The Miracle of Marriage
We had a rather strange event in our family last week as one of our sons was married. The fact that he married a lovely Christian young lady was not so strange, what made it strange was that the wedding was Covid-19 style – hardly anyone in the congregation. Despite the strange circumstances, those members of both the bride’s and groom’s immediate family who were within driving distance managed to attend as witnesses to the proceedings. A blessed event transpired and our young couple are well and truly married. The occasion prompted a few thoughts on marriage, based on Matthew 19.4-6.
The text itself contains Jesus’ response to some Pharisees who hoped to trap Jesus with a question about divorce. The Lord Jesus was too much for them, of course, and in answering provided timeless truths about marriage.
Mat 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, 5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
We can find at least three profound concepts about marriage in this text.
Marriage is God’s idea
You will note that the text says, “he … made them male and female” and “For this cause shall a man leave…” The text tells us that marriage is part and parcel of God’s idea in creating male and female in the first place. Some creatures reproduce without “male and female” but God created man male and female for the purpose of a man leaving his father and mother and being joined to his wife. In other words, the way God created man was in order to institute marriage. Marriage is a fundamental concept embedded in the very nature of creation.
I should note, however, that this does not mean God intends everyone to marry, but simply that God’s idea in creating male and female was that marriage exists as a vital part of God’s original creation.
Marriage, as many other writers noted before me, is the only human institution that predates the Fall. That makes it unique among the institutions that organize human society. When a couple comes together in marriage, they are in a certain sense bringing the idea of creation full circle. A “new Eden” begins with each new marriage — a man and a woman created a new instance of God’s original institution.
Alas, though Eden is the ideal, the real is something else again. The real trouble in marriage is that though we start with an ideal of a couple creating a new institution in love, they bring their Post-Fall selves into the bargain. In other words, they are sinners and they bring the corruption of their sinfulness into that which ought to reflect and conduct itself as God’s Pre-Fall ideal. Consequently, every one of us need God’s grace in order to fulfill God’s ideal in marriage.
Marriage unites a man and a woman in a unique bond
The second principle of our text is the unique “one flesh” bond of marriage. As I understand the Scriptures, the “one flesh” relationship is not primarily physical, although the physical relationship illustrates the spiritual bonding that occurs in marriage. There is a certain mystery here, but the joining of a man and a woman in marriage is the joining of two spirits in a relationship to each other that is unique among human relationships.
The children that come illustrate in a very concrete way what God does when marriage occurs. A man and a woman come together. Children are a product of that union. Out of two spirits come one. That unique bonding of spirits that we call marriage (the “one flesh” relationship) is far more than the mere intermingling of the properties of physical bodies. As a couple ages, that relationship grows and deepens. Soon you cannot think of one without the other, their personalities and habits tend to merge. The two produce one (in children) and continue to increasingly become one as their relationship ages and matures.
For this reason, a proper marriage is an exclusive relationship. No one else can enter as intimately into this kind of relationship as a husband and wife can. Any breach of this one-flesh relationship does far more than emotional damage (or physical damage). Breaches of the relationship leave deep wounds and spiritual scars.
We need grace from God to begin and to develop the unique one flesh bond of marriage.
The marriage itself is the work of God, not man
When a minister stands before a couple, he hears them make their vows to one another. He takes them through the whole ritual, and at the end, he pronounces them “man and wife.”
A question arises from the ceremony. Did the minister marry them? Is he the one who joined them? Our text teaches something different: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Who marries the couple? God does. God joins them together.
In other words, the minister is an earthly witness to a divine act. In this sense, what the minister (and the congregation) witness in a marriage is a miracle. God, hearing their vows, seals their union as a covenant between two parties, making it permanent and unbreakable in God’s eyes. Marriage is a supernatural act in response to faltering human commitments by way of vows made before God.
To act under the authority of Jesus Christ to pronounce a man and a woman “man and wife” is a solemn and holy task. We who are ministers of such ceremonies participate in a miracle that reaches back to our very creation. What a privilege! What a solemn responsibility, on the part of the minister, on the part of the man, and on the part of the woman!
Each of these principles underscore the enormity of the crime against creation when men and women violate the bonds of holy matrimony in any way. Extramarital affairs violate the one-flesh concept as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 6.15-16. Divorce, polygamy, homosexuality, adultery, all of these and more overturn or corrupt God’s created order in some way.
May God grant grace in our day to see marriage as God’s creation, and keep us all committed to its success in every way every day.
Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.