In His Image …
There’s no shortage of hot-button issues facing our culture.
Longstanding debates rage about the equality of men and women, the relationship between races, and the origin of the universe. Add to these the more recent questions related to gender identity, same sex marriage, and LGBTQ+ rights.
Every member of our society is being challenged by these issues. Where do you go to learn how to think through such challenging questions? Many just look to other people, thinking society to be a reliable guide. But is it? Perhaps that our most modern questions are answered with ancient wisdom.
In the first sentence of the first chapter of John Calvin’s magisterial classic, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin famously writes, “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves” (1.1.1). It has never been more important for Christians to find our identity in what God says we are. And that identity begins with the doctrine of creation.
Genesis 2:18–25 is the foundational text on sex and marriage. This chapter sets out the character of marriage as ordained by God:
It is a relationship outside the family circle. “A man leaves his father and mother” .
It is a relationship that is freely chosen. “Bone of my bones” - it is recognised and affirmed by the man himself.
It is an exclusive relationship between one man and one woman. Polygamy, which is mentioned from Genesis 4:19, is contrary to the nature of marriage as ordained by God.
It is a sexual relationship. There is a physical union which follows the “leaving” and “uniting”.
It is a permanent relationship. The word translated "unite" is also used for the permanent bond which joins God and his covenant people (Deuteronomy 10:20, Joshua 22:5, 2 Kings 18:6).
It is ordered towards procreation. It is through marriage that human beings begin to fulfil the command to “be fruitful and increase in number” (Genesis 1:28).
It is a relationship which was, at first, untainted by sin and shame. Genesis 2:25 tells us that the man and his wife were naked, but felt no shame. This echoes God’s original verdict on creation as “very good”.
The fundamental reason why Christians believe that sex belongs only in the permanent bond of male-female marriage is because of the metaphor of Jesus’s love for his church. It’s a love where two become one flesh. It is a love that connects across sameness and difference: the sameness of our shared humanity and the difference of Jesus from us. It’s a love in which husbands are called not to exploit, abuse, or abandon their wives, but to love and sacrifice for them, as Jesus did for us.