A Radical View of Marriage

I was hanging out last night with a family from church, sitting around a campfire, roasting hot dogs, drinking hot chocolate, and talking about whatever we wanted. Fun times.

I forgot how we got on the subject, but we started talking about marriage, and its role in creation. I mentioned the sermon series that I listened to last year by Voddie Baucham entitled "Love & Marriage" (available to download here if you would like to listen to them!). Baucham mentioned something that I've never thought of before, but I think is very important to realize. He reminded his congregation that marriage was an institution that was created by God before the fall of mankind. This means that marriage is not a result of the Fall, not a byproduct of man's weakness, not a shameful enterprise left to be pursued by only the weakest of Christians. It is holy and good at its very foundation, and the desire for marriage is not a base and creaturely drive. If the want is there, it is probably God-given.

But then Adam (I'm referring to the man whom I was talking to last night... not the "one-man-through-whom-sin-entered-the-world" guy...) brought up the point that marriage is not an eternal institution: there will be no marriage in heaven (Matthew 22:30). In light of this, many (including Voddie Baucham) have commented that marriage exists to fulfill two purposes. The first purpose is to serve as a means of procreation, that man might multiply the earth and raise up children in the fear and admonition of the LORD. The second purpose is that it might serve as an illustration for Christ's love for His Church (which is even referred to in Scripture as His spotless Bride).

So here is where things possibly start to get a bit philosophical (if you will)... but oh so amazing!

Both of these purposes of marriage are ultimately used to give God glory. Man filling the world with children who are brought up in the fear of the LORD is a way to proclaim His holy name in all the earth. And when husbands love their wives in ways that they are called to love them - namely, unconditionally and sacrificially, as Christ loved the Church - marriage serves as an illustration which God may use to turn witnesses of that marriage to the source of its love: His Son.

So, since marriage is God's idea, not some hare-brained scheme that Man came up with (being that it was established by God before sin entered the world), since its purposes are ultimately for God's glory, and since it will not exist in heaven, one view of marriage is reached by following these points out to their logical summary: God established the institution of marriage in order that He might glorify Himself on this earth.

Now let's go further with this tomorrow in looking at how this ties into an even more radical view of Creation itself... more blessings to be had here!

(I want to add that marriage also fulfills the role of giving joy to the members of its covenant, as does raising children, but I will discuss that idea more in the next post)