Last Wednesday during our Bible study we were discussing Malachi 2 where the Lord rebukes the corrupt priests of Judah for their spiritual and moral failure. Spiritually, they had failed to lead the Israelites in true worship, and morally they had failed by divorcing their Israelite wives and marrying pagan women from the surrounding peoples. The prophet declares that “Judah has profaned the LORD’s holy institution which He loves,” and that institution is marriage. Our discussion of this passage got me thinking about a study I’ve been meaning to do for quite some time, but which I have put off for one reason or another. I hope to examine the teaching of Scripture as it relates to marriage, beginning in the book of Genesis and tracing the subject through the Bible to see what timeless principles God has made known about the “holy institution which He loves.” Let us start, then, at the very beginning.
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
Genesis 1:26-28
On the 6th day of the creation week, in addition to making all of the land animals, God chose to make creatures which would bear the divine image in a unique way; no other creature is said to have been made in God’s image. Since God is a spirit, he does not have a physical image, so this term is used as a figure for those attributes of God which we call “communicable,” because they can be shared by human beings. They include such things as life, personality, truth, wisdom, love, and holiness, and it is by means of the divine image that man as a creature can have fellowship with God, his Creator.
In addition to making man in his image, this passage tells us something about the purpose for which man was made. He created him to rule or “have dominion” over the rest of the creation, including the other creatures which do not share in the divine image. Man was made to serve as God’s regent, or representative, to govern the earth on his behalf.
It is at this point that we notice how specifically the Holy Spirit speaks concerning the creation of man, for he says that God indeed made man in his own image and after his likeness, declaring, “male and female He created them.” On the mention of the two sexes, Gerhard Aalders notes, “These words are not the usual Hebrew words for ‘man’ and ‘woman.’ The words seem to specifically designate the distinction between the sexes – male and female.”1 Something about being made in the image of God is conveyed in this distinction between male and female in mankind, and Aalders goes on to suggest that “the distinction between the sexes in humanity was to develop into a completely unique relationship, namely, holy marriage. Thus we have here a preparation for the revelation of the beautiful mystery of marriage which will be given in chapter 2.”
The creation of man is followed immediately by revelation as God speaks directly to the humans he has made, bestowing a divine blessing on them as male and female and instructing them as to their purpose on the earth. First of all, they are to “be fruitful and multiply.” This command is directly related to the creation of male and female and the institution of marriage which will be described in detail in the next chapter. For the moment, however, it is enough to say that God created mankind as male and female with the specific intention that they would come together in a sexual union to produce children, so when the marriage institution is defined, it is simply the formal arrangement of God’s creative purpose. This is why, as we will see, so-called “gay marriage” is a contradiction in terms, because marriage is the covenant bond which formalizes the created order of male and female, the only combination which can possibly produce children. Thomas Constable sums up this point well: “Sexual union is God’s ordained method of implementing His command to multiply descendants.”
The second part of the instruction given to man here reveals the divine purpose of dominion over the earth, specifically, the man and woman are to “fill the earth and subdue it,” These terms imply that man is to exercise a certain degree of sovereignty over the rest of creation, but this cannot be done apart from the sexual union of the male and female to multiply offspring. The work that God gave man to do could not be done alone, and for this reason the Lord made them male and female. Let us reflect with awe and wonder on the great wisdom of God in bestowing his image on mankind by creating us male and female, and next we will consider the origin of marriage itself.
1Ronald Allen in his book “The Majesty of Man” also comments: “The terms translated ‘male’ and ‘female’ are explicitly sexual in denotation, referring to the respective reproductive organs, ‘the piercer’ and ‘the pierced.’”