What is the definition of marriage?

Marriage is central, therefore, in the web of human life, the basis of all relationships as God has instituted them. And as marriage (not mere sexual union) it has at most its mere shadow in the temporary attachments of the creatures below man. Personal obligation, voluntarily assumed, and expressed in constant fidelity, distinguishes it by the height of a whole heaven from these partial reflections of it.

Marriage is a covenant for life

Verse 24 puts on record the thought of God as to marriage from the outset, and to this the Lord Jesus appealed when answering the Pharisees, as recorded in Matthew 19:3-9. Deviation from this Divine thought and order, or worse still the denial of it, has probably been the cause of more sin and misery in the world than any other single fount of iniquity. When maturity is reached, a man is to leave father and mother and to found a new family, adhering to one woman as his wife. Thus they become one flesh. As we have just seen, Adam and Eve were one flesh to start with, since she was taken out of him.

As well as God's seeking to impress on us the reality of the relationship of Christ and the church, however, He is showing how close is the unity of husband and wife in God's sacred ordinance of marriage. Today this has been terribly violated by the selfish independence of both men and women, but God's word is plain, "For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (v.24). Thus God established marriage as the first of human relationships, and He makes it clear for all succeeding generations that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. It is just as evident that the woman should leave her parents to become fully devoted to her husbands. The word "cleave" is beautiful here. It involves the reality of love, of devotedness and of faithfulness.

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.

Up to the time of a man's marriage the chief relationship in which he stands is that of a son, and his responsibility is towards his parents, but when he marries he leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife. Henceforward she becomes his chief care, for he and she are no more twain but one flesh.

Every right-minded man will look upon his wife as the only woman in the world for him, he will desire no other; and that not because he has chosen her for his wife, but because God has joined them together. He will look upon her as the very woman that God made for him; he will treat her as God's gift to him, and more, he will treat her as himself, for they twain have become one flesh; and that by no mere ordinance of man, but by God's own act and decree, hence "what God has joined together let not man put asunder."

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.

It is a fact of the highest significance that the marriage relationship was established between Adam and Eve while they were still in a state of innocence. At the time of their union, sin had not entered the world, nor its just penalty, death, incurred. But the entrance of sin through their disobedience did not set aside the holy character of marriage which its divine origin and sanction had originally imparted to it.

It is true that, having been united in wedded bonds, Adam and Eve jointly disobeyed the commandment of the Lord, and fell into and under sin. Nevertheless, the holy and divinely-sanctioned character of marriage which it received in the state of sinlessness remained after the entrance of sin. God had made the single pair, and He made them the one for the other exclusively. As our Lord said, God had joined them together by bonds that are indissoluble by man. This character of permanence attaches to marriage still, as it ever has done. In every union under divine superintendence, God binds together the two hearts and lives by a tie that none can sever.

Of all the unequal yokes that the believer can contract that of marriage is the most serious. Other partnerships may be dissolved by mutual consent, but marriage once embarked upon can only rightly be dissolved by the death of one of the contracting parties.