The world has made “marriage” into something it’s not. In turn, it has dishonored God and the true meaning of marriage. So, what is marriage according to the Bible?
A couple weeks back, in this post, I shared the top books on Christian marriage. I’m getting married in May, so a lot of the things I’m reading right now are about marriage. The world is very loud when it comes to this topic. However, their views and advice towards marriage are rarely correct, let alone Biblical. As Christians, our marriages are far more than just two people who love each other and live together. We are held to a higher standard, so we shouldn’t go into marriage with no knowledge of what it is according to God.
This post is just going to be a fairly brief overview of Biblical marriage as a whole. I plan to do a lot more posts breaking down different aspects of it in the future, though. Before we learn what marriage is according to the Bible, let’s go back to the beginning.
the creation of marriage
God created marriage in Genesis 2 when he created the woman for Adam.
“Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is 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 mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
The creation account tells us a lot about marriage.
Adam and Eve Were One
Genesis 5:1-2 says, “This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them mankind in the day they were created.” In the original Hebrew text, the translated word mankind is Adam. They weren’t human beings alone. Nor were they their own individual part of mankind. They were mankind together as one entity. Doug Wilson says in Reforming Marriage, “She was, from the beginning, a covenantal partaker in the name of her husband. God does not call her Adam on her own, He calls her Adam with him.”
Marriage is Between One Man and One Woman
The only thing that was a good enough helper for Adam was a woman. God could have given Adam another man as a helper, but He didn’t. He could have given Adam multiple women, but He only gave him one. This aspect of creation reveals that marriage in God’s eyes is between one man and one woman. Homosexuality does not constitute a covenantal marriage. Neither does polygamy constitute a covenantal marriage.
Eve Has Two Roles: Woman & Mother
After God created the woman, Adam was given the job of naming her. He gave her two different names. The first one was Ishshah, or Woman. This name recognizes her femininity, her role as a wife and helper to Adam, and her dependence on man. The second name was Chavvah, or life-bearer (Eve in English). This name recognizes her role as mother and man’s dependence on her.
Doug Wilson says, “In both passages where she is named, it is clearly stated that her two names reveal a significant truth about her. The first reveals her dependence upon man- she was taken out of man. The second reveals man’s dependence upon her- every man since is her son. Millenia later, the apostle Paul teaches us that we are continually to remember these two truths in our marriages. Each wife is an Ishshah, and each wife is a Chaavah. Each is Woman, and each is Eve.”
the purposes of marriage
There is one eternal purpose and several earthly purposes for marriage.
Marriage is a Picture of Christ and the Church
While it is clear that God created marriage for other reasons (like Godly children and companionship), marriage has an even bigger purpose. Marriage is a picture of the Gospel.
In Ephesians 5:30-31, Paul says: “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
The roles that God assigns to husbands and wives also makes this point clear. These roles within the marriage directly relate to the roles of Christ and the Church.
Wives are to submit to their husbands in the same way the Church is to submit to Christ:
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the LORD. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” (Ephesians 5:22-24)
And husbands are to lead and love their wives in the same way Christ leads and loves His Church:
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot of wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” (Ephesians 5:25-28)
This is the most important purpose of marriage. Since God created marriage with this metaphor in mind, all marriages reflect the Gospel. Sadly, some marriages portray the Gospel incorrectly. The husband is passive and let’s the wife lead the family. The wife is disrespectful of her husband. The husband doesn’t love his wife unconditionally and sacrificially. No matter what the marriage is like, it is always a picture of Christ and the Church. It’s our job to make sure we are representing the Gospel well.
Marriage Provides Companionship
The first earthly purpose of marriage is that it provides companionship. God placed Adam in the garden and gave him a task. But he was unable to accomplish that task alone. He needed a helper and companion. Not only was he unable to accomplish his tasks alone, but God also said it was not good that he was alone. God called his creation “good” up until this point. The first time he said that something was not good was in Genesis 2:18:
“Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.'”
This reveals that the creation of man was incomplete. There was still something missing that God needed to create in order for it to be good and complete. Adam was incomplete because he didn’t have a helper to bring him suitable companionship.
This companionship idea also reveals a lot about the nature and roles of husband and wife. God created the Woman for Man. He didn’t create the Man for the Woman. I hate to quote yet another thing from Doug Wilson’s book Reforming Marriage, but I just have to because it’s so good. (It’s also where I got a lot of the ideas for this whole post. I highly recommend reading it because it’s definitely the best marriage book I’ve read so far!)
He says, “As a result of the creation order, men and women are oriented to one another differently. They need one another, but they need one another differently. The man needs the help; the woman needs to help. Marriage was created by God to provide companionship in the labor of dominion. The cultural mandate, the requirement to fill and subdue the earth, is still in force, and a husband cannot fulfill this portion of the task in isolation. He needs a companion suitable for him in the work to which God has called him. He is called to the work and must receive help from her. She is called to the work through ministering to him. He is oriented to the task, and she is oriented to him.”
This idea of complimentary companionship is so fascinating to me. Everything about the nature and biology of men and women reflect this idea. I will definitely do a post (or several posts) diving deep into this aspect of marriage. When women embrace their God-given femininity and men embrace their God-given masculinity marriages thrive. There’s a reason why God made us that way, so we need to stop fighting it in the name of “equality.” Trying to become the same as each other only leads to unhappiness and bad companionship.
Marriage Brings About Godly Children
Part of the task that God gave Adam in the garden was to fill and subdue the earth. This obviously cannot occur with just one male or just one female. Marriage is needed for children to be conceived, but a godly marriage is also needed in order for the kids to be raised in the admonition of the Lord and to become godly themselves. This is ultimately what God desires. He doesn’t care how many kids you have if they don’t grow up to fear and respect Him.
Malachi 2:15 says, “But did he not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.”
Marriage Provides Sexual Protection
It is natural for humans to desire sex. God gave us that desire and it’s good. However, the ways we go about fulfilling that desire are what get us in to trouble. So, in marriage, God has provided a lawful and good answer to this desire.
Paul says, “Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:2-3)
Doug Wilson says (this is the last quote of his, I promise), “In order to provide satisfactory protection, sexual relations with a godly spouse should be robust and frequent. There needs to be quantitative protection, particularly for the husband. At the same time, the benefit of sexual relations should not be measured merely in terms of frequency or amount. There needs to be qualitative protection, particularly for the benefit of the wife.”
Men and women desire and need different things from sexual intimacy. That is such a deep topic that I’ll maybe go into in another post. But it needs to be remembered in order for that protection to be effective for both the husband and wife. The husband needs it physically, and the wife needs it emotionally. That doesn’t mean the opposite isn’t true. Men also desire the emotional intimacy and women also desire the physical intimacy. But their primary desire, and reason for lust and temptation, come down to physical desire for men and emotional desire for women.
Marriage is such a huge and complicated topic and this was just the tip of the iceberg. I plan to make so many more posts so I can talk about everything that marriage entails. Not only because I’m getting married and learning about it is my primary focus right now. But also because I truly think that an increase of healthy, Biblical marriages will change the course of this country. Marriage is the foundation of a family and children are greatly affected by the marriage of their parents. We can’t expect our country to improve at all if our marriages keep straying farther away from God’s design.
Leave a comment if there are any particular topics within marriage that you want me to focus on. Thanks for reading!
[…] this post of mine where I go through the basics of what a marriage is according to the Bible. And, more […]