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Staying Married Is
Not About Staying in Love, Part One '
February
13, 2007
By
John Piper
Genesis
2:18-25
Then
the LORD God said, “It is not good that
the man should be alone; I will make him
a helper fit for him.”
19 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.
20 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.
21 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.
22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken
from the man he made into a woman and
brought her to the man.
23 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."
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father
and his mother and hold fast to his wife,
and they shall become one flesh.
25 And the man and his wife were both
naked and were not ashamed.
Between
our more substantial sermon series I am
taking up a few subjects that seem to me
to be urgent. Marriage is always urgent.
There never has been a generation whose
view of marriage is high enough. The chasm
between the biblical vision of marriage
and the human vision is, and has always
been, gargantuan. Some cultures in history
respect the importance and the permanence
of marriage more than others. Some, like
our own, have such low, casual, take-it-or-leave-it
attitudes toward marriage as to make the
biblical vision seem ludicrous to most people.
Jesus’
Vision of Marriage
That was the case in Jesus’ day as well,
and ours is vastly worse. When Jesus gave
a glimpse of the magnificent view of marriage
that God willed for his people, the disciples
said to him, “If such is the case of a man
with his wife, it is better not to marry”
(Matthew 19:10). In other words, Christ’s
vision of the meaning of marriage was so
enormously different from the disciples,
they could not even imagine it to be a good
thing. That such a vision could be good
news was simply outside their categories.
If that was the case back then with the
sober, Jewish world in which they lived,
how much more will the magnificence of marriage
in the mind of God seem unintelligible to
the world we live in, where the main idol
is self, and its main doctrine is autonomy,
and its central act of worship is being
entertained, and its two main shrines are
the television and the cinema, and its most
sacred genuflection is the uninhibited act
of sexual intercourse. Such a culture will
find the glory of marriage in the mind of
Jesus virtually unintelligible. Jesus would
very likely say to us today, when he had
finished opening the mystery for us, the
same thing he said in his day: “Not everyone
can receive this saying, but only those
to whom it is given. . . . Let the one who
is able to receive this receive it” (Matthew
19:11-12).
The
Biblical Vision of Marriage
So I start with the assumption that our
own sin and selfishness and cultural bondage
makes it almost impossible to feel the wonder
of God’s purpose for marriage between a
man and a woman. The fact that we live in
a society that can even conceive of—let
alone defend—two men or two women entering
a relationship and with wild inconceivability
calling it marriage, shows that the collapse
of our culture into debauchery and barbarism
and anarchy is probably not far away.
I mention all this in the hopes that it
might possibly wake you up to consider a
vision of marriage higher and deeper and
stronger and more glorious than anything
this culture—or perhaps you yourself—ever
imagined. The greatness and glory of marriage
is beyond our ability to think or feel without
divine revelation and without the illumining
and awakening work of the Holy Spirit. The
world cannot know what marriage is without
learning it from God. The natural man does
not have the capacities to see or receive
or feel the wonder of what God has designed
for marriage to be. I pray that this message
might be used by God to help set you free
from small, worldly, culturally contaminated,
self-centered, Christ-ignoring, God-neglecting,
romance-intoxicated, unbiblical views of
marriage.
Marriage
Is the Display of God
The most foundational thing to see from
the Bible about marriage is that it is God’s
doing. And the most ultimate thing to see
from the Bible about marriage is that it
is for God’s glory. Those are the two points
I have to make. Most foundationally, marriage
is the doing of God. Most ultimately, marriage
is the display of God. Let’s allow the Bible
to impress these things on us one at a time.
1. Marriage Is God’s Doing
First, most foundationally, marriage is
God’s doing. At least four ways to see this
explicitly or implicitly are here in our
text.
a) Marriage Was God’s Design
Marriage is God’s doing because it was his
design in the creation of man as male and
female. Of course, this was plain earlier
in Genesis 1:27-28, “God created man in
his own image, in the image of God he created
him; male and female he created them. And
God blessed them. And God said to them,
‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.’”
But
it is also clear here in the flow of thought
in Genesis 2:18-25. In verse 18, it is God,
not man, who decrees that man’s solitude
is not good, and it is God himself who sets
out to complete one of the central designs
of creation, namely, woman and man in marriage.
“It is not good that the man should be alone;
I will make him a helper fit for him.” Don’t
miss that central and all important statement:
God himself will make a being perfectly
suited for him—a wife.
Then
he parades the animals before him so that
he might see that there is no creature that
qualifies. This creature must be made uniquely
from man so that she will be of his essence
as a human created in God’s image as Genesis
1:27 said. So we read in verses 21-22, “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.”
God made her.
This
text terminates in verses 24b-25 with the
words, “They shall become one flesh. And
the man and his wife were both naked and
were not ashamed.” In other words, it is
all moving toward marriage. So the first
thing to say about marriage being God’s
doing is that marriage was his design in
creating man male and female.
b)
God Gave Away the First Bride
Marriage is God’s doing because he personally
took the dignity of being the first Father
to give away the bride. Genesis 2:22, “And
the rib that the Lord God had taken from
the man he made into a woman and brought
her to the man.” He didn’t hide her and
make Adam seek. He made her; then he brought
her. In a profound sense, he had fathered
her. And now, though she was his by virtue
of creation, he gave her to the man in this
absolutely new kind of relationship called
marriage, unlike every other relationship
in the world.
c)
God Spoke the Design of Marriage into Existence
Marriage is God’s doing because God not
only created the woman with this design
and brought her to the man like a Father
brings his daughter to her husband, but
also because God spoke the design of marriage
into existence. He did this in verse 24:
“Therefore a man shall leave his father
and his mother and hold fast to his wife,
and they shall become one flesh.” Who is
talking in verse 24? The writer of Genesis
is talking. And what did Jesus believe about
the writer of Genesis? He believed it was
Moses (Luke 24:44) and that Moses was inspired
by God so that what Moses said, God said.
Listen carefully to Matthew 19:4-5: “[Jesus]
answered, ‘Have you not read that he [God]
who created them from the beginning made
them male and female, and said [Note: God
said!], “Therefore a man shall leave his
father and his mother and hold fast to his
wife, and the two shall become one flesh”’”?
Jesus said that Genesis 2:24 is the word
of God. Therefore, marriage is God’s doing
because he spoke the earliest design of
it into existence—“A man shall leave his
father and his mother and hold fast to his
wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
d)
God Performs the One-Flesh Union
Which leads us to the fourth way that marriage
is God’s doing: Becoming one flesh, which
is at the heart of what marriage is, is
a union that God himself performs. Verse
24 is God’s words of institution for marriage.
But just as it was God who took the woman
from the flesh of man (Genesis 2:21), it
is God who in each marriage ordains and
performs a uniting called one flesh that
is not in man’s power to destroy. This is
implicit here in Genesis 2:24, but Jesus
makes it explicit in Mark 10:8-9. He quotes
Genesis 2:24 then adds a comment that explodes
like thunder with the glory of marriage.
“‘The two shall become one flesh.’ So they
are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore
God has joined together, let not man separate.”
When
a couple speaks their vows and consummates
their vows with sexual union, it is not
man or woman or pastor or parent who is
the main actor. God is. God joins a husband
and a wife into a one-flesh union. God does
that. God does that! The world does not
know this. Which is one of the reasons why
marriage is treated so casually. And Christians
often act like they don’t know it, which
is one of the reasons marriage in the church
is not seen as the wonder it is. Marriage
is God’s doing because it is a one-flesh
union that God himself performs.
So, in sum, the most foundational thing
we can say about marriage is that it is
God’s doing. It was his doing:
- because
it was his design in creation;
- because
he personally gave away the first bride
in marriage;
- because
he spoke the design of marriage into existence:
leave parents, cleave to your wife, become
one flesh;
- and
because this one-flesh union is established
by God himself in each marriage.
A
glimpse into the magnificence of marriage
comes from seeing in God’s word that God
himself is the great doer. Marriage is his
doing. It is from him and through him. That
is the most foundational thing we can say
about marriage. And now we will see that
it is to him.
2.
Marriage Is for God’s Glory
The most ultimate thing to see in the Bible
about marriage is that it exists for God’s
glory. Most foundationally, marriage is
the doing of God. Most ultimately, marriage
is the display of God. It is designed by
God to display his glory in a way that no
other event or institution is.
The
way to see this most clearly is to connect
Genesis 2:24 with its use in Ephesians 5:31-32.
In Genesis 2:24, God says, “Therefore a
man shall leave his father and his mother
and hold fast to his wife, and they shall
become one flesh.” What kind of relationship
is this? How are these two people held together?
Can they walk away from this relationship?
Can they go from spouse to spouse? Is this
relationship rooted in romance? Sexual desire?
Need for companionship? Cultural convenience?
What is this? What holds it together?
The
Mystery of Marriage Revealed
The
words “hold fast to his wife” and the words
“they shall become one flesh” point to something
far deeper and more permanent than serial
marriages and occasional adultery. What
these words point to is marriage as a sacred
covenant rooted in covenant commitments
that stand against every storm of “as long
as we both shall live.” But that is only
implicit here. It becomes explicit when
the mystery of marriage is more fully revealed
in Ephesians 5:31-32.
Paul
quotes Genesis 2:24 in verse 31, “‘Therefore
a man shall leave his father and mother
and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall
become one flesh.’” And then he gives it
this all-important interpretation in verse
32: “This mystery is profound, and I am
saying that it refers to Christ and the
church.” In other words, marriage is patterned
after Christ’s covenant commitment to his
church. Christ thought of himself as the
bridegroom coming for his bride, the true
people of God (Matthew 9:15; 25:1ff; John
3:29). Paul knew his ministry was to gather
the bride—the true people of God who would
trust Christ—and betroth us to him. He says
in 2 Corinthians 11:2, “I feel a divine
jealousy for you, since I betrothed you
to one husband, to present you as a pure
virgin to Christ.”
Christ
knew he would have to pay the dowry of his
own blood for his redeemed bride. He called
this relationship the new covenant—“This
cup that is poured out for you is the new
covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). This
is what Paul is referring to when he says
that marriage is a great mystery: “I am
saying that it refers to Christ and the
church.” Christ obtained the church by his
blood and formed a new covenant with her,
an unbreakable “marriage.”
The
most ultimate thing we can say about marriage
is that it exists for God’s glory. That
is, it exists to display God. Now we see
how: Marriage is patterned after Christ’s
covenant relationship to the church. And
therefore the highest meaning and the most
ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the
covenant relationship of Christ and his
church on display. That is why marriage
exists. If you are married, that is why
you are married.
Christ
Will Never Leave His Wife
Staying
married, therefore, is not about staying
in love. It is about keeping covenant. “Till
death do us part,” or, “As long as we both
shall live” is sacred covenant promise—the
same kind Jesus made with his bride when
he died for her. Therefore, what makes divorce
and remarriage so horrific in God’s eyes
is not merely that it involves covenant
breaking to the spouse, but that it involves
misrepresenting Christ and his covenant.
Christ will never leave his wife. Ever.
There may be times of painful distance and
tragic backsliding on our part. But Christ
keeps his covenant forever. Marriage is
a display of that! That is the most ultimate
thing we can say about it.
I have so much more I want to say at this
point. So I have decided to stay with this
topic next week. Here is where we will go,
Lord willing. Genesis 2:25 says, “And the
man and his wife were both naked and were
not ashamed.” Why does the biblical story
of the foundation of marriage end on that
note just before the Fall? The answer will
lead us, I think, to some very practical
counsel that I pray will help us in our
marriages fulfill the great purposes God
has for us.
For
now, would you pray with me that God will
replace in the church and in our land self-exalting,
marriage-destroying, unbiblical commitments
to cater to our emotional desires with Christ-exalting,
marriage-honoring, biblical commitments
to keep our covenants?
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