Marriage: No longer definable.
Once so easily understood and easily explained has now been defaced beyond meaning. Cut loose from its primary reason for existence it has mutated into a hideous non–descript caricature.
Originally marriage was associated with creation according to Genesis 1–2. There is a uniqueness and a mystery it its presentation. When the Lord created Adam the man was a solo creature. He needed a helper, a soul mate. God performed the first surgery when He drew out from Adam’s side the first female. It was love at first sight and he named her Eve.
Why did God go about this relationship in what at first appears a back to front manner? For it is the woman who gives birth, not the man. What was the Lord God’s purpose in doing it His way? He was presenting future generations with the mystery undergirding the marital and sexual relationship of a man and wife. Adam prefigured Jesus Christ and Eve foreshadowed the Church. On the cross we are told when the Roman soldier speared the side of Jesus out flowed blood and water. What was not seen then but realised later was from the pierced side came the Church. Every–time a marriage was to be celebrated it was to point to this eternal, majestic and spiritual meaning.
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| Fifty years of knowing the meaning of marriage |
Also, when Adam and Eve came together in sexual intercourse it portrayed oneness, a unique wholeness. The beauty, the wonder, the mystery of marriage is expressed in this physical act. For in this union the man and the woman in their body, soul and spirit become ‘one flesh’. This is the reason the scriptures so oppose pre–marital or extra–marital relationships. The ‘oneness’ is debased, dishonoured and disfigured morally, spiritually, emotionally.
The mystery and the magic of marriage have been vandalised. Its beauty and meaning weakened, broken and trivialised over an extended period. The Christian Church must take its share of the blame. It has failed to teach the significance of the mystery of Marriage. Rejection of the Genesis account has cast marriage adrift from its moorings.
Into this void has rushed a whole bunch of unchristian ideas and practices. It began taking fidelity in marriage lightly and loosely. De–facto relationships and adultery spread from celebrity pastimes to a common practice. Along comes modern science with a real boon for marital couples, contraceptives. Sex lost one of its ‘dangers’ that of becoming pregnant. Sex education was mandated to be taught in schools. Result! Sexuality aroused without boundaries. The urge to experiment becomes almost overwhelming. Before long why wait for a civil or religious wedding service, let’s live together anyway. It isn’t any longer a husband and a wife relationship, they’re ‘partners’ a business arrangement. All this paves the ‘vandal road’ for recognition of same sex relationships.
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| Devotional book on Marriage. |
People call it marriage because they have no idea of the meaning or mystery undergirding that term. Even evolution would hide its face from that term for evolution is concerned with the continuation of the species. This is something so called ‘gay marriages’ cannot produce. How long before society accepts multiple partners and other forms of living together and vainly, falsely calling it marriage?
Christians can wring their hands in horror at the state of marriage. They may write and protest but are they living out the meaning, majesty and beauty of the biblical definition of marriage? The early church faced bigger obstacles than we do in more areas than simply marriage. Its view of marriage and morality ultimately won the day. How? By living out their faith and by being different from the rest of pagan society! For many it was at great cost but it was counted a privilege to pay for the cause of Christ Jesus. Perhaps that is something we might have to expect and to do.
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