The Secret Weapon To Building God's Kingdom: Godly Marriages
Christ is building His Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). This is true, and we praise God for it. But we sometimes forget to ask the question, how exactly is God building His Church?
The answer is two-fold. Perhaps the more obvious answer of the two is that God builds His Church through His disciples and their fulfillment of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20). As the disciples of Christ go forth and make more disciples, the Church continues its unimpeded advance across the earth and through time. The slightly less obvious way, however, in which God builds His Church is through the Dominion Mandate (Gen. 1:28). As godly men marry godly women and produce godly offspring, not only do Christian households grow, but so do churches. As this happens, the offspring of believers become disciples, in turn making more disciples by fulfilling both the Dominion Mandate and the Great Commission.
This should be clear, then: God builds His Church through godly marriages.
Jesus’s Teachings on Christian Marriage
Some have tried to suggest that Jesus never taught on marriage, and never specified what a God-honoring marriage looks like. This, however, is simply not the case. Jesus, as the Word Incarnate (John 1:1), spoke throughout all the Old and New Testament about godly marriages by means of divine inspiration. And not only did Jesus teach about marriage through the prophets and apostles, but He also specified during His earthly ministry what a godly marriage is to be.
In Matthew 19:1-12, we find Jesus being questioned by the Pharisees about divorce—when it is permitted under God’s law, and why it’s permitted. However, for the sake of understanding what a biblical, God-honoring marriage consists of, we need to focus on verses 4-6:
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.”
What Jesus is showing us in this text are the Biblical foundations for marriage. Jesus is telling us that there is a purposeful design to the sexes. Men and women have been imbued with meaning and purpose from the Lord. And—get this—there are only two sexes! When God created, He created man and then He created woman. Men and women can now, in marital union, have children who will grow to become men and women, but that’s it. There are no other sexes or genders. A person cannot reinvent or change what they were fundamentally created by God to be.
One Man, One Woman
Consider this; to Jeremiah the prophet, God said in Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” And, likewise, the Psalmist recounted in Psalm 139:13-16:
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.”
So, God created only two genders, designated our gender from eternity past, and then carefully prepared us in the womb. But that’s not the only thing Jesus wants us to see.
To understand what a godly marriage is, we must note that Jesus, in Matthew 19, is quoting from Genesis 2. This is significant because Genesis 2 recounts how the Lord created woman from the side of man. One of the important things that happens first, though, is Adam is brought before all the creatures of the earth in Genesis 2:18-20.
It turns out that there is no creature on the earth that is suitable to help Adam in his mission of glorifying God by tending to, working, and ruling over the Garden. There’s nothing that can help him take dominion of the world. So, God creates Eve. Genesis 2:21-22 recounts how, “The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” Thus, we learn that the only suitable helpmate for man is the one that God specifically created and designed for man: Woman.
It's at this point the man praises God and rejoices in the woman:
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” (Gen. 2:22-24).
Jesus quotes from this passage to make the case that only woman was created to be the helpmeet of man. This ultimately means that Jesus did speak against gay marriage, transgenderism, and all other sexual sin in this text. He points us to the fact that any sexual activity outside of the marriage covenant between one man and one woman is a sin.
The Victory of the Household is the Victory of the Church
According to Jesus, then, marriage is, 1. Between one man and one woman; 2. A covenantal union wherein the man and woman become one; 3. Joined together by God; 4. Not to be separated—or changed—by man.
These four elements should be familiar to most who have attended weddings in the past because, typically, all four are mentioned within marriage vows, even if they are not taken seriously. Yet, these four elements are essential to a godly marriage.
To rephrase these four elements into one straightforward sentence, we could say: Marriage is only valid and God-honoring when the marriage covenant is faithfully entered into before God by one man and one woman. And this blessed union is exactly what God uses to build His Church.
The flourishing of the home, church, and state depends upon godly husbands and wives becoming godly fathers and mothers who raise godly sons and daughters. Marriage and procreation are built into the fabric of humanity. After all, when God created man and woman, He blessed them and gave a commandment. Genesis 1:28: "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.” This requires the union of a man and woman in holy marriage.
It's with the victory of Christ in mind that we can begin to confront the Bible’s teachings on marriage. God’s Kingdom will expand, and His glory will cover the earth, and biblical, godly marriages will, eventually, become a common feature of every household on earth. We are on the winning side and God is blessing and using such marriages to build His Church.