The Divine Reason:
Heterosexual Marriage and Same-Sex Marriage in the Light of Scripture
Few issues have occupied greater attention and discussion these days than same-sex marriage. Advocates of this civil relationship argue that it is about human justice, equality, personal rights, human ethics and freedom of choice. Some have attempted to make the case for this relationship by linking it to the divine attributes of love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness. In their minds, a loving, charitable God would permit, even approve of such a relationship.
Many Christians have been intimidated—some lured—into a spirit of tolerance and accepting forbearance, believing that it is a necessary and consequential aspect of civility in our day. As a pastor-teacher, I approach this issue, like all social issues of our times, with a two-fold perspective:
- As a pastor, I want to be true to my calling in the Gospel to make disciples as Christ commanded. Part of making disciples means equipping Christians with knowledge, skills and tools that will broaden and sharpen their understanding of the Word of God and its application to life and to the issues that we face in our time. Because I want believers to be maturing disciples in Christ, I am passionate to obey the mandate for pastors in Ephesians 4:11-16.
- As a teacher, I want to be true to my calling in 2 Timothy 2:15 to present myself to God as one who “correctly handles the word of truth.” I want to make sure that what I teach represents as best as possible the whole counsel of God, not just what I pick and choose to present on any given occasion. Rightly dividing the truth means presenting all the truth—as best as I possibly can to the point of asking other scholars for their input and peer review.
To those who are personally gripped by this dilemma, I recognize that some of you, like me, have family and friends who are in these relationships and you are torn, upset—perhaps embarrassed—over this plight. In your mind you sense that this is wrong, but at the same time this person is dear to you. I want you to feel the compassion in my heart for you as both of us struggle and grieve over this painful dilemma. The following words are not just an ivory tower reflection. There are faces associated with it for me.
As a balance, there is a train of thought that says: “God loves the sinner, but hates the sin.” May I respectfully state that while the Gospel declares that God loves sinners and sent his beloved Son to die for their sin, oftentimes in the Bible where you see Christ loving the sinner is when the sinner comes to Christ in broken repentance over his/her sin and chooses not to stay in that sin. To say universally that God loves the sinner without any qualification fails to remember that God’s judgment upon sin was seen in the days of Noah with the Flood (Genesis 6-7), upon the Rich Man who did not listen to Moses and the Prophets (Luke 16:19-31) and most graphically at Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19). More pointedly, in God’s mercy he shortened the number of righteous people required to spare Sodom and Gomorrah from fifty down to ten (18:20-32) only to discover that this ridiculously-low number was insufficient to escape God’s burning sulfur (19:24) on the city. To the advocates who want to use Jesus’ compassion in their argumentation, one must balance this with his affirmation of the historicity of the Flood and Sodom judgments (Luke 17:26-32) along with his support of the Genesis 2:24 marriage covenant and the human male-human female requirement in it (Matthew 19:4-6).
In examining same-sex marriage, people take generally two approaches in supporting their argument:
The first approach comes when same-sex marriage supporters advocate it from a First Amendment point of view, arguing that human rights under the U.S. Constitution permits certain forms of freedom of expression provided that this expression is a civil law passed by government leaders who are elected by majority vote. In a democracy, this is known as “majority rules.” As Americans, we value the right of free speech and expression in a free society. Many have argued for same-sex marriage from this standpoint. Opposing this approach are cultural, biological, sociological and anthropological studies that have addressed same-sex marriage from the human-experience level. Some of those studies are insightful and intriguing. I do not have an issue with the dialogue and the robust discussion of these studies and perspectives when approached from these standpoints, mindful that philosophical presuppositions expose the motives and intents of each side.
The second approach occurs when advocates of same-sex marriage want to bring the Bible and/or the mention of Jesus Christ as tolerating, even supporting this civil relationship. This is where the line is drawn and the Scriptures speak definitively on this matter. Perhaps these advocates are wishing that biblical illiteracy abounds in their audiences, so it is to that pretension that this work addresses. In approaching this issue from the Bible, I do not advocate a “theonomist” or a “theocrat” position (believing that the OT civil law must be declared and obeyed in our democratic society); rather, I come with a passionate desire to see the moral laws and principles of Holy Scripture lived out and modeled first among God’s people who in turn influence others peacefully to live this way and who subsequently elect government leaders at every level who will uphold and will defend these moral precepts.
While there are many discussions about same-sex marriage from the First Amendment approach, this study looks at the biblical record—the revelation of God, seeing not only his attributes of love, mercy, compassion, forgiveness and grace, but also balancing them with the equally revealing attributes of creative design, justice, holiness, righteousness, law, purity, wrath and jealousy over sin. All of God’s attributes—the entire spectrum—fall under the scope and umbrella of divine truth to give us what many through time have called “the whole counsel of God.” For those who seek understanding on same-sex marriage—and many other issues like it—from a biblical point of view, the realm of discussion goes to a different dimension. If someone wants to discuss this civil relationship from a theological and biblical language point of view, then it leaves the First Amendment realm—human equality, justice, social ethics and rights. It is about a creation design and institution that bears the actual image of God upon it.
This second approach is not about personal opinion, human rights, justice or social equality. It concerns the very nature of God himself and how his holy, sacred, wise and glorious image has been stamped and embedded upon human life and civilization, both in creation and redemption. Therefore, the standard of evaluation in this approach is not cultural studies, anthropological reviews, human rights publications, ethics journals or anything that deals with human analysis or evaluation. This study concentrates upon the natural language (perspicuity) of the Holy Scriptures, God’s revelation of truth. In response to the atheists and theological deconstructionists who presuppose that the Bible is a collection of fantasy tales and empty words, I believe that behind the words of Holy Scripture lies an almighty, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, powerful, ever-living, ever-knowing, glorious, immanent, immutable, powerful, holy, just, truthful, gracious and sovereignly-active God who made this world and everything in it to declare his transcendent glory.
1. The heterosexual marriage relationship was instituted in the Creation-design and specifications to mirror the image of the Creator-Redeemer God in human life.
Genesis 1:27 reads: “so God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.” Notice carefully that the text elaborates what “image of God” means. Isolated individuals are not cited here as God’s image. The text says: “male and female he created them.” In other words, in the divine plan and economy of the Triune God, he desired to mirror and to reflect the very representation of his name and his being to the ones who were the pinnacle of his creation—the human male and the human female. It is not one over the other or one or the other; rather, it is one and the other. It is “male and female he created them.” In his divine design, God was stamping his divine Intra-Trinitarian relationship over all earth in the creation of the human male-human female relationship. And marriage in Genesis 2:24 is its climax. This shows us that as the human male and the human female relate to one another in God’s divine order, not only is there peace and satisfaction, but also God the Creator, the One who designed and brought this foundational relationship into existence, gets proper recognition as the founding author of it. It bears his image and his holy signature.
With this imaging and imprinting design in view, God established heterosexual marriage for these reasons:
a. To declare the likeness (imaging) of God’s Intra-Trinitarian relationship on earth (Genesis 1:26; 5:1-2).
Genesis 5:1-2 states: “when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female; at the time they were created, he blessed them and called them ‘man.’” Famous OT scholars Keil and Delitzsch state that “Image and likeness are synonymous and are combined here to add intensity to the thought.” This text is written in language that explains how this male and female relationship to one another was “blessed” by God. There was something deeply special to God to declare a part of himself within the human relationship of a man to a woman.
b. To structure and to carry out the order of the Cultural Mandate (1:26).
In Genesis 1:26 we read: “then God said, “let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” This initial expression of the Cultural Mandate shows us that in the creation design, the world was made by God for humans to rule and to serve as stewards, not the other way around as some atheistic-environmentalists attest. Human beings—male and female—were created by God to rule together (“let them rule over…”) in a way that would show God’s gracious intention to order and to provide for humanity’s every need. The marriage relationship was structured and intended by God to establish that order of God-given dominion.
c. To serve as the channel and conduit of God’s blessing (1:28; 5:2).
Oftentimes an important set of words are overlooked in God’s establishment of the marriage relationship in the Genesis text. In both Genesis 1:28 and 5:2, it says that “God blessed them.” In the very establishment of this sacred, designed relationship, God added his own personal blessing. For those who choose to follow God’s standards and designs for living in the marriage relationship, God has bestowed blessing and favor upon them and upon their household.
d. To legitimize the procreation of human life in an orderly, grace-structured way (1:28b; 3:20; 4:1-2, 25).
In the Cultural Mandate, God tells them in Genesis 1:28b to “be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” In Genesis 3:20 we learn that “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.” Notice that the language says specifically, “Adam named his wife Eve.” You see this again in 4:1: “Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she conceived.” It appears a third time in 4:25: “Adam lay with his wife again.” In God’s intended design, the natural, creational order for bringing another human being into existence was for a man and his wedded wife to consecrate that divine union in human intimacy and privacy. In fact, I’m told by some Hebrew scholars that the word for man (“ish”) can also mean “to penetrate” and that the word for woman (“ishah”) can also mean “one penetrated.” This shows that in God’s design, it was not solely a pleasurable act alone. It was meant to culminate the deepest relationship—a soul touching another soul—where the man, the lover, the guardian, the protector of his wife, penetrated to the recesses of her being. That kind of soul-penetration would culminate in the creation of another human being that would fulfill God’s mandate to populate the earth.
e. To counter social and domestic loneliness with a suitable companion of equal stature (2:20-22).
In Genesis 2:20-22 we read: “so the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.” In 2:19 the text states that God brought all the birds and animals to the man. Most scholars pick up on this figurative language by saying that these animals were led to Adam by God as the male and female species of their type, as other passages in Genesis (6:19, 7:2) state definitively. At the end of Genesis 2:20 we see the vivid contrast presented. After examining all the male and female species, Adam realized that there was no female species of his type that was suitable (i.e. one that was a proper fit) to be the helper needed to meet his needs for companionship, partnership, procreation, soul and sexual intimacy, and domestic productivity. Marriage was intended to counter this sense of personal loneliness and isolation in a deep and tender way.
f. To portray the sovereign involvement of God in bringing together a human male and a human female into a sacred relationship (2:22).
An action that is often overlooked in the first marriage of the Bible is that God brought the woman to the man in the Garden. To say it another way: “God was the Father of the bride!” How personable! How intimate! How sovereign! How gracious of God to want to be personally involved with his own creation—to the point of not only bringing the animals and birds to Adam, but also Adam’s bride—so that Adam can see the Lord’s sovereignty in bringing two humans together—a male and a female—into a special relationship.
g. To establish and to picture the deepest and most satisfying type of human intimacy and union possible—an experienced oneness—on earth (2:23-24; Matthew 19:2-6).
Reading Adam’s words in the flow of the text give a deep sense of ecstatic satisfaction, happiness, fulfillment and unbridled jubilation over the outcome of God’s surgery upon him. In 2:23, he says: “this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” It is like Adam is saying, “Aha! Here is now one who is exactly like me! Now from the rib taken from my own side, God has fashioned someone equal and parallel to me in every way to complement, to help, to love, to play, to rule and to procreate with me.” It is here that many scholars acknowledge that Moses, the one who compiled and edited the Pentateuch account, inserted the words of Genesis 2:24: “for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” In this divinely inspired interpretation of the first marriage in Genesis, Moses understood the union of a man and his divinely-wedded wife as a leaving, cleaving and weaving of life to the point that it is portrayed as the image of God, this time pictured not as a Trinitarian plurality but as a Trinitarian oneness. The union of a man and his wedded wife on the earth is intended to reflect its holy Creator-God who dwells in glorious unity. It is this sense of divine “reason” in the Genesis text that Jesus Christ reaffirms in Matthew 19:2-6, thereby affirming his approval of God’s original design.
h. To enjoy the fullest relationship possible under the sanctified design of God with highest honor (2:25; Matthew 19:4-6; 1 Corinthians 7:1-4).
Genesis 2:25 says that “the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” Notice it says the man and “his wife.” It does not say “the man and the woman” or “the man and his partner.” Some believe that this is referring to their pre-fallen state before their sin and brokenness. Certainly it carries this meaning, but there is more to it than that. It says the man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame. This speaks not only about their having no shame before God (because they had not yet sinned) but also in their relationship to one another they felt no shame. Why? Because they were experiencing the joy and wonder of covenant oneness! Nothing separated them from one another. They were married by God and enjoyed the fullness of their relationship with no shame, no regrets and no deficiencies of any kind. In every respect as they related to one another in the marriage relationship, they felt no shame. Why? Because they lived in oneness. I believe this is God’s design for any marriage of a man to his wife—to live with such oneness with each other that there is no shame, only love, respect, happiness and the commitment to meet each other’s needs in the deepest way possible. This mirrors and reflects the unity and oneness of God himself.
i. To mirror the sacrificial love of Christ for his church as a witness to the world (Ephesians 5:22-33).
The apostle Paul likened the sacrificial love of Christ for the church to the way a husband should love his wife in the marriage covenant: “husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself” (Ephesians 5:25-28). In this text, sacrificial love is portrayed as a selfless, cleansing, holy, presenting and initiating love, mirroring the sacrificial pattern set by Christ in his incarnational mission to redeem his people to God. Heterosexual marriage—in all of its dimensions—was designed by God to mirror the role relationships within the Trinity in accomplishing God’s salvation for his people. In this “profound mystery” (5:32), the world would see not only the image of God in the man—wife covenant relationship, but also the redemption of God in the way the man loves his wife and in the way the wife submits to the God-mission of her husband (true sub-mission) in the home.
Do you see why the Scriptures present marriage in a vastly different way than many in our age do? People have their right to argue for same-sex marriage from the U.S. Constitution’s point of view; however, from the Scriptures’ standpoint, this is not about human equality, rights, ethics or anything human for that matter. It is about God—his image, his nature, his Intra-Trinitarian relationship and unity mirrored in the marital covenant between the male and female—that is at stake here!
2. Attempts to establish and to promote any version of a “same-sex” relationship and call it “marriage” degrades the image of the Creator-God in human life and disgraces the redemptive image of sacrificial love portrayed in Christ (the “bridegroom”) for his church (the “bride”).
Romans 1:18-31 clearly teaches that everyone knows about God—his eternal power and divine nature—through the power and design of creation. Romans 1:19 says: it is “plain to them.” What do they do with God’s revelation of himself? Romans 1:21-23 states that they do not glorify him or give thanks to him; instead, in their futility and darkness they do something dreadful. They “exchange” (Aorist Active Indicative, 3rd plural of άλλάσσω) this immutable, glorious imaging of God seen everywhere in creation for a hollow, idolatrous representation that in no way, shape or form comes close to describing his unapproachable glory. The Bible calls this “exchange” idolatry. Because of this willful exchange (some depict it as an inversion, a turning upside-down) of the glorious representation of God into something deplorable, God responds in a way that facilitates their acceleration down the path of rebellion into greater darkness and depravity. That is where 1:24 comes to light. It states that degradation from sexual impurity occurs when their sinful desires are expressed in sexual sins “with one another.” This is elaborated further in 1:26-27 with the description that shameful lusts are expressed when women “exchanged natural relations (with a wedded husband) for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.” The text further says in 1:27 that these sexual acts that men do with other men are called “indecent.”
The language cannot be more clear and descriptive. The exchange starts when they choose to disregard the glory and nature of the eternal, immutable, unchangeable God and deconstruct it into something idolatrous. Idolatry occurs when the creature wants to be the Creator and in turn the Creator is crafted into something like a creature. Thus, idolatry reveals the attitude and inverted practice of rebellion.
When this inversion process is understood properly, it becomes clearer why same-sex “marriage” (the willful union of 2 people of the same gender into a sexually oriented relationship) is biblically wrong. Theologically, same-sex marriage is a rebellious inversion that substitutes the beauty of God’s created design (formed for God’s glory) with an idolatrous exchange (devised for human pleasure). Since the beginning of time, the intended oneness achieved from a covenantal, soul-unioned marriage necessitated the exclusive sexual intimacy between the human male and his wedded wife by God’s design. This exclusive intent and its inverted exchange show why the same-sex marriage practice is wrong.
a. It is the sinful consequence of hollow idolatry and lustful degradation (Romans 1:21-24).
The word “therefore” in 1:24 shows a sequential domino disturbance—a cause and effect outcome—at the moment when they intentionally invert God’s original design and succumb to idolatry. The degradation of indecent human sexuality occurs after God “gives them over” from their deliberate and nonreturnable plunge into idolatry. In doing this, they display the fruit of “futile thinking” and a “darkened foolish heart” in 1:21.
b. It willfully trades the sacredness and truth of God’s created design with a concocted lie (1:25).
Here again, the text clearly depicts an “exchange” (Aorist Active Indicative 3rd plural of μετάλλάσσω) between the eternal truth of God’s design with something the language describes with words such as “sinful,” “degrading” and “impure,” leading to the conclusion that it is a “lie.” This inverted order—a substitution of the good, pure, eternal and sacred things of God for something that is human-made, crafted, and valued, is intended by those who engage in this inversion to give glory to the created things of life and not to the Almighty Creator God who made all things good for his own glory.
No one wants to be told what they are doing is a fabricated lie, but Romans 1:25 does. Idolatry and the subsequent practices that flow from it lead people down a slippery slope that ends in a lie and in their own destruction.
c. God has declared it shameful (1:26) and unnatural (against his natural design, 1:26-27) in contrast to the no shame condition of the heterosexual marriage relationship (Genesis 2:25).
Romans 1:26 describes the result of those who follow the path of idolatrous “exchange” (third time this root verb άλλάσσω is used in the Romans text) in their affections and desires. What originally was a “natural” gravitation (φύσις, the regular order established by God within nature) to a person of the opposite sex has now been “abandoned” (2nd Aorist Participle Masculine Nominative Plural of άφίημι). The picture presented by the language denotes something that is unnatural, degrading and shameless, the exact opposite depicted in the scene of the first married couple enjoying the beauty of their relationship with no shame between themselves and between their Creator (Genesis 2:25).
d. It dishonors the exclusive sexual relationship intended by God for a husband and his wedded wife, receiving God’s judgment as a consequence (Hebrews 13:4).
Hebrews 13:4 states: “marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” The original emphasizes in the word order the honor and the high stature that God places upon the sexual relationship of the men and women who enter into the covenantal marriage relationship. In his eyes, this lawful union of a human male and a human female in the privacy of their sacred bed is “undefiled” (άμίαντος in the moral/religious sense as “pure”). Likewise in the remaining portion of this verse, the opposite is seen. If one is not in a God-sanctioned marriage, the text says God will judge those participating in outside sexual practices. Obviously this parallels and illumines the Romans 1 text regarding those who receive penalties for the choices they make from their perversion.
e. It represents an abandonment and rebellious lust against God’s lawful decree (1:27-28, 32).
What starts as an idolatrous “exchange” slides to the pursuit of a “lust” (Dative singular of ὅρεξις, the only time this word appears in the NT) that is filled with “indecency” (άσχημοσύνη seen by scholars as “shameless deed” and “unseemliness,” found only here and Revelation 16:15). What makes this downward trek so disturbing is that this path is marked with “burning” intensity (1st Aorist Active Indicative, 3rd plural of έκκαίω, an old verb meaning to inflame on fire with anger or lust, found only here in the NT) that ends in a “perversion” (the concept of πλάνη denotes the result from wandering from the truth and finding oneself in a delusion and deception). From here the real motives for this kind of sexual activity are revealed. It is truly not about human equality and rights that give personal freedom. It is about non-reproductive sexual activity that is intended only for personal, lustful, self-pleasurable pursuits. The same-sex marriage secular argument about “rights” is a scarecrow. It is not about rights; it is really about personal sexual pleasure that has no responsibility attached to it.
f. It violates the Creation Mandate for human multiplication/replenishment and for God’s will to fill the earth with “godly offspring” (Malachi 2:15).
Some may object at this point that God never intended sex solely for reproductive purposes. This thought has partial merit; however, Malachi 2:15 reveals one of God’s deeply intended desires of the human male-human female marriage relationship: “has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.” This parallels the thought above in heterosexual marriage that in populating and filling the earth, God intentionally gave the Cultural Mandate (“dominion”) so that “the earth…be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). Not only is the eternal God a glorious God as depicted throughout the Scriptural account, but also he is an evangelistic God, zealous that his name be spread throughout the world and jealous of those who would seek to disgrace and to defame that name with degrading displays upon the institutions that bear his imprint.
g. It disregards and devalues the human-maleness of a man and the human-femaleness of a woman needed to create the spiritual, emotional and physical oneness-completeness intended by God in the marriage relationship (Genesis 2:24 with Matthew 19:4-6).
Genesis 2:24 specifies the “oneness” intention that God designed for the marriage relationship with the necessity that a human male and a human female enter into it. The text says naturally, a man will leave…and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. So in order to reach some type or degree of “oneness,” it requires a human male and a human female in a special relationship—marriage—to qualify. No other possible combination is even hinted in the text. In fact, the act of “cleaving” together is not possible until the human male first “leaves” his father and mother. In leaving his former home, a new sanctified relationship is made possible.
What makes this so powerful and pertinent is that Jesus himself affirms the Genesis account in Matthew 19:4-6: “haven’t you read, he replied, that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?’ So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” With his own words, Jesus affirms the God-designed sexual distinctiveness that the male and the female bring to the marital relationship. God the Creator “made them male and female” for a reason! If you are a male, God intended it that way! If you are a female, God designed you this way! The eternal Creator-God made the human male and the human female in a particular way. Call it what John Gray states—“men from Mars and women from Venus” —but in the end oneness is only achieved when two distinctly different human-gendered beings come together in a God-hallowed relationship.
h. It diminishes and degrades the internal role-relationship specifications designed by God for the human home in the grace-structured training and rearing of children (Ephesians 5:21-6:4; Colossians 3:12-21).
In two prison epistles, the apostle lays down specific instructions that involve defined role relationships for the home. In Ephesians and in Colossians, particular directives are given to husbands and wives in the marital relationship and fathers and children in the parental relationship. In both dimensions, the language used is action-directed as the means to preserve peace, harmony and happiness in the home. In the Ephesians text, submission to one another out of fear and honor to Christ (5:21) begins the extended discussion on role relationships that command a husband to love his wife sacrificially and for the wife to come under the mission of God in her husband’s life (the prefixed “ὑπο” in ὑποτάσσω carries the idea of lining up under something ). Likewise, in the parental relationship, children obey their parents in the Lord and fathers are commanded to train their children in the Lord. Both relationships—marital and parental—begin properly with Christ as the head of the home and the Church; therefore, pride, power and self-exaltation are not allowed, only a sacrificing servant spirit.
With these directives, the sexual distinctiveness of the internal home setup is seen. There is an active, love-sacrificing husband. There is a help-meeting wife. There is an engaged father, vigorously training and instructing his children in the ways of the Lord. And in this role-relationship matrix, Christ is honored because there is defined balance working and present within family relationships. Same-sex marriage cannot bring that kind of balance and equal sexual distinctiveness in the family relationship. Children need a father and a mother living out their God-commanded roles in the home as a husband and a wife. Husbands need to feel their wives respecting them as the children watch it. Wives need to feel their husbands loving them so that children observe the model love of Christ for his church. This connectional modeling of self-sacrificing love, respect and valuing undergirds and establishes a strong, peaceful, orderly home that brings glory to God and intrinsic self-worth to all who live therein.
Summary
In this review, Scripture was examined to show God’s original and ongoing design for marriage. The Bible declares that the human male and the human female—together in the marriage relationship—were created to proclaim the likeness of God’s Intra-Trinitarian relationship upon the earth. This stamped imprint of the divine likeness was to announce beautifully to the world the presence of a holy, sovereign, Creator-Redeemer God upon his creation and to channel his goodness for those who obeyed him. Likewise, this marital covenant served as the framework for carrying human dominion over God’s creation along with the divine blessing that flowed from it. In this kindness, God would reward those in this relationship to experience the potential of reaching a level of soul-intimacy and to receive through this sanctioned sexual activity the ability to procreate and to bring “godly offspring” who would carry God’s sovereignty across the earth. The creation of this intimate relationship and the children that would arise from it would establish relationships that would combat the social loneliness and despondency that comes from isolation and solitary existence. And in this exclusive relationship, some of the deepest human needs had the potential to be met as proper role relationships were demonstrated. In the fulfilling of their roles in the marriage covenant, the world would see the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ for his church as the husband loves his wife unconditionally and as the wife submits to the God-mission of her husband as he follows the submission of Christ to his heavenly Father.
In contrasting ways, same-sex marriage has its origins not in God’s design but in the outflows of human idolatry according to Romans 1:18-31. It represents the sinful abandonment to hollow idolatry and to lustful degradation, willfully exchanging (inverting) the sacredness and truth of God’s created design with a satanic-saturated lie. Because of this exchange and the sinful sexuality associated with it, God has declared it shameful and unnatural, a “defiled” sexual bed in the language of Hebrews 13:4. It disregards and devalues the human gender-uniqueness required to create the spiritual, emotional and physical oneness intended by God for human satisfaction. Finally, it diminishes and degrades the internal role-relationship specifications designed by God for the harmony, order and grace-structured rearing of children, weakening communities and cities as a consequence.
Choices are before us today as a people of God. Will we as a community of believers affirm our commitment to the sanctity of divine marriage and hallow its foundations by first modeling this covenantal relationship in our own lives? We cannot expect others—even non-believing moral people who embrace the design of biblical marriage—to live up to standards that we cannot uphold! Before we can speak with any credibility, we need to remove anything that may lie in our own lives and practices.
We must respect all people–especially those who differ with us on this issue—striving to live in ways that show the full spectrum of God’s attributes in our homes and in the church. Not only does the world need to see the love, grace, mercy and forgiveness of God, but also in balancing ways his truth, holiness, justice and purity lived out appropriately and peacefully in us individually and corporately. In living biblical standards before others, we will gain credibility with a majority in this world, enabling us to influence them spiritually (evangelistic witness through modeling) and morally (electing governmental leaders at every level who will uphold and protect these principles and values).
The soul of a country lies within her churches. As goes the church, so goes the country:
Does it really matter if we define marriage and the family one way as opposed to another? Can’t families be anything we want them to be? Are men and women optional for marriage or are mothers and fathers interchangeable in the family? Are there good reasons for saying marriage should be for life, bringing men and women together to build a cooperative life and create and raise the next generation of humanity?…Marriage can’t be anything we want it to be. To do so is to radically redefine a fundamental and historic human institution. To do so is to deconstruct humanity.
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1 Three scholars representing three different fields of academia—Bible and Greek, Rhetoric and Education—were consulted.
2 Examples from Calvin on the plainness of Scriptural language come from the Institutes I.8.1, “Read Demosthenes or Cicero, read Plato, Aristotle, or any other of that class. You will, I admit, feel wonderfully allured, pleased, moved, enchanted; but turn from them to the reading of the Sacred Volume, and whether you will or not, it will so affect you, so pierce your heart, so work its way into your very marrow, that, in comparison of the impression so produced, that of orators and philosophers will almost disappear, making it manifest that in the Sacred Volume there is truth divine, a something which makes it immeasurably superior to all the gifts and graces attainable by man.” Another example is from his Treatises Against the Anabaptists and Against the Libertines, “Indeed, examine and consider closely the sentences of Scripture in order to discover their true and natural sense, using simple and clear words that are familiar to common language” (translated and edited by Benjamin Wirt Farley. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1982), 156-7.
3 C.F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament in Ten Volumes. Volume 1: The Pentateuch. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980, 63.
4 A central issue in this discussion comes when advocates of same-gendered relationships demand to call it “marriage” and expect full rights and benefits from it; however, “marriage” as understood from the beginning of time has a clear sexual connotation in it and has been reserved only as the divine union of a human male and a human female in matrimony. Thus, when same-sex advocates demand to call it “marriage,” the dimension of discussion must include the language of Romans 1:18-31.
5 Archibald Thomas Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament. Volume IV: The Epistles of Paul. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1931, 331, William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957, 118-9.
6 John Gray, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2012.
7 Important to note is that “submit” in Ephesians 5:21 is the present middle participle of ὑποτάσσω, one of five participles directly connected back to the command in 5:18, “Be filled with the Spirit” (present passive imperative 2nd person plural of πληρόω). Submission is not an elective in the Christian life. It is a command, empowered by the Holy Spirit for the Christian pilgrimage.
8 Robertson, 544.
9 Glenn T. Stanton and Dr. Bill Maier, Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004, 11 (authors’ emphasis).
Copyright © 2016 H. Curtis McDaniel, Ph.D., D.Min. All rights reserved.