I feel grossly inadequate to speak
on the subject of these verses, and let me explain why.
My wife and I have been married forty-one
years. Neither of us had a serious relationship with anyone else. We were
virgins when we married. We have had a nearly ideal marriage. Though we have
had difficult times, our relationship has remained strong.
Yet as the years go by, the rarer
our marriage pattern becomes. There are very few of you who share our
circumstances. Many of you are single today, and many of you have endured at
least one divorce—or else your spouse has. The overwhelming majority of people
are not virgins when married. Many have had multiple sexual partners. This is called
“the new normal”--which or course means that couples like my wife and myself are
abnormal. Some envy our relationship, but frankly, most just think we’re weird.
So how do I say what God says
marriage was intended to be, when most of the world knows it as something else?
It’s not that people are in rebellion against God, it’s just that what is
normal is so far from God’s ideal that most would not recognize it.
The marriage is foundational to all
other relationships. It was the first relationship between two people in the
world.
The first reference to it comes from
Genesis 1:27 “God created man in His own
image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them.” The
Bible uses “man” to include both sexes--co-equal and complimentary. Men are incomplete
without women, and vice-versa.
Then in Genesis 2: 18, we see, “It is not good for man to be alone, I will
make a helper suitable for him.” The point here is that it isn’t good for
us to be alone. We need others.
Loneliness is the first thing that God says isn’t good. We were created
for community. This statement is as true for single as well as married. Marriage
is a special gift that is not given to all, but community is for everyone.
One of my friends recently had a
conversation with a man he led to Christ. He asked whether he was in a church.
The man proceeded to tell him what was wrong with every church he visited, and
how they were idolatrous and doctrinally incorrect, and how he couldn’t submit
to any of them. He said his home was his church. This man was convinced that he
only needed God, not others.
This man was a fool. He claimed obedience to
God, yet freely became trapped in the first activity God said was no good—being
alone. He was alone not because there were no Christians or people around, but
by his own choice, out of pride of his own opinions.
We were designed for sharing our
feelings, thoughts, and actions with others. We share it all electronically
through phone, television, and internet. But while these devices help us to
link together, they also keep us apart. They give the illusion of closeness,
without actually sharing.
We ae not close when we meet, either.
Superficial relationships do not really fulfill the deep need we have for
intimacy. We need heart relationships, not just head relationships.
God brought all the animals to Adam
and he named them. They became his pets. Pets are good, but they are not
people. We cannot have an intellectual discussion with a poodle or get advice
from a Siamese. We need people in our lives more than we need pets.
People meet us as equals not
subordinates. They teach us and we teach them. They correct us when we go
astray, comfort us when we hurt, and sympathize when we have hard times
Marriage is the first institution
where coequals come together. All other institutions—families, churches,
villages, etc., are represented in this first institution. There are many forms
of coequal intimacy apart from marriage, but they all started with marriage. It
is the coequal nature of marriage that sets the stage for all community
relationships.
Just as we can’t treat pets as
people, we can’t treat people as animals. When I hear a man call his wife ‘the
little woman” or treat his kids as appendages of his own ego, or see a woman
treat her husband as if he only exists to make her happy, then I see us
treating people as some kind of lower life form. Inferior, not equal. It’s an
inadequate understanding of human relationships.
People need other people, so God
created a second person. The term He uses for her is ezer, “helper,” most often used for God himself as in “The Lord is my helper.” If we think God
intended women to be servants to men, then we also must believe that God
Himself is a servant to us. This relationship is not subordinate, but complementary.
It is only when sin comes that the human relationships become corrupted by
domination and control. God’s ideal in marriage is mutual respect and appreciation--two
people thinking, feeling, and acting together. The same is true of every other
relationship. People are not pets, slaves, or work animals. We are free and
independent parties bound together by love of God and our loving commitments.
When Eve appears, Adam appreciates
her beauty. She is literally the most
beautiful woman in the world, because she is the only one. There’s no one else
to compare to her. That implies something very profound, not just in marriage,
but in all our relationships.
Relationships are based on commitment, not
comparison. I have the best friends in the world, because they are my friends. I have the best children in
the world, because they are my
children. I live in the best country in the world because it is my country. I have the best wife in the
world, because she is my wife. She doesn’t have to be more beautiful than her neighbor,
because I’m not looking at my neighbor.
My country doesn’t have to be the best, because I am not comparing it to
other countries, either. This is where my home is and where I’d rather be.
Modern relationships are based on
shopping. We shop for the very best in friends, jobs, or spouses. If our wives
or husbands don’t suit, then we can throw them off and find another one. But most
of the time, when we think the other will be better, we are wrong. Our feelings
about them are the result of our inner unhappiness, they are not caused by our
feelings.
Relationships are covenantal, not
contractual. We love others for God’s sake, not for their own.
I cannot speak for all marriages--I
can speak for my own. When my wife and I got married we both loved Jesus first.
God has come first, not each other. That’s why we’ve stayed married. Putting
God first before marriage was the best choice we ever made.
There are there reasons for this.
First, because covenanting with God gave us a platform of stability in our
lives, on which we built a strong family. Our children never had to worry about
our divorcing. Their lives had an unshakeable foundation. Children need safety,
and when they see their parents coming apart, they become fearful and afraid.
It is important to keep that bond strong. Faith in God anchors marriage in
something stronger than us.
Second, I always have someone to
whom I can communicate. With all the moves we have had to make, we’ve always
had each other.
Third, there is someone always with
whom I am not afraid to be myself, not who I appear to be in public. Friends,
family and spouses know us, whether we like it or not. Adam and Eve were naked
and not ashamed. Your spouse is the one person who sees you naked and doesn’t
snicker.
In verse 24, the writer of Genesis breaks
out of the story rhapsodizes about marriage
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast
to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Here he gives us the secret
of a successful marriage.
Leave your folks.
That means your birth family and the attitudes of that family. You are made
part of a new creation--a new family. If you’re not willing to leave, don’t
cleave. If there are habits or commitments that interfere with your marriage,
be prepared to forsake them. Burn them addresses of your former girlfriends and
never call them again. Don’t cling to
the past, but embrace the new reality of your position.
Cleave to your spouse.
Do it, not because they are good providers, or because they are beautiful, or
because they are funny, witty or handsome. Hold on because God says hold on!
What part of “Till death do us part” do you not understand? We change much over
the years--personalities change, good looking people turn ugly, ugly people
improve, happy people get depressed and depressed people get happy. It’s only
our commitment to hold on that keeps a marriage going.
Be one flesh.
You are two heads on the same body. Respect your individuality as a left hand
respects a right hand, and give each other room to real, but always keep this
in mind that if you hurt one, you hurt both. Divorce is sometimes necessary,
but when it happens it is not is not a liberation—it’s an amputation. It is far
better to find a way to stay whole than heal broken flesh.
Knowing full well that some of you
have already failed, and some of you may fail, even so there is really nothing
else to say. The marital ideal is what God intended, and I know it works.
But when marriages fails, God
doesn’t. When we are single and don’t want to be, God has not forsaken us.
Christ’s death on the cross covers all our sins, and always promises us a new
beginning. It’s not past mistakes we need to look to, but future triumphs. If
you are single, then take the lessons of Genesis 2, and use them in all your
relationships. Be faithful to the community where God has placed you. If you are married, or if God brings someone
later into your life to marry, then start by putting God in the center. Let
your marriage be a covenant before God, started off right with Godly standards,
and enter in for a lifetime as one flesh.
Stay faithful and God will be
faithful. Forget to put God in the center, and likely as not, you will fail.
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