1-4

Let brotherly love continue.

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.

Marriage is honourable in all, and

the bed undefiled: but

whoremongers and

adulterers

God will judge.

Let your conversation be without covetousness; and

be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said,

I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

But where the real problem comes in is when one tries to broaden this ‘defiled with women’ concern to marriage. When one wishes to promote ‘celibacy’ and in so doing one hints that being married is defiling. This idea is flatly contradicted by Scripture.

Marriage is the first God created human to human relationship.¹ It is praised from the beginning of Scripture to the end. Godly man after Godly man married, had sex, had children, and raised up a nation. God’s relationship with His people is, in metaphor,² described in terms of marriage.

Martyrs

Revelation 13:11-18

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,

And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Now, in the context of my debate over monks, it is a very valid question to ask why these men were virgins. Why weren’t they married?

Well, I believe that I Corinthians chapter Seven gives us some clear indication, especially in the context of the rest of the Book of Revelation. I believe that these men lived during a time of special distress. The text immediately previous speaks of a beast… seemingly an evil ruler who will control all commerce everywhere on Earth. Modern’s might read either Elon Musk or Joseph Stalin into their idea of who this is but, in the context of the Book of Revelation one thing is clear… this ain’t a great time to be Christian.

This ‘mark of the beast’ was something that these virgins rejected. And I don’t think that Scripture is particularly subtle about hinting that they didn’t have a great time of it. Being unable to buy or sell might make it hard to get a wife and raise a family.

Conclusion

Ezekiel 16:7-8

I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and

thou hast increased and waxen great, and

thou art come to excellent ornaments:

thy breasts are fashioned, and

thine hair is grown, whereas

thou wast naked and bare.

Now when

I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold,

thy time was the time of love; and

I spread my skirt over thee, and

covered thy nakedness: yea,

I sware unto thee, and

entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and

thou becamest mine.

We need to be very careful when we look at Scripture. It is God’s Word, and is inerrant, authoritative… it is how He expresses His Will to us. Each word is important, and every passage fits into all the rest of the passages. Nothing should be ignored, but neither should anything be taken out of context.

It is perfectly possible to look at the way that the men in the Old Testament were told not to ‘come unto their wives’ in preparation for some particular event. To read how the priests were not allowed to marry divorced women. To study the history of the men who took wives from the forbidden nations, or how Solomon allowed his heart to drift away from the LORD because of his foreign wives.

We read of a special time of prayer and fasting in the New Testament where the married couple has a temporary sexual fast. And times when the social situation will be so problematic that married men and women will not be able to even act like married men and women.

But we need to be very, very careful that we do not treat our interpretation and understanding of God’s Word in such a way that we could even leave the vaguest hint or possibility of the idea that we believe and teach that marriage itself, and sex in marriage, is unGodly. That the God who designed sex did a bad thing. That the relationship which God uses as a metaphor (amongst others) for his relationship with us is a bad thing.

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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,

Von

Links

1. It could be argued that the son/father, daughter/mother etc relationships are mentioned first. But as they depend upon marriage, I feel comfortable with my statement.

2. There are actually two possibilities here: that God’s relationship with His people is in metaphor to marriage or, the one I would actually think more probable, that human marriage is a type and shadow of God’s relationship with us. Either way, the shoe still fits.