God’s teaching on marriage and divorce can teach us to live not by our feelings but by the eternal word of God. It can help us practice real love and commitment. But marriage is not the ultimate source of love. An older single person once gave me a box of books. Tucked inside one book was a typed note: “The answer to our loneliness is love—not our finding someone to love us, but our surrendering to the God who has always loved us with an everlasting love.”[iv]
The primarily calling of every person is to glorify and enjoy God. And in our pursuit of God we are ultimately responsible for ourselves. But we do not go through life alone. We need to know how to honor God in our relationships. And for most adults our most influential relation is our spouse. Marriage will either help or hinder our walk with the Lord. Unlawful marriages harm the partners, their families, the church, and even the generations that may follow.
So piety demands that we understand God’s rules for both establishing and dissolving a marriage. This is true for children in the earliest stages of preparing for marriage, and for singles old enough to no longer be considering such a union. We need to stand together against the forces that are trying to rewrite God’s rules for matrimony. And we must all do our part to help prevent marital failures.
Rules for Marriage
Marriage is good. God made it. But not all marriages are good. Marriage brings two lives together into one. So the two must be truly compatible. The question of compatibility raises an important question.
Who May Marry?
“Marriage is to be between one man and one woman” (see Gen. 2:24). Both polygamy and homosexuality violate God’s intent and disfigure his symbol of the union between Christ and his bride. “One man and one woman” is the most elementary of all marital qualifications. But there are others. Close relatives may not marry; marriage is to be the start of a new family (Lev. 18:6–18; 20:10–21). Believers must not marry unbelievers; marriage is to be the start of a Christian family. Believers must only marry “in the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:39). No disciple of Jesus should even consider a romantic relation with anyone who does not share with them a passionate commitment to God’s truth. To have a God-honoring marriage you must respect God’s parameters.
You also must respect his purposes for marriage.
Why Should Anyone Marry?
There are at least three reasons. First, marriage is for the mutual profit of husband and wife. Marriage partners help each other in their often-mundane responsibilities (Gen. 2:20). They help bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2). Often, two can face trouble better than one (Eccl. 4:9–12). But marriage is more than two people pooling their resources to decrease their housing costs. The oneness of marriage can help combat loneliness. “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). Marriage is for joyful companionship. Christian marriage should help both partners follow Christ better together than they could alone.
Second, marriage is for producing children. A loving, committed, biblical marriage is the best scenario for raising children. God still ordains humans to fill and subdue the earth (Gen. 1:28). So believers marry for “the increase of mankind with legitimate issue.”