Love and Marriage….

My wife and I just returned from a vacation where we were celebrating our 20^th wedding anniversary.  We were high school sweethearts, stayed together through college, and were married after we both graduated.  This may be a bit personal, but we have only known each other, so to speak.  We are living examples that, yes, it is possible to remain true and faithful before and during marriage, and we are striving to teach both of our daughters this same lesson.  We certainly have no regrets about anything, and in fact, our long courtship and celibacy before marriage have only made us stronger in our relationship.  We are looking forward to at least another 40 more years! 

Marriage seems to have fallen on hard times in this country and across the globe lately.  With the world’s preoccupation, actually worship, of sex, marriage seems to have lost its meaning and given way to unbridled pleasure, self-gratification, and self-centeredness.  Why is marriage such a big deal anyway?  I mean, why can’t two people, regardless of gender or some piece of legal paper, enjoy an intimate relationship in whatever manner they wish?  Shouldn’t our own desires and pleasures govern the way we love and relate to one another? 

In a word, no.  The Bible has a lot to say about love and marriage, but let me say something that is obvious first.  True relationship cannot exist between two people who are self-centered and live life only for self-gratification.  How can two people care about each other if all they care about is themselves? That is why marriage and even real relationship today is becoming an endangered species.  People nowadays are consummate consumers, and live life to fulfill their own desires, whatever those may be.  Self-fulfillment, more money, wealth-building, a better life, self-improvement, etc.  All of these goals and more are focused on the self.  Real relationship is focused on someone else.  The reason very few people have strong and long-lasting relationships today is because in our consumer-driven and self-focused modern world, devoting yourself to someone else, subordinating your desires temporarily or permanently for someone else’s, is heresy.  Relationships, even in the church, are usually built on what the other person can do for me to help me in my quest for self-improvement or fulfillment.  Even many Christians see God not as the Almighty Creator of the universe, Lord over all of heaven and earth, the object of my worship and sacrifice, but a means to get what I want out of life, be it happiness, a good marriage, well-behaved kids, financial security, good health, or job security.  The focus on the self does not make for good relationships and certainly does not breed strong marriages. 

The primary Biblical picture of a marriage is that of a covenant.  God’s covenant relations with his people are described in the language of marriage.  We get our meaning and models for relationship from the covenantal relationship of God and his people.  There are three main elements of the marriage covenant that we can derive from the Bible: 1) the promise of committed love between the husband and the wife; 2) the public declaration of the covenant by which a new family is created; and 3) the personal communion between a husband and a wife in the relationship.  God’s covenant with his people is permanent, and the marriage covenant between a man and a woman is also permanent.  When we think of marriage as a model of God’s relationship with His people, we have a solid foundation on which to build our own marriage.

Marriage is a creation ordinance of God, and affected the total life of man.  God ordered the ordinance of marriage when He states in Genesis 2:18, “it is not good that man should be alone.”  So God created a helper.  O. Palmer Robertson states that, “The creational origin of the marriage relationship has far-reaching implications.  By tracing this ordinance to the sovereign creative act of God himself, Scripture removes all doubt with respect to the sanctity of marriage.  The Lord-Creator ordained marriage from the time of man’s creation.”  Robertson reaches several conclusions, which should be fairly obvious from the Biblical texts concerning marriage.

1.  There is an interpersonal fusion between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife.  God created woman from man, and Genesis 2:22-24 describes how a man should leave his parents and cleave to his wife to form one flesh.  This oneness is to be consummated only in the marriage bond and union.  Implicit in this union is the fact that only two can enter into it.  By the ordering of creation, marriage unites two persons. 

2.  Creation’s ordering determines the internal structure that characterizes God’s institution of marriage.  This will clearly not be politically correct, but Paul states in 1 Corinthians 11:9 that the man was not created for the woman, but the woman was created for the man.  A significant balancing element must be noted in the scriptural presentation of the role of the woman in marriage.  The woman is to be man’s helper, but is to be a helper corresponding to him.  The woman is no less significant than the man with respect to the person.  The roles are different, but the equality before God is the same. 

3.  The effect of the creation ordinance of marriage on various sexual aberrations should be noticed.  Because an order has been established for the relation of men and women by creation, this order cannot be ignored or supplanted.  Polygamy contradicts the creational order of marriage.  Divorce contradicts the creational order of marriage.  Homosexuality contradicts the creational order of marriage. 

A sexual relationship between a man and a woman has been designed by God to be exercised only within the marriage relationship.  Today, we have made sex as strictly a fulfillment of stimulation and pleasure, with little to no deep commitment or relationship.  It has become a superficial act of pure stimulation in which we attempt to selfishly satisfy our own desires and urges.  What modern man and woman has made sex is much to the contrary of what God designed sex to be.  God intended sex to be the consummation of a close and personal relationship within the marriage covenant. 

Marriage should therefore be regarded as a significant and supremely important component of God’s creation and created order.  It is through marriage that reproduction occurs (or should occur), and the Christian’s reproduction of children is a primary way God works his redemption and plan through generations in His covenant.  Today marriage is seen as merely a social construct that can and must change to keep up with the changing times and changing cultural contexts.  However, as part of God’s created order, marriage is a lasting ordinance that can never be changed, and was designed and created by God himself as part of His ordering of His creation.  A proper study of marriage is in order for Christians, because most Christians don’t understand the importance of marriage.  When Christians understand the supreme significance of this ordinance and covenant, then perhaps marriage will be revived in America.