THE MEANING OF MARRIAGE
“What God has joined together, let not man separate.” Matthew 19:6
Today’s culture has invented all sorts of new institutions in an attempt to replace marriages. Cohabitation, domestic partnerships, common law “marriages,” along with polyamorous relationships have all been touted as a alternatives to traditional marriage. But these relationship schemes all fail to provide the one thing that a marriage was meant to provide for the man and a woman.
When a man marries a woman, it’s a significant picture of two individuals coming together to form a new unit, a family. Children may be the fruit of that coming together, but they don’t define the family. The family begins when the man and woman commit their lives to one another.
God declared “…a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). The act of leaving his family is significant. He is retreating behind his past identity and family ties to create and commit to a new family. “One flesh” signifies the unity and oneness that the man and woman would create. They would be weakest when apart but strongest when they were indivisible.
Jesus affirmed the goal of marriage when he declared that the man and woman, “are no longer two but one flesh. What…God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:5-6). God’s desire for every marriage, first and foremost, is to protect its unity and mature into oneness. There are many things that can divide a couple. In Genesis, it was selfish ambition and pride. When Jesus taught on marriage, he warned that adultery or sexual sin could wound a marriage beyond the ability to heal.
From Genesis to Jesus, the number one objective of marriage is to protect and pursue unity and oneness. The wedding day will formalize this unity, but you will spend every day of your lives together fulfilling that vow.
To the single men: Watch who you hitch your wagon to. As you look for a spouse, make sure you’re willing to share every part of who you are with that woman. There’s no undoing the blending that happens within a marriage.
To the married men: Protect the “togetherness” of your marriage. Take seriously the call to pursue oneness and unity. What things in your life or heart are hindrances to the unity that God wants you to enjoy with your spouse? What can you do today to strengthen your bond with your wife?