What does the Bible consider marriage?

Marriage. — Now marriage was God's provision for His creatures, — instituted before the Fall; continued by God after it; upheld as inviolable by Him before the law (Gen. 12:17, 20:3); guarded by express enactments under the law (Ex. 20:14, 17); its sanctity being reaffirmed by the Lord (Matt. 19:3-9); and its honourable estate for all declared by New Testament revelation (Heb. 13:4). Much must Adam have felt that he had lost of temporal enjoyment through the Fall. This blessing, however, was preserved to him, and to his descendants, as God's original institution for the happiness and welfare of His human creatures on earth.

Now the same lawgiver who sanctioned divorces had, in a previous part of the Pentateuch, made known the original institution of marriage, in which there was no clause permitting divorce. Both portions (Deut. 24:1; Gen. 2:23-24) were God's Word. The former was a provision "for the hardness of their hearts," and doubtless often made use of without the qualifying ground therein stated, "Because he has found some uncleanness in her" (Deut. 24:1). The latter (Gen. 2:24) taught the sacredness and the real character of the tie. This latter was God's original institution. The tie, except for fornication (Matt. 19:9), should be held inviolable. "What God has joined together let not man put asunder" (Mark 10:9) is the Lord's declaration about matrimony. We are thus taken back to its original institution, and are reminded of the light in which God regards it — two made one flesh, whom He has joined, and whom therefore man should not sever.

Marriage possesses the unique feature of being an institution established by God from the very beginning of human history. God's authority is, therefore, behind the prominent place it occupies in man's social life. The first marriage was ordained in the Garden of Eden for the increase of Adam's comfort and the consummation of his bliss.

All this shows that God's institution of marriage was the union of one man and one woman, the two and only two, becoming one. What is more than this is not of God, but is of human lust. This order was first broken through by Lamech, the sixth from Adam, who had two wives. Long after this instances are recorded of wives, on account of their great desire for children, giving their maid servants to their husbands: an act that would now be judged as most unnatural in a wife. Sarai gave her Egyptian handmaid to Abram 'to be his wife' (the same word for 'wife' being used for both Sarai and Hagar), and God said He would make of Ishmael a great nation. Jacob's two wives gave their handmaids to their husband, and thus he had four wives. God reckoned the twelve sons of these four women equally as sons of Jacob, and they became the heads of the twelve tribes. It might have been thought that God would not have blessed the issue of these unions, but He did: there is no record of any law having been given on this subject.

But the Lord makes it transparently clear that the basic, original order in creation is not to be changed, but affirmed by the truth of the kingdom of heaven. God, in creating both male and female, made a marked distinction between them, but in marriage indicated a unity of vital character. Because of God's manifest order in creation it was right that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. This verse settles many questions. First, when marriage takes place, the man (or woman) is no longer in the place of subjection to parents. Secondly, he cleaves to his wife:--only one wife, so that bigamy and polygamy are absolutely unscriptural. Cleaving to his wife involves genuine love for her, and faithfulness and devotedness.

The two are then recognized before God as being "one flesh." It is God Himself who has joined the two together. Therefore man has no authority to divorce them. Governments today of course ignore God's decree in this matter, but the word of God will not change to accommodate men's preferences. Marriage was from the beginning intended to be a binding agreement so long as both individuals remain alive.

According to God's will marriage is indissoluble. The Lord Jesus says this clearly in Matthew 19:6: "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." This not only applies to marriages made "in the Lord," but to every marriage. Already in the Old Testament God had said to the Jews who were divorced from their wives, "For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that He hateth putting away" (Mal. 2:16).

How intimate the relationship. Taken out of man (Ish) she was called woman (Isha). Marriage is instituted for man and woman’s comfort and joy, and for the procreation of the human race. In Genesis 1 man and woman are exhorted to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, to subdue it, to have dominion over it, Adam being head over all. A man is to leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, one in affection and interest, each the complement of the other.

This chapter, then, surveys the relationships of nature in the light of the kingdom. The first and most fundamental is that of marriage. "The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him, and saying unto Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?" (ver. 3). There you have the conduct of such as are on legal ground. There is really no respect for God, no genuine regard for His law. The Lord at once vindicates from Scripture the institution and the sanctity of marriage: "Have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female?" (ver. 4). That is, He shows it is not a mere question of what came in by the law, but He goes to the sources. God had first established it; and, far from dissolving the tie as men list, He made a single pair, and therefore only to be the one for the other. All other relationships were light in comparison of this closest tie — even union. "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife; and the twain shall be one flesh." Next to the relationship of marriage is the tie of a child to its parents. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of marriage as a natural institution. Who would talk of a child leaving his father and mother for any cause? The Pharisees even would not think of such a thing. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." They were ready with an answer: "Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?" (ver. 7). There was really no such command: a divorce was simply allowed.

Our Lord draws the distinction perfectly. Moses suffered certain things not according to the original archetypal intention of God. Nor should this be matter of wonder, for the law made nothing perfect. It was good in itself, but it could not impart goodness. The law might be perfect for its own object, but it perfected nothing, nor was it ever the intention of God that it should. But more than this: there were certain concessions contained in the law which did not at all express the divine mind; for God therein was dealing with a people after the flesh. The law does not contemplate a man as born of God; Christianity does. Men of faith during the law were of course born of God. But the law itself drew no line between regenerate and unregenerate; it addressed all Israel, and not believers only; hence suffered certain things in view of the hardness of their hearts. So that our Lord, while intimating a certain consideration of Israel's condition in the flesh, at the same time vindicated God's law from the corrupt deductions of these selfish Pharisees. "From the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery. And whosoever marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery" (vers. 8, 9). Our Lord adds here what was not in the law, and brings out the full mind of God touching this relationship. There is but one just cause for which it may be dissolved; or rather, marriage must be dissolved morally in order to terminate as a matter of fact. In case of fornication, the tie is all gone before God; and the putting away merely proclaims before man what has already taken place in God's sight. All is made perfectly clear. The righteousness of the law is established as far as it went, but it stops short of perfection by admitting in certain cases a less evil to avoid a greater. Our Lord supplies the needed truth — going up to the very beginning, and on to the end also.

(2) In Type.—All types are prophetic in character. Take the first instance in Scripture, Adam cast into a deep sleep, Eve formed out of a rib taken from his side, type of the church formed as the result of the death of Christ. Ephesians 5:25-32 brings this out so clearly that there can be no mistake as to its meaning. Marriage was not a convenient illustration of Christ and the church, but was indeed instituted of design that it might be a type of it. Thus, on this little planet running its little day between two infinite eternities, if we may use such an expression, God has been pleased to illustrate that which filled His heart in purpose from eternity, and which can alone find its answer in Christ and the church in eternity.

When Adam was made, Jehovah said, It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him a help meet for him. And so He builded the woman out of the man. They were to be, and were, one flesh. The apostle was the last man to weaken the order of nature. It was he who still later wrote to the Hebrews, Let marriage be every way honourable, and the bed undefiled. Here he in no way contradicts it or differs. He is in full unison with his Master (in Matthew 19 and Mark 10) who vindicated God's original institution from creation for man in the flesh, whatever the law might allow in view of the hardness of men's hearts, though he maintained the superior excellence of the unmarried state, where there was power to be undividedly for the Lord and His things. But it is not so with every saint. All cannot receive it, but those to whom it has been given. If any one is able, let him receive it: if he boast, he is in danger of dishonouring the Lord more than those he despises. The Lord and His apostle both caution souls. Grace may call and strengthen to live above what is not only lawful but honourable every way; and surely, if kept thus in lowliness, the former is the better portion.

But there are snares through nature as it is; and nowhere was there reason to fear more from the habits and associations of the place than at Corinth. Heathenism in some cases consecrated fornication. Because of the licentious ways, there and then of the commonest occurrence but at all times a danger, let each have his own wife, and each have her own husband. Mutual consideration to the last degree becomes both in a relationship where they that were two are no longer so but one. Grace, if it lift above nature in certain cases for the Lord's glory, enforces the honour and duties of those who are in a natural relationship. It is the sure mark of the enemy, where grace is perverted to put contempt on the least or lowest ordering of God. If we are in the relationship, we are bound to be true to its claims. Hence the husband was to pay her due to the wife, and in like manner the wife to the husband. The married estate is inconsistent with independence of each other in all that pertains to it. The wife has not authority over her own body, but the husband; and in like manner also the husband has not authority over his own body, but the wife. Hence they were not to defraud or wrongfully deprive one another, unless by consent for a time, that they might be free for prayer and again be together, lest Satan should tempt them for their incontinency. The law made nothing perfect. Christ vindicated God's mind and will as to the first man, but Himself was the manifestation of God in man. So does the apostle speak of marriage in words far above the thoughts and ways of Israel. What is first was never so fully stated before; but grace, as ever, presents a better thing.