Genesis 2:23–25; Malachi 2:13–15; Matthew 19:3–12

Bible Studies for Life
Associate professor of divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University

‘I Take You’
Genesis 2:23–25; Malachi 2:13–15; Matthew 19:3–12

The Operating Room
I typically experience a distinctive exhilaration whenever I preside at a wedding. That exhilaration stems from my conviction that I am involved in a unique, divinely created and eternally significant event called holy matrimony. The Bible encourages such thoughts. Take note of the account of the first surgery, performed by the only true God upon the first human being ever created: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.’ … So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. Then the Lord God made the rib He had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. … This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife and they become one flesh” (Gen. 2:18, 21–22, 24). 

Has a more extraordinary thing ever occurred? The first surgery has to be in the top 10 most extraordinary events to take place in the history of the universe, does it not? They — the man and the woman — become one flesh, the Lord said. Do we still believe this? Do you believe it? Jesus said of the marriage bond, “What God has joined together, man must not separate.” Do you see why my occasional participation in a wedding ceremony evokes wonder and awe from me? I am on the scene of a divine act of “joining together,” of a “making of the two, one flesh.” If we believe this to be true, then surely we must know that the repercussions of divorce must be uniquely tragic and profound for the husband and wife, the community of faith and the wider human community they inhabit.

Post-surgery
How do we account for the exponential rise in the divorce rate that many of us have witnessed within our lifetimes? Surely part of the explanation involves forgetting or neglecting what God has taught us about marriage. Our sense of God’s meticulous and personal interest in — indeed His presence and activity in — the marriage event has been weakened and even lost to our consciousness. Have we not approximated within the church a more secular understanding of marriage as a private matter between the man and the woman involved? Oh yes, we sincerely ask for God’s help in building a strong, healthy and lasting marriage, but do we consider God’s lordship over that union He created and the connection between the survival of the marriage and His redemptive work among us?

Preventative Medicine
Is it not fascinating that God, at the opening and the closing of the Old Testament, speaks to us of marriage in the context first of creation and then of salvation? Listen to the words of the prophet Malachi: “[The Lord] no longer respects your offerings or receives [them] gladly from your hands. Yet you ask, ‘For what reason?’ Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have acted treacherously against her, though she was your marriage partner and your wife by covenant.” Take note of that word “covenant.” Marriage involves a covenant commitment between a man and a woman enacted before the community and God. Covenant bonds involve solemn promises between two parties. Marriage was created by God as a mirror of His covenant with us human beings. It is not for nothing that God characterizes our covenant unfaithfulness as “adultery,” as our “playing the harlot.”

Do we think of marriage in such terms? We should. Faithfulness in marriage reflects the faithfulness of our God. My wife could move out and divorce me tomorrow, and there might well be little or nothing that I could do about it. Would she or I then be cut off from God’s grace? Must we both then be forever relegated to a kind of modern-day spiritual leper colony among God’s people? No on both counts. But make no mistake about it, the need to recover the power to build and nurture lasting marriages is every bit as urgent as the need to learn how to be sensitive and redemptive to the perpetrators and victims of divorce. The sooner we learn to do both the better for all concerned.