1. Why God Designed Marriage (Genesis 2:18-25; Ephesians 5:31-32)

September 10, 2017

Some of you have made the mistake of buying your children toys that had the understated words on the box, “Some assembly required.” Most of us guys don’t bother with reading the assembly instructions. We think, “I’ve got this,” and plunge in. Reading the instruction manual seems like admitting that we’re incompetent! We’d rather figure it out by ourselves.

Marriage comes with the label, “Much assembly required!” It takes a lifetime of work to put it together the right way. Most of us plunged in without carefully reading the instruction manual, confident that we could figure it out. But that approach gets us into trouble. So we need to read and re-read the manufacturer’s instructions often. Most of the problems we get into in marriage can be traced to our neglect of reading and obeying God’s instructions.

Early in Genesis, the book of beginnings, we learn why God designed marriage (Gen. 2:18-25). This description of the original marriage is the basis for almost everything else the Bible says about marriage. This text also gives us many principles which, if applied, enable us to build solid, satisfying marriages that glorify God. These verses teach us that:

God designed marriage to meet our need for companionship and to provide a picture of our relationship with Him.

The name used for God, translated “Lord [Yahweh] God” (Gen. 2:18, 19, 21, 22) emphasizes His covenant relationship with His people. Genesis 1 refers to God as “Elohim,” emphasizing His power as the Creator. Genesis 2 refers to Him as the Lord God, showing that the powerful Creator is also the personal God who cares for His creatures. This caring, personal God knew that the man He created had a need. So He took action to meet that need.

1. God designed marriage to meet the human need for companionship.

When you read Genesis 1 & 2, God’s words (Gen. 2:18) hit abruptly: “It is not good for the man to be alone.” Throughout chapter one, God surveys His work and pronounces it good (Gen. 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). This is the first time God says that something in His creation is not good. That should grab our attention!

Think about it: Here is a sinless man, in perfect fellowship with God, in a perfect environment. What more could you want? Isn’t that enough? Not according to God! God’s evaluation was that the man needed a human companion to correspond to him.

Sometimes super-spiritual people say that if you’re lonely, there must be something wrong with your spiritual life. But God acknowledges our need not only for fellowship with Him, but also with a life partner. This is not to say that every person needs to be married. Everyone spends many years of life as a single person. God has called some to remain single (1 Cor. 7:7-9). Nor is it to say that marriage will meet all our needs for companionship. Married people need friends of the same sex. But it is to say that a main reason God designed marriage was to meet the human need for companionship. As Derek Kidner points out (Genesis [IVP], p. 65), “Nothing is yet said of her as a childbearer. She is valued for herself alone.” First, we must affirm:

A. God designed marriage.

That means that He knows best how it should operate. His Word gives us the principles we need for satisfying marriages. Since God designed marriage, it takes three to make a good marriage: God, the man, and the woman. He didn’t create another man for Adam, but rather, a woman. “Gay marriage” is not marriage at all, but a perversion of it. Also, for a Christian to marry an unbeliever is not only to disobey God; it is to enter marriage lacking a crucial ingredient. Marriage has been described as a triangle with God at the top: the closer each partner moves to God, the closer they move toward each other. The further each moves from God, the further they move from each other. As soon as Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they experienced alienation from each other and Adam began blaming Eve for his problems (Gen. 3:7, 12). Broken marriages always involve at least one partner moving away from God. So the starting place for having a marriage according to God’s design is genuine conversion and a daily walk with God.

God says that He will make Adam “a helper suitable for him” (Gen. 2:18). The Hebrew word is not demeaning. It is often used of God’s help for those in distress and for military assistance. It points to the fact that the husband needs and even depends on his wife’s support and help (Prov. 31:11). But we also need to remember Paul’s words (1 Cor. 11:9) that “man was not created for woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake.” That verse alone destroys the feminist view that there are no distinctions based on gender. The fact that God created the woman as a helper points to her subordinate role to her husband, even before the fall.

But at the same time, there is no basis for the view that men are superior to women. God made the woman to be a helper “suitable for” (“corresponding to”) the man. The woman is the missing part of the man. Just as a jigsaw puzzle is incomplete if half the pieces are missing, so a man is incomplete without his wife. God designed it so that the man needs the woman and the woman needs the man (see 1 Cor. 11:11). Both are equal persons and yet have distinct roles to fulfill.

God made Adam out of the dust (Gen. 2:7). Why did He make Eve from Adam’s rib rather than from the dust (Gen. 2:21-22)? I think that God did it to show Adam that his wife was a part of him, equal with him, and not a lower creation. A man is to cherish his wife as his own flesh (Eph. 5:28-29). As has often been said, she was not taken from Adam’s head to rule over him, nor from his feet, that he should put her down, but she was taken from his side so that he would protect her and keep her close to his heart.

Why didn’t God create Adam and Eve simultaneously? Before God created Eve he put Adam through the task of naming the animals (Gen. 2:19-20). Why in this context is there this strange exercise of naming the animals? God had a lesson to teach Adam. By naming all the animals, Adam discovered that for every animal there were both male and female. After a few dozen cases—male and female aardvarks, all the way to male and female zebras—Adam finished his job and wondered, “Where’s mine?” The forlorn note reads (Gen. 2:20), “but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.”

God first made Adam feel the need for a wife. A dog may be man’s best friend, but it could not satisfy Adam’s need for companionship. Only a woman could. God sometimes makes us endure loneliness so that when the need is met, we appreciate it more. I felt the need to get married at 20. The Lord made me wait until just before my 27th birthday. By then, after several failed romances, I really felt the need. But I also deeply appreciate Marla, because I remember how lonely I felt all those years. God prepares us to receive His gifts and then provides for our needs. You need to thank God for the mate He has given you and express your appreciation to your mate. God designed marriage, including your marriage. He joined you and your mate together (Matt. 19:6).

This account of the first marriage also plainly teaches that God designed marriage to include sex. Many Christians have unbiblical notions about sex. Some think that sex was the original sin. I read of one pastor and his wife who announced to their congregation that they would be adopting their first son. One dear old lady told the pastor, “That’s how every pastor and his wife should have children.” She thought that abstinence was more spiritual!

If you think carefully about how the text describes the creation of Eve, it might surprise you. In the first place, it says that God fashioned a woman from the man’s rib. “Fashioned” is literally, “built.” The verb pictures God as a sculptor, carefully and deliberately shaping the woman into a creature who would meet Adam’s need. Since she was built by God, you could safely say that she was well-built! Adam definitely liked what he saw! Verse 22 implies that Adam didn’t wake up and find Eve lying beside him. Rather, God brought her to him. Picture Adam waking up and wondering what the funny feeling in his side was. He’s counting his ribs when he hears God say, “Adam, you forgot to name one creature.” Adam looks up to see Eve, not in a wedding dress, but naked! Wow!

We know Eve was a knockout because of Adam’s response (Gen. 2:23). These are the first recorded words of the first man. They were not quite as tame as the various translations indicate. A more literal rendering of the original Hebrew is: “Yahoo!” “This is now,” is literally, “Here, now!” or “This one! At last!” Keil and Delitzsch, two 19th century German scholars, translate it, “This time!” and say that it is “expressive of joyous astonishment” (Commentary on the Old Testament [Eerdmans], 1:90). Jamieson, Fausset, Brown, another Victorian era commentary, say it is emphatic (A Commentary Critical, Experimental, and Practical [Eerdmans], 1:46): “Now at last!” Or, “This is the very thing that hits the mark; this reaches what was desired.” Remember, Adam had been looking through all the animals for one corresponding to him and had found nothing. When God brought Eve to him, he shouted, “Eureka! At last, this is the one!”

Next, Adam promptly finished his work of naming the creatures. He recognized that Eve was a part of him and named her accordingly (Gen. 2:23): “She shall be called Woman [Heb., Ishshah] because she was taken out of Man [Heb., Ish].” God brought Eve to Adam as His exquisitely crafted gift, perfect for Adam’s deepest need.

These verses teach us something important about God: He wants us to enjoy our marriages, including sex within marriage. He designed it and gave it to Adam and Eve. Satan tries to malign the goodness of God by making us think that God is trying to take our fun away by restricting sex to marriage. But God knows that it creates major problems when we violate His design for His gift. We need to regard marriage and sex in marriage as God’s good gift, designed for our pleasure, to meet our deepest needs for human companionship. In the context of marriage, we can thankfully enjoy what God has given.

B. God designed marriage to meet our need for companionship.

In verse 24 Moses is speaking, not Adam (who didn’t have a father and mother to leave): “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” This is Moses’ commentary on these events. “For this reason” means, “Because of the way God designed marriage from the start, because the woman is bone of man’s bone and flesh of his flesh, these things hold true.” He shows that to fulfill our need for companionship, marriage must be a primary, permanent, exclusive, and intimate relationship.

1) Companionship requires that marriage be a primary relationship.

God did not create a father and mother for Adam, nor a child, nor another man, but a wife. A man must leave his father and mother in order to cleave to his wife to establish a one flesh relationship. This means that the marriage relationship is primary, not the parent-child relationship. The parent child relationship must be altered before the marriage relationship can be established. The cord must be cut. This doesn’t mean abandoning parents or cutting off contact with them. But it does mean that a person needs enough emotional maturity to break away from dependence upon his parents to enter marriage. And parents need to raise their children with the aim of releasing them.

It also means that if a couple builds their marriage around their children, or as more frequently happens, the husband builds his life around his job while the wife builds her life around the children, they are heading for big problems when it’s time for the nest to empty. It doesn’t help the children, either. The best way to be a good parent to your children is to be a good husband to their mother or a good wife to their father.

2) Companionship requires that marriage be a permanent relationship.

This follows from it being the primary relationship. Your children are in your home a few years; your partner is with you for life. “Be joined to” means to cling or hold to, as bone to skin. It means to be glued to something—so when you get married, you’re stuck! After Jesus quoted Genesis 2:24, He added (Matt. 19:6), “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

This means that the marriage relationship must be built primarily on covenant commitment, not on feelings of romantic love. Romantic love is important, but the foundation of marriage is a commitment of the will. Commitment is what holds a couple together through the difficulties that invariably come. A Christian couple should never use the threat of divorce as leverage in a conflict. Your wife is your companion by covenant (Mal. 2:14; Prov. 2:17). Divorce mars the picture of Christ’s eternal covenant love for His church.

3) Companionship requires that marriage be an exclusive relationship.

The text says, “To his wife,” not “wives.” Monogamy is God’s design: One man, one woman, for life. Although God tolerated polygamy in Old Testament times, it was not His original intention. Whenever you see polygamy in the Bible, you see problems. God easily could have created many wives for Adam, but He did not. One man and one woman for life is God’s design.

This means that when you get married, you give up close friendships with women other than your wife (or with men other than your husband). You give up your freedom to go out with the guys whenever you choose. You have a new relationship with your wife; she is now your first priority in terms of human relationships. If you can’t handle that, you aren’t mature enough for marriage.

4) Companionship requires that marriage be an intimate relationship.

Gen. 2:24: “And they shall become one flesh.” One flesh emphasizes the sexual union (1 Cor. 6:16). But the sexual union is always more than just physical. It is built on relational and emotional oneness. Most sexual problems in marriage stem from a failure of relational intimacy. Sexual harmony must be built on the foundation of a primary, permanent, exclusive relationship that is growing in trust, communication, and oneness. God made us that way.

If you remove sex from the context of the covenant companionship of marriage, you will experience a superficial sense of closeness. Paul says that even when a man has sex with a prostitute, he becomes one flesh with her (1 Cor. 6:16). But sex outside of the lifelong commitment of marriage will never bring the satisfaction God designed it to provide.

Sin always hinders intimacy in marriage. As soon as Adam and Eve sinned, they recognized their nakedness and began to hide themselves, not only from God, but also from one another. While as fallen sinners we can never experience what Adam and Eve knew with one another before the fall, to the extent that we deal with our sin before God and one another and grow in holiness, we will grow in personal intimacy. It takes constant work! Good marriages aren’t the result of luck in finding the right partner. They’re the result of couples who work daily at walking openly and humbly before God and with each other.

But God didn’t design marriage just so that we could be happy and have our needs met. He designed marriage to be a testimony for Him. Godly marriages bear witness of what it means to know God through Jesus Christ.

2. God designed marriage to provide a picture of our relationship with Him.

The Bible says that God created marriage for a purpose bigger than itself: Marriage is a picture of the believer’s relationship with God. After talking about marriage and quoting Genesis 2:24, Paul writes (Eph. 5:32), “This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” Marriage is an earthly picture of the spiritual relationship that exists between Christ, the bridegroom, and the church, His bride. The consummation of a marriage is referred to in the Bible as a man knowing his wife; even so, we can know Christ our bridegroom (Phil. 3:8, 10). A husband and wife are one flesh; we are one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17). Just as the church is to be subject to Christ as the head, so the wife is to be subject to her husband (Eph. 5:22-24). Just as Christ loves the church, so a husband is to love his wife (Eph. 5:25). Just as the marital union results in children, so the union of Christ and His church is to result in many spiritual offspring, to God’s glory (Heb. 2:10, 13).

Someone has described marriage as God’s doing with one man and one woman that which He purposes to do within the world as a whole. That’s why it’s so important for you to work at developing a Christ-honoring relationship with your mate. You’re working on a portrait of Christ and the church, and the world is watching. God’s glory is at stake!

The essence of Christianity is not religious rituals or rules. It is a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. When Adam and Eve sinned, not only they, but also all their offspring (including us) were alienated from the holy God. They tried to cover their nakedness with fig leaves, but God made garments of animal skin for them (Gen. 3:21). That was a picture of Jesus, the Lamb of God, whose shed blood is necessary to cover our sins (John 1:29). To enter into a personal relationship with God, you must give up the “fig leaves” of your good works and put your trust in Jesus, God’s perfect sacrifice, who died in your place.

Conclusion

Regarding marriage, if you’re single, and content to remain single, then God’s word to you is: use your single state to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord and His work (1 Cor. 7:32-35). If you’re single, but desire to be married, God’s word to you is: grow in godliness and purity and pray for a mate who is committed to do the same (2 Cor. 6:14-7:1). Your lifelong marriage relationship must be centered on God, so that it will reflect to the world a picture of Christ and the church.

If you’re married, God’s Word to you is: grow deeper in godly covenant companionship with your mate (Prov. 2:17; Mal. 2:14). Grow in self-sacrificing love (Eph. 5:2, 25) so that your marriage reflects Christ and the church to this selfish, pleasure-seeking, lost world. It’s a lifelong process. But if this doesn’t describe the direction of your marriage, then a flashing warning light on your marital dashboard is telling you that something is seriously wrong: You’re not in line with God’s designed purpose for marriage. For His glory and for witness to this lost world, take immediate action to get it fixed!

Discussion Questions

1. Why is the concept of marriage as covenant companionship foundational? How can the church offer grace to those who have suffered divorce and yet hold a tight line against divorce?
2. Discuss: Is sexual sin more prevalent in our day than in past generations? How does it damage marriages?
3. What is the biggest hindrance to developing emotional intimacy in marriage? How can it be overcome?
4. Discuss: Is it possible for Christians married to one another to be irreconcilably incompatible? Cite biblical support.

Copyright 2017, Steven J. Cole, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation