God's Purpose or Intention for Marriage
Introduction:
From the outset, I want it to be clear that this series of messages is not designed to communicate the church’s stance on divorce and remarriage. Also, it is not my intention to discourage those who are divorced and remarried. I understand that divorce and remarriage is permitted in certain circumstances in the Scripture. However, God's intention was for the permanence of marriage because marriage is to display and typify Christ's relationship to His people, which is binding on the basis of covenant and the finished work of Jesus. This series of messages is designed to take Genesis 2:18-25, along with other texts linked to it, with the purpose of teaching these verses in their context and to communicate God’s Purpose or Intention for marriage and God’s Precept or Instruction for marriage. Also, I know that every marriage, divorce, and remarriage is unique. Therefore, I am not making insensitive and pointed statements.
The chasm between the biblical vision of marriage and the human vision is, and has always been, massive. In Matthew 19 Jesus speaks of God’s intention for marriage (Matthew 19:1-11) and the disciples conclude, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry” (Matt. 19:10). Jesus replied, “Not everyone can receive this saying” (Matt. 19:11a).
Our view of marriage is often equivalent to circumstance-based committed dating. The view we hold of marriage is often mirrored in our relationship to Christ's Church. Likewise, our commitment to Christ's Church is often mirrored in our marriages.
Because marriage was designed to typify and display the Gospel (Ephesians 5:31-32) the following two truths are vital:
a) A casual approach to marriage often leads to a casual approach to Christ's Church.
b) A right view of God's intention for marriage should lead to a whole-hearted devotion to the local church.
God’s Purpose: His Intention (Ephesians 5:31-32)
“Marriage is designed by God to display His glory in a way that no other event or institution can.”
“The ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and His Church on display.”
1) Marriage was instituted by God to Glorify God by:
a) God instituted marriage to make Himself Knowable by Pointing to Christ. “’Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31-32).
b) God instituted marriage to give Man the Earthly Opportunity to Experience and Express the Love Given to Him by God (Ephesians 5:22-33). Marriage and the Sabbath are the only social institutions that predate the fall.
c) To talk ill of marriage or as a “step down” “the ball and chain” is sinful. We should think about, talk about, and treat marriage as a huge privilege and as precious. To live together before marriage and to support same-sex marriage ultimately distorts the Gospel.
a) It is God, through covenant (“hold fast to” – Hosea 2) NOT consummation that joins two into one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate (Mark 10:1-9).
· When a couple speaks their vows, it is not man or woman or pastor or parent who is the main actor, God is. Marriage is a one-flesh union that God Himself performs. God decreed that man’s solitude is not good (Genesis 2:18); God made a helper suitable for Him (v. 18, 21-22); It was God that was the first Father who gave away a bride (v. 22); It was God who performed the first wedding ceremony (v. 23); It was God who gave the first marriage counsel (vv. 24-25).
· Marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant commitment to His Church. “If we are faithless, he remains faithful – for He cannot deny himself” (II Timothy 2:13). Staying married is about keeping covenant. Staying married is not about being in love, it is not based on sex, and is not based on compatibility (2 sinners want their way and are by nature self-serving – this makes you very incompatible).
· What makes divorce so horrific in God’s eyes (Malachi 2:13-16) is not merely that it involves covenant breaking to the spouse, but that it involves misrepresenting Christ and His covenant. The home is foundational to God’s program of salvation in part because it reflects God’s covenant with Israel and the cradle where the godly seed is brought into being and nurtured. In other words, grace – forgiveness – forbearing – covenant keeping in the home creates the best environment for godly offspring. Christ will never leave His wife. Christ keeps His covenant forever. Marriage is a display of the Gospel. When we are faithless, He is faithful because His commitment and love to us is not contingent on our performance, but His grace. I believe marriage is a display of Christ’s love and grace based on a covenant promise. There are no grounds given for divorce here because God intended marriage to mirror Christ’s covenantal commitment to His Church.
2) The institution of marriage in Genesis 2 shows that the Church was in the mind of God before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 5:31-32). Genesis 2:18-25 and Ephesians 3:31-32 express the inextricable link between God’s purpose in marriage and God’s purpose for the Church.
a) Genesis 2:18-25 and Ephesians 3:31-32 express the inextricable link between God’s purpose in marriage and God’s purpose for the Church. Marriage and Christ’s Church are the two primary means through which God makes Himself known. Marriage and Christ’s Church are the two primary places we express our love to God. Marriage and Christ’s Church are the two primary relationships we have that God uses to conform us to the image of Christ (see I Corinthians 7:32-40 – The gift of singleness is a gift to have an undivided mind in serving the Lord): Look at Paul’s exhortation to the Ephesian Elders (Notice the prevalence of evangelism and discipleship in these verses) in Acts 20:18-35 – the emphasis is on verse 28. Unfortunately many of us cherish our marriages and “attend” church or pay no attention whatsoever to Christ’s bride. Likewise, many of us cherish Christ’s bride at the expense of our earthly bride. Neither of these should be so. We must not love anything more than our earthly bride. However, I do not believe Scripture teaches that our priority, love, and commitment to our earthly bride and Christ’s bride (the local church) should be all that disproportionate. In other words, they both hold a unique place of priority in the life of a believer.
Genesis 2:18-25 represents the ideal marriage before the fall. It provides the basis for laws against adultery (Exodus 20:14; Hebrews 13:4); it serves as a model for marriage in the church (Matthew 19:3-12); it lays a theological foundation for government in the home and church (I Corinthians 11:3-12; I Timothy 2:9-15); and is a type of the relationship between Christ and His Church (Ephesians 5:22-32) – all of the laws against adultery and laws of government are provided to protect and guide the home, for from the home comes those God calls to Himself (The Church). Therefore – the home is where godly offspring are born and the Church is where the home is trained to do evangelism and discipleship. Individual families and single people make up the family of God, but should never supersede the local church. The church should never supersede the role of the parents. However, the family cannot thrive and stand autonomous from the church. The family is equipped, held accountable, and joined to the larger “body” in the Church.
b) Christ thought of Himself as the bridegroom coming for His bride (Matthew 9:15; 25:1; John 3:29). “I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (II Corinthians 11:2). Christ’s leaving His Father and taking the Church as His bride at the cost of His life, and holding fast to her in a one-spirit union is what marriage should picture. This is why marriage is sacrificial, full of grace, and unconditional.
3) The only sure foundation for a joyful, Christ-exalting earthly marital union is a joyful, God-exalting heavenly union with Christ. Our dependence upon God, submission to His authority, adherence to His will (the local church – where we are equipped, protected, and encouraged), an enjoyment of Christ is the Biblical foundation for a Christ-exalting, joy-filled marriage.
a) As you are equipped for ministry, you should be equipped for marriage. Christ served, submitted to the Father’s will, sought the Father’s presence, gave His life, sacrificed self, spent time with His disciples. We learn about Jesus here (local church); we learn how to love others here; we learn how to show God’s grace through the Gospel and how to teach others to love Jesus more obediently here – when we learn to do the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4) we learn how to do the work of marriage. “Since Christ’s new covenant with this church is created by and sustained by blood-bought grace, therefore, human marriages are meant to showcase that new-covenant grace. And the way they showcase it is by resting in the experience of God’s grace and bending it out from a vertical experience with God into a horizontal experience with their spouse. In other words, in marriage you live hour by hour in glad dependence on God’s forgiveness and justification and promised future grace, and you bend it out toward your spouse hour by hour—as an extension of God’s forgiveness and justification and promised help” (Piper).
b) Immediately when Adam and Eve declared their independence from God, they began acting autonomously in their marriage. “Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another” (I Thessalonians 4:9). Our understanding of God’s love for us will govern our love for one another. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him (A sovereign act of God’s will; a choice). In this is love, not that we have loved God (we did not deserve it, earn it, or initiate it and were not required to reciprocate to receive it) but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (I John 4:7-12 - italics my comments).
c) “A profound understanding and fear of God’s wrath is exactly what many marriages need, because without it, the gospel is diluted down to mere human relations and loses its biblical glory. And without it, you will be tempted to think that your wrath—your anger—against your spouse is simply too big to overcome, because you have never really tasted what it is like to see an infinitely greater wrath overcome by grace, namely, God’s wrath against you. This is the vertical reality that must be bent outward horizontally to our spouses if marriage is to display the covenant-making, covenant-keeping grace of God. We see this in Colossians 3:12-13, ‘Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.’ And if you are married to a believer, you can add this: As the Lord counts you righteous in Christ, though you are not in actual behavior or attitude, so count your spouse righteous in Christ, though he is not—though she is not. In other words, Colossians 3 says, take the vertical grace of forgiveness and justification and bend them out horizontally to your spouse. This is what marriage is for, most ultimately—the display of Christ’s covenant-keeping grace” (Piper). “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. . . . Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:27-29, 35-36)”– this passage refers to marriage too.
Living Vertically, Then Bending Outward
But the reasons I stress living vertically from the grace of God and then bending out horizontally in forgiveness and justification toward your spouse is 1) because there is going to be conflict based on sin and strangeness (and you won’t be able even to agree with each other about what is simply strange about each other and what is sin); and 2) because the hard, rugged work of enduring and forgiving is what makes it possible for affections to flourish when they seem to have died; and 3) because God gets glory when two very different and very imperfect people forge a life of faithfulness in the furnace of affliction by relying on Christ.
Examples of Staci and I. Examples of how we couldn’t be more opposite, but we also couldn’t be more compatible – not because of our personalities, interests, hobbies, pasts – but because of the Gospel and I John 4.
I am not saying that marriage is a call to endure - only. Marriage is a call to mirror the Gospel, to know Christ intimately, to show Christ clearly, to experience Christ fully, to serve Christ faithfully.
Only when a wife or husband feels that the other is totally committed—even if he or she doesn’t change—only then can the call for change feel like grace, rather than an ultimatum.
So today I am emphasizing that marriage should not be and, God willing, need not be static—no change, just endurance. Even that is better than divorce in God’s eyes, and has a glory of its own. But it is not the best picture of Christ and the church. Yes, the endurance tells the truth about Christ and the church.
Because marriage was designed to typify and display the Gospel (Ephesians 5:31-32) the following two truths are vital:
a) A casual approach to marriage often leads to a casual approach to Christ's Church.
b) A right view of God's intention for marriage should lead to a whole-hearted devotion to the local church.
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