For Better or For Worse

 

 

"I, John, Take you, Jane, To be my wife; To have and to hold, From this day forward, For better, for worse, For richer, for poorer, In sickness and in health, To love and to cherish, 'Till death do us part."

 

These simple words recited during the wedding ceremony are so easily forgotten during our generation as the divorce rate in America for first marriage, vs. second or third marriage is at an all time high. 50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce these days.

                       

 

New data shows that U.S. divorce rates are higher in Southern states such as Alabama, Kentucky, and Texas; these states are located in what is traditionally known as the "Bible Belt." Those marriage vows once spoke to one another and God are so quickly forgotten when things get a little stressful in a marriage today. 

                                                

 

Marriage is a covenant between one man and one woman that was established by God to unite them together for life and that relationship was never intended to be dissolved.  “Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him." So the LORD God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the LORD God took out one of the man's ribs and closed up the opening. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man. "At last!" the man exclaimed. "This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called 'woman,' because she was taken from 'man.'”  This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame. (Genesis 2:18-25)

                         

 

This beautiful biblical narrative of the unity of marriage is also reiterated by our Lord Jesus Christ.  "Haven't you read the Scriptures?" Jesus replied. "They record that from the beginning 'God made them male and female.' And he said, 'This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together."  (Matt 19:4-6)

 

The biblical doctrine of marriage brings out a key dimension of the human being. We have all been created for the special type of union that marriage is. The doctrine of marriage brings out the relational nature of mankind. We cannot have a complete understanding of the human being without understanding the marriage relationship.

 

In the Bible, human beings have a collective identity and are seen within the social groupings of families, tribes and nations. The foundational grouping is that of the biological family defined by the parents and their children. We must understand the part of the marriage decree in Gen 2.24 in light of this. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

 

When a man gets married, he no longer has his principal social identity in the family of his parents. Rather, through marriage a new social unit is formed, and this new unit is the basic building block of society.

 

The husband defines the new social unit. This follows from the fact that the woman and was formed out of the man so that the relationship is defined from the man as head. That is why the decree to separate from the parents is given to the man and not the woman. It is understood within the logic set up in the creation of the woman out of the man that in the marriage union the woman takes her familial identity from her husband and so leaves her own family behind. The husband who determines the new social unit is the one that must obey the decree that secures each marriage as the principal social relationship.

 

Marriage is personal and private in the intimate union of the two. But, this has societal significance. Marriage is in a sense a public and social institution that establishes a man and a woman as a new social unit. Due to this aspect of marriage, the groom and the bride move out from under their parents and stand alongside of them in social status. Genesis 2.24 places the marriage relationship on the top of the hierarchy of social relationships.

                

 

The full force of Gen 2.24 is pointed out by Jesus in Matt 19.5-6. It is the decree of the creator by which “God joins the two together to become one flesh”. Genesis 2.24 is treated as the creator’s word as stated in Psalm 33.9: “For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” Every couple that is joined in marriage becomes one flesh under this decree of the creator. A marriage is not made by a religious minister or by the law of the land. It is not even made by the vows that the groom and bride make to each other.  Biblically, a marriage is made by the creator’s decree.

 

When Jesus said that what God has joined together no one is allowed to separate, he pointed out that this decree stands over the two who are joined under it. In other words, the work of God through his word stands over the will of the two who are joined by that word. This makes marriage a covenant union. In the Old Testament a covenant is a word or declaration that binds two parties together, and this word is held by God and stands above the will of the person’s bound together. The bond by the covenantal word is thus sacred.

 

In Genesis 1, after God completed each creative work he looked at what he had made and said that it was good. Now in Gen 2.18 for the first and only time God said that something was not good. God did not say that the man he created was not good but that his state in being alone was not good. This means that only in the creation of the helper is everything good. The narrative thus puts a sharp focus on the human need for relationship.

                             

 

The statement that it is not good for the man to be alone did not come from Adam. God did not leave Adam to discover and express his loneliness. The statement is made by God. This point is important. Gen 2.18 is not dealing with a human felt need but with an objective fact of human existence, not with loneliness but with existing alone. This is not first of all a matter of our feelings but of our created nature.

 

God does not explain why it was not good for man to be alone. Rather, he proceeds to provide the solution to the problem of being alone. What God had in mind when he said that it was not good for the man to be alone must be discovered from what the woman he created was to the man, and this is stated in Gen 2.23 in Adam’s words.

 

God began the journey toward a wife by having Adam name the animals. This points to the area of Adam’s need. Up to this point in the narrative, Adam stands alone as a living soul in a garden. What he needs is a relationship with a living soul, and in the Bible animals are seen as living souls. But, the way Adam named the animals showed that none were a helper “according to what is before him” (the literal translation).

 

Gen 1.28 shows where the deficiency lay. Then God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground."   Mankind alone was created in the image of God, and this gave mankind the rule over the animals. In the language of Psalm 8.6, “You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority.” God put the animals under his feet.

                                  

 

This uniqueness of man in creation is indicated in Genesis 2 by the different ways in which Adam and the animals were created. God breathed the breath of life (the spirit) directly into Adam, whereas the animals were simply formed out of the ground. Adam has the spirit of life in a way that raised him above the animals and gave him an intimate relationship with and closeness to God. As a living soul he stood above the animals and so was left alone.

 

Once Adam finished his naming exercise in the garden and among animals he was alone, God proceeded to form the woman as the suitable helper. The way Adam named her shows that she was that helper. Adam did not simply give the woman a label. One might add that any man who wants to comprehend a woman under a simple label has a complex problem.

 

Perhaps women are better described in poems than in names and Adam had the innocence and intuition to do this. He described her for what she was in relation to him. Adam’s poetic description points out a couple things about this relationship.

 

First, by calling her flesh of my flesh, he stated that she was his equal in nature. She was as human as he was. This set her apart from animals and put her alongside of him.

 

Second, he observed that she was not only human like him (this is now flesh) but she was human from him (of my flesh). This is what he latched onto. We know this because he named her on the basis of this insight. He called her ishah because she was taken out of ish. He gave her the feminine version of the word used for him.

 

The decree of marriage is based on the way Adam named the woman. This means that to fully understand the marriage relationship we have to listen to Adam very carefully. Only as his equal could the woman be the real helper to Adam. If she was in anyway inferior in nature, she would leave Adam alone. In whatever way she was below him, she would doom him to being alone. But, as his equal, she would help him by delivering him from the lonely state.

 

But, she is not a mere equal. If all that was needed was an equal, God could have created another human apart from Adam and brought this person to him as a companion, friend and partner. Such a human creature would be as noble as Adam, but for Adam that creature would not be as fascinating as the woman he received.

 

In the woman, God did not simply give another person, a partner. He formed a relationship that was wonderful to Adam. She was fully human out of him. This means that he saw her as belonging to him in the most profound way. Paul caught the point that enthralled Adam in Eph 5.28-33. The husband should love his wife as he own body, as himself, and nourish and cherish her wife as his own flesh. The sense of belonging and love in this is much deeper and even wholly different from the love a man may have for a friend. It would be a desecration of friendship to treat the friend as your own body. In friendship we have to leave the friend with his own identity and independence. But, the marriage bond is different. A wife can never be “a friend” because she is something much more profound that that.

 

When Paul spoke of the love of the husband for the wife, he said, “I speak of a mystery.” There is no mystery to friendship. That Eve was taken out of man was God’s doing. But, Adam had his role in the relationship. He named her and imparted to her an identity from himself. In this he followed up by naming what God did in creating. In the marriage relationship, the man gives to the woman her identity from his own identity, and this means that he gives his all, his life, to her.

                    

 

The wonderful and mysterious relationship between a man and a woman in marriage shows us that we are created with a relational identity. The male identity was designed to be fully realized in a relationship with a woman, and the feminine identity was designed for this relationship with the male. This is a matter of created design. The relational nature is actualized in marriage, and here the transaction is not just physical. Our personal identity is relational so that we are open to being defined within the marriage union.

 

In today’s society many husbands may fall into the opinion that he loves his wife because he provides well for her, but rarely is he home with her. Then friction results and the husband are surprised. He should have known: love comes close to and dwells with the wife. I Peter 3:7 calls husbands to dwell with their wives. Christ comes close to His Bride. He speaks to her, often. He loves her!

 

We may be tempted to think that the calling of the husband is "Rule your wife." Over and over the Bible calls women to submit to their husbands. It would seem, then, that the husband's calling is, "Rule." But this is not the case. The Bible says, "Husbands, love your wives." So the husband who is always telling his wife, "Submit, submit, submit" is a foolish husband. He does not know how to be the head of the wife because he does not know how to love her. The Word of God “the Bible” as Christians is our only authority here. What is the husband's duty in marriage? This… "Husbands, love your wives" (Ephesians 5:25).  God says “Love your wife…this is how you rule her."

 

Let's not forget the comparison that the Bible makes between the husband/wife relationship and the Christ/Church relationship. This is the great pattern for our marriages. So the question becomes, "How does Christ rule the church?" The answer is, "By the sweet, irresistible power of His grace, through His Word and Spirit." That is, by love!

 

Submission is voluntary. The Church is not subject to Christ because She is forced against Her will, but is such because of the wonderful grace of Jesus to change Her from a rebel to a beautiful Wife.  So the wife does not submit only because she must, but willingly.

                   

 

Submission also proceeds from love. Does the church love Christ… of course! And out of that love comes the Church's submission that is willing, voluntary, from the heart, and complete. God calls women to love their husbands (Titus 2:4). Out of that love flows a beautiful subjection.

 

Generally, submission is an attitude of heart and walk of life. Submitting, we put ourselves under the authority and rule of another. It may be children to parents, citizens to government, employees to employers, or wives to husbands.

 

The National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) does not rally for husbands to stop loving their wives. The women's movement challenges the Bible's calling for the women to be subject to their husbands. The main objection to this teaching is that it degrades the honor of the woman, makes them "nothings." 

Culture says, Women are equal or "Women need not submit to their husbands" or Women have the same responsibilities. So culture says, "Let us change the message of the Bible. To this, we respond with a friendly question: "Was it degrading for His honor when Jesus subjected Himself to His parents?” (Luke 2:51) Jesus was God Himself Who willingly put Himself under two of His lowly creatures. This in no way degraded His honor or made Him inferior. If Jesus could submit without giving up a speck of His dignity, so can wives. We may also ask, "Does the Church lose Her dignity when she submits to Christ? Does it detract from Her beauty, Her honor, to give Herself wholly to Him…of course not! Indeed, is it not exactly this that makes the Church a beautiful Bride? It is! It's a beautiful woman who places herself under the authority of her husband: willingly and from the heart.

                                   

                                  

 

Consider God's instruction through the Apostle Paul. Ephesians 5:21 in  the Mutual submission in a Christian’s life.  “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”  Or Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.  Mutual submission will begin to take place when each Christian learns how to consider others better than self. This way of living will call for a large dose of Christ-like love and humility as we look out for the interests of others first (Phil. 2:3-4).

Whatever role we have been given provides us an opportunity to serve our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is when we accept our role as husband, wife, employer, employee, community leader, or citizen in light of Christ's teaching and example, with a reverence for Him and His heavenly Father that we will begin to serve one another.

 

In serving one another in a marriage union the order of procreation is made though sexual union, but it is not just a sexual transaction. Here human beings are different from animals. Animals have sex in order to procreate Then God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply. Let the fish fill the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth." (Gen 1.22). But, the Bible does not say that two animals shall become one flesh. We observe this in that we do not see animals getting married.

                 

 

Animals have a sexual drive, but they do not have the kind of love that makes for human marriage.  When discussing the decree of marriage, we noticed that a man and a woman become one flesh under the decree of God. The physical aspect of sex in itself could not bring about the mysterious union of marriage.

 

The union made through the sexual act transcends the physical side. This is not left solely to the objective fact of the creator’s decree. Human beings are created with a kinship with God and have transcendence over the physical world. This enables them to rule the world. It also means that what they do with their bodies they do with their spirits and in their relatedness to the divine. This is seen in the dynamics of love that come with sexual union. Adam does not simply copulate with the woman presented to him and go on with his work. He pauses over her and evaluates, describes, names, celebrates her and gives her an identity: in short he loves her. Adam’s words (v 23) and God’s word (v 24) resonate. Behind the human words expressing love in momentary exhilarating terms is the abiding word of God that gives the commitment of love a status that is not limited to human experience of love. Genesis 2 shows that we have been created for this unique, ultimate and transcendent relationship.

 

 

Peace,