The divorce rate in the United States is at present something like 612 out of every 10,000--a greater number than that of any other so-called Christian nation. Germany lags pitifully behind us with a bare 165, and even France can show only 86. But instead of proclaiming against divorce, let our preachers speak more frequently on subjects relating to marriage and the home, giving the young people loving counsel and practical advice, and divorces will become less frequent (Will the Coming Man Marry?, 3-4).
I am not sure that Mr. Peters was right about instruction being the answer. The real problem is the flesh, the corrupted human nature which dives blindly into the depths of every perversion. This is only healed by the grace of Jesus Christ. The closer we are to Him, and the more He draws near to us, the more the corruption of the flesh will be killed and the virtues of the new man brought to life.
Nevertheless, there is need for instruction. We must set forth a positive explanation of marriage and extol it as one of God’s greatest gifts to man (see Pss. 127-128). In this blog, I would like to try to explain the nature of marriage, challenges to the Biblical view, and then describe the blessings of it.
The Nature of Marriage
Marriage consists of three elements: a physical union, a spiritual union, and a covenant. First, there is a physical union. This is quite obviously what sets marriage apart from other types of relationships. As Isaac Dorner noted, “If the marriage is to be distinct from every other moral community, its essential character must be conditioned by the natural side, but constituted by the union of the physical and the spiritual” (System of Christian Ethics, 531).
Second, it is a spiritual union. Humans are made of body and soul. The physical is meant to build a foundation for a greater spiritual union. Dorner wrote, “For those who are joined together in body are human beings; and therefore their physical connection must exist for the purpose of rendering possible and inward spiritual union—nay, it must be the beginning of such a union” (Ibid., 532). This spiritual union is so great that God took it (and created it!) as an apt illustration of Christ’s love for the Church (Eph. 5:22-33). Thus, “Upon a physical foundation…God has built up an association of the tenderest kind, embracing the highest spiritual relations” (Dorner, Ibid.).
Third, there is a covenant or commitment, as Malachi describes, a wife is a wife by covenant (Mal. 2:14). It is an objective state that can even be considered a calling (1 Cor. 7:17). It is the physical and spiritual union plus a mutual commitment to one another that forms, as it were, a distinct person (one flesh) that has a life of its own. Consequently, what God has joined together man should not separate (Mt. 19:6). This would be to kill the person, the one flesh that has resulted from the two.
This covenant is necessary because in marriage, a husband surrenders rights to his wife and vice versa. Hence, William Ames stated, “A mutual consent of the parties, is necessarily required to the essence of a conjugal state. Because in wedlock, there is a mutual surrender of bodies, and of power, and right over their mutual bodies” (Cases of Conscience, 200). Paul says this plainly in 1 Cor. 7:5: “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.”
It is erroneous to think that mere sexual relationships constitute a marriage. If this were true, any type of sexual relation, whether consensual or not, would constitute a marriage, which is absurd. Obviously, something more is required. In fact, the Bible contemplates just such a case and indicates that marriage is not absolutely necessary (Ex. 22:16-17). There is no indication in Scripture that extra-marital sexual relations automatically bring about marriage.
Challenges to this View
All sexual immorality is a challenge to and an attack on marriage. This includes all thoughts, motions, words, and acts that tend in this direction. That is why the Apostle Paul says that these things are to be put to death (Col. 3:5).
Fallen man is basically selfish. He seeks his own gratification at the expense of others and will use others simply to gratify his own needs. While the individual is important, he is not absolute. This sinful overemphasis on the individual has led to a devaluation of marriage. As Dorner noted over a century ago:
From the time of the 18th century, again, the personal and individual side has been the more strongly emphasized, nay, so brought into the foreground, as if all that is divine in the marriage relation were to be found here alone, and not in that relation itself as an objective ethical ordinance (System of Christian Ethics, 528).
Popular culture has contributed to absolutizing the individual side of this relationship and “by making it an affair of mere sympathy” (Ibid.). When the affection of the individual toward someone else becomes paramount, “natural love [obtains] false ascendancy, an apotheosis (divinization) to which it has absolutely no right” (Ibid.).
The effects of an individualization (!) of sexuality, are seen not only in extra-marital relationships but also within marriage. This is what Dorner said:
But the worst effect is produced by that false and delusive notion of marriage, according to which a person should expect to obtain from marriage — if it is to be a valid one — such full satisfaction on the individual side of his nature, that he and his partner, finding in each other whatever they need in this respect, will have no want unsupplied. Here each of the two expects everything from the other (Ibid.).
In other words, unrealistic expectations are placed on the marriage partner. There is an idealilstic, romantic notion that becomes the paradigm for how we view the success of the marriage and the true blessing of marriage is missed.
A further result is lack of security for women. In short, if you’re getting free milk, you don’t buy the cow. Again, Dorner predicted that this would be the result, “Men would, as in imperial times, no longer care to form indissoluble ties, but prefer their own wandering fancy—the Venus vaga” (Ibid., 529). This is precisely what we see today.
One way that the need for sexual gratification is satisfied today is by couples “living together” apart from wedlock. In some cases, there may be true affection and obviously there is the physical union. However, it is a fundamentally selfish relationship. The person refuses to commit him or herself to the other in love. It falls far short of the glory of marriage.
The glory of Biblical marriage is the security of a committed love relationship built on the unique nature of humanity as body and soul. Sexuality outside of that context turns something beautiful into selfishness and leads to more and more degradation.
The Blessings of Marriage
On the other side, while sexual immorality is destructive of the human body and soul, marriage is a wonderful blessing to the body and soul of a human being. It is not merely that it is better to marry than to burn [with passion] (1 Cor. 7:9). Marriage produces an elevation of spirit and a unique blessing on those who participate in it. This does not mean that there is anything wrong with singleness (which has its own unique blessings) but rather that marriage is a great blessing that one pursue or not pursue, according to God’s gifts and providence. Nevertheless, in and of itself, marriage is a blessed and desirable condition.
First, the objective commitment of marriage establishes a foundation for increased harmony and growth. Indeed, it is only on the basis of objective commitment that such can be realized:
Only on this objective basis is a true marriage possible; and such a marriage will also be in a condition to bring about, in an ethical way, an ever-increasing harmony and understanding between husband and wife, and to yield the blessing that God has placed in it to those who seek it (Dorner, Ibid., 530).
This exclusive and intimate commitment brings about in a unique way, the highest of blessings, which is love. As Dorner explained it,
It produces a peculiar elevation of consciousness to know that we are loved by a person faithfully, truly, and to know that we are loved with regard to earthly relations, the same truth that the Christian is taught by religion, viz., that in the long run there is no true blessing but love, both that which is received and that which is conferred (Ibid.).
This stability of love, both in religion and marriage, can have the greatest effects on the individual.
Second, over time it tends to soften our hard edges and give us a balance we might not have otherwise achieved.
And thus marriage will be for each, as it ought to be, a strengthening and purifying of their personal characters. Neither of them is without faults; but if they are Christians, the faults of the one will bring forth and exercise just the opposite virtues in the other, and by this means they will become more and more able to assist each other in overcoming these faults, and to make their union and happiness more complete (Ibid.).
For the Christian, marriage will become a sanctifying experience, helping him or her to overcome some of their sinful dispositions.
Finally, we should note that Christian marriage, while it will have its moments of passion and excitement, does not display its glory best in those moments. The great glory of the Christian marriage is that it produces a greater and greater happiness as well as a greater growth in love. Thus Dorner said, “It should be required of Christian marriage that it should not be at its best at the beginning, in the honeymoon, in the days of early passion, but should be a fellowship that becomes close the longer it lasts (Ibid., 532). This permanent bond of marriage, by God’s grace, will bring great blessing to those who seek after that blessing within this context. By God’s grace it will also expand outward in blessing the children that result from it and the friends who come into contact with it to the glory of Christ.
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