Sermon Summary - The Making and Meaning of Marriage
THE MAKING AND MEANING OF MARRIAGE
VODDIE BAUCHAM
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHy34yGR57k
There is a war raging right now in the marketplace of ideas. It is a war raging on many fronts. One of those fronts is marriage, Biblical manhood, and Biblical womanhood. More fundamentally, there is a debate on what it means to be a man or a woman.
What we need to remember: Hath God said? If God hasn’t mentioned anything about a matter, then we have the opportunity for debate and discussion. But if God has spoken about a subject, then we need to follow what He says.
Genesis 1 - Overview of the Creation Week, and of what God did
Genesis 3 - Fall of man
Genesis 2 - Retelling the creation narrative from a different perspective, hone in on that last day
Genesis 2:1-14 - Man was created, brought, and put into the Garden of Eden
Genesis 2:15-17 - Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
This was the instruction in the midst of the Garden. God has given Adam a law and a specific precept about the tree in the midst of the Garden that he must not eat from it. He gives Adam a warning of what happens if he breaks this command. Death will be the consequence. This is very important for us to understand. Right before God gives instruction for manhood, womanhood, and marriage, God lays out His law so that we understand the way things work. God is the sovereign creator of the world and everything in it. God tells us what things are and how things are to be. He gives us a clear warning and tells us what the consequences of our actions are if we do not obey.
God is the one who creates and defines humanity, manhood, and womanhood. God tells us what is a man and what is a woman. He doesn’t ask us that question or gives us leeway in that area. God hath said.
The consequences here are severe. “In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.” Physical death comes to Adam because of the eating. There is another kind of death that is brought - a spiritual death. This death separates man from God. This spiritual death is what makes man ignore the command. It makes man ignore the fact that God gave the law. It causes man to rebel against God.
There is a bill in Canada called C4 that is about conversion therapy. This bill has a theological premise.
Excerpt from the Bill:
“The bill will discourage and denounce harmful practices and treatments that are based on myths and stereotypes about LGBTQ2 people. This includes myths and stereotypes that the sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression of LGBTQ2 people are undesirable conditions that can or should be changed.“
To what myth does this Canadian law refer?
Heteronormitvity - the idea that people are normally supposed to be heterosexual. That is now considered a myth.
The myth of cis-gender. The idea is that people born in male bodies are men and people born in female bodies are women. And that no matter what you think about those bodies or do to those bodies, you cannot change what God hath wrought.
These are now considered myths. But not just myths, dangerous myths that have been replaced by “scientific truths” that are supposed to govern us.
Genesis 2:18 - And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
In Genesis 1, we see a pattern of God saying that He created, it was, and that it was good. We see this over and over again in the first chapter. When we come to chapter 2, we see the first time God is saying that something is not good. This means that we should take notice of it.
God said something was not good before the fall. That either means that there was sin before the fall or that the reference to ‘not good’ is not a reference to something sinful. There is no sin before the fall.
Romans 5:12 - Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned
God doesn’t mean “not good“ in a moral or ethical sense that it is not righteous, but that it is not the most beneficial situation.
What is “not good”? It’s not good that man is alone.
Man was made in the image of God. “Let us (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) make man in our own image.” The triune God who existed in perfect unity and harmony within the Godhead. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son. This triune God made man in His image, and man is alone which is not good. God takes from the man’s side, the woman, who proceeds from the man. Proceeding from the man and woman are children. So that the triune God makes man in His triune image.
Genesis 2: 19,20 - Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.
There were animals there. Adam was not alone in that sense. But there was no one like him. Specifically, God is saying that there is a union that has theological significance. God shows Adam that there is a need for companionship that he does not have with the animals. God makes him understand that there is no other being like him there.
Genesis 2: 21-25 - And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. 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 a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
There are a myriad of truths that spring from this text
Marriage is God’s idea not man’s. God designed marriage. The concepts of alone and need were not things that man would know. God makes him aware of his need when he is made to name the animals and see that there is no corresponding part for him.
To make it clear: God puts the man to sleep so that he has nothing to do with it, can’t take credit for it, and cannot mess it up.
God gives marriage its purposes. The principal purpose is procreation. God told man to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue the earth.
Adam could not multiply without Eve.
God gives marriage its design in the male-female relationship. The 2 corresponding parts of humanity, men and women, are designed for one another, designed by God, designed for God’s glory.
We cannot redefine marriage.
We may ask haven’t we redefined marriage. No, we haven’t. But, we have blasphemed the God who created marriage.
There is also a war against the patriarchy. There is a war against male headship. This is an assault on the God of the Bible. The woman is made after the man, this shows male headship. The woman is made for the man, this shows male headship. The woman is brought to the man, this shows male headship. The woman is named by the man twice, this shows male headship.
Romans 5:12 - Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned
God doesn’t say that sin came into the world by one couple. He says that it came into the world by one man. Why? Male headship. That accountability is because of male headship.
Genesis 2: 23-25 - 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 a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
This is the complete idea of oneness. You don’t get more equal than that. Here’s what the feminists fail to acknowledge and don’t what you to realize - women in the Christian world, where the Bible has taken root and shaped the culture, are the freest, most prosperous, most protected women on the face of the earth.
Female genital mutilation isn’t happening in the parts of the world that were affected by the reformation. Women were not burned on funeral pyres of their husbands in the Christian world that believed in this text.
The irony of this war against the Word of God - nothing is being made better by it.
Ephesians 5:22-33 - Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.
Marriage is not just for procreation, but also for sanctification. It is a righteous outlet for human sexual desires and an illustration of the relationship between Jesus Christ and His Bride, the Church.
Jesus Christ gives us the real picture of what male headship is supposed to look like when He lays down His life for His bride. When He takes upon Himself the sins of His people so that their sinfulness is imputed on Him and His righteousness can be imputed to them. So that by this He can atone them of their sins, forgive them of their sins, and allow them to enter into God’s kingdom.
Christ died for sin, once for all, the just for the unjust to bring us back to God. God made Him who knew no sin to be made sin for us. This is what marriage is a picture of.
When we go to war against Genesis 2, we go to war against the Gospel.
SUMMARY:
Man eats the forbidden fruit from the forbidden tree. He is alienated from God. And now deserves death, hell, and the grave. His only hope is that God would be merciful and send him a savior. And yet, fallen man goes to war with the very one who has provided a way of salvation.
There is a God who has created the world and He has spoken. Fallen man does not get to disagree with the God who has spoken.
God gave us the beauty of the marital relationship as a living, breathing picture of the communion within the Godhead and the relationship between Christ and His bride for whom He laid down His life.
