Someone once said, “Marriage is an institution, but who wanted to ever live in an institution.” These sorts of jokes are commonplace but something that is less common in our society today is a respect for marriage as God designed it.
The 7th Commandment is simple enough – “Don’t commit adultery.” In the original Hebrew language, the Commandment was even shorter. Effectively, it was “Don’t adulterate.”
The succinctness of the Commandment is powerful because it grows out of the Biblical attitude to marriage. Marriage is held in such high regard in the Bible that the Commandment gives no “wiggle room.” We are simply to honour this divine institution.
Marriage gets a bad name now but Christians should be the ones to reclaim this wonderful gift from God. God Himself performed the first marriage in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2) and it was at a wedding that Christ performed His first miracle (John 2). Indeed, Jesus goes against the modern view of marriage as a human concept and says that God Himself performs each marriage – “what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Matthew 19:6). There is a profound moment in a wedding when Almighty God joins two people and creates a whole new entity. Wow!!
So, in defiance of the Pharisaic attitude to the Commandment, Jesus went to the heart of the Commandment when He said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body that for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” (Matthew 5:27-29)
Clearly, Jesus held marriage in higher regard than his contemporary society … and so must we. In defiance of an attitude that says marriage is really nothing more than a civil contract between two people, we must honour it, value it, treasure it, support it and invest in it.
Our marriages are worth our effort. We must fight for them and invest in them.
Two Christians who are married is not the same as a Christian marriage. What makes a Christian marriage is seeing marriage through the eyes of Christ as a way to show His love to the World.
As the words of the Prayer Book used to say in reflecting Paul, marriage is “signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church.” What a high vision of marriage – that through a Christian marriage, we can give people a small picture of the great love between Christ and the Church.
Don’t be lulled into taking the World’s view of marriage. Get God’s vision and celebrate this great gift to humanity.