The Model for Marriage (1)

In previous installments we have examined the meaning and motives for marriage. In the next few, I would like to share a wonderful blessing with you, namely, the model for marriage. And there is no better model in all of Scripture than the book titled, “Solomon’s Song.”

The title “Song of Solomon” that appears in several English translations comes from verse 1, which states that the book was written by Solomon. The ancient Hebrew versions, however, call it “Song of Songs.” This title translates the superlative in the Hebrew, as does “Holy of Holies,” for example (Ex. 26:33-4). In other words, of the 1,005 songs that Solomon wrote, this is the song, Solomon’s best.

Solomon’s Song is a love story, and what a story it is! Once in a while a writer will pen a good love story, and once in a great while a movie is made that tells a good love story (instead of the typical lust story). But here is a real love story, one that is beautiful and absolutely pure. Once again, while it’s not perfect, simply because people are not perfect, it does serve as a perfect model. In light of the perversion of love and marriage in our day, Hebrews 13:4 captures the heart of this love story: “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” As this story underscores, the physical relationship between husband and wife is, as the Greek amiantos (“undefiled”) indicates, unpolluted, unstained, and unsoiled by sin.

There are two principle characters in the story: Solomon, who is referred to as “the Beloved” 32 times in the King James Version (inexplicably, the margin in the NIV refers to Solomon as “Lover” and the maiden as “the Beloved.” Why such a total reversal of what has been recognized through the ages?), and the Shulamite maiden. 

While her identity is uncertain, three possibilities stand out. One is that she was an unknown maiden from Shulam, but there is no other mention of Shulam in the Bible or the known extra-Biblical literature. Other interpreters say that it is simply another name for Shulem, located in lower Galilee, but that seems conjectural. The third possibility makes more sense. In the Hebrew, “Shulamite” is actually the feminine form (Shulammith) of Solomon (Shelomoh). As scholar Augustus Strong points out, because the definite article is present, the term is “a pet name.” In other words, having become Solomon’s wife, she took his name, which was a common practice then as it is now, and which was instituted in Genesis 5:2, as God called “their name Adam,” not just his name.

Solomon’s Song has been variously interpreted. Both the allegorical and typological views don’t approach it literally. In one way or another, they make the characters and events mean something that’s not stated in the text. The most common idea is that the whole story depicts God’s love either for Israel or the Church. The Church, however, cannot possibly be in view because it was a mystery in Old Testament times, hidden from the foundation of the world and not revealed until the New Testament Apostles and Prophets (Rom. 16:25-6; Eph. 3:9). Even more basic than that, however, nowhere in the book is God’s love the subject, rather the love of a man and woman.

We should also interject that such spiritualizing has caused hymn writers to refer to Christ as the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley (2:1), but that simply is not so; the Shulamite maiden used both terms not of Messiah but of herself, considering herself as common as those flowers. Solomon, however, disagreed in the next verse by saying that she was not just any lily but “the lily among thorns.” 

We submit, therefore, that by spiritualizing Solomon’s Song, we totally miss its literal, deep, and vitally important message. There is no justification whatsoever for viewing the book in any other way than to take it at face value, to look at it in a normal, literal fashion. When we do, we see in its three main sections Solomon’s days of courtship (1:2-3:5), his wedding and early days of his first marriage (3:6-5:1), and the growth and maturing of that marriage (5:2-8:4). While we might wonder how Solomon could have been the author of this song when he indulged in the forbidden pagan practice of polygamy (700 wives and 300 concubines, I Kings 11:3), the answer is undoubtedly that this was his first marriage, as implied in Ecclesiastes 9:9: “Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of [your] life.” We’ll continue in the next several installments.

The Motives for Marriage (3)

The first biblical motive for marriage is companionship.

Second, marriage provides sexual protection. The key passage here is I Corinthians 7:2-3: “Nevertheless, to avoid fornication [i.e., any sexual perversion], let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.” God’s design and beautiful balance is that to prevent sexual sin, we get married and have a physical relationship that is mutually beneficial to both husband and wife.

It is fitting that this instruction appears in Paul’s letter to the Corinthian believers. Among the Greeks most sex was outside of marriage, and the Corinthian believers were in the thick of it. While Paul deals with sins in the areas of attitude in 1:10-4:21— the major attitudes being pride and arrogance—in chapter 5 he turns to the sins of action, primarily in fact, with sexual sin. Such sin arose then for the same reasons it arises today, namely, humanistic education and amoral philosophy. Temple prostitution, for example, actually glorified promiscuous sex. Such relations were so common that the practice came to be called “Corinthianizing.” Many believers had formerly been involved in such immorality, and it was hard for them to break with the old ways and easy to fall back into them.

Later in the letter (6:12-20), Paul details three evils of sexual sin. First, he writes that it is not “expedient” (v. 12a), that is, it’s unprofitable. No sin is more destructive than sexual sin. While it promises satisfaction, it ends up “bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword” (Prov. 5:4). Second, Paul writes that he would not be “brought under the power of any” sin (v. 12b), and sexual sin is uncontrollable. Many a man has started with pornography and ended up not being able to have normal relations with his wife or even being transformed into a child molester. Third, Paul tells us that sexual sin is unconscionable, that it perverts beyond conscience. In verse 18 he warns that sexual sin is sin against our own body, a perversion of God’s intention for our body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit for the Believer (v. 19-20).

Of all temptation, there is nothing more powerful than sexual lust. Entire industries, in fact, are built upon that drive, prostitution as well as pornography. One of the foundations of advertising and marketing, regardless of the product in question, is that, “Sex sells.” Why? Because it’s such a powerful force. God has, therefore, given us a way to deal with sexual temptation; it’s called sexual activity within marriage. This activity is vital. It’s also vital that it be quantitative for the husband and qualitative for the wife. It is for that reason that God says that each belongs to the other so as to meet those physical and emotional needs.

Third, marriage provides the means of raising godly children. While procreation is not marriage, it is part of marriage, and it is godly marriage that will provide godly children. The key passage here are the two verses that following Malachi’s statement about marriage being a covenant: “And did not he make [them] one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away [i.e. divorce]” (Mal. 2:15-16). The Jews were plagued by divorce, so Malachi reemphasizes the oneness of God’s design. And an essential reason for marriage is raising and training the next generation of godly people. 

Fourth and finally, marriage provides the foundational element of human society. Marriage is not something man devised as a clever way to sort out the responsibilities of men, women, and children. God designed it to be the foundational element of all human society. Marriage is under tremendous attack and many are trying to do away with it, but they have no right to do so because they didn’t institute it! In fact, an attack on marriage and the family is actually an attack on all of society because each marriage is like an individual brick in a house; the structure depends upon every single brick. Even though the house will stand with a few missing bricks, the structure is still defaced and weakened and is destined to collapse sooner or later. Let us strive, through Sprit-filling and Word-filling, never to allow our marriages, and subsequently our homes, to be weakened. Let us strive to make them what God wants them to be.

Oh, these motives are, indeed, what make marriage the most beautiful and the most intimate relationship on earth.

The Motives for Marriage (2)

Last time we began a look at the first motive for marriage: companionship.

Did you know that married people live longer? According to insurance statistics, the death rate for married men aged 25 to 34 is 1.5 per thousand; for single men it is twice as high—more than 3.5 per thousand. The difference is even greater as men grow older: in the 35 to 44 group, the death rate for married men is 3.1 per thousand; for unmarried it is 8.3. Among all women, the mortality rate for single females is almost twice that of women who are or have been married. All this could mean that, as one writer puts it, “The moral is: better wed than dead.” That certainly stands to reasons, for a whole person will live longer than only half a person.

Further, have you ever pondered that every good marriage is a miracle of God? To think that two people who are so diverse, so different in their way of thinking, so different in how they approach a problem, so different in their emotional, physiological, and emotion structure, can “make it work,” is nothing short of a miracle. Only God’s creation of marriage can accomplish such a feat.

At this point, it is appropriate to deal with an essential aspect of such companionship, namely, communication, without which a marriage is destined to disintegrate. In Ephesians 1-3 Paul presents doctrine, the grand themes of our salvation and wealth in Christ. Beginning in chapter 4, he then deals with our walk in Christ. One aspect of that walk is unity (4:1-16) and another is purity (v. 17-32). Those two sections actually lay an essential foundation for marriage. Obviously we want both unity and purity in a marriage. Further, and most appropriate, is that feature of the “new man” spoken of in verse 25: “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.” While truth, openness, and honesty are essential in any relationship, nowhere are these more crucial than in a marriage. Again, without them, the marriage is doomed.

Tom and Jill sat across the desk from a Christian counselor. In the bitterest terms she could use, Jill said, “I am absolutely certain that this husband of mine is cheating on me; he’s been stealing from his overtime pay. I know he’s been stealing money. And I want to know what he’s been doing with it.” She’d been holding this in for several months, ever since she first noticed the missing money. The result was her increasing anger and bitterness. Turning to the husband, the counselor asked, “Tom, where did the money go? Did you really take it?” He slowly reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, dug into a hidden compartment, and pulled out a wad of money. “It’s all here,” he said, as he threw it on the desk. “I’ve been saving for our anniversary for a special treat for Jill.” What a sad scene! Because of a lack of simple communication, that wife threatened to break up that marriage.

It’s also significant that in very next verse Paul declares, “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” Here is a Biblical truth that has several times in my own marriage kept me up to 3:00 AM working out a conflict. Paul knew that even righteous anger (4:26) can degenerate, so he added this admonition. Kept too long, even righteous anger can turn into a personal resentment. Yes, conflicts will come, and we might get justifiably upset with our spouse, but it must be dealt with before “the sun [goes] down;” that is, we must not take it to bed; we deal with it and get it resolved. If we don’t we are “[giving] place to the devil” (v. 27), giving him a foothold in the relationship and inviting him in to destroy it, and nothing would please him more. While a successful marriage is a testimony to the world, so is an unsuccessful one.

This “communicative companionship” is further seen as we read through the remainder of Ephesians 4: “Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (vs. 28-32). If all those are to be true of our relationship with every believer, how much more appropriate they are in our marriages?

The Motives for Marriage (1)

The story is told of a newly hired cub reporter whose editor gave him the basic, classic instructions that he should always find out the answers to the five important questions for every news story: who, what, when, where, and why. He then added, however, “Almost always. The only newsworthy story for which you never ask ‘Why’ is a wedding.” While that seems to be good advice nowadays, God has given at least four very specific motives, or reasons, for marriage.

First, marriage provides companionship. All that we have seen brings new meaning to the words “an help meet for him” in Genesis 2:18, which many Christians do not really understand. The literal idea is “a helper suitable for him.” Originally, “help meet” was two words; today we consider it one, for the most part. “Help” meant what our word “helper” means, while “meet” literally meant “appropriate to, corresponding to, or approximating at every point.” So then, God made man a helper, a helper who approximates him, a helper who is appropriate and suitable for his needs.

I sure identified with a sign in a wallpaper and paint store that read, “Husbands choosing colors must have note from wives.” How true that is for me! If it’s not blue, then I don’t really care. If it weren’t for my wife’s knowledge, my clothes would never be coordinated. And that’s just one area in which she is a helper who is appropriate and suitable for my needs. 

One Christian writer, says it well: “As a result of the creation order, men and women are oriented to one another differently. They need one another, but they need one another differently. The man needs the help; the woman needs to help. Marriage was created by God to provide companionship in the labor of dominion.” That says it perfectly! When we understand that principle, when we are related to our spouse as God has designed us to, we will see our marriages transformed. 

Now couple that principle with the term “one flesh,” a term we find in Genesis and further along in Ephesians 5. This term does not refer only to sexual union, though that is involved. One way to think of this is in light of our word “everybody.” When we say, for example, “Everybody went to the church picnic,” we do not refer to literal “bodies,” but rather to everyone, that is, every person. That is what the Hebrew means. For example, when God says He will “destroy all flesh,” He doesn’t mean skin, bones, and so forth. He means that He will destroy every person. So, “one flesh” means one person, a whole person, a complete person. Two become one.

We should see in all this the fact that before marriage each of us was only half a person. As mentioned earlier, there will be those few who God empowers to remain single, but the general rule is marriage, and each individual is actually incomplete before that time. While that idea is violently apposed today—“I don’t need anyone else,” it is argued—such arguments are foolish because that one is incomplete without the other. That principle is at the heart of marriage—each is incomplete without the other; the two become one. The man brings strength and leadership into the “one person,” and the woman brings softness, nurturing, and other such qualities into the “one person.” Each half of the person complements the other half. 

How foolish we are when we do not allow the qualities of our life mate to balance us out. Have you ever wondered why God never puts two similar people to together? Because if He did, one of the individuals would be unnecessary. Have you ever looked at your marriage and noticed that one of you likes to get up early while the other likes to sleep late, that one of you likes to stay up late while the other likes to go to bed early, that one of you has a good sense of direction while the other can’t find north with a compass, that one of you is a good bookkeeper while the other one isn’t, that one of you is a neat freak and the other a slob? Why are these and many other contrasts true? Because when you put the two halves together, you get a whole person.

What, then, is the end result? Not only does it make a complete, whole person, which is good for that person, but ultimately it brings glory to God. Mark it down: every Godly, successful marriage is a praise to God; it is a testimony, a proclamation to the world that God’s institution works. We’ll continue this first motive for marriage next time.

The Meaning of Marriage (2)

Last time we left off with the controversial subject of a woman taking a man’s name in marriage and discovered that this is actually a biblical principle.

This is further seen, in fact, in what name Adam gave Eve. What a wonderful truth we see here! As Adam was naming all the animals, he did not name them without meaning. Names in the ancient world were much more significant than in western culture. Adam actually gave her two names. The first was “woman” (Gen. 2:23), which is the Hebrew Ishshah, which Adam himself defines as “taken out of Man.” The second name was “Eve,” which should bless the heart of every woman. It is the Hebrew Chavvah, which Adam again defines, “the mother of all living.” 

What a truth! Every wife is both an Ishshah who is dependent on a man for her living, and a Chavvah on whom every man is dependent for his life. The warm-hearted Walt Disney movie, The Lion King, contained a song called, “The Circle of Life,” but what we see here is truly the circle of life: while the woman was taken from the man and is dependant upon him, every man is likewise dependent upon a woman for his life. And God did (and continues to do) all this through one institution—marriage.

Are there not exceptions to all this? Does not God’s Word talk about people remaining single? Yes, this is mentioned in Matthew 19:11-12 and I Corinthians 7:7. We will not take the space to deal with it here, but biblically “celibacy” is rare. God’s norm, God’s rule that has few exceptions, is marriage.

So then, the essence of marriage is companionship. We can put the matter this way: Marriage is a formal covenant (agreement or promise) between a man and a woman to become each other’s loving companion for life.

Malachi 2:14 is the key. The prophet addresses Jewish men with the words, “She [is] thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.” In light of the rampant divorce in the nation, the context speaks of the seriousness and devastation of divorce, that is, the breaking of the covenant (the promise, the commitment) between husband and wife. What is a companion? A companion is one with whom we are united in goals, values, affections, and, in the case of marriage, even body. So, when the “covenant of companionship” is made, each partner promises to love the other with an agape love (a self-emptying self-sacrifice), to take away each other’s loneliness, to meet each other’s sexual needs, to honour and be faithful to the other, to bear children as God dictates, and many other things as well. The world’s idea of a “soul mate” is nothing but a shallow mud puddle in comparison with the oceanic depth of God’s principle of the covenant of companionship.

How important it is also that marriage vows contain these principles! The ones we use today might be traditional, but they are not entirely biblical. Where needed, we should not hesitate to rewrite these vows. This is just one more area that should be covered in in-depth premarital counseling, something that has virtually disappeared in Christianity today, and which has brought devastating consequences. 

It is tragic beyond words at how little counseling is done before pastors marry couples. I personally know one pastor who has done hundreds of weddings without a word of counsel. Frankly, I have done few weddings in 33 years of ministry for that very reason. I have often had phone calls that went like this. “Hello, Pastor, my fiancé and I were wondering if you would marry us?” “Maybe,” I answer. “What do you mean maybe?” comes the puzzled reply. “Well first, we must all sit down to at least six weeks of pre-marital counseling where we will open Scripture and deal biblically with what marriage is and the requirements God gives for the husband and wife.” If the caller is still on the line by now, I conclude, “After that time is complete, I’ll then tell you whether or not I’ll perform the ceremony.” Usually, the response is, “Well . . . uh . . . thank you for your time. Goodbye.” I simply cannot be part of beginning a marriage that is not founded upon the absolutes of God’s Word.

Marriage, then, is the very core of human existence and societal success. It is not to be entered lightly; we don’t just “try marriage and see if it works out.” It is a covenant, a promise, a commitment of life. As we continue, we will see more of these absolutes.

The Meaning of Marriage (1)

In our last two installments, we examined the world’s view of marriage. We turn now to God’s view and will examine three emphases in the next several installments: the meaning, motives, and model of marriage.

Before we can understand precisely what marriage is, we must consider what it is not.

First, sexual relations do not constitute marriage. It is a common misconception that sexual union constitutes marriage. But if that is true, then fornication is actually an “informal marriage” and adultery is actually “bigamy” (or polygamy). But the Word of God says no such thing. It speaks of these things as being outside of marriage. For example, Joseph is clearly called Mary’s husband even though it is explicitly stated that they had not yet joined in sexual union (Matt. 1:25). We would also add, neither is a marriage “consummated” by sexual union on the honeymoon as is often maintained. If that were true, then the pastor was very misleading when he said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Rather, as we’ll see in a moment, a marriage is consummated when the couple exchanges vows before God and other witness and enter a covenant relationship.

Second, marriage was not instituted primarily for procreation. Some folks believe that the main purpose of marriage is to propagate the human race in a respectable fashion. That’s what the Greeks thought: “You have to have wife so you can have children who won’t be called bastards.” But we can put the matter this way: marriage is more than mating. Though procreation is one of the duties of marriage (assuming both persons are physically capable of having children), such procreation could have been accomplished without marriage.

What then is marriage? Simply stated, God’s Word speaks of marriage as “The Covenant of Companionship.” Let us fully explain this wonderful principle.

Marriage is indeed the most natural and the most likely step a person will take in his (or her) life. We say this for two reasons, both of which are based upon Genesis 2:18: “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.”

We will return to the term “help meet” a little later, but the first reason that marriage is the most natural and the most likely step a person will take is that it is not good for a man to be alone. God says that the “single life” is not good. Adam was lonely in the Garden, so God gave him a companion. Yes, there are exceptions, as we will see, but the general principle is that single is not satisfactory.

The second reason is because the woman was created for the man. “What did you just say?” many would shout today. Oh, how upset people get at that statement! A cross reference here is I Corinthians 11:8-9, which we will study in our next chapter: “For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.” This does not imply inferiority or servitude on the part of the woman; it does not imply that she is to be at her husband’s beckoning call or that she must satisfy his every whim. What this means is that the women’s purpose in being created was to be the man’s companion, one with whom he can share everything, one who can help him. While this truth is challenged often, all one has to do is examine good marriages to find that this principle works in practice.

This is also seen in the fact that a woman takes the man’s name when she marries him. Does the Bible actually teach that? Indeed It does. Genesis 5:1-2 declares: “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created (emphasis added).” Notice that God called them, not just him, Adam. From the very beginning, the woman was a “covenanted companion” with her husband, to the point of even taking his name. While some women today resent this practice and keep their “maiden” name or hyphenate their maiden name with their husband’s name, they apparently miss the fact that their maiden name is also a man’s name—their father’s name. They are not only being silly but also are rebellious against God’s design. We’ll continue these thoughts next time.

The World’s View of Marriage (2)

Last time we began our examination of marriage and the family in Ephesians 5:22-6:4 by asking, “What is marriage?” We began with the world’s view by first looking at the Jewish attitude. 

Second, the Greek attitude concerning marriage. The attitude of the Greeks was even worse than that of the Jews. There was no divorce among the Greeks, but then again there was no reason to have it. The wife was only for giving legitimate children, and most sex was outside of marriage. Female and male prostitution was unbelievably rampant. Men got most of their sexual gratification from mistresses and prostitutes. Women, often with encouragement from their husbands, found gratification with their slaves, male and female. The Greek word porneia, from which is derived our English word “pornography,” clearly explains the Greek attitude. The feminine word pornē literally means “harlot for hire,” and the masculine pornos literally means “male prostitute.” Porneia came to refer to any sexual perversion: 1. Fornication, sex before marriage; 2. Adultery, extra-marital sexual relations; 3. Homosexuality and lesbianism, sex among members of the same gender; 4. Paedophilia, the sexual abuse of children. All of that, and more, was the everyday reality in Greece.

Third, the Roman attitude concerning marriage. While it’s hard to imagine a scene worse than the above, it seems as if the Romans combined the worst from both the Jews and the Greeks. Divorce was common practice in the latter years of the Roman Empire and was easily accomplished. Jerome, the 4^th and 5^th Century Bible scholar, recorded that one woman married her twenty-third husband and that she was his twenty-first wife! 

Feminism (women’s liberation) also developed in the Empire. Women didn’t want children because it ruined their bodies. Women wanted equality with men, so they demanded “marriage contracts,” “open marriages,” and often even initiated divorce. The women also did masculine things such as wresting, sword throwing, and running bare-breasted while hunting. 

Many scholars speak of the “greatness of Rome,” while in truth its decadence was beyond belief. On the other hand, does all this really sound all that foreign to our ears?

Fourth, the modern attitude concerning marriage. Are not today’s views of marriage much like the ones we just traced historically? We see the same sexual promiscuity and perversion today that existed in the Greek world. Prostitution is rampant and is even legal in many places. Homosexuality and lesbianism are accepted as “alternate life-styles” even in some denominations of “Christianity.” Pre-marital and extra-marital sex are accepted norms. And paedophilia is a horrible and tragically common occurrence. Marriage and family are no longer sacred and central. People live together outside of marriage, some of whom are even professing Christians. Children are not wanted because it cuts down on people’s freedom, so babies are murdered in the womb and people are voluntarily sterilized. And, of course, the divorce rate is rampant in our society. 

So we say again, there truly is nothing on earth that has come under more direct assault, past and present, than has the institution of marriage. Let us now turn to the positive, God’s view of marriage, which we will examine next time.