The Origin Of Marriage Series

The Origin of Marriage

Series: Origins

October 19, 2008

Pastor Chris Kelly

Video Clip “The Princess Bride”

In case you didn’t recognize it, that’s a famous scene from the movie “The Princess Bride”. Westley is attempting to save his beloved, “Buttercup” from being married to the evil Prince Humperdinck. In the same way, we’re going to attempt to save something that is very beautiful and precious to God, from the evil clutches of the devil, who is doing everything He possibly can to redefine, poison, and destroy it…it’s called…MAIR-AIGE!!!

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the origin of man… Mankind is the crown jewel of God’s creation and God had a purpose and plan for mankind from the very beginning that made Him unique & superior to the animals in a number of ways. The underlying theme for our series out of Genesis is that… the true meaning of anything is permanently connected to it’s origin. If you don’t understand the reason and purpose of something’s existence… then chances are…you’re going to misuse and abuse it. For example… if you don’t understand that this screwdriver was designed to tighten and loosen screws…(and that’s it) then you’re going to abuse it by using it for all sorts of things it was never intended to do… like stir paint or pry off hub caps from your car tires.

You say, “Well, why can’t I use my screwdriver to pry off hubcaps?” Because…A. It won’t work very well. It’s not designed to do that… and B. If you use it like a crowbar…it’ll ruin the screwdriver…and it’ll never do what it was designed to do (i.e. tighten and loosen screws). It’s not a question of equal rights, or compassion, or my love for the screwdriver over the crowbar… it has everything to do with design!

Well the same is true for marriage and everything else that God makes. If you don’t know its purpose, you’re going to get it wrong every time! For example… if you don’t use marriage the way it’s designed to be used by it’s Creator…it won’t be the satisfying experience God meant for it to be, and 2ndly, you’ll end up permanently damaging the very purpose God designed for marriage in the 1st place!

Because our culture doesn’t understand (or maybe it’s forgotten) the purpose of marriage…we’re like a toddler with a computer… we’re messing with it in ways it was never meant to be messed with! And in the process, we’re destroying something very close to the heart of God! For example…

• We live in a divorce culture that treats marriage like extended dating…with privileges. Because of that, marriage has been devalued in our society.

• We have people choosing to ‘shack up’ with each other rather than commit their lives to each other.

• We even have men desiring to marry men, and women wanting to marry women!

Now listen, ALL of these things (not just homosexual marriage), but ALL of them are perversions of what God originally intended marriage to be!

So let’s go back to the beginning this morning to the book of Genesis and see what God’s original blueprints looked like… READ Gen.2:15-25. I’m going to make a statement about marriage, and then use the rest of our time this morning to explaining what it means according to the passage we just read. Are you ready? Here we go…Men and women are two distinct expressions of the image of God. The ‘one flesh union’ of marriage between a man and a woman is the most complete expression of the image of God that a human can experience. It enables them, as one, to RELATE like God, to LOVE like God, and to CREATE like God.

So very simply…God’s Purpose for Heterosexual Marriage is 3-fold… 1st…

1. To RELATE like God

As we’ve been studying creation the past few weeks, you probably noticed that God created every living thing (whether it was a plant or an animal) to reproduce itself… even mankind. But with mankind… it was different. Man (you’ll remember from a couple weeks ago) was made in the ‘image of God”. That makes him special and distinct from the animals. At the very center of God’s image is the ability to have relationships. Of all the relationships man can have, the marriage relationship is singled out as the most important and intimate relationship that 2 humans can have.

That’s why it’s so surprising when you realize that Adam was created all alone! I mean, look at him…all the animals had lots of other animals to mate with...the seas swarmed with life, the skies were filled with birds…but Adam is sitting there all by his lonesome!

Now, I’m sure that that didn’t go unnoticed by Adam! There were millions of pairs of birds and bears, crocodiles and ducks… but there wasn’t even one pair of people! Adam’s thinking…”Great! You put me in this beautiful garden, surrounded by incredible beauty and abundance…I have everything I’ll ever need…EXCEPT someone to share it with!” Amazingly after each stage of creation God finished, He pronounced that what He made was “good”. And then we come to vs. 18 and as he looks at mans ‘aloneness’… He pronounces it...”NOT good” It’s the only time He does this in all of His enormous creation! He says, “It is not good that man should be alone” (2:18). God’s not admitting He made a ‘goof’. Instead He’s emphasizing the fact that the original plan wasn’t complete yet.