Who are the ones forbidding marriage in 1 Timothy 4:3?

All this is fully evidenced in our days, the latter times which are the perilous times (2 Tim. 3:1). The mystery of godliness, the doctrine of Christ, is being increasingly denied and rejected by seducing spirits, active in systems like the destructive criticism, Unitarianism, the New Theology and others. And in "Christian Science," Spiritism, Mormonism and other "cults" we find the very doctrines of demons. Anyone who rejects the mystery of godliness, no matter what else he may put in its place, has departed from the faith and becomes the prey of seducing spirits who lead him on to destruction and eternal ruin. And these seducers and seducing spirits, Satan's ministers, appear as ministers of righteousness (2 Cor. 11:15). They feign sanctity, "speaking lies in hypocrisy." They teach the most deadly error under the cloak of piety, devotion and of deeper religious knowledge. Evil and error put on the form of truth and godliness. All this fits the different systems which claim to be "Christian," but which are "anti-Christian." They have seared, that is branded, consciences; claiming to lead others into righteousness and holiness while their consciences are defiled.

Two things are especially mentioned, "forbidding to marry" and "commanding to abstain from meats." (The Roman Catholic Church forbids her priests to marry, and also commands her members to abstain from certain meats on certain days.) This austere asceticism was a pretension to superior piety. Men began to teach these heresies even in apostolic days. They developed later into systems like Gnosticism; and today we see the same principles advocated in theosophical and other occult movements. They forbid what God has established in creation, for marriage is an institution which God has sanctified, and to use that which God has created to be received with thanksgiving by them which believe and know the truth. They claimed that their superior holy character would not be consistent with marriage and eating meats.

They forbade to marry and bade men to abstain from meats which God created for reception with thanksgiving by those faithful and fully acquainted with the truth. There was the assumption of extraordinary purity. But the wiles of the devil were in it; for the assumption impeached God's institution of marriage, the bond of society here below. And God is not mocked. The result soon showed that the evil one was its author, for the deepest moral corruption was the consequence.

Grace may call a servant of God for special and worthy reasons to a path inconsistent with the married relation, because its duties could not be fulfilled with the due accomplishment of the objects of that path. So we see in the apostle Paul himself, as he lets us know in 1 Cor. 7. But this very chapter maintains the ordinary rule of the marriage state, as elsewhere he exhorts that it should be every way in honour. Only the call of God is paramount. Yet he that is so called respects and never despises the ordinary rule because of that exception. Error lays hold of the exception (for even error cannot subsist without a scrap or show of truth) and converts the exception into a human rule. It is Satan occupying the place and rights of the Lord; his aim is to bring God into contempt and lead man dazzled with the vain hope of higher holiness into the depths of corruption. It is the truth (and no lie is of the truth) which sanctifies.

So in bidding men to abstain from meats the same disrespect of God appears. He created them to be received with thanksgiving. No doubt all mankind were meant to share the benefit and do so in their measure; but many partake like brutes without real thanksgiving, often without even the form. The faithful thoroughly acquainted with the truth receive such gifts from God and give thanks. Satan exalts some to such a height of philosophic folly as to deny that they come from His hand Who reconciled them to Himself by the death of His Son; then to imagine them to be the temptations of an evil being; finally to conceive that there is no such thing as creation or consequently a Creator. So that the error if but a little in beginning becomes the beginning of a very great evil.

In place of the truth the apostate affects a religion of the flesh which professes to be of the very highest sanctity. They make the assumption of extraordinary purity by forbidding to marry, and great self-denial by abstinence from meats. In reality, having turned from the faith, they deny God as our Saviour and, in refusing marriage and meats, they deny God as the Creator. This means the loss of all true piety which fears God, and in result opens the door to licence and wantonness. These seducing spirits, pandering to the pride of the flesh, hold out before men the promise of the greatest sanctity in order to lead them into the deepest corruption.

The well-known prediction in 1 Tim. 4:1, claims a place here. "Now the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their consciences seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth." One can scarcely fail to discern here the grand lineaments of popish error. The evil foretold is characterized an a departure from the faith, so that it is the introduction of error where the truth has been believed and known, where "the faith" has been held. Seduction, untruth, and hypocrisy, are its grand features; a scared conscience, impenetrable by the truth, its fearful accompaniment; enforced celibacy, and ascetic privations, its fair pretensions, by which it gains a character for sanctity among men. Who can question the fulfilment this passage has already received, and is still receiving, in the prodigious delusions of Romanism?

Now this was to be maintained by the assembly, and the need for this would appear, when in accordance with the Spirit's prophetic, utterance some in latter times would "apostatise from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth." Demons trading on man's consciousness of defilement would suggest as the remedy abstinence from meats and marriage, the things which God has provided for His creature's welfare, thus making God the author of man's lack of piety. Man's lack of it is evident; but the mystery, or secret of it, God, not demons, has disclosed, and in the incarnate One has displayed. He who is the life of His saints, and is in them, is the mystery of it; and in proportion as He is really their example, true piety will be developed in each one. Nothing that God has provided for His creature is defiling. Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving ; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer; i.e. by God's grant to Noah (Gen. 9:3-4), and by the recipient's thanksgiving. Nothing can be conceived more devilish than such doctrine as the apostle here combats, and the source of which he unmasks - men made the mouthpiece of demons (for the demons are represented in the passage as speaking the lies) to inject into the mind such thoughts of God. Putting the brethren in mind of these things, Timothy would be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished up in the words of faith and of the good doctrine (the opposite of demoniacal teaching) which he had followed.

Notice in verse 3 the negative character of the teachings of such deceivers. "Forbidding to marry" may sound very holy and self-denying, but it is not so. A sect may be easily formed on a basis of this kind, but it is opposed to the truth of Christ. They may justify it by insisting that Christ was unmarried, and Paul was unmarried, which two facts are true. But the Lord Jesus nevertheless confirmed and emphasized what Genesis had declared, that "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh" (Mt. 19:5). And Paul no less strongly declares the truth of the purity of the marriage bond in Scriptures such as 1 Timothy 5:14; Hebrews 13:4; and 1 Corinthians 7:28. He himself had voluntarily made himself a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven's sake (Mt. 19:12), willingly foregoing marriage that he might the more fully serve the Lord. But he would adamantly oppose any suggestion of men to make such a thing a rule: this would be utter evil.

Now, there is not an attempt to say that the church is holy; in fact, I do not admit the doctrines of Rome to be holy. It is not holy to confound sanctity and justification; it is not holy to make sacraments the principal means, leaving out the word and Spirit of God, to which Christ and His apostles directly ascribe sanctification. It is not holy, it is Manicheism, to make holiness, and a holiness necessary to the clergy, by a prohibition to marry. It was the most unholy and wicked doctrine, against which the apostle warns us as a doctrine of devils, the fruit of a conscience seared with a hot iron. The fruits of it have been produced. They characterized the church. If a man can devote himself to the Lord, body, soul, and spirit, without a snare to himself, be it so. It is a grace and gift from God. But the moment you forbid to marry, you are on Manichean and Gnostic ground. It is urged, in order to defend Rome, that the passages in Paul's Epistle to Timothy apply to Gnostics. I admit it. They held that matter was a bad thing, hence that Christ had no material body, and other extravagances of every kind; but as a way or means of holiness, they taught abstinence from women. This was the doctrine of the Alexandrian school Dr. N. admires. They were infected with it. The Albigenses, the medieval fruit of Gnosticism in Christendom, constantly practised it; their perfect, or bonshommes, did not eat meat, nor have to say to women.

1 Timothy 4. With this mystery the apostle draws a dark contrast. "But the Spirit speaketh expressly that in latter times some shall fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons by hypocrisy of legend-mongers branded as to their own conscience, forbidding to marry, [bidding] to abstain from meats which God created for reception with thanksgiving by those faithful and well acquainted with the truth; because every creature of God [is] good, and nothing to be rejected if received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified through God's word and prayer" (vers. 1-5). Asceticism is no more Christian than moral laxity, though it assumes a fairer form. It is a pretentious assault on the Creator and Preserver of man by setting up a superior sanctity, which ends in turpitude against nature. Monachism is unconscious war against God.

The ceaseless efforts of Satan are directed against every provision that God has made for the good of men, whether they are for “this life that now is or that which is to come.” Under his guidance are many seducing spirits. Some of these evidently direct their attention against the mercies that God has provided for the physical needs of men such as meats and marriage. 1 Timothy 3 speaks of these, they teach doctrines that are called “doctrines of devils... forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.” The idea conveyed by these doctrines is that a man who obeys them would appear to have a greater sanctity than his fellows, but this we know could only feed his fleshly pride (Col. 2:20).

Paul shows them to be false apostles, ministers of Satan. (2 Cor. 11:13-15.) And the Spirit describes expressly the Roman Catholic marks of the latter times; denouncing them as the doctrines of devils. “Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats.” (1 Tim. 4:1-3.)