What does the Bible say marriage is?

This is God's institution: He said it was not good that man should be alone, and He provided a suitable help for Adam in the person of Eve. Adam said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman (isha), because she was taken out of Man (ish). Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." Gen. 2:23-24. This declaration of union was confirmed by the Lord, who, in quoting the above, added, "Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Matt. 19:5-6; Mark 10:7-9. It is confirmed also by being taken as a type of the sacred union of the Lord with the church: "We are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church." Eph. 5:30-32.

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.

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.

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.

The Pharisees apparently left Him, unable to find any ground on which to found an accusation. Subsequently the disciples, in the house, as Mark carefully notes, asked more about it; and the Lord reaffirmed the inviolability of the tie, if neither party had virtually broken it — of which Matthew alone makes mention. Thus whilst the law had permitted divorces, the disciples of Christ were to remember the original institution of marriage. The rights of the wife are safeguarded as well as those of the husband; hers being the first mentioned. In the matter of marriage, as of the woman's position in the assembly upon earth, we are taken back by God to the order established at the beginning. Scripture was to guide the disciples, and us. The question of the Pharisees furnished the occasion for an authoritative announcement to guide Christians in this important matter.

That which God ordered in the beginning is strictly maintained. God created man, male and female; He united the two to be but one flesh, and this union is indissoluble according to God. Sin may break the bond, but divorce is totally forbidden under any condition but that of the fact by which the bond is thus already broken. It is God who has formed this link; man has no right to break it. Since then a power was come to work in man outside and above nature, which can put him outside natural relationships, it can take and endow him with energy in order to keep him, apart from those relationships, for the service of the kingdom. The relationship of marriage is fully recognised, its holiness, its indissolubility; but God has taken possession of man, so that he might be for Him. In His creation, that is, God has made marriage; but the Holy Ghost, acting in power, appropriates to Himself a man, who, from that time, recognises marriage, and yet does not marry for love of the kingdom of God.

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.

(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.

Verse 2. "Nevertheless, because of the fornications,"7 etc. That sin might cease among God's children, let saints still walk as men, in that at least which God had sanctioned before sin began. Christian marriage is a thing allowed, and therefore blameless and honourable, rather than intrinsically good. It is placed, therefore, by the apostle on a relatively low ground. As an aid to spiritual progress it is valueless in itself; and, as he afterwards shows, more likely to hinder than to further godly service, when contracted upon simply natural grounds. For it is in its nature foreign to the heavenly calling of the saint. Its proper tendency is to settle men on earth, and engage their thoughts and energies in matters of this life. Hence, what was injunctive to the Israelite is permissive only to the Christian. He is interested in espousals of another kind.8 Yet marriage is honourable in all,9 and though granted as a concession to our natural frailty, has reflected on it by the Spirit the light and beauty of the finished truth above.1 In a word, no Christian is advised to marry whose life of celibacy is not found to be a burden and a snare.

With simple, pointed words the Lord exposed their pathetic ignorance. Marriage is only for this world. He did not speak of those who die in their sins and will be raised for judgment at the Great White Throne; but only of those accounted worthy (by grace through faith) to obtain "that world," the glory of heaven, and the resurrection from among the dead. They neither marry nor are given in marriage (v.35). (Those unsaved will certainly not be married either, but will be raised only to be cast into the lake of fire.) Nor can death ever again touch those who have been raised, as at present it terminates the marriage relationship (vs.34-36). Moreover believers are as the angels which are neither male nor female, as we are told in regard to the new creation (Gal. 3:27-28). They are sons of God, having a relationship and dignity higher than all natural relationships, being sons of the resurrection, that is, introduced into a sphere that mere human intelligence has not penetrated.

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 does it not seem in character with its original institution, that the Lord's first ministry to His creatures should have been in connection with it? And could the assembled company in that house have known, that He, who was present as an invited guest, had in the Garden of Eden brought Eve to Adam, how would they have regarded Him? Yet so it was. And we can well believe that scene in the garden was at that time present to His remembrance, as well as the future prospect, to which we are pointed in the Word, even the marriage of the Lamb, when his wife shall have made herself ready; nor that prospect only, but surely a more distant one must have been also before Him, even the resuming of marital relations with Israel and with Jerusalem (Hosea 2:16, 19; Isa, 54), of which that marriage at Cana may be more likely the foreshadowing.

How good it is to have divinely given certainty! And this the Lord supplies. We need Him in one form or another to interpret the Bible; and here it is simple and direct. He Who made the man and the woman regulated the relationship from the first; and when things were out of course, the Lord Who made everything perfect cleared it of that allowance which man had abused, and recalled to its original order. This is all the more impressive, because it was so ruled of God, not merely for the transient state of paradisaical innocence, but as His mind for man on the earth at any time: so the terms prove. Marriage was divinely instituted from the beginning.

"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become (be for) one flesh. And they were both of them naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed" (vers. 24, 25). The former verse contemplates circumstances wholly different from those of Adam who had neither father nor mother to leave; the latter presents the facts which attached to the primeval condition and neither were nor could be with propriety at any other time. Shame followed sin: the knowledge of good and evil led them consciously fallen to cover themselves.

As marriage was to be the social bond, so is it the ground of family life; the oldest of all institutions relative, yet a fresh start for each man and woman so united, as ver. 24 contemplates. The work of God corresponds with His word. If a man was to leave his father and mother, he was to cleave to his wife, not to multiply wives. So had the Creator made one man and one woman. So had Jehovah Elohim ordained. Self-will too soon broke through the order, and sorrow followed personal and widespread, for man in nothing errs with impunity, even in a world out of course.