The Ordinance & Institution of Marriage

1. Marriage has been designed by God.  

Marriage is not a human invention or a social custom.

vs. 22 It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper for him, corresponding to him. And Yahweh God fashioned the side which He took from the man into a woman.

God saw the need for companionship between a man and a woman. Seeing the need, He fulfilled it and organized the first wedding.

vs. 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

In Matthew 19:4-6, Jesus quotes from Genesis 2:24. He uses this verse to establish the point that marriage has been ordained and instituted by God. Human beings do not have the right to do as they please with it.

Moses understands that the marriage of man and woman is to serve as a paradigm, a pattern that God has set in time and history prior to the fall of mankind. Marriage is therefore a creation ordinance and institution.

In marriage, the man must leave his parents and be joined to his wife. Only then will the man have full headship within the family. Otherwise his parents (especially his father) would still retain authority over their relationship.

In leaving their parents, the man and woman become “one flesh”, a compete unit, and form a new family relationship. But it is much more than physical unity; it is also moral, intellectual, emotional and spiritual unity.

God has chosen this relationship to be the picture and pattern of the relation of Christ to His Church.

2. Marriage is between one man and one woman.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and he shall be joined to his wife.

First, marriage is to be monogamous. The institution of the monogamous marriage (one man and one woman) was designed by God and certainly not the product of evolution, since it is rarely practiced with other primates or mammals.

Secondly, marriage is to be heterosexual. In the beginning God provided for Adam, not another male, but a female.

Leviticus 18:22-23 Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable. Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.

Romans 1:20-27 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew there was a God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

3. Marriage is a binding commitment and a permanent union.

2:23-24 And the Man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and he shall be joined to his wife. And they shall become one flesh.

After God had brought all the animals to man, at last, man sees a creature corresponding to him. She is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, signifying the essence of oneness. As one flesh they are not to be separated.

The man and the woman are “joined” or glued together to “become one flesh.” The bond is to be until death. Because the man and woman are glued together to become one flesh, divorce is more like a ripping apart than a separation.

The two are one flesh and to separate them by divorce would be like separating a hand from your arm or a foot from your leg; it would have to be ripped, torn, or amputated. Many who have been divorced describe it as worse than death because you have to live with the horrendous consequences.

Malachi 2:13-16 Another thing you do: You flood the Lord's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, "Why?" It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.

Has not [the Lord] made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because He was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. "I hate divorce," says the Lord God of Israel.

Marriage is to be a commitment for life and only in extreme cases (infidelity and desertion) is separation allowed.

INFIDELITY:

In Matthew 19:9 Jesus said: I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery (and according to Matthew 5:32 makes the one he marries commit adultery).

Hebrews 13:4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

DESERTION:

1 Corinthians 7:12-16 If a Christian man has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to continue living with him, he must not leave her. And if a Christian woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to continue living with her, she must not leave him; for the Christian wife brings a holy example to her marriage, and the Christian husband brings holy example to his marriage.

Otherwise, your children would be left out; as it is, they also are included in the spiritual purposes of God. (But if the husband or wife who isn't a believer insists on leaving, let them go. In such cases the Christian husband or wife is no longer bound to the other, for God has called you to live in peace.) Don't you wives realize that your husbands might be saved through your witness? And don't you husbands realize that your wives might be saved through your witness?

Because of the moral decay of society today and a church that by-and-large does not practice church discipline, divorce on unbiblical grounds is rampant. The church should be an example of a better way; instead, she is following the world.

4. Marriage removes the feelings of shame and guilt, that comes from a sexual relationship outside of marriage.

2:25 And the two of them were naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.

Adam and Eve’s lack of shame and guilt was not a moral weakness but an indication of their sinless state. They were innocent, with no consciousness of sin or moral guilt.

The Hebrew verb for “to be ashamed” is (buwsh) and expresses the sense of confusion, embarrassment and dismay that occur when matters turn out differently than designed.

If men and women are honest, they will admit that sex outside the confines of marriage results in feelings of disgust, distrust, shame and guilt. Why? Because it is deviating from God’s design and decree for a relationship between a man and a woman that is written on the hearts of the human race and in the Bible.