IN THE BEGINNING
GENESIS PART 1 – ANTEDILUVIAN HISTORY
THE DOCTRINE OF MARRIAGE PART 2: ONE MAN, ONE WOMAN, ONE LIFETIME
GENESIS 2:24
INTRODUCTION
- During our look at the doctrine of marriage last time we began to lay the foundation for a biblical view of this great covenant. We began by noticing that everything was good in God’s creation except for the aloneness of Adam. This was not an issue for long, however, because the LORD God formed a helper corresponding to him. She was like Adam, and yet unlike Adam. Eve, created by God as Adam’s sexual counterpart, was given to the man so that together they could obey God’s command to be fruitful and multiply – to fill the earth and subdue it.
- Our first point of emphasis was that sexual intimacy is only to be enjoyed within this relationship. We looked at the concepts of adultery and premarital sex; noting that Scripture everywhere condemns these practices. I would remind you of Hebrews 13:4 where the Bible says: Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. The true God, who created and initiated this institution in the garden with our first parents, is intensely concerned with keeping marriage pure. It should remain as he designed it. All other aberrations are ungodly and sinful.
- That lead us to the question of who can be married. We stated, unequivocally, in accordance with Scripture that marriage is reserved for one man and one woman. Polygamy is not an option. Homosexuality is not an option. The Bible is clear that those behaviors are abominations before God. You will recall that the word of God does not mince words, especially as it addresses the issue of men having sex with men and women having sex with women. It is an unnatural behavior. Not unnatural because it goes against an individual’s “natural” desires, but unnatural because it goes against God’s natural creation design. In fact, the phrases “men having sex with men” and “women having sex with women” are really oxymorons, aren’t they? Those things cannot actually be done. The actions that take place in such relationships, while sexual in nature, pale in comparison to the God-designed real deal.
- We return, then, to the text of Genesis 2 to fill in some of the missing pieces. I say “some” because marriage is such a huge topic that there will doubtless be things we pass over or miss. Last time we saw God giving Eve to Adam in order that they might fulfill his command. We drew out from that the implication that their relationship as husband and wife, one man and one woman, is the biblical norm. Now we are going to look closely at the actual wording of that key verse in chapter 2.
[READ GENESIS 2:24]
- The first thing I want you to notice from this verse is that:
MARRIAGE PROVIDES FOR A SPECIAL AND UNIQUE COMPANIONSHIP BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN
- The first phrase in this verse is: Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother... “Therefore” of course points us back to the content preceding this verse. Because God formed Eve especially for Adam; because he gave her to him as a suitable helper; and because Adam was pleased with Eve as bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, all men after Adam follow this same pattern. It’s as if Moses is explaining to his readers: this is why we do what we do. This is why a man leaves his father and his mother and takes a wife for himself. Why not run wild on the earth and participate in whatever sort of sexual behavior you want? Why not have multiple women or multiple men? Because God has a specific design that he enacted from the very beginning.
- Now this phrase clues us in to the special relationship that marriage provides for two individuals. Remember in v.18 of this chapter God said that it was not good for the man to be alone. The implication is, now that man was not alone, things were back to being good. In fact, it is only after mankind is created as both male and female that God says at the end of creation day 6: behold, it is very good. So what does this phrase tell us about the unique relationship of marriage?
- It tells us that the marriage relationship is so special and so powerful that it initiates the forming of a whole new family. When a man and a woman decide to be married, they leave their parents and form their own family unit. Now we need to be careful not to misunderstand what is being said here. In our culture, when a man and a woman get married they literally leave their parents and move into their own home – in most cases. But during this time when Moses is writing that did not happen. The family unit looked very different than it does today in America. Most sons stayed and lived either with or next to their parents and eventually inherited a portion of their father’s land.
- So to leave one’s father and mother did not necessarily mean a physical departure; although it could. The primary meaning is that the man is leaving the role he had under his parents and taking on a brand new responsibility. When a person was single, their primary responsibility was to honor their parents and serve the family. When a marriage took place that responsibility shifted. The married couple was still to honor their parents (in fact the relationship between children and parents remained close), but their new primary responsibility was to each other.
- We still get a sense of this in our modern weddings. In most weddings the bride will walk down the aisle with her father or father figure and the pastor will ask “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” The response is usually something like “I do.” or “Her mother and I do.” At that point, the groom takes the hand of the bride and the father sits down. What is happening there? An exchange is taking place. All parties involved are acknowledging that there is a huge change of relationship happening. The new couple is entering into a new stage of responsibility. The parents are giving over authority to the husband. The bride is “leaving” her father and mother. The husband and wife then share an intimate relationship that they did not share, of course, with their parents.
- I think we get that. There is a new family forming when this event happens. Now I want to spend the bulk of our time on this next issue. To this point, we’ve talked about why men and women get married, and who can be married. I want to try to define in clear terms what marriage actually is:
MARRIAGE IS A PUBLIC, PERMANENT COVENANT PROMISE BEFORE GOD THAT IS NOT TO BE BROKEN
- The first part of that point comes from the picture we have of marriage in the rest of the Bible: it is a public event. A man and a woman promise publicly to be dedicated solely to each other for the rest of their lives. This means that living together doesn’t make a couple married. Saying “I love you” to each other doesn’t equal marriage. Having sex with each other doesn’t make a couple married. Having children doesn’t do the trick. Their has to be an actual public promise made.
- In John 4 Jesus is talking with the woman at the well, and in dealing with her spiritual blindness he says to her: Go, call your husband, and come here. And the woman responds by saying that she does not have a husband. Jesus says back to her: You are right in saying, ’I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. This woman was living with a man, yet he was not her husband. So they may have expressed their love for each other; they may have promised to be committed to each other; and they were almost certainly having sex with each other, but they were not married in Jesus’ eyes.
- Again, our modern day marriages still have this public aspect of wedlock incorporated into our ceremonies. In order for a marriage to be valid in this country you must have witnesses to your promise. There may be a half a dozen people there or there may be 500 people there, but it is still a public ceremony on some level. The same is true with marriages in the Bible. There are always people there. It is never a one on one promise made between two people in a dark bedroom on a Friday night.
- Someone might say “Well who were the witnesses for Adam and Eve?” Obviously there were no other human beings around, so God himself initiated the marital relationship. If you and the person you love are ever the only two people on the planet then you can be an exception too! Don’t count on that, though!
- Now we’ve titled this brief look at marriage: One Man, One Woman, One Lifetime. I’m sure you’ve heard that phrase before. Last time we covered the “one man, one woman” portion of our title. Now we need to address the “one lifetime” aspect. Marriage is not only a public covenant or promise, it is a permanent covenant. The second part of Gen. 2:24 says: [a man shall] hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
- This is very important language being used by Moses here. The man is supposed to hold fast to his wife because when they are married they become one flesh. What does that mean? Listen to the words of Jesus in Matthew 19:6. He has just quoted this verse in Genesis to the Pharisees and then he says: So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. What are we to draw from this statement that the man holds fast to his wife and they become one flesh? That marriage is supposed to be a permanent relationship.
- We are speaking of course of the topic of divorce. There are so many ways we could approach this issue. I’m going to make a general statement that I believe is faithful to Scripture, then we will look specifically at some passages. Scriptural marriage is intended to be such a permanent vow that only two exceptions are given that make divorce permissible. Now please do not think that these principles do not directly affect me or that I am somehow beyond the impact of these things. My parents were divorced when I was a young boy, my father has had two subsequent divorces, many other family members have experienced it. So I don’t mean to attack anyone you know who has dealt with this; and I know there are some here who have been divorced – this is simply what the Scripture says.
- In that same passage I just read from in Matthew 19 the Pharisees ask Jesus why Moses allowed them to divorce their wives if God intended marriage to be permanent. And Jesus says to them: Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.
- Jesus states very clearly to them that if they divorce their wives for trivial reasons – our popular term is “irreconcilable differences” - and marry another woman they are committing adultery. The lone exception for Jesus is if a partner has been sexually immoral. Then it seems as though he sees the divorce as legitimate; because the unfaithful partner has become one flesh with another person and has destroyed the intimate bond between husband and wife.
- And there is one other exception given by Paul that would not have occurred in Jesus’ day. After Jesus has accomplished his redemptive work and the church is formed, a new situation arises: what if one person in a marriage is a believing Christian and the other is not? In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul instructs men and women who have unbelieving partners (because one of them has come to Christ after they were already married) to stay with their spouses if the unbeliever is willing to live with them. But if the unbeliever refuses to stay married, he writes in v.15: But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved.
- These are the two reasons a divorce is biblically justified: one partner is sexually unfaithful or one partner is an unbeliever and does not want to stay married to the believer. That’s it. There is no “Well, we’ve just grown apart.” clause in the Bible. “We’ve changed.” is not a valid excuse. Of course you changed. Did you think you would not change during the span of your whole lifetime? What do you think you meant when you said “for richer or poorer, in good times and in bad, ’til death do us part”? You promised not only your spouse, but God that you would not go back on your promise. Don’t be so naive as to think that you can break a covenant made before God without any consequences or without him noticing. God expects marriage to be permanent.
- Why is this the case? Why do we insist on marriage being a permanent covenant bond? Because:
MARRIAGE IS INTENDED TO BE A PICTURE OF CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH
- In that familiar passage in Ephesians 5 the Bible says that wives are to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ and husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church. The marriage relationship between a man and a woman is supposed to be a representation of the relationship between Christ and his body.
- What is a man saying about the character of Jesus Christ if he flippantly divorces his wife and marries another? He is wrongly representing Christ’s faithfulness. Jesus would never abandon his church and “run off with another”. Men, please hear me clearly. I know it’s hard. I know how you think. I think the same way. But if you know that Christ is a faithful Savior, you must be a faithful husband.
- Or what is a woman saying about the responsibility of the church if she flippantly divorces her husband and marries another man? She is wrongly representing the church’s commitment to Christ. The true church would never forsake Jesus Christ in favor of another god. Women, hear me just as well. I know it’s hard for you too. I know men can be pigheaded, macho, insensitive, jerks. I am one. But if you know that the church is Christ’s body and is wholly committed to him, you must be a faithful wife.
- I was hoping to have the time and space to get into the difference marital roles that are implied in this great Ephesians 5 passage, but we must move on and leave that for another time. The main point is this: we are so protective of marriage because of what the Bible presents it to be. Call me uptight if you’d like. I don’t want to be known as an uptight person; but marriage is worth protecting.
- Now let’s see if we can bring this all together. We’ll end with this:
HOW TO LOVINGLY, YET FIRMLY UPHOLD A BIBLICAL VIEW OF MARRIAGE IN A SINFUL AND BROKEN WORLD
- Let’s recap and try to view the whole completed puzzle. In Genesis 2 God initiates the marriage covenant between Adam and Eve so that they could properly be fruitful and multiply. This means that sexual relationships and child bearing belong within the marital relationship. The Genesis 2 text also assumes, and subsequent Scripture affirms that this concept of marriage is reserved for one man and one woman. It is designed to foster a special companionship between a man and a woman when they leave their parents and commit themselves to each other in order to start a new family. As a covenant or promise made before others and God it is intended to be a permanent relationship with very few reasons (two to be exact) for dissolving the covenant. This is because the marriage relationship is a picture of how Jesus Christ himself relates to his church and vice versa.
- So how do we uphold this view of marriage in the context of our world today? Here is my first suggestion: never negotiate biblical truths. You will get nowhere trying to dance around what the Bible says about marriage, sexuality, children, divorce, etc. Be honest with yourself and honest with others. I know these are complicated, emotional matters; but Scripture is not silent.
- Secondly, be prepared to be called a hateful, out of touch, judgmental, bigot. It will happen when you stand for these truths. Thirdly, make sure that when they call you these names, they are not right. You can stand for truth without being hateful. You can discern right from wrong without being judgmental. You don’t have to be what people may accuse you of being.
- Fourthly, recognize and understand that we live in a fallen world where marriages will be broken, battered, and shattered. Not everyone will submit themselves to these truths. It is your responsibility to come into those situations with the light of the truth and show them how it is supposed to be; so that they can break out of their sin (if they are still in it) through repentance and faith, and live according to God’s standards.
- I debated whether or not to talk about specifics; because I’m sure there are dozens of situations floating around in your mind that you have gone through or someone you know has gone through. I’m not going to try to address every single sinful deviation from the biblical norm. I would be more than happy to chat with you about a specific situation in a different setting. What I am concerned that you get is this: the covenant of marriage is important to God; and as a Christian you have the responsibility to defend the biblical marriage relationship in any way you can. For some this means having hard talks with hurt, broken, or sometimes stubborn, prideful people. But this is a doctrine worth fighting for because of what it is in Scripture and what it represents.
CONCLUSION
- Back in Genesis 2, as we close out the chapter, the situation here is the exact opposite of what we’ve just been dealing with. The man and the woman are in perfect communion with God and with each other. The issues of extramarital sex, children out of wedlock, homosexuality, polygamy, divorce, and all the rest aren’t even in the picture yet. Why? Because sin has not yet entered into the frame.
- We have a perfect picture of the creation of man and woman and their place on this earth! Unfortunately, this picture does not last long. And the occurrence that causes all of the issues that distort the marriage covenant is about to unfold. Next time we will come face to face with a catastrophic event of unequaled monumental proportions: the fall of man and woman into sin.
