Taking The Mystery Out Of Marriage

The purpose of marriage is to populate the earth, to procreate and sustain the species. Yeah, that never sounded right to me. Sure, God tells Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply" but God never says that this is the purpose of marriage. After one divorce and a struggling second marriage I finally with a broken spirit sought the Lord for a clearer understanding of marriage. I had to accept that my real problem is that I have no clue as to what I'm doing.

First, I think the biggest confusion is the idea of "purpose" in marriage. The conventional idea of the purpose of marriage has been that marriage leads to happiness. When we carefully examine the Bible we see something entirely contrary to this idea. I commonly hear people refer to marriage in the context of roles, duties as if there is something that we are working toward in marriage. God did not create marriage as a "means" to a specific end. It could even be said that marriage is the result of what He created. Here's what I mean:

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him -Genesis 2:18

Marriage is a FULFILLMENT, not a course of action we take to reach some obtainable goal. In other words, God said it was not good that man should be alone and His course of action (means) was to create woman (end). As a result of that end God is glorified through the union of male and female:

And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. -Genesis 2:23-25

Compare this with Jesus' words:

For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. -John 17:8-11

Adams says almost the same thing to God as Christ or vice versa. He says, You gave her to me...and I have received her...I know she is from YOU because she is like ME and I am like YOU...What's yours is mine, what's mine is yours...I am glorified in her and the two of us shall be one and glorify YOU....the next word we read is the declaration....THEREFORE! Whenever we see the word therefore in scripture we know that what follows is a declaration:

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. -Genesis 2:24-25

Now here's the good part, see verse 25. This is one of the most overlooked verses in the creation story but it yields so much information about marriage. Verse 25 says they were "naked AND not ashamed". Man and woman had not a single material possession, they were naked in their purest form and they were not ashamed of themselves because when they gazed upon their forms they saw God. The two together glorified God. St Thomas Acquinas put it this way:

**[It is the nature of love to transform the lover into the object loved. And so if we love God, we ourselves become divinized; for again, Whoever is joined to God becomes one spirit with him.]

When man cleaves to his wife and the two become one flesh they glorify God through their love for one another. Through this union they are transformed into the very image of God. They had love for one another and nothing else and they were perfect in eye's of the Creator.

This is why Jesus says that in heaven there will be no marriage:

For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. -Mark 12:25

The purpose of marriage is to glorify God, reflect his image here on earth through love! In heaven there will be no need to do this because we shall be in His presence and His image will pale in comparison:

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. -1 John 3:2

**taken from “The Law of Divine love is the Standard for all Human Actions” From a conference by St. Thomas Aquinas (Opuscula, In duo praecenta... Ed. J.P. Torrel, in Revue des Sc. Phil. Et Théol., 69, 1985, pp. 26-29.

Created over 2 years ago