(The Case for Marriage)
I. God’s Original Design
Genesis 2:18–24
When the Pharisees asked Jesus about divorce, He did something simple and bold. He didn’t argue the law. He didn’t haggle over texts. He went back to the garden. He started at the beginning. He said, “From the beginning it was not so.”
Listen. Marriage is not man’s idea. It is God’s. It is first. It is fundamental. Before law. Before government. Before church. Before anything else—God made marriage.
Picture Eden for a moment. Perfect world. No sin. No sorrow. Yet God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” Not good. Think about that. Before sin entered, God saw that aloneness was wrong. He made a remedy. He made a companion.
He didn’t make a clone. He made a partner. He made another image-bearer. Male and female. Both made in God’s image. Both reflecting the Creator. Together showing God’s fullness. That’s the point. Marriage is not about superiority. It’s about complement. Two different strengths. Two different gifts. One common calling.
Then God does something intimate. He takes a rib. He forms a woman. He brings her to the man. Adam sees her and says, “This—this is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh.” That line is not poetry only. It is theology. It is the first human confession of delight. The first human word of commitment.
Because of that, God says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Leave. Cleave. Become one. Three verbs. One movement. A new primary allegiance. A new loyalty. A new identity. Marriage is not an add-on. It is a re-ordering. The two become one.
One flesh. That phrase hits deep. It is emotional. It is spiritual. It is physical. It is everything. It binds. It fuses. It is not a contract. A contract you can fix with signatures. A contract you can renegotiate. Marriage is not that. Marriage is a covenant. Covenant is heavier. Covenant is deeper. Covenant is sacred.
Hear the prophet Malachi later: he calls a wife “the wife of your covenant.” The language is sharp. It is holy. A covenant is not built on suspicion. That’s what a contract is: suspicion. “If you do this, I’ll do that.” A covenant is built on promise. “I will be faithful because God is faithful.” That makes the marriage different. That makes it a witness. That makes it a picture.
Think about fruitfulness. When God blesses them, He says, “Be fruitful and multiply.” That is not only about children. It is about life. It is about influence. A faithful marriage multiplies—hospitality, disciples, sacrificial service, character, mission. A home built on covenant is a greenhouse for grace. It multiplies Kingdom life.
Now listen carefully. When Jesus points to the beginning, He is doing two things. First: He reclaims the purpose. Marriage is made for companionship, for image-bearing, for one-flesh union, for fruitfulness, for stewardship. Second: He issues a charge. “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” He puts the weight of God behind the union.
That is why the question about divorce is not a mere technicality. It is not a loophole hunt. It is a theological crisis. Because if we reduce marriage to paperwork, we misunderstand God’s order. If we treat marriage as a rubric to be checked, we miss the mystery God meant. If we make marriage a scoreboard—waiting to catch someone in an error—then we have forgotten the Creator who joins two people into one life.
So we preach the beginning. Not as nostalgia. Not as sentiment. But as authority. If you want a foundation strong enough to hold a marriage through hardship—this is it. God’s design. God’s covenant. God’s joining.
This is where we will build what comes next. Hardness of heart. Porneia as covenant-betrayal. The cure—repentance and renewal. But none of those will make sense if we do not first understand what was joined at the start.
God made marriage. God intended covenant. God intended faithfulness. That is the cause for marriage. That is the standard. That is the claim.
II. Covenant Before Culture
When Jesus spoke of marriage, He reached back to Genesis.
But He also reached forward through the prophets to expose the heart of the matter.
Malachi gives us the word: covenant.
> “The Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth… she is your companion and the wife of your covenant” (Mal. 2:14).
That word matters.
Covenant is not culture.
It is not contract.
It is not a social trend that shifts with the fashion of the day.
Covenant is God’s own bond, sworn in His presence, sealed by His name.
Culture may change the laws.
Culture may rewrite the vows.
Culture may applaud easy exit and serial partners.
But culture cannot rewrite the covenant God set in place.
The Pharisees once cornered Jesus with a legal trap.
Matthew 19 records their question:
“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?”
They wanted a loophole.
They wanted a debate about the paperwork.
Jesus cut through their argument with a sword of truth.
He said, “Have you not read…? From the beginning it was not so. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Do you hear the weight of those words?
“What God has joined together.”
Marriage is not merely joined by a pastor, a rabbi, or a judge.
It is joined by God.
When a man and woman stand before Him and pledge their lives, heaven itself seals that union.
The Pharisees pressed the issue.
“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”
Jesus answered with clarity that shakes every shallow view of marriage:
“Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.”
Hardness of heart.
That is the disease.
Not incompatibility.
Not irreconcilable differences.
Not the latest cultural mood.
Hardness of heart—spiritual calluses that refuse God’s design and resist His grace.
The Greek word is skler-kardia.
A stiff, stubborn, resistant heart.
That is what breaks marriages --- long before any lawyer files papers.
When the heart turns cold, when forgiveness is withheld, when pride builds a wall, the covenant is already wounded.
And notice another Greek word Jesus uses: porneía.
Often translated “sexual immorality,” but it is more than a single act of adultery.
In the prophets, porneía names Israel’s spiritual betrayal—running after other gods, abandoning the covenant.
It is a broad word for unfaithfulness, the outward symptom of an inward departure.
The sexual act is not the cause of the break; it is the evidence that the covenant has already been forsaken.
That is why Jesus will not let marriage be reduced to a hunt for evidence.
He refuses to bless a game of “catch the offender in the act.”
Because the problem is deeper.
Two hearts can live under one roof and yet walk out of covenant long before anyone else knows.
The issue is not first what happens in the bed.
The issue is what has already happened in the heart.
So hear this with gospel seriousness:
Divorce was never God’s command.
It was a concession to hard hearts.
It was damage control in a world of sin.
But from the beginning it was not so.
Marriage stands as God’s covenant gift, meant to display His own faithful love.
That truth confronts every culture.
Ancient or modern.
Roman or American.
First century or twenty-first.
God’s covenant does not bow to fashion.
It does not expire when society drifts.
It does not crumble because a legislature votes.
It is rooted in creation and witnessed by heaven.
This is why the church must not speak of marriage merely in the language of contracts or feelings.
We must speak the language of covenant.
Because marriage is not just about the happiness of two people; it is about the holiness of God.
It is a living parable of Christ and His church, a testimony to the world of steadfast love.
And that is why hardness of heart is so dangerous.
It is not merely a private disappointment; it is a public contradiction of God’s covenant faithfulness.
When we let bitterness, pride, and unforgiveness harden us, we are not only wounding a spouse; we are misrepresenting the God who keeps covenant forever.
This is the truth Jesus declared in the face of Pharisaic loopholes and cultural drift.
The covenant of marriage stands before culture, above culture, and beyond culture.
It was born in Eden.
It was affirmed by the prophets.
It was upheld by the Son of God.
III. The Fracture and the Call
The Pharisees wanted Jesus to talk about legal papers.
He kept talking about hearts.
They pushed again: “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
Listen to His answer: “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 porneía, and marries another, commits adultery.”
Hardness of heart—skler-kardia.
That is the root disease.
It is the slow calcifying of the soul.
It is the quiet refusal of grace.
It is pride settling like stone until God’s voice no longer moves us.
And then comes that Greek word porneía.
We often shrink it down to a single sexual act.
But in the Bible it is larger.
It names any deep covenant betrayal.
In the prophets it is the word for Israel’s spiritual adultery—running after idols, trusting alliances instead of the Lord.
In Revelation it names the world’s defiance of God.
Here is the order Jesus reveals:
first the heart turns;
then the betrayal shows itself.
The physical act is fruit, not root.
That is why He says in Matthew 5, “Everyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Before the body acts, the heart has already walked away.
Before the marriage bed is defiled, the covenant has been denied.
And that is why the legal games of Jesus’ day—and ours—miss the point.
If you reduce marriage to catching someone in the act, you have already lost the meaning of covenant.
Two people can stay under one roof, keep the rings on their fingers, and yet live as strangers.
Two signatures on a mortgage do not make a marriage.
A hard heart can break a covenant long before a lawyer draws a line.
Jesus’ words are sharp because His love is fierce.
He will not bless a system that waits for proof while hearts grow cold.
He will not baptize a hunt for evidence while forgiveness is refused.
He will not give His name to a marriage that is already dead inside.
But He does not leave us there.
He points to the cure: “I will give you a new heart and a new spirit,” says the Lord through Ezekiel (36:26).
Where hearts have hardened, He can soften.
Where trust has died, He can revive.
Where sin has ruled, He can reign.
That promise is not theory.
It is power.
It means there is hope for the couple who barely speak.
Hope for the husband hiding behind silence.
Hope for the wife carrying hidden wounds.
Hope even where betrayal has taken place.
Because the God who spoke creation into being can speak life into a dead covenant.
Do not miss the force of this moment.
Jesus is not lowering the bar.
He is raising it to where it belongs.
Marriage is not held together by suspicion or surveillance.
It is held together by a heart made new.
The covenant stands not because we never fail, but because the Spirit keeps softening what sin hardens.
This is the great divide in every marriage and every soul:
Will we let the heart harden, or will we let God make it new?
Hard hearts lead to fracture and finally to porneía in all its forms.
New hearts lead to reconciliation, forgiveness, and life.
The Lord who said “from the beginning it was not so” is the same Lord who says today, “I will give you a new heart.”
That is not a suggestion.
That is the gospel.
IV. The Gospel Cure and Witness
We have stood in Eden.
We have heard the prophets call marriage a covenant.
We have listened as Jesus unmasked hardness of heart and the deep meaning of porneía.
Now we come to the cure—and to the glory.
Paul writes in Ephesians 5, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Sound familiar?
He is quoting Genesis, just like Jesus did.
But then he adds something breathtaking:
“This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
Marriage is not only ancient.
It is prophetic.
It is gospel-shaped.
It is a living parable of Christ and His bride.
Husbands, Paul says, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.
That is not casual affection.
That is Calvary love.
Sacrificial, covenant-keeping, blood-bought love.
Wives, Paul says, respect your husbands.
Not servitude.
Not silence.
But an honoring partnership that mirrors the church’s trust in Christ.
Do you see what Paul is doing?
He is lifting marriage out of the courtroom and into the cosmos.
He is saying that every Christian marriage is meant to be a window through which the world can glimpse the gospel.
That is why the hardness of heart we spoke of is not just a personal tragedy.
It is a spiritual counter-witness.
It hides the very love God wants the world to see.
But here is the good news:
the same Jesus who calls us back to the beginning is the Jesus who gives us a new heart.
Ezekiel 36:26 is His promise: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Only God can do that.
No counseling technique, no legal code, no willpower alone can change a stony heart into a heart of flesh.
But God can.
That means no marriage is beyond hope.
No betrayal is beyond forgiveness.
No bitterness is too deep for grace.
Where the Spirit of Christ rules, new life can break in.
The same power that raised Jesus from the dead can resurrect a covenant that seems buried.
And this is not only for husbands and wives.
It is for every heart in the room.
Because marriage is the picture, but Christ is the reality.
He is the Bridegroom who laid down His life for a faithless bride.
He is the Lord who still says, “Return to Me, for I am married to you” (Jer. 3:14).
The call to repent and believe is the call to every soul, married or single, young or old.
So as we bring this message to its close, hear the full sweep:
From the beginning it was not so—God made marriage for covenant companionship, for image-bearing, for fruitfulness, for lifelong one-flesh union.
Culture may shift, but covenant stands.
Hard hearts may rebel, but God gives new hearts.
Porneía may betray, but grace can restore.
And every faithful marriage becomes a living testimony of the love of Christ for His church.
That is why this subject is not merely private.
It is not a footnote to Christian life.
It is central to the witness of the gospel.
A world that is cynical about love needs to see husbands and wives keeping covenant.
It needs to see believers who forgive as they have been forgiven.
It needs to see in human marriage a sign of the unbreakable love of God.
So here is the call, the one call that stands over the whole message:
Repent where hearts have hardened.
Believe that Christ can make all things new.
Receive the heart of flesh He promises.
Live your marriage—and your single life, your friendships, your church life—as a covenant that displays His faithfulness.
What God has joined together, let not man separate.
What sin has hardened, let Christ make new.
What the world treats as a contract, let the church honor as covenant.
This is the cause for marriage.
This is covenant before culture.
This is the gospel lived out in flesh and blood, until the day when the Bridegroom Himself returns and the marriage supper of the Lamb begins.
