Marriage is a great Idea Marriage is a great idea, and most people who are getting married think so,

otherwise they would not go through the preparations for the wedding. That process alone is a great way to grow closer together or grow further apart. People have said that wedding planning has convinced them to stay together because they never want to go through that part of getting married ever again. However, the wedding is not the end; its just the beginning. Most of us know this, but in North America the average wedding takes months to plan and costs on the average $30,000, and that does not count the engagement ring. With that kind of investment, one can see how we Americans can get confused and think the wedding is marriage. Fortunately, God has spoken into our lives and brought the purpose and the function of marriage into focus for us. Lets just look together at what God says the purpose of marriage is as well as some of the functions of marriage in the family, the church and in the world. First, we need to repeat that Marriage is great idea, but its not our idea. Its not the idea of any man, people group, tribe, culture or nation. Marriage is Gods great idea. He came up with whole plan, and he instituted it when he created man and woman. The story begins: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). God came up with creation and initiated and performed everything necessary for everything in Heaven and on the earth to exist. In his letter to the Colossians, the apostle Paul, speaking of God the Son, Jesus, For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones and powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things a hold together (Colossians 1:16-17). The Apostle John adds, Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made (John 1:3). In the creation story we quickly find that God created everything to live and to remain living. All along the creation process God evaluates his work, and proclaims that he has done good work. He was pleased with his work. Nothing was missing. On the sixth and final day, God did his best work. Many call this his crowning moment, his opus! It is recorded for us in Genesis 1:26 and 27, Then God said, let us make man in our image, in out likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. After that the Scriptures record God saying that he evaluated all he had created and said it was very good. Genesis 2:1, sums it up this way, Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. The words there mean that everything that was to be completed was created. God didnt need to add or subtract anything to his work. He didnt forget anything, and it was very good. Notice that mankind, both man and woman, shared the image, the likeness of God. They were equal in nature and both shared what many early church fathers called the Cultural Mandate or the Creation Mandate, to rule over, to take or to have, or to exercise dominion over all that God had created. No other creature created by God was given either the image of God or the mandate to manage or to guard the works of God. That was the work of man and woman. But they were also given another mandate, to multiply. They were to fill the earth with the image of God. This would be Gods reminder to all of his creation that God is God and he is the sovereign, the ultimate ruler, of all things that he created. That image being seen by all of creation would be his great and lasting testimony. It was to be a perfect reflection of the glory that is his by nature of being God.

In Genesis 2, we are told by Moses the same story but from a different, more of a microscopic perspective. God created the man first and placed him in the garden. Man was given the task of taking care of the garden and was also responsible for naming the animals. Those tasks seem all so insignificant, but they were exercises given to Adam to show his authority over creation, just as God had commanded him to take domain over or to manage Gods creation on earth. God was honoring his own Word and plan. Even when Adam named the animals, he was showing his authority over them. Listen to this, Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all of the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name (Genesis 2:19). I added a little emphasis on the last part to focus on Gods upholding mans authority. God didnt stop the man or correct the man. God didnt suggest a better name or change any of the names Adam had chosen. God was backing mans authority. That will be very important as we go on in this study. In Genesis 2:18, God points out that for Adam there was no suitable helper. Those two words are very important. Suitable means matching. There were not other creatures in earth that matched Adam in nature. Remember, Adam was created in the image and likeness of God. For there to be one to match Adam God would have to provide that one creature. That created being would have to be equal in nature with Adam and complimentary in function. Thus, God gives us the very next word, Helper, which means, One who comes alongside. In the original language it is the Hebrew word, ezer. The only time we find that word used in the Old Testament is when God uses it to express his function and role in relation to his chosen people, Israel, He calls himself the ezer of Israel. In the New Testament we find God the Spirit is also called the comforter, the parakletos the one who comes alongside the church, Counselor or Advocate, as in a legal sense. These are powerful words describing the function of the woman in the life of the man. Notice also, Gods describing man without woman, The Lord said, it is not good for man to be alone. I will make for him a helper suitable (fit) for him (Genesis 2:18). Again, we see man and woman are like one another, and share the likeness of God, but they are built to serve different roles in the marital relationship. Notice God is meeting a great need in man. Man was created in the likeness of God, and he had no sin. Marriage is not a result of anything evil or lacking in the nature of man, but God is a relational God, one God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To fully reflect the nature of the triune God, man needed to be in intimate relationship with one like himself in nature but different in function. Man was created in such a way that he could share in a relationship with God and with the creation around him. But nothing in creation could share the very nature, the likeness of man. God took care of that by creating woman for man. Her creation was different than that of every other created being, including man. All the other created beings were created form the dust of the ground, but woman was created out of the flesh of Adam. She really was organically connected to him. She shared his flesh and bone. She was created by God for Adam. When Moses describes this in Genesis he says that God brought her (woman) to the man. The word for brought carries with it a meaning that expresses excitement from the giver to the receiver. God was excited to give the man his new companion, woman. God knew this gift was going to be greatly and happily received. Woman would meet the relational part of man. She would be able to come alongside him in the work of ruling the creation and reproducing the image of God, filling the earth with the image of God. She would compliment him in his nature relationally, physically and spiritually. This was a great idea, and Adam thought so too.

When God brought the woman to man, Adam exclaimed, This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman because she came out of man (Genesis 2:23). Notice, once again, Adam is naming another part of creation, and God allows that name to stand. Man is now exercising a new kind of authority over this unique part of creation, and God is backing his position. Again, the nature of this creature is not the same as those that Adam has had dominion over. This one shares the image of God. Paul helps us see just how this kind of authority plays out in a different way, 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. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the churchfor we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mysterybut I am talking about Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:22-32). Man is ruling his home, guarding, protecting and providing for his wife. He is to love her has his own body. Why? Because she is his own body! Lastly, as Paul has already quoted, God presides over the first wedding ceremony. God proclaims, For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). After that Moses calls them the man and his wife. Gods proclamation is very telling. In this proclamation God speaks of future generations. God will work in man to fulfill mans responsibility to fill the earth. He also gives us a description of the process. The marital relationship will consist of one man and one woman, and it is the husband who leaves his family, the authority of his father, to unite to his wife. He, like his father before him, becomes the head of that new family. We then see that they will set up their own family unit with one man and one woman, equal in nature, but different in function, reflecting the nature of the triune God and Christ love for his church. We see this covenant-protected relationship will be the structure for families through all time and cultures. This model is the beginning of the human race and of all cultures of the earth. This even gives us a hint as to when two people are ready for marriage. They are ready when they are able and willing to set up a separate household by establishing a covenant relationship binding them legally and lovingly together as one, with new and binding rules and roles to guide and guard their relationship, and they are able to be self-sustaining, separate from but not in exclusion or in rebellion of their families of origin, in the obedience to God. Marriage is a wonderful way for a man and a woman to glorify God and to begin to enjoy him together. This will be the basis, the paradigm, from which we will be working as we talk about marriage and family in this class.