Let God define marriage

As all of us are aware, our U.S. Supreme Court ruled last June that same sex couples can now be legally married throughout our country. The court claimed that it was an issue of equality, dignity and civil rights granted by the Constitution. In this opinion, five Supreme Court justices essentially redefined marriage for all Americans.

However, those who claim to be Christians should continue to let God define marriage for us based on the unchanging truths of the Holy Scriptures. It is a very simple description of marriage given to us by God at the beginning of time and reaffirmed by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is also further addressed by the New Testament Apostles.

According to the Old Testament book of Genesis: “The Lord God took the man (Adam) and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it… The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him …’ So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.’ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” (Genesis 2:15, 18, 21-25)

According to the New Testament book of Matthew, Jesus said: “Haven’t you read … that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?’ So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)

The Apostle Paul also said: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” (Ephesians 5:25-28)

The Apostle wrote this as well: “…Since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:2-3)

So no matter what our Supreme Court says, according to the Bible, God’s timeless marriage model is the union of a “male” and a “female,” a “man” and a “woman,” a “he” and a “her,” a “husband” and a “wife.”

As the Lord Jesus said, that is what God joins together in marriage.

Pastor Doug Birky

Evangelical Free Church