Marriage Matters!

In a matter of days the United States Supreme Court will announce their decision over a landmark case concerning marriage. Specifically, whether marriage should be redefined to include a covenant relationship of two men or two women. This really has been an ongoing debate the past several years as different states wrestled with the issue. Some added amendments to their state constitutions to explicitly protect the definition of marriage, others voted to redefine marriage, and in some cases, while the people of the state voted to uphold the definition of marriage, the courts overturned their decision. Why is this such a big deal? Why is marriage so important? My goal in this blogpost is to look at just a few reasons why marriage matters. Know that there are several more reasons that could be added but like a good preacher, I'll just do three points for now.

Marriage matters because God designed and instituted it (Genesis 2:24). When He created the woman out of the man He intended for the two to join together in a one flesh union to serve Him together in their work on the earth and seek to produce godly offspring (Genesis 1:28). God's standard for marriage clearly is one man and one woman united together in a covenant relationship with death being the only thing that shall ever part them (Romans 7:2-3). To alter this standard is to go against God's design.

Marriage matters because it communicates something important to us about God. In the coming together of two distinct individuals to be recognized as one flesh, we are given a picture of God's existence as a trinity. Though not a perfect picture, it appears that God has given us a shadow of Himself in the marriage relationship. As God is one being and three distinct persons, a husband and wife are viewed by God as being one entity though the two are distinct. (Some may say that this sounds like a stretch but consider the interesting fact that the word for "one" used in Genesis 2:24 to describe the married couple is the same Hebrew word used for "one" in Deuteronomy 6:4 to describe God. The word conveys a "plural unity" such as a singular company of different people or a singular cluster of distinct grapes. Another word for "one" exists in Hebrew which does not indicate any union of a plural diversity but Moses chose not to use that for either verse.)

Marriage matters because it serves as a reflection of the gospel (Ephesians 5:22-33). We could even say that marriage is a living parable of Christ's great love for His Church. Every time that a husband shows love to his wife by sacrificing of himself for her well-being, he reflects the love of the Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated in the great substitionary sacrifice of His life for the Church so that she would be holy (vv. 25-27). Whenever a wife respects her husband's leadership and submits to his authority, we have the Church willing submittance to Christ's lordship put on display for all to see. To alter God's design of marriage in any way is to profane the beautiful portrait of the gospel.

We, as God's creatures, have no right to redefine what our Creator has established as marriage, to ignore it by living with someone without the commitment of marriage, or to break it for any reason other than death. We either accept and obey what God has said in His Word (and what He continues to say in His Word) or we stand in rebellion before our Creator and Judge. Marriage matters!