Nearly all worldview clashes can be directly traced back to the issue to origins. For this reason, only a return to the very beginnings of humanity will bring to the fore the divinely intended purpose for our marriages in the face of an anti-Christian culture that has effectively robbed the term of its meaning.

The idea that both man and woman simultaneously share the image of God has previously been established in the opening chapter of Genesis (1:27). It is at this point in the creation narrative that Genesis 2 breaks-in and highlights the significance of the distinction in sexualities and the established order of the relationship between the two. Isolation is clearly not the purpose for which man has been created; rather, he is called to carry out the divine mandate in community and fellowship with another human being, one that Genesis 2 depicts is like him, but not like him, one who bears the image of God together with him, but complements the purpose of humanity in a way that he alone could not achieve on his own (2:18). The text carefully establishes the woman as being of the same essence of the man, and thus, does not relegate her existence to a manner of insignificance (2:21). However, there is a clear order that is to exist within the relationship as they carry out their purpose of ruling over creation. Man will do so as her leader, she will do so as his follower, and both will do so in submission to God. Only within God’s intended order do their differences align in a complementarity that prevents them from existing in antithesis. This leadership-followership structure is carefully articulated throughout the chapter: woman is “taken out of man” (2:24), named by man (2:24), and created for the purpose of being his “helper” (2:18).

The text is not clear as to when this first marriage actually takes place. Whether it was from the onset of woman’s creation or man’s acceptance of her in v. 23, it is clear from the text that present in these two first human beings exists the first marriage: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (2:24). They become a new unit within the community; more so, they now share the closest relationship possible amongst two human beings, closer than a father and a son or a mother and a daughter.

As the biblical storyline unfolds, this theme of marriage begins to be picked up as a way of describing God’s relationship to his people (Jer 2:2-3; Isa 62:5). For this reason, the New Testament very naturally appeals to this institution as a means of describing the relationship that exists between Christ and his church. (Eph 5:30-35, Rev 19:7-9). Marriage’s purpose, then, from the vantage point of all of Scripture, is to reflect this heavenly reality. It is not merely marriage that is displayed in the Gospel; but rather, it is the Gospel which is to be on display in our marriages. Just as the first man and woman were members of the same body after their union, so it is with Christ and his bride, the church.

Let us, therefore, appeal to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus as we interact with each other within our marriages, remembering we reflect the reality that exists between Christ and his bride, namely that he “gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:26-27).

Audio from this week’s lesson: Genesis 2:4-25.

~TDG