It may be about the numbers for God – We need to let God, Himself be the One who is looking for a number: “Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their  brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been.” Revelation 6:11

For us, it’s about intimacy in Christ.

The following is an email I sent to a Karaite Jew. He was very highly placed on Wall street, and we had developed an interesting relationship since just before the twin towers went down.

“Dear ________,

Thanks again for your email exchange with your friend. The depth of your exploration of genealogy leaves me in the place of a spectator for the present, but I really appreciate your including me. When I first began to study the Scriptures, the ‘begats’ were a big problem for me like they seem to be for most, especially most Christians. But, then one day I discovered that the life is in the begats, and life is what Jesus came to bring us, ‘more abundant life.’

What I would like to comment on, however, has to do with origin and destiny. For me these are fairly practical concerns.

We were made male and female in God’s image. For me the irreducible meaning of this is that male and female is all about relationship. There was relationship in the Godhead before the world began, and we were made male and female in the image of that relationship. It is written that we were created for fellowship with Him. Ultimately, male and female speaks of that fellowship. That fellowship is the point of everything. Not to get the point is to be dead-ended in our sexuality, hung up on chemicals and plumbing. The problem is so bad that to say ‘sexual hang up’ is to be redundant. To be sexual without getting the point is to be hung up.

Ultimately, sex is about relationship, about intimacy, not about reproduction. For the present, reproduction is a fringe benefit of intimacy, an intimacy, which is so compelling we would have been extinct by now without it.

Where continence is concerned, getting the point is the most important thing. And so, from the perspective of the New Testament, we look back on Genesis, and see that becoming ‘one flesh’ is all about Christ and the Church. Is she reproductive, probably not as much as He died to make her, but however long it takes, in the end, she is the completion or, as you prefer, the perfection of Him. He is The Great Lover of our souls, and even when we are not faithful, like Hosea, He is faithful.

Relationship with Him is what it’s all about. If it’s working right, that will make me reproductive, but first, and last, it is relationship He is after, and intimacy, which is the cry of the human heart.

Regards,

Jay”

Love!