God's Good Design for Marriage

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'That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh' Genesis 2:24

In our country all the metrics around marriage have been progressively falling as we become more and more atheistic and, in turn, more and more liberal.

For example, according to NatCen Social Research, in 1983 just 28% of those asked what their opinion would be of a man and woman who had premarital sex said, they would consider that either always, or mostly, wrong. But by 2010 that percentage had dropped to just 11%. We are now 14 years on from there and we can only guess how low that number might be now.

It’s not surprising then that the marriage rate in England and Wales in that same period dropped from 52 to just 22 in every 1000 for males, and from 42 to just 20 in every thousand for females.

The point is to show that we live in a society that is progressively liberal about marriage and sexuality.

I doubt though that any of you need statistics to recognise that trend. If you watched the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on Friday, you will know exactly what I mean.

Societal views change and fluctuate. And we live in that sea of shifting currents. Yet we believe in a God who doesn’t change. Who is the same yesterday, today and forever. And who has said unchanging things about marriage and sexuality.

All of which I think means that we are caught in a constant tug of war where, if we stand squarely with the God that we believe in, on marriage and sexuality, we feel very acutely that we will be out of step with the culture we move in.

And, if we move with the times and allow the culture to shape our attitudes then we will feel acutely that we are out of step with our God.

One way to deal with that problem is to regard marriage and sexuality as secondary and largely irrelevant matters.

That approach frees us to move with the currents of change and, as long as we’ve got Jesus, we’ll be ok.

Don’t worry about the details like marriage and sexuality.

That would be a big mistake. We’re going to see this morning that you can’t have Jesus and have a liberal view of marriage. They come as a package, and so, our salvation demands we have a high view of marriage and sexuality.

The alternative to the reductionistic approach is to be steadfast and faithful in the face of our culture. To be counter-cultural. To say, ‘my God’s has revealed his will for marriage and sexuality and his views are my views’.

Whether you like a Labour government or not, we will see a liberal shift under this new government – not least in sexual politics - and so it is pertinent to think about these things right now.

Let me give you one piece of biblical evidence why this matters so much for a church like ours.

‘To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God (Jesus), whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance and that you are now doing more than you did at first.

Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols…I will cast her on a bed of suffering…and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways.’ Revelation 2:18-22.

The Old Testament character Jezebel stands for a culture in the city of Thyatira. And that culture was sexually immoral. God’s warning to the church there was, ‘stop tolerating that culture within your church. You be separate. Your attitudes about sex and sexuality be my attitudes about sex and sexuality’.

So, I think that should jolt us as a church that this isn’t a secondary issue, it’s primary. And we’ve got to know and care for what God thinks.

With that in mind then, I’ve taken for our text this morning Genesis 2:18-25 as a commentary on point 7 of our Riverside member statement of faith which deals with marriage and sexuality.

So, we’re going back to the beginning - before the fall of humanity into sin - to see what God did and said there that might instruct our understanding of his will for marriage and sexuality.

Now remember that God had made everything, and he was very pleased with it all. In fact, Moses who authored Genesis, repeatedly comments that God saw that everything was good that he had made.

And now in chapter 2 we’re getting a more detailed account of the pinnacle of his creation - namely human beings.

Coming to verse 18, it’s very striking because, for the first time, God says that something is not good.

Do you see that in verse 18? ‘The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him”’.

And this raises some questions in my mind straight away.

Questions like, why was it not good for the man to be alone? Where does that come from?

And what does ‘a helper’ mean?

And what does ‘suitable’ mean?

But before we look to answer those questions. Let’s just see what happens after God had decided that the man needed a companion helper. Who will this companion helper be?

Well, the next thing up in the passage is a procession of creatures. Verse 19 says, the Lord God brought to the man all the wild animals and birds of the sky that he had made out of the ground to see what the man would name them. And whatever Adam named the creature that was its name.

Now I know that the kind of interbreeding and diversification within the various kinds that has occurred during the history of the world means that the number of creatures that passed in front of Adam must have been smaller than all the variety we see today. Nevertheless, just think of all the various kinds of creature that exist! It was still a huge number!

Despite all the variety, after all these creatures God tried out on Adam had passed by, ‘no suitable helper was found’.

That’s exactly how verse 20 puts it. Not one of those animals was a suitable companion helper for Adam. Why not? We’ll answer thatquestion shortly too.

So, now what? What will God do to find this helper for Adam? The answer is he will make one. So, verse 21, he caused Adam to fall asleep, then he took one of his ribs from his side and made a new kind of creature out of the rib he had taken.

And then he brought this creature to Adam just like he had the other creatures. Moses uses the pronoun ‘her’ to describe what God had made.

And this creature Adam named ‘woman’ (v. 23). The implication of the rest of verse 23 is that this ‘woman’ was the suitable helper God thought Adam needed.

That’s the basic narrative.

So, let’s try to draw some inferences.

Why did God think that it wasn’t good for the man to be alone?

And I don’t know of any explicit place where we are given an answer to that question. But I’d like to suggest a reason which you can try on for size.

God, who made Adam, is not alone.

As we saw back in point 2 of our series on the Riverside statement of faith, God is Trinity. That is to say, God is one and he is a multiplicity of persons. And between those persons flow fellowship; and love; and camaraderie; and companionship.

And since God made the man in his own image, I think he looked at him in his singularity and decided that it would be good for him to have companionship also.

Jesus said about himself and his Father, ‘I and the Father are one’. That is to say, they are the same being.

And yet Paul signs off his second letter to the Corinthians with grace from the Son, love from the Father and the fellowship that characterises the Holy Spirit. So, there is fellowship in the Godhead. And I think God wants that for his human creature too.

God not only sees to making a companion for Adam he also causes that companionship to come to expression is marriage. You can see that in verses 24 and 25. After making the woman, Adam and Eve became ‘one flesh’ - Eve became Adam’s wife (v.25).

So, it’s right to say that God sees it as a good thing to be married. It looks here as if God created marriage because that was a good thing for his created people.

That means I think - and evidence bears this out - that singleness is not going to be the normal state of affairs in the world that God has made.

Rather the expression that God has chosen for the normal state of affairs is marriage between one man and one woman.

God does not make a man out of Adam’s rib, he makes a woman. God does not leave these two human beings he has made to co-exist without the profound institution of marriage; he marries them. And this is the pattern that God has given the human race. One man and one woman in one committed relationship called marriage.

That means there is no such thing as gay marriage.

I mean the culture can snatch the word ‘marriage’ and empty it of its meaning and redefine it if it wants to, but it doesn’t change the truth. Marriage is a God-institution and only he gets to define what it means.

Will the redefining of marriage lead to confusion in the next generation about what God intends by marriage? It will.

Will the church need to be valiant for God’s definition of marriage so that the next generation hear a counter-cultural voice? It will.

Will that increasingly lead to clashes between the church and the culture? It will.

And we must be willing to stand firm in the face of that opposition. We’ve got to resist the spirit of Jezebel here.

Now, I said that singleness is not God’s normal design for his human creatures. But what about the fact that Jesus was a single man? And most likely the Apostle Paul was a single man too? And what about what the Apostle Paul says about singleness?

Here’s what he said in 1 Corinthians 7, ‘I would like you to be free from concern [he means the concern of married life]. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs – how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world – how he can please his wife – and his interests are divided’.

He goes on to say the exact same thing from a female perspective. And then he says, if anyone isn’t married but wants to be married that’s not a bad thing either – go ahead.

And then he says this, ‘he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does better’.

The reason Paul thinks ‘he does better’ is because that person can focus their attention on the Lord’s affairs.

So, it sounds like it’s better not to be married. Is that right?

The answer is, to whomsoever God gives the gift to be satisfied and self-controlled in a state of singleness there is a benefit to the kingdom of God if that person remains unmarried.

However, that’s not going to be the normal situation. In most cases people are going to want to be together with someone and marriage is the vehicle for that companionship.

To those who have been given the gift of singleness, use it well! Your singleness is expressly so that you can be undistractedly concerned with the Lord’s affairs. That is a high and holy calling so press on that with all your spiritual might.

We’ve seen that the creature God made and presented to Adam as the companion – ‘the woman’ – he calls both a ‘helper’ and a ‘suitable’ one. And I think we need to get a handle on these two things.

The reason I think the woman God made is ‘suitable’ is because she is not a mere creature like the other animals, but she is a human like Adam.

None of the other creatures God made were of a kind with Adam.

God made human beings of a different kind of creature to the animals. He made humans with authority over the animals – like naming them. And because of the vast difference between animals and humans, no animal was a suitable companion for Adam.

So to all pet lovers out there: beware substituting your favourite pet for your spouse in your affections!

There are no pets that are suitable companions for you! There is only one kind of suitable companion for you, and that is your spouse.

I think we live in a strange time when the evolutionary mantra that human beings are an advanced type of animal has so saturated our minds that we have elevated the animal to an in-house companion equal, or even better, than our spouses. Beware that tendency! God made another kind of human for meaningful companionship – namely a female kind, and he did not let one of that procession of fantastic creatures fill that special role for Adam!

What about the word ‘helper’?

It’s probably one of those words that, when you put it in a context like this, where it refers to the woman and where the object of the help is a man, creates all kinds of thoughts. For both the women and the men. But what did God mean by it?

Well, I think we have to be honest about the implications and then we need clarify them with the bible.

So, speaking honestly, the word ‘helper’ describes a person who supports another. In this case, God says the man needs a helper. And God sees fit to make that helper a woman.

Now, I would like to point out that a helper also implies that the task at hand can’t be completed alone. The person whose responsibility it is to complete the task needs help to complete it.

That means that the helper is integral to the overall outcome. Take the helper out and the task will fail. So, the helper is crucial.

But there’s more. Let’s go back to the Trinitarian nature of God again. There in the godhead there is a trinity of co-equal persons. In nature, and importance, and value, and worth there is no difference between them.

And yet, it is clear from the way that Jesus talked that there is a functional difference between them. Each one has a role that is different to the others. And there is support going on in those roles too!

So, for example, Jesus says ‘I have come to do my Father’s will’. That implies that God has a design, and that Jesus is coming in a support role to execute that design.

Or, think of the Holy Spirit – Jesus calls him ‘the helper’. He says, ‘I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth’.

So, there is an absolute equality in the godhead and simultaneously there is a functional subordination in which the Son and the Spirit both adopt the role of helper relative to the Father.

Now, my point is, if that is something that the godhead in all its supremacy can see fit to do, then there is certainly a way in which mere human beings in their creatureliness can relate, so that one can be called the helper of the other without undermining the equal value and worth that both have.

And that is what God intends. Let me show you.

1 Corinthians 11 taps right into this Genesis narrative to make its point about the differences between men and women in the worship setting. ‘A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For [this is what glory means] man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman but woman for man’.

Paul’s point is that a woman’s role in gathered worship will look different to a man’s because of some fundamental differences in their creation. First, that she was created from him. And second that she was created for him.

So how should that truth look in the way that a husband and wife interact?

Ephesians 5 gives us the answer. Wives submit to their husbands because he is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church who is his own bride.

And husbands love their wives in the way that Christ loved his bride. What kind of love is that? Well, it’s sacrificial love, isn’t it? Jesus made his bride spotless by laying down his life for her. And in sacrificial love, he cares for her and feeds her.

So, a husband’s headship doesn’t look like lording it over his wife. It looks like sacrificial leadership.

Where he takes the initiative to make sure that she is cared for.

Where he takes the initiative to design good spiritual things for their combined Christian purpose.

And a wife’s submission looks like gladly helping him to accomplish the godly aims he initiates. It really is a like a beautiful dance, where the two parts revolve around each other in perfect harmony as one caringly leads and the other delights to follow.

Paul calls this interaction a ‘profound mystery’ and then instantly says, ‘but I’m talking about Christ and the church’. Which I take to mean that our marriages are so profound, and so profoundly important, that they can either tell the truth or they can lie about the reality of Christ’s love for his church.

Paul can so easily move from marriage to Christ and the church that it’s impossible to conceive of how a low view of marriage, or a redefining of marriage can do anything except present Christ’s love for the church as flimsy, or questionable, or even debauched!

This is why Christian marriage is so absolutely vital. And why working to maintain our marriages is so crucial for the integrity of the gospel message we have to share with unbelievers.

You know, Eve might be the suitable helper, but look how Adam responds to her when God brings her to him.

How he cherishes her in verse 23, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh’. It’s more than just a declaration of truth, it a declaration of affection. That’s how we husbands have to treat our wives – with deep affection. She is one with me; she is a part of me.

Moses, in verse 24, says these truths are why a man ‘leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh’.

It’s a big challenge for parents and children alike - to do this verse. Parents have to learn quickly to leave their child alone when they get married.

And the child has to learn quickly, this is now my responsibility. They have to go forth as a married couple and live their life with their spouse – striving together for God; taking responsibility for their united choices.

They are one flesh now. That means God has united them together for as long as they both live. That’s how they roll now; no matter what.

Christ is exalted in marriage when we do what he does with his bride, which is: remain faithful to her through thick and thin.

And the thing that binds them together, in spite of their ups and downs, is his covenant love for her. His blood shed for her binds the two together eternally.

And human marriage is a covenant too. God makes it according to Jesus in Matthew 19, and no human being can dissolve it. One flesh means one flesh for life just like Christ’s broken flesh for his church means one with him for eternity.

Therefore, I conclude, marriage is God’s. It’s high, and it’s holy and we as a church have got to love it and do everything in our power to preserve it for the sake of the honour of Christ and for the glory of our creator God.