Marriage and the Family PDF

Chapter 22 Marriage and the Family The home is a primary setting for the restoration of the image of God in men and women. Within the family, father, mother, and children can express themselves fully, meeting each other's needs for belonging, love, an...

Chapter 22 Marriage and the Family The home is a primary setting for the restoration of the image of God in men and women. Within the family, father, mother, and children can express themselves fully, meeting each other's needs for belonging, love, and intimacy. Here identity is established and feelings of personal worth are developed. The home is also the place where, by God's grace, the principles of real Christianity are put into practice, and its values transmitted from one generation to the next. The family can be a place of great happiness. It can also be the scene of terrible hurt. Harmonious family life demonstrates the principles of Christianity truly lived out, revealing the character of God. Unfortunately, the manifestation of these characteristics is altogether too rare in modern homes. Instead, many families demonstrate the thoughts and intents of the selfish human heart— quarrelling, rebelliousness, rivalry, anger, impropriety, and even cruelty. Yet these characteristics were not part of God's original plan. Jesus said, "From the beginning it was not so" (Matt. 19:8). From the Beginning The Sabbath and marriage are two of God's original gifts to the human family. They were intended to provide the joys of rest and belonging regardless of time, place, and culture. The establishment of these two institutions culminated God's creation of this earth. They were His finale, the best of the exceedingly good gifts He gave humanity at Creation. In establishing the Sabbath, God gave human beings a time of rest and renewal, a time for fellowship with Him. In forming the first family, He established the basic social unity for humanity, giving them a sense of belonging and providing them with an opportunity to develop as well- rounded persons in service to God and others. Male and Female in the Image of God. Genesis 1:26, 27 describes God's creation of the human beings who were to inhabit this earth: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.'... So God created man in His own image; in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." The term man is used here (in both the Hebrew and the English) in the generic sense, as it is more than 500 times elsewhere in the Old Testament. This term includes both male and female. The text makes clear that it was not a case of the male being created in the image of God and the female in the image of the man.1 On the contrary, both were made in the image of God. Just as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are God, male and female together are to make up "man." And like the Godhead, though they are to be one, they are not the same in function. They are equal in being, in worth, but not identical in person (cf. John 10:30; 1 Cor. 11:3). Their physiques are complementary, their functions cooperative. Both genders are good (Gen. 1:31), and so are their different roles. The family and the home are built upon the fact of sexual differentiation. God could have propagated life on earth without creating male and female, as is demonstrated in the asexual reproduction of some forms of animal life. But God made "two individuals, identical in general form and characteristics, but each containing within itself something lacking in the other and complementary to the other."2 A world made up exclusively of members of either sex would not be complete. True fulfillment can come only in a society that involves both male and female. Equality is no question here, for both are essential. During his first day, Adam, the firstborn and so the head of the human race, 3 sensed his uniqueness—there was no other like him. "But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him" (Gen. 2:20). God was sensitive to this lack, for He said, "'It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him'" (Gen. 2:18). The Hebrew word neged, translated "comparable" here, is a noun related to the preposition that means to stand "before, in front of, opposite, corresponding to" someone or something. In this case the person who was to stand in front of Adam was to complement him, corresponding to him as his counterpart. So God "caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, " and taking "one of his ribs" (Gen. 2:21), shaped his companion.4 Upon awakening, Adam instantly recognized the close and intimate relationship that this specific act of creation made possible. He exclaimed, "'At last, here is one of my own kind—bone taken from my bone, and flesh from my flesh. "Woman" is her name because she was taken out of man'" (Gen. 2:23, TEV; cf. 1 Cor. 11:8). Marriage. From the diversity of male and female God brought order, oneness. That first Friday He performed the first marriage, joining these two, the epitome of His image, to make them one. And marriage has been the foundation of the family, the foundation of society itself, ever since. Scripture describes marriage as a decisive act of both detachment and attachment: One shall "leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh" (Gen. 2:24, KJV). 1. Leaving. Vital to the marriage relationship is a leaving behind of the former primary relationships. The marriage relationship is to supersede that of the parent and child. In this sense, "leaving" one's relationship with one's parents allows one to "cleave" to another. Without this process, there is no firm foundation for marriage. 2. Cleaving. The Hebrew term translated "cleave" comes from a word that means "to stick to, to fasten, to join, to hold onto." As a noun it can even be used for brazing and soldering (Isa. 41:7). The closeness and strength of this bond illustrates the nature of the bond of marriage. Any attempt to break up this union would injure individuals bound this closely together. That this human bond is a close one is also emphasized by the fact that the same verb is used to convey the bond between God and His people: "Him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name" (Deut. 10:20, KJV). 3. Covenanting. In Scripture this pledge, this promise by which married couples are bound together, is spoken of as a "covenant, " the term used for the most solemn and binding agreement known in God's Word (Mal. 2:14; Prov. 2:16, 17). The relationship between husband and wife is to be patterned after God's everlasting covenant with His people, the church (Eph. 5:21-33). Their commitment to each other is to take on the faithfulness and endurance that characterize God's covenant (Ps. 89:34; Lam. 3:23). God and the couple's family, friends, and community witness the covenant that they make with each other. That covenant is ratified in heaven. "'What God has joined together, let not man separate'" (Matt. 19:6). The Christian couple understand that in marrying, they have covenanted to be faithful to each other for as long as they both live.5 4. Becoming one flesh. The leaving and covenanting to cleave results in a union that is a mystery. Here is a oneness in the full sense—the married couple walk together, stand together, and share a deep intimacy. At the outset this oneness refers to the physical union of marriage. But beyond that, it also refers to the intimate bond of mind and emotions that undergirds this physical side of the relationship. a. Walking together. Of His relationship with His people, God asks, "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" (Amos 3:3, KJV). That query is appropriate also of those who would become one flesh. God instructed the Israelites not to intermarry with the neighboring nations, "'for they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods'" (Deut. 7:4; cf. Joshua 23:11-13). When the Israelites ignored these instructions, they met with disastrous consequences (Judges 14-16; 1 Kings 11:1-10; Ezra 9:10). Paul reiterated this principle in broad terms: "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God" (2 Cor. 6:14-16; cf. vs. 17, 18). Clearly, Scripture intends that believers should marry only other believers. But the principle extends even beyond this. True oneness demands an agreement as to beliefs and practices. Differences in religious experience lead to differences in lifestyle that can create deep tensions and rifts in the marriage. To achieve the oneness Scripture speaks of, then, people should marry others within their own communion.6 b. Standing together. To become one flesh, two people must become completely loyal to each other. When one marries, one risks everything and accepts everything that comes with one's mate. Those who marry proclaim their willingness to share their mates' accountability, to stand with their mates against anything. Marriage requires an active, pursuing love that will not give up. "Two persons share everything they have, not only their bodies, not only their material possessions, but also their thinking and their feeling, their joy and their suffering, their hopes and their fears, their successes and their failures. 'To become one flesh' means that two persons become completely one with body, soul, and spirit, and yet there remain two different persons."7 c. Intimacy. Becoming one flesh involves sexual union: "Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived" (Gen. 4:1). In their drive to be joined together, a drive that men and women have felt since the days of Adam and Eve, each couple reenacts the first love story. The act of sexual intimacy is the nearest thing to a physical union possible for them; it represents the closeness the couple can know emotionally and spiritually as well. Christian married love should be characterized by warmth, joy, and delight (Prov. 5:18, 19). "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled" (Heb. 13:4). "The Scriptures tell us clearly that the joyous sexual expression of love between husband and wife is God's plan. It is, as the writer of Hebrews emphasizes, undefiled, not sinful, not soiled. It is a place of great honor in marriage—the holy of holies where husband and wife meet privately to celebrate their love for each other. It is a time meant to be both holy and intensely enjoyable."8 5. Biblical love. Marital love is an unconditional, affectionate, and intimate devotion to each other that encourages mutual growth in the image of God in all aspects of the person: physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Different types of love operate in marriage; it has its romantic, passionate times; its highly sentimental times; its comfortable times; its companionable and sense-of- belonging times. But it is the agape love described in the New Testament—the selfless, all-for-other love—that comprises the foundation of true, lasting marital love. Jesus manifested the highest form of this kind of love when, accepting both the guilt and the consequences for our sins, He went to the cross. "Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end" (John 13:1, NASB). He loved us in spite of the end to which our sins brought Him. This was and is the unconditional agape love of Jesus Christ. Describing this love, Paul said: "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails" (1 Cor. 13:4-8). Commenting on this passage, Ed Wheat wrote: "Agape love is plugged into an eternal power source and it can go on operating when every other kind of love fails.... It loves, no matter what. No matter how unlovable the other person is, agape can keep on flowing. Agape is as unconditional as God's love for us. It is a mental attitude based on a deliberate choice of the will."9 6. Individual spiritual responsibility. Though marriage partners have made a covenant commitment to each other, they must each individually bear the responsibility for the choices that they make (2 Cor. 5:10). Taking such responsibility means that they will never blame the other person for what they themselves have done. They must also accept the responsibility for their own spiritual growth; no one can rely upon another's spiritual strength. Yet, on the