"From the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." That is the simple teaching of Jesus about marriage. Mk 10:6

It also makes a statement about sexual relationships that is relevant to the world in which we live. When we are joined together in intercourse, we are joined together in a bonding relationship with the one with whom we share our body. We have heard little of that language from the psychologists who are teaching our children that it is perfectly harmless to have more than one sexual partner.

The Creator put us together so that our bonding in marriage will be more than one flesh in and through the children. We become joined together at some level of reality that solidifies a marriage, and adds to those in a marriage the life and love of the other in integration that we cannot see on the surface. That is why divorce seems like a death with no body to bury. It is the person of the marriage that has been slain.

I learned this truth listening to people come into my office for counseling when they had found themselves in adultery, and then found that they felt married to both their spouse and their lover. They found that in essence, adultery is not just a breach of promise. It is the addition of a third party into the marriage relationship. It is a dividing of those persons who have bound themselves to two persons rather than one.

I recall listening to someone say, "I keep thinking that if I sleep with just one more, the pain will go away." The pain won't go away. The identity will be clouded by the addition of other personalities, but the pain won't go away. There are many who desire the pleasure without the pain and try to use alcohol or drugs as a means of anesthetizing the pain.

The need is for treating the dis-ease, the fact of fragmentation of one's life by distributing it among more than one other. Certainly there is no sin that Jesus has not provided a way to escape. How can I return to the freedom that I had prior to my involvement with others in intercourse? Is there a way for me to be set free from the bondage in which I have placed myself through my unwise behavior.

I was praying with a woman who had experienced a nasty divorce, but who still felt that her ex-husband was hung around her neck like a millstone. She had done all she could to forgive, release, cast away, nail to the Cross, and every suggestion she had been offered to get rid of him. Yet there he was.

In seeking direction from the Lord on how to pray, I was brought to look again at the nature of marriage. The two shall be made one flesh. There is a bonding of those who have entered into intercourse. That is what had occurred, but there is no instruction on how to unmake the one flesh into two again.

Paul tells us the same thing when he writes, "Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her?" ICor 6:16 We are not dealing with offspring, but a bonding. The woman was dealing with the bondage that she had entered into at marriage.

The leading in dealing with the woman was to assume that the husband was present in spirit in the inner working of the woman's life. It seemed logical to preach to that portion of the spirit, to assure it of God's love and to absolve it. The next step was to suggest that it go to Jesus to be restored to its proper place, and leave the woman alone to be made whole.

When I began to pray, I placed my hand in the small of the woman's back, as I have been led to do in deliverance. I assured the spirit that Jesus loved him, and that he no longer belonged where he was. I pronounced God's forgiveness and mine, and I asked him to leave to go with Jesus.

In the beginning of the prayer, the spirit moved slowly. As I ran out of words and began to pray in the spirit, the spirit moved up to the level of the shoulder blades and stopped. It seemed that it did not want to go further or could not go any further on its own.

I was finally led to ask the Lord to send angels to remove the spirit from the woman and help it to its proper place. When that prayer was begun, there was an apparent movement of the spirit out of the body of the woman. As the spirit left, she said she felt the movement of something on her shoulders.

Afterward there was a great relief. To use her words, "It is like a ten ton weight has been removed. WOW! God is truly powerful."

The closure on the prayer was to ask God to cauterize the inner place where the spirit had been when it was bonded to her, to bring back that part of her that had been left with the man, and to make her whole and free as He intended her to be. The freedom that was given to her is still hers.

I have used that process with others who have indicated the same sort of problem, and I have found it to be helpful to many of them. It is not the same as casting out demons, but it is of that nature. It is a spiritual surgery that is used to remove some cause of dis-ease from the one who suffers. It is remitting the sin rather than simply excusing it. It is restoration rather than explanation.

I have seen varying degrees of success using this form of prayer. There has not been a great deal of data compiled. As far as I know there have been very few people who have sought this kind of prayer for healing, but it seems to me that it is worth trying when the problem is evident.

I have had one occasion when I have had opportunity to try this form of prayer on a man who was trying to get out of an adulterous relationship. He found it to be helpful for him in his struggle.

I have prayed with people for the removal of bondage to a particular person, and I have prayed for people for the removal of multiple partners, asking the Lord to clean up and set free those who are to leave, and clean up and bring back to growing edge those whom we are seeking to set free. I have found that the latter situation may require more than one prayer session for freedom to manifest, and for the person to realize the integration that we seek from the Lord. We seek a new life and a new integrity wherein the bondage is removed.

Perhaps the meaning of adultery takes on a new and more profound meaning when we look at sex in this way. The marriage union is a union of husband and wife who are made one body. Any extramarital sex on the part of either party adds to that union another presence that contaminates the union and fragments the people involved.

That is a thought which seems foreign to psychologists who regard humanity from an external point of view. On the other hand it makes sense in the light of God's revelation about human nature finding its origin, not in external sources, but in the inner life of the spirit.

We cannot see within to know what actually transpires when we seek such surgery of the soul, but we can see the freedom that is given to one who has been set free by the scalpel of God's love.

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