Marriage belongs to this present age; salvation leads the soul to the kingdom of God.
This distinction explains the Marcionite Christian understanding of marriage, continence, procreation, and Christian family formation. The Church does not teach that every Christian must marry, nor that every Christian must renounce marriage. Continence and the unmarried life are one path by which a believer may dedicate this earthly life to Christ. Marriage and the formation of a Christian family are another.
What matters is the end toward which either life is directed.
The Christian who abstains from marriage may devote himself more freely to prayer, evangelism, charity, study, ministry, and the salvation of others. The married Christian may establish a household in which children are surrounded from their earliest years by the Gospel and raised in the faith of Jesus Christ.
One serves through renunciation; the other through generation and formation.
Both may labor toward the same end: that souls may be saved and ascend to the highest heaven, the kingdom of God.
Marriage Belongs to This Present Age
Christ teaches plainly that marriage is not eternal:
“The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage:
But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:
Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.”
Evangelicon 20:25–27
Marriage therefore belongs to our present embodied condition. There are no marriages to contract, bloodlines to perpetuate, or earthly households to maintain in the resurrection.
But the fact that marriage belongs to this present age does not mean that nothing accomplished through marriage can serve the kingdom of God.
Marriage passes away with this world; the saved soul ascends to the kingdom of God.
This is the foundation of the Christian understanding of family: something temporary may be placed in the service of something that reaches beyond this world.
Continence Is an Honorable Christian Path
The Testamentum gives a genuine place of honor to those who voluntarily relinquish marriage for the kingdom of God.
Christ says:
“For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there are eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of God’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”
Evangelicon 14:22
Christ does not impose this upon everyone. He says, “He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”
Paul likewise recognizes the practical spiritual advantage of the unmarried life:
“But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord.”
I Corinthians 7:32
A Christian without responsibility for spouse and children may possess greater freedom for prayer, evangelism, study, charity, ministry, and service to the Church.
Yet Paul refuses to transform his preference into a universal command:
“Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful.”
I Corinthians 7:25
Continence is therefore an honorable Christian calling, but it is not the calling of every Christian.
Marriage Is Another Christian Path
The Testamentum is equally clear that marriage is no sin:
“Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.
But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned.”
I Corinthians 7:27–28
Paul’s preference for continence does not become a condemnation of marriage.
The Christian question is therefore not simply whether one marries or remains unmarried. The greater question is what one does with the earthly condition in which one lives.
The unmarried Christian can place his freedom in the service of Christ.
The married Christian can place his household in the service of Christ.
Marriage finds its highest Christian purpose not in perpetuating a surname, preserving an earthly inheritance, multiplying possessions, or extending a bloodline. These things belong to the passing order of this world.
Its greater possibility is spiritual:
A Christian marriage can become a household ordered toward the salvation of souls.
We Do Not Create Souls; We Receive Them
This must be understood correctly.
A husband and wife do not create a soul when they conceive a child. Through generation a body is formed; the soul itself is not generated by the parents.
We do not create souls; we receive them.
When we say that parents receive souls, we speak of their vocation toward the children given into their care, not of a revealed mechanism by which souls enter bodies.
Our Church teaches that the soul precedes its present embodiment and is not created by its earthly parents. Souls undergo embodied life within this world, and those who have not yet attained salvation may undergo further embodiment and transmigration.
The Church does not define the precise manner by which a soul receives a particular embodiment. What matters is the purpose revealed through Christ: the wandering of the soul is not its final destiny. Through Christ the wandering soul may find salvation and ascend to the highest heaven, the kingdom of God.
Paul makes clear that our present flesh is not our final destiny:
“Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”
I Corinthians 15:50
The flesh is temporary. The soul must find salvation through Christ.
For a soul undergoing embodied life, birth into a faithful Christian household provides a precious opportunity to encounter Christ from childhood.
That gives Christian procreation a significance extending far beyond biology.
Generation and Formation
Christian parenthood has two distinct aspects: generation and formation.
Through generation a body is formed.
Through Christian formation the embodied soul is taught Christ and the way of salvation.
Procreation forms the body; Christian formation directs the embodied soul toward Christ.
Generation without formation therefore misses the greater spiritual opportunity of Christian parenthood.
The Testamentum gives parents an explicitly spiritual responsibility:
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
Honour thy father and mother;
That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
Laodiceans 6:1–4
Parents are responsible for feeding, sheltering, protecting, educating, and loving their children. But Christian parents possess an additional responsibility: to bring them up “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
To educate a child in everything except Christ is to neglect the greatest knowledge parents can offer.
An earthly inheritance may be lost. Property may disappear. Worldly success ends with this life. Knowledge of Christ concerns the salvation of the soul.
The distinction must remain clear:
Parents cannot save the soul; Christ alone saves. Parents can teach the soul where salvation is found.
Christian Parenthood Is Domestic Evangelism
From infancy, a child in a Christian household can hear the name of Jesus Christ, be taught to pray to God the Father, hear the Evangelicon and Apostolicon, participate in the worship and fellowship of the Church, and learn that this visible world is temporary and salvation is found through Christ.
Parents cannot manufacture faith. They cannot compel their children to believe, nor can they guarantee their salvation. A child is a soul entrusted to the care of his parents.
They can nevertheless prepare the ground.
Through instruction, prayer, worship, example, discipline, forgiveness, charity, and love, parents can establish a household ordered toward the salvation of souls, in which the Gospel is continually placed before the children entrusted to them.
This gives Christian parenthood a missionary character.
The evangelist carries the Gospel to those outside the household; Christian parents begin with the children entrusted to them within it.
Christian parenthood is domestic evangelism.
Procreation in the Service of Salvation
The Church’s teaching concerning the soul gives Christian procreation a meaning different from simple biological reproduction. The soul precedes its present embodiment and is not created by its earthly parents.
This does not mean that procreation creates additional souls. Rather, Christian parents receive children into households ordered toward Christ and the salvation of souls.
Parents do not thereby save their children. Christ saves. Nor does Christian parentage guarantee salvation. Parents can, however, give their children something immeasurably valuable: knowledge from childhood of the Gospel through which salvation is found.
For those called and able to undertake it faithfully, the willing reception of children is therefore itself a beautiful Christian vocation, because with every child parents accept responsibility for another soul’s nurture in Christ.
The Beauty of a Large Christian Family
For Christians who are able and prepared to raise them faithfully, there is consequently something beautiful about welcoming many children.
The Church does not worship fertility. It establishes no required number of children, nor does it teach that Christians with many children possess greater holiness than Christians with few or none.
A Christian’s standing before God is not measured by the number of his descendants.
The mere multiplication of flesh is not the purpose.
Rather, the beauty of a large Christian family lies in the opportunity it presents: many children entrusted to a household in which Christ is already known, each a soul to be nurtured in the faith.
Every child may hear the Gospel. Every child may be taught prayer. Every Lord’s Day may orient the household toward the kingdom of God. Every act of Christian love and forgiveness may become part of the child’s formation.
The purpose is to receive children into Christian households and bring as many souls as possible to the knowledge of Christ.
There is something beautiful in a home filled with children who are being taught that Jesus is Lord, that this world is passing away, and that their final hope is the kingdom of God.
Family Without Idolatry
The Christian family must never become an idol.
Our children are not extensions of ourselves. Our spouses are not our possessions. Our bloodline is not eternal. Our surname does not enter the kingdom of God. Our property will not follow us beyond death.
Even the household itself belongs to this passing world.
Paul reminds us:
“For the fashion of this world passeth away.”
I Corinthians 7:31
Precisely because the fashion of this world passeth away, Christians should use the things temporarily entrusted to them for that which reaches beyond it.
A marriage will end with earthly life. A house will eventually disappear. A family fortune will pass into other hands. The body itself will return to corruption.
But the soul that finds salvation through Christ may ascend to the kingdom of God.
This is why Christian marriage can possess profound spiritual value without being eternal.
Something belonging to this present age can be placed in the service of the kingdom of God.
Two Paths, One Mission
There is therefore no need to place the Christian who abstains from marriage and the Christian parent against one another.
Their earthly vocations differ, but their ultimate purpose can be the same.
Paul gives the governing principle:
“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.
Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God:
Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.”
I Corinthians 10:31–33
“That they may be saved.”
The Christian who renounces marriage may devote the freedom of the unmarried life more completely to Christ and the salvation of others.
The Christian father and mother may devote themselves especially to raising the children entrusted to them in Christ.
One serves through renunciation; the other through generation and formation.
Neither marriage nor continence saves. Christ saves.
Neither having many children nor having none determines holiness.
The question is whether the life entrusted to us is placed in the service of Christ and the salvation of souls.
If a Christian is called to continence, let him use his freedom for Christ and the salvation of others.
If Christians marry, let them make their marriage a Christian household.
And if a married couple desires many children and possesses the ability to raise them faithfully, let them understand both the beauty and seriousness of that vocation.
The task of Christian parents is greater than raising children who are healthy, educated, prosperous, or successful according to the standards of this world.
Raise children who know Jesus is Lord.
Teach them the Gospel.
Teach them to pray to God the Father.
Teach them the Scriptures of the Testamentum.
Bring them into the worship and fellowship of the Church.
Teach them that their present flesh is not their final destiny.
Teach them the way of salvation through Jesus Christ.
We do not create souls; we receive them.
Parents do not save souls; Christ saves them.
Parents can raise their children in the knowledge of the One who saves.
Marriage belongs to this present age, but it can be placed in the service of salvation and the kingdom of God. The one who renounces marriage for the kingdom and the Christian father and mother who raise their children in Christ follow different earthly paths, but both may labor toward the same end:
That they may know that Jesus is Lord, find salvation through Christ, and ascend to the highest heaven, the kingdom of God.
