The Creation Ordinance of Marriage in Today’s Church
Posted by theologyandsteak on November 14, 2008
On Feb. 4, 2004, the Supreme Court of the State of Massachusetts declared marriage to be “an evolving paradigm,” and in a bold leap in that evolutionary process, the court ruled that marriage could no longer be legally defined as the committed union of one man and one woman. The court declared that the definition of marriage must now include a union of two men or two women. This court ruling, which would have been inconceivable forty years ago, illustrates the radical cultural changes that have taken place in this country in the last generation. Marriage is under attack in the United States, the world, and even in the church. The concept of the family is undercut in our society. Individualism and politically correct language have eroded the classic image of the family. While the “image” of the nuclear family is not necessarily biblical, there are forces that seek to destroy the family as an antiquarian relic of the Judeo-Christian legacy. The prime example occurred in the state of California.
On May 15, 2008, the California Supreme Court, by a vote of 4-3, ruled that the statute enacted by Proposition 22 and other statutes that limit marriage to a relationship between a man and a woman violated the equal protection clause of the California Constitution. It also held that individuals of the same sex have the right to marry under the California Constitution. As of June 17, 2008, marriages between individuals of the same sex were considered valid and recognized in the state of California. A UCLA study estimated that 18,000 same-sex couples married between then and early November, 2008.[1] Californians concerned for the institution of marriage garnered enough support to put Proposition 8 on the November 2008 ballot. Proposition 8 was a California State ballot proposition that amended the state Constitution to restrict the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman. It was intended to overturn the California Supreme Court decision that had recognized same-sex marriage in California as a fundamental right. The official ballot title language for Proposition 8 is “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.” The entirety of the text added to the constitution is: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” This proposition passed by a 52% to a 47% margin.[2] If one notes the language of the ballot, it was written in the negative – eliminates the right of – as opposed to a positive tone of promoting the sanctity of marriage. While this is a victory for the sanctity of marriage, the fight is still ongoing. Lawsuits are expected to be forthcoming on both sides of the issue in California and elsewhere.
The current prevailing model of marriage that makes the introduction of same-sex marriage seem a logical extension in this “evolving paradigm” can be stated in this way: marriage is a contract between two consenting adults to enter into a lasting relationship which involves sexual activity, which is entered into for personal gratification, and which is given some state recognition and benefits. This writer believes that we are in a fight today to preserve the Biblical model of marriage because most people, including Christians, believe that marriage is a social institution rather than a creation ordinance. The doctrine of creation is under attack as well from the naturalists and the Darwinists, so this comes as no surprise. However, a basic understanding of the doctrine of marriage as a creation ordinance would serve the church well to reinforce the foundational aspect of marriage between a man and a woman, instituted by God and not by society. Marriage is an ordained institution created by God from the very beginning of creation and serves to establish the family as a God-created societal unit that permeates the entire Scriptures. Understanding the foundational aspect of this ordinance would strengthen marriages in the church, and perhaps create and reinforce a broad Biblical understanding of marriage in the world as well. The purpose of this paper is to briefly demonstrate that marriage is a creation ordinance, a foundation created by God from the beginning, and the fundamental building block for the family.
Genesis 1:27-28 gives one a very brief picture of the creation of man and woman, specifically verse 27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. However, Genesis 2:18, states, Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” In God’s order of creation, God states that it was not good for man to be alone. No animal cold be found to be a suitable helper and companion (verse 20), so God created one out of Adam. From the very beginning of creation God instituted this idea of a helper/companion for man in woman. God created the human race male and female, different yet the same, both with the breath of life, made in the image of God.
Note that this gift of a bride in this verse emphasizes the goodness of marriage. The Lord states that Adam’s singleness is “not good.” Waltke states that this way is more emphatic than saying “lacking in goodness,” which he states is the normal Hebrew way of saying that the situation is less than ideal. Thus, but God’s choice of words, he is emphatically saying that Adam’s situation is bad.[3] Note that in Genesis 1:31, after the creation of man and woman, God pronounced his creation very good.
However, male and female does not imply that God intended marriage to consist of one man and one woman, for life, for the sake of procreation. Some will argue that male and female are the two basic genders, or sexes, that God made, and man and woman are free to fall in love and be together with whomever one is in love. Marriage is not to be limited to a man and a woman. However, the Biblical witness makes it specifically clear that this is not the case.
After God created man and woman, the Lord brought them together. Genesis 2:22-25 states, 22And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Let us note a few points just from this set of verses. First, let’s reiterate that God made man and woman. They did not evolve from some primordial soup from single celled organisms, and eventually developed, for some unknown reason, male and female organs and the desire to be with and mate with each other. God created male and female animals, and make and female human beings made in his image. They were created, not evolved.
Secondly, note that Adam and Eve were considered husband and wife after this creation and union. Verse 25 states the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Note – the man and his wife. Verses 23 and 24 indicate that once the creation and the union process was completed, Adam and Eve were married. This point needs to be established before describing this union process. Again, I want to reiterate that when God created Adam, and the Lord put them together, they were considered married. Marriage was instituted in the Garden of Eden upon creation of Adam and Eve, and they were brought together by the Lord.
Thirdly, note the oneness and union between man and woman in verse 23, which leads to verse 24. Robertson explains the wonder of interpersonal fusion involved in the marriage bond. He states, “The oneness realized in marriage relates the intimate process by which the woman came into being. Because the original woman was formed from a part of her husband, each subsequent man must leave his parents and cleave to his wife, thus constituting these two people as one.”[4] Moses (via the Holy Spirit inspiration) notes that woman was taken out of Man, and because of this, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife. Because man and woman were created by God in a particular fashion, as described in Genesis 2, and did not evolve by cosmic chance and a lot of time, marriage is a particular bond between a man and a woman. God created marriage in his particular act of creation.
Note the significance and the intensity of the union between a man and a woman in verse 24. The Scriptures state and they shall become one flesh. This “being one flesh” described in Scriptures, Robertson writes, does not simply refer to the various moments of sexual marital consummation. Instead, “this oneness describes the abiding condition of union achieved in marriage.”[5] Waltke also explains that God completes the man by the gift of a bride, not by placing him in a community, which is no substitute for a wife. The man and the woman complement and complete one another.[6] Man and woman leave their familial relationships of their parents and, upon marriage, create their own family, close, but distinct and separate from their parents. This union is so complete and produces such oneness that Scriptures use this analogy to explain the relationship between the church and Christ. Paul in Ephesians 5:22-33 explains the relationship between husbands and wives in comparison with the relationship between Christ and His Church. The union between Christ and His church cannot be broken, so therefore the relationship between husband and wife is a union that cannot be broken. Two become one flesh, as Genesis states, and Paul states, in Ephesians 5:31.
Jesus also explains this union between a man and a woman in very strong terms, as a union that cannot be broken. Jesus states in Matthew 19:4 – 6, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ’Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Again, note that God created them male and female in the beginning. They did not evolve. Jesus emphasizes that the man and the woman in the ordinance of marriage become one flesh – they are no longer two but one flesh. Finally, he concludes by emphatically stating that what God has joined together, let not man separate. Note God joins man and woman in marriage. It is not a social contract or simply a legal matter. It is a creation ordinance in which God brings two people together, a man and a woman, and permanently joins them.
Fourthly, referring back to the Genesis text, implicit in this interpersonal union as ordered in creation and which Jesus our Lord affirms, is the fact that two and only two may enter such a relationship. Note Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5 and 6, Mark 10:16, and even Ephesians 5:31. All specify one man and one woman, joining together, to make one flesh. Two people becoming one. John Murray states that “the prima facie sense of Genesis 2;24 is that one man is to be joined to one woman and that the two become one flesh.”[7] We cannot interject the thought of polygamy, homosexual unions, or any other aberrant sexual behavior without completely destroying the text. Therefore, the creation of marriage unites two people, a man and a woman, together as one union, permanently.
One purpose of marriage as specifically explained in Genesis 2:28-25 is that man needed a helper, a complement. However, creation’s ordering determines the internal structuring that characterizes God’s institution of marriage. Because it was not good for man to be alone, God creates a helper for him. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:8-9, 8For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. The purpose of man as created is not to be a help to the woman, but the purpose of woman’s existence as created is to glorify God in being a help to man.[8] However, we must also remember that in Genesis 2:20, the Scriptures state, But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. Woman corresponds to man. Woman is a helper to man, but she also corresponds to him. Only the woman as created was a fit for Adam. Robertson suggests that the term as translated in the ESV “fit for” in Hebrew in this context suggests the idea of equality of person.[9] So while men and women have differing roles in God’s kingdom and in marriage, they are equal in person as being made in the image of God.
The other purpose of marriage is explained in Genesis 1:28. Murray states plainly that “Marriage is the institution established by God for the fulfillment of the procreative mandate.”[10] At creation, God commanded man and woman to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth and subdue it. This purpose of course has significant implications for the family, for the man, and for other aberrant sexual practices that do not fulfill this mandate to be fruitful and multiply. As Robertson explains, the man must love and cherish his wife, and he must care for her as she fulfills her role in childbearing.[11] Paul explains this further in Ephesians 5:22-33. Husbands should love their wives as Christ loves the church, and gave himself up for her. However, he should not be a tyrant over her, but rule by example in love and tenderness. Paul also shows that man and woman are in some respects co-dependent on each other and ultimately on God (1 Corinthians 11:11-12). Man is dependent upon the woman for procreation, and both are dependent upon God.
The ordinance of marriage also has a purpose in the plan of redemption. Robertson states, “The propagation of the race through the institution of marriage indicates a primary means by which God’s purposes in redemption find realization.”[12] God accomplishes His purposes through creation rather than contrary to it. Genesis 3:15 states that mankind’s redeemer will come through the seed, the offspring, of a woman, through procreation. God proceeded to create a family from the line of Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem, Abraham, on through the genealogy of Christ. This is a significant aspect of the creation ordinance of marriage. It is only through marriage and the familial relationships that God intended to build a people, and manifest a redeemer, that will one day “save His people from their sins.” Procreation within the bounds of marriage is the means God chooses to use to secure Christ in the World.
Today, many people are attempting to redefine marriage as consisting of two people that love each other, whether that be two men, two women, or even a child and an adult. Mormons have traditionally redefined marriage as polygamy. However, the Bible is very clear that these definitions violate God’s created order.
Polygamy violates God’s created order of marriage. As explained above, God created marriage consisting of one man and one woman, who are joined by God in a union such that two people become one flesh (see Matthew 19:1-9, Mark 10:2-9, Genesis 2:18-25). A third party introduced into this union would destroy the relationship. Therefore, any form of polygamy violates the created order of marriage. Those instances in which people in the Scriptures took multiple wives, such as Solomon, clearly contradicted the created order. God may have allowed this, or at best put up with it for the time being, because men’s hearts were hard.
Much needs to be said about homosexual marriage, given the climate in present-day America and the rest of the world. Clearly from Scriptures, marriage itself is between a man and a woman. Jesus was very specific in Matthew 19. Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ’Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Jesus clearly defines marriage that was instituted from the beginning of creation as between a man and a woman. He specifies that God created them male and female. He then uses one key word – therefore. A man shall leave his parents and hold fast to his wife because, or on account of the fact that God created two people, male and female. Not even taking into account the myriad of Scriptures that forbid homosexuality and condemn it as sin, Jesus and Moses both clearly define marriage as an institution created by God between a man and a woman. By definition, homosexual marriage is excluded.
The Apostle Paul is clear in his condemnation of homosexuality in Romans 1, where he uses it as the primary example of originating and resulting in judicial abandonment by God. Paul writes in Romans 1:26-27, 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. John MacArthur explains, “Perversion is the illicit and twisted expression of that which is God-given and natural. Homosexuality, on the other hand, is inversion, the expression of that which is neither God-given nor natural. When man forsakes the Author of nature, he inevitably forsakes the order of nature.”[13] Homosexual acts are unnatural, against nature. While fornication and adultery are sins, they are at least accomplished by using one’s body in a natural way. Homosexuality is accomplished by using one’s body in an unnatural way. It violates every aspect of the created order of marriage.
The fact that marriage is described and explained in both the Old Testament and the New Testament clearly demonstrates that marriage as the ordinance of God for procreation and companionship still applies today and tomorrow as defined in the Scriptures. Moses and many other authors in the Old Testament affirm marriage as the God-ordained and God-joined union between one man and one woman for life. Jesus reaffirms marriage as defined originally, and Paul again reaffirms this same ordinance. The Scriptures are very clear about the creation ordinance of marriage.
The struggle, however, is not even close to being over, despite the fact that the Scriptures speak loudly and clearly. Albert Mohler, the President of the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, KY, wrote in his blog, “The challenge of defending marriage as the union of a man and a woman was on full public display on November 4. The immediate news was very encouraging indeed. Voters in Arizona, Florida, and California all passed measures defending marriage and prohibiting same-sex marriages in their states. These three states, added to the over twenty others that had already passed similar constitutional amendments or similar provisions, have made a massive public statement in support of marriage.”[14] While the Governor of the state of California actively supports the fight against Proposition 8, what is even more concerning is the stance of churches and ministers. Despite the clarity of the Scriptures, which should govern the faith and life of the church as revelation from God, many ministers and churches actively support homosexual marriage.
The Los Angeles Times reports of churches that celebrate and ordain homosexual marriages. “We will continue to bless same-sex unions here until we can legally celebrate same-sex unions again,” the Rev. Ed Bacon told 1,000 congregants during Sunday services at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, which has blessed same-sex unions for 16 years. After the service, Bacon and other clergy members held a news conference on the church steps. They were surrounded by gay and lesbian couples, some standing with young children. “I know these couples. I know their relationships,” Bacon said, addressing a phalanx of television cameras. “They should be celebrated, rather than disparaged. . . . In the eyes of God, these people are married.”[15] Clearly this pastor chooses to see the issue in terms of an anthropocentric theology rather than a theocentric one. The evidence from Scripture is abundantly clear. While homosexuals are people, sinners, just like all other humanity, and need the gospel and prayer like all other humanity, marriage for them is off-limits. Not out of hate, but yes, perhaps by divine discrimination. God designed marriage to be a certain union at the beginning of creation out of his divine will, his divine decree. This is not hate; it is God’s order.
The Los Angeles Times reported that in downtown Los Angeles, 150 protesters congregated in front of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, chanting, among other things, “What would Jesus say?” The crowd was joined later in the day by protesters who marched from Lincoln Park on the city’s Eastside.[16] Jesus has already spoken, specifically in Matthew 19 and, as the second person of the Trinity, through the whole Bible. The issue should be settled.
[1] “Gay married couples face legal limbo if Prop. 8 passes.” Los Angeles Times. October 30, 2008. Accessed on November 9, 2008 at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-me-marriagelaw30-2008oct30,0,7711556.story.
[2] California General Election Results website. Accessed on November 9, 2008 at http://vote.sos.ca.gov/Returns/props/59.htm.
[3] Waltke, Bruce K. An Old Testament Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007, 237.
[4] Robertson, O. Palmer. The Christ of the Covenants. Philippsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Press, 1980, 75.
[5] Ibid. 75.
[6] Waltke, 237.
[7] Murray, John. Principles of Conduct. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1957, 29.
[8] Robertson, 76.
[9] Ibid, 76.
[10] Murray, 27.
[11] Robertson, 77.
[12] Ibid, 79.
[13] John MacArthur, Romans. Chicago: Moody Press, 105.
[14] Albertmohler.com, Accessed on November 11, 2008 at http://www.albertmohler.com/blog.php.
[15] “Schwarzenegger tells backers of gay marriage: Don’t give up.” Los Angeles Times. Accessed on November 11, 2008 at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-me-protest10-2008nov10,0,4429002.story
[16]Ibid.
