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by J. Christian Andrews

June 29, 2015

Living in a Biblical Marriage

A great number of articles reacting to the United States Supreme Court decision requiring marriage licenses be issued in all fifty states to couples of the same gender have been written and published since that decision was handed down on Friday, June 26, 2015. Much has been said about judicial activism, endowment of rights, and adherence to constitutional principles or lack thereof. I, wanting to add my two bits to the discussion, have wrestled with what can be said that others are not saying. I have wondered what it is that I can constructively add to the conversation. I have certainly not read everything that is out there, nor do I pretend no one else has voiced what I have here to say; but I do wonder if what is missing in the discussion is the foundation. If we are to adhere to a higher calling based on principles we believe come to us from God, it seems that we ought to know why it is we should hold firmly to the position that marriage is given to us by God as a covenant between a man and a woman. A theology of marriage must come from the creation purposes for that institution which include creation in God’s image, the command to fill the earth, the provision for one flesh companionship, and God’s desire for relationship with us.

From the beginning we find that God crowned His creation with humanity. “And God created the man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27 NASB). No one verse in Scripture explains what it means to be created in God’s image, but from the whole story of God’s interaction with His human creation we can deduce that the first couple were created perfect, immortal, and with a will. Their holiness or perfection is seen in that after they disobediently ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, after sin came into their lives, they hid from God and covered themselves when God game to the Garden in the cool of the day. They were ashamed, a sentiment with which they had not been created, because they were no longer innocent but guilty. They had sinned by disobedience and had lost the holiness with which they have been gifted in creation.1 Their immortality, God’s design that they should live forever, is seen in the coming of death. God had caused to grow in the Garden a tree which He called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He told Adam and Eve they could eat from all the other fruit bearing trees but not from this tree. He warned them that eating from this tree would result in death, so we conclude that in their original creation God intended that they would not die.2 God willed and spoke and crafted and breathed all creation into being; and when He made the man and the woman, He also gave them a will. We see this again in the narrative of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He gave them a choice in the very command that they not eat from it. They could choose to obey and live or to disobey and die. We were created, then, male and female, first to reflect the very image of God: His holiness, His eternal nature, and His will.

Secondly, the blessing and injunction on humanity in creation is procreation. The first thing God did after making man and woman in His own image was to bless them and enlist them in the continuing process of creation. “God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Genesis 1:28 NASB). “Be fruitful and multiply,” He said. God imbued His human creation with His own image. God created a man and a woman to whom, in partnership, he gave the honor and task of joining in continuing creation. In their knowing each other, God would take of the man and God would take of the woman and combine them to make another man and another woman on and on for all the generations of humanity. It was God’s intent, we might say, to fill the earth with His image; and He created the man/woman relationship and institution to accomplish this grand design.

Thirdly, we find in the creation account that we, the man and the woman, were made to be in relationship. According to the telling, God sought from among the created beings a suitable helpmate for the man; and finding none, He fashioned the perfect helpmate from the man’s rib. Taken from the man was his mate, the woman, bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, the woman from the man. And God gave this couple and every couple after a union in their relationship that would surpass and supplant all other unions. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:24, 25 NASB). There is a mystery here that defies reason. God takes two, a man and a woman, and joins the two into one. Jesus later affirmed this union and added to it: “And He answered and said, ‘Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, and said, ‘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 no man separate’” (Matthew 19:4-6 NASB caps denote text quoted from the Old Testament). The oneness of marriage, the union of two, a man and a woman, into one flesh, is not of human design or human making. That we, the man joined to the woman, the husband joined to his wife, become one flesh is of God’s design and God’s making. So it is that Jesus himself in affirming the marriage union also ordained its lifelong permanence. He maintained first that the two become one flesh and commanded secondly that this union made by God was not to be undone by anyone. God’s intention for marriage is the propagation of His image in a relationship and union that makes one out of two and is binding for life.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Biblical marriage is a metaphor of God’s relationship to His people. Throughout the Old Testament, God spoke of His relationship to His people as a husband and wife relationship.

“For your husband is your Maker,
Whose name is the LORD of hosts;
And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel,
Who is called the God of all the earth” (Isaiah 54:5 NASB emphasis mine).
“‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,’ declares the LORD” (Jeremiah 31:31, 32 NASB emphasis mine).
Highlighting the relationship between God and His people as marriage relationship is the accusation of adultery when His people whored after false gods:
“‘Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations to which they will be carried captive, how I have been hurt by their adulterous hearts which turned away from Me, and by their eyes which played the harlot after their idols; and they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed, for all their abominations.
‘Then they will know that I am the LORD; I have not said in vain that I would inflict this disaster on them”’ (Ezekiel 6:9, 10 NASB emphasis mine).
This metaphor is carried through into the New Testament as well. There is in Ephesians 5 a parallel of the love of Christ for His bride, the Church, to that which a husband is to have for his wife. These same verses parallel the commitment a wife is to have to her husband to that which the Church is to have to her Groom, Christ. In this regard, we read the Pauline conclusion to the one flesh union: “This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church” (v. 32). There are also betrothal and marriage stories, many in parables, others in reference, that show a parallel between marriage and the relationship of Jesus to the Church. The practice in first century Palestine was for a man and a woman intending to marry to become betrothed. It was much like our engagement, but was a union of much greater importance as to break a betrothal was equal to divorce. There was no sexual union during the time of betrothal. However, during this time the groom returned to his family property where he added a room or rooms to the family home to which he would bring his bride. It was expected that she would be watching the progress of his construction project so she would be ready to be taken home when the project was finished. Upon completion of the addition, the groom would go unannounced to his bride’s home and get her. There would be a grand procession back to their new home and a great wedding celebration. It was at such a celebration that Jesus performed His first sign, changing water into wine. This betrothal and wedding tradition was alluded to by Jesus when He told His disciples that there were many rooms in His Father’s house, that He was going to His Father’s house to prepare the rooms, and that He would return for them when the rooms were ready.3 Paul referenced the Church as the wife of Christ being prepared to be presented to Christ Himself perfect and without blemish. 4 John saw the Bride in his revelation and heard the invitation to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.5 Marriage is a metaphor of the relationship God has with His people.

If we are to continue to hold firmly to a Biblical understanding and purpose for marriage, it is important that we build that understanding on a firm foundation. Regardless of what the world has or will say about the institution we call marriage, God was the first to establish the institution and God’s Word does not change. His purpose includes showing His image, filling the earth, providing a one flesh lifelong relationship, and illustrating His relationship with us, his people. Only in a man/woman marriage is God’s creation design fulfilled.

Notes

1. Genesis 3:8-13
8They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” 11And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” 13Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

2. Genesis 2:16, 17
16The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

3. John 14:1-3
1“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2“In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3“If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

4. Ephesians 5:25-27
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.

5. Revelation 21:9
9Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”

Revelation 19:7-9
“Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” 8It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
9Then he said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.”