Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 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." Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:18,21-25)There never has been a generation whose view of marriage is high enough. The chasm between the biblical vision of marriage and the human vision is, and has always been, enormous. Some cultures in
history respect the importance and the permanence of marriage more than others. Some, like our own, have such low, casual, take-it-or-leave-it attitudes toward marriage as to make the biblical vision seem ludicrous to most people.
That was the case in Jesus’ day as well, and ours is vastly worse. When Jesus gave a glimpse of the magnificent view of marriage that God willed for his people, the disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry” (Matthew 19:10). In other words, Christ’s vision of the meaning of marriage was so enormously different from the disciples, they could not even imagine it to be a good thing. That such a vision could be good news was simply outside their understanding.
If that was the case back then, how much more will the magnificence of marriage in the mind of God seem unintelligible to the world we live in, where the main idol is self, and its main doctrine is autonomy, and its central act of worship is being entertained, and its two main shrines are the television and the cinema, and its most sacred gesture is the uninhibited act of sex.
Jesus would very likely say to us today, when he had finished opening the mystery for us, the same thing he said in his day: “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. . . . Let the one who is able to receive this receive it” (Matthew 19:11-12).
The greatness and glory of marriage is beyond our ability to think or feel without divine revelation and without the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit. The world cannot know what marriage is without learning it from God.
Marriage is God's Doing
Marriage is God’s doing because it was his design in the creation of man as male and female. It is God, not man, who decrees that man’s solitude is not good, and it is God himself who sets out to complete one of the central designs of creation, namely, woman and man in marriage. “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Don’t miss that central and all important statement: God himself will make a being perfectly suited for him — a wife.
God Gave Away the First Bride
Marriage is God's doing because he gave away the first bride. He created her and in a sense fathered her. In verse 22 He gives her to man. Man does not have to seek her out. He gave her to man in marriage, a new type of relationship unlike any other.
God Spoke the Design of Marriage Into Existence
The Father spoke the design in verse 24 when he said “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
God Performs the One-Flesh Union
Just as in verse 24 it states the man leaves his parents and becomes one with his wife, Jesus adds a profound statement to that in Mark 10:8-9. “The two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
When a couple speaks their vows and consummates their vows with sexual union, it is not man or woman or pastor or parent who is the main actor. God is. God joins a husband and a wife into a one-flesh union. The world doesn't know this and is why marriage is looked on so casually. And unfortunately those in the church quite often don't act like they know it, and this is why marriage isn't seen as the wonder it is.
Marriage Is For God's Glory
Marriage is the display of God and is designed by God to display his glory in a way that no other event or institution can.In Genesis 2:24, God says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” What kind of relationship is this? How are these two people held together? Can they walk away from this relationship? Can they go from spouse to spouse? Is this relationship rooted in romance? Sexual desire? Need for companionship? Cultural convenience? What holds it together?
The words "hold fast" and "become one flesh" point to a much deeper relationship. It points to marriage as a sacred covenant; one that can weather all storms, as in “as long as we both shall live.”
In Ephesians 5:31-32 Paul speaks the verse of becoming one flesh than adds an all-important explanation.“This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” In other words marriage is patterned after the covenant that Christ has with his people. Christ thought of himself as the bridegroom coming for his bride, the true people of God.
Christ knew he would have to pay the dowry of his own blood for his redeemed bride. He called this relationship the new covenant — “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). This is what Paul is referring to when he says that marriage is a great mystery: “I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” Christ obtained the church by his blood and formed a new covenant with her, an unbreakable “marriage.”
Marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant relationship to the church. And therefore the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display.
Staying married, therefore, is about keeping covenant. “Till death do us part,” or, “As long as we both shall live” is sacred covenant promise — the same kind Jesus made with his bride when he died for her. Therefore, what makes divorce and remarriage so horrific in God’s eyes is not merely that it involves covenant breaking to the spouse, but that it involves misrepresenting Christ and his covenant. Christ will never leave his wife. Ever. There may be times of painful distance and tragic backsliding on our part. But Christ keeps his covenant forever. Marriage is a display of that!
In Part 2 we will cover verse 25 "naked and unashamed."
May You Be Blessed With Peace and Understanding
