Miscellaneous thoughts on Marriage and Bible

Readers will know that over the last couple of years I've blogged a fair bit about marriage, and sexuality, and so on. You may not realise that out of that, having tried to listen fairly and fully to those I don't agree with, I've ended up trying to start for myself with a study of the Image of God, the Imago Dei, what it means to be human. In doing so, I've ended up exploring all sorts of avenues and theological roads, and it has been fascinating.

In so doing, I've bumped up against, often and regularly, some tired, old, and frankly surprising misunderstandings in a variety of places. I've always thought - and was brought up to think - that the Bible is true and deep and beautiful, and that, like Aslan, it might not always be safe, but it is good.

So I get quite annoyed when people claim they understand biblical marriage, etc, but ignore basic things about context, or, worse, about where things fit into the Bible story.

This post, then, will be quite long, but I hope it will fulfill its title - 'Miscellaneous thoughts on Marriage and Bible'.

- i - 

Firstly, then, this Bible. The Bible is a collection of books, with common threads and themes running through them. We can, actually, trace a big story of God's involvement with his people and his world, running throughout history and scripture. 

It begins, funnily enough, at the beginning. I shared a review yesterday of 'The Liberating Image', a powerful book looking at the imago Dei in Genesis 1. And it is here, I believe, that we see the foundations of marriage laid, in Genesis 1:26-28:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

What do we see here? We see male and female as important, crucial parts of the Image of God, as Karl Barth recognised. We see a command - given to one man and one woman - to be fruitful and multiply, to be good stewards, to live obediently. 

We see the same thing in Genesis 2, specifically 2:22-24, broadly, from a different angle. I've written about the two creation accounts before, but I've found a helpful way to understand them is as camera angles - shining light from different sides and shots.

And the rib that theLord God had taken from the man he made8 into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called Woman,

because she was taken out of Man.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Again, we see God's care and love for the 'man he made', and his desire to give him a suitable companion, counterpart, equal, helper. The man recognises that this, 'at last', is a suitable partner for him. The author of Genesis comments upon the man's speech, explaining, in light of this mutual creation, how marriage works. 

So there, briefly, we see the foundations of marriage. For more, you might like to read something like Tim Keller's 'The Meaning of Marriage', or the more technical 'Creation and Covenant' by Christopher C. Roberts (my review is forthcoming). But before we move on, lets just note something. Something important. Both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are pre-Fall. Before the world is damaged by the actions of human beings in disobedience to God. Before, without being melodramatic, everything changes.

The story of the Fall is recounted in Genesis 3, and the consequences are aimed at the man and the woman. Read about it here. The important thing to note, in my mind, is that everything changes. The world is no longer as it was, no longer 'very good'. Where we are in the Biblical story is important, fundamental - but everything that follows Genesis 3, even as it is recorded in Scripture, takes place in a less than perfect world. The world we live in.

- ii -

The Old Testament records various kinds of marriages. Broken marriages. Polygamous marriages. Sham marriages. Surprise marriages. Marriages to prostitutes. Inter-tribal marriages. Marriages that create the circumstances for Islam to begin. Marriages that will one day bring Jesus into the world. God is a God of redemption, creation, and new creation. Even in fallen human lives and relationships he can see good, and draw it out. 

For me, and Christians, the Bible is focused on Jesus Christ. And so when he speaks about a topic, we listen. And what he says, I believe, is authoritative. Like Scripture. Jesus was 30 when he started his ministry. He grew up learning about the Hebrew Scriptures, our Old Testament. There is no way he didn't know of the worst excesses of human lust, or the non-ideal situations that people found themselves in. 

And so, for me, its fascinating that when Jesus talks about marriage, rather than affirming polygamy, incest, or bestiality, he does something different. Jesus doesn't invent new categories. He doesn't even suggest a 'third way', or attempt to speak about the whole range of gender identities and sexualities that the broken world of 2014 might claim. He goes back to the beginning. This is what Jesus said in Matthew 19:3-6

“Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Jesus is responding to a question here. The question asked by the Pharisees, who knew the Torah and the Prophets and Jewish history in a way that we modern Westerners, with our Wikipedias and Twitters, just can't. And Jesus doesn't try to explain the various models of family and marriage we see in the Old Testament. He goes back to creation. He mocks the pharisees (Which is appropriate, given that he's just about to affirm that we need to have a childlike faith) with his 'have you not read...', and reminds them of the creation foundation of marriage by quoting Genesis 2.

In the so-called gender-neutral marriage debate, many have tried to claim that because Jesus said nothing specific about gender-neutral marriage, Christians today shouldn't say anything. But that is an argument from silence. Which is kind of like saying, as some Christians do, that we shouldn't play video games, or read fantasy books. Instead, we look at the positive images of things in the Bible. And, hand in hand with any direct ethical condemnations, it is from there that we can construct and apply a Jesus-focused ethics. The notion of a gender-neutral, or same sex, marriage, is nonsense in biblical terms. It doesn't make sense. Because the foundation is laid in the two genders that image God.

In this passage, though, Jesus is also talking about divorce, and it seems clear to me that the Church needs to be clearer on this if it is to be clearer about gender neutral marriage. Jesus seems to be clear. But I am well aware that I need to do my reading. And so I emphasise something I said earlier - God is a Father who loves to redeem individuals out of terrible situations into his family. Jesus is the kind of God who both calls us in his family not to judge, and those outside to leave lives of sin and follow him. Whatever your situation, whatever lies you have been fed about identity, self, and sex, Jesus would call you out, to join his family. Wierdly, regardless of your sex/gender, Jesus calls us to be part of his bride.

- iii - 

And so the sum of my miscellaneous thoughts on Marriage and the Bible is this: we need to rediscover the true meaning of marriage. Because marriage in the Bible is foundational, creational, covenantal. And from it comes the Jesus who changes history, the hero who saves the world, the healer who comes to restore, the King who reigns forever.

The Bridegroom who loved his Bride enough to die for here, and whose' Father's love was so overwhelming that he was raised by the Spirit and will come again.

You see, the radical truth of Christianity is focused on a wedding. It hasn't happened. Yet. But it will. And it will be magnificent. And this is why Christians get so het up on marriage.

But when we tolerate celebrity divorces, celebrate gossip, are light on adultery and affairs in our own churches, we mock the intended permance of marriage. Deep down, as Christians, we mock the permanence of Christ's commitment to us.

And when we engage on controversial issues in the wrong way, when we talk truth without living lives of grace, then we mock our position as Children of the Father who is Love. Not because Love does not encompass the truth, but because Love speaks Truth in Grace. 

So we need to get better at talking about marriage. About divorce. About Jesus. The church is messy - thats why Jesus had to come and live among us and die for us. The family of God is on a journey, out of darkness and into light - and that is why the Holy Spirit came to show us how and fill us up and send us on. 

____________________

I hope this post has been helpful to someone. I'd value comments, feedback, etc. I should say, as I've been talking about male and female, that I don't do so out of a lack of awareness of people with different perspectives. You might find my posts 'Says Who' and 'Soapy Ethics' helpful, and do check out my 'Bibliography on Sex and Gender'. On marriage, you might like to read my 'Constant Core in Changing Cultural Context'. For a chunky, thick, academic look at Marriage, sex, and so on, you could do worse than considering 'God, Marriage and Family'. If you'd like to continue the conversaiton, then please leave a comment, or connect via Twitter or liking my blog's Facebook page.