Marriage

I think its the year of weddings. I have already attended 4 weddings this year and had invites to two more that I couldn't make it to. I just attended my cousin Anita's wedding this past Friday and it was wonderful to see them express their vows to each other. It seems like everybody is getting married but have you ever wondered why? There are some in the world today that decry the very idea of marriage. They see it as being 'old fashioned' or 'out of date' but is this really the case? Were these four weddings just a chance for a bunch of people to get dressed up and tell each other they were in love in front of a group of people, and then have some good food and go on with their lives, or is there something more to marriage? Is it just something we do cause 'hey that's the way its done' or do we have a deeper reason for doing it?

You already know I'm going to say it; What does the bible have to say on this issue? It is the ultimate standard so let's take a look at a few of the reasons it gives.

1) Marriage is a creation ordinance. Genesis 2:18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." and then vs. 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. The union of a man and a woman is something that God sees as an essential part of his creation. It is fascinating to note that as you read through Genesis 1 God looks at his creation and says that it is good over and over again, but when he looks at man by himself he say that it is not good. Therefore marriage is more than just a good thing; it is a necessary thing. God's creation is incomplete without marriage.

2) Marriage is ordained by God. Mark 10:9 Jesus says "...What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." This passage is mainly dealing with divorce, but it holds an important principle for marriage; marriage is a union that God makes. Persons that are married are joined to each other by God. This means that the vows made in the wedding ceremony are not just promises to love each other, they are vows before God and therefore are in some sense spiritual. The marriage ceremony is not merely an agreement between two people it is a union the God makes.

3) The Marriage union is a picture of the union between Christ and His church. Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her One of the reasons God created us as relational beings, is so that through our relationships we could get a slight view of how relationships with God work. We would not be able to understand what it means to have God as our Father if we did not see and experience relationships between Fathers and their children, and so we would not be able to wrap our minds around the union between Christ and his church if we did not see and experience the marriage relationship. It is true that this picture of marriage (just like all our other relationships) is tainted by our sin, but it still gives us a basis to start from in our understanding of Christ's love for his church.

For these three reasons, that God ordains marriage, that he did so from the beginning of the world before there was any sin, and that it helps us to better understand God, I would say that marriage is a good thing. These weddings I've gone to are not old fashioned out of date parties, but are essential and necessary for the continuity and improvement of our society.

Dave Westy
(hmm...time to get married?)