Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Marriage was ordained by God in Eden at creation as a lasting law for all humanity, established as firmly as the Sabbath and given as one of His two great gifts to the race. A man and a woman leave father and mother and all former ties to cleave to each other in lifelong union, holding together through all the changes of life as long as both shall live. In becoming one flesh they are joined in a close and affectionate blending of life, with soul knit to soul and heart to heart in spirit, interests, sympathies, love and labor, without either losing separate individuality. God's order is one man joined to one wife in unbroken oneness, and taking more than one wife departs from that design and perverts the institution, bringing discord, misery and crime. The husband is to love and cherish his wife as his own body even as Christ loved the church, and the wife stands at his side as his equal companion and helper, a union Christ came to restore to its original sanctity and make a blessing for purity, happiness and the raising of families for heaven.
Eden Origin and Setting
Genesis 2:24 establishes marriage as a divine institution ordained by God at creation, in which a man leaves his parents and joins his wife so the two become one, given as law for all humanity until the end of time as a source of blessing and human development. It belongs to the record in Genesis 2 given for instruction and guidance, presenting part of God's standard of right-doing, and that standard is eternal truth and can never be changed. Marriage was thus established at the creation of the world, with Christ present as Commander in the heavenly courts.
God formed man from the dust and appointed Adam to be monarch of the world under God, then declared it was not good for man to be alone and made him a help meet. God caused deep sleep to fall on Adam, took one of his ribs, made a woman from it, and brought her to the man, and Adam recognized her as bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. From that act arose the marriage law that a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh. Marriage was constituted by God at creation as a divine ordinance made in Eden, to stand as firm and lasting as the Sabbath of the fourth commandment instituted in Eden when the foundations of the world were laid.
Its one-flesh barrier must not be broken down to form new connections, with adultery as the only cause God gave for separation, a ground to be prayerfully considered. Christ, the Christ of both Testaments, plainly and distinctly defined this marriage law in Eden to guard His people like a hedge about a vineyard, so there could be no ignorance or misunderstanding about it, standing alongside the Sabbath law given when God finished creation and rested on and blessed the seventh day. It is a law and institution formed by Christ Himself in Eden at the beginning, given at the same time the Sabbath law was given as one of God's two great gifts to man.
The family and the Sabbath were both established in Eden and are linked in God's purpose. The family was intended to share work, study, worship, and recreation, with parents guiding and teaching their children. The Sabbath preserves time for family members to commune with God, nature, and one another. God as Creator of the universe celebrated the first marriage and presented Eve to Adam with angels as witnesses to the ceremony.
Marriage was given as one of His first gifts to man, honorable and, when its divine principles are recognized and obeyed, a blessing guarding the purity and happiness of the race, providing for man's social needs, and elevating the physical, the intellectual, and the moral nature. It is one of the two institutions that continued after the fall beyond the gates of Paradise. The first parents in Eden lived in holy innocence and enjoyed communion with God and sinless angels.
Their union belonged to God's original purpose for perfect human happiness, their life together in untainted purity delighting in beauty, fragrance, fruit trees and birdsongs of praise. That life was an emblem of heaven and the love of God, with sights and sounds God still wants men and women to rejoice in today, for it is not His order for people to be crowded into cities in terraces and tenements. Sin marred that purpose and brought all the care and anguish that rends hearts, but the image of God is to be impressed again upon souls, the angels filling human hearts with the peace of heaven, so the Lord's people are joyful in His goodness, mercy and love while sinners on earth are still to be converted to Him.
The Eden home given at creation was lost by Adam and Eve's transgression of God's law, and no one must follow their transgression but must obey all of God's requirements. Those bending their footsteps heavenward point others to that Eden home. Christ overcame by perfect obedience to His Father's commandments, and through that same obedience humanity is brought back to the Eden home.
The marriage relation instituted in Eden was for this present life only and will not exist in Paradise in the new earth. Neither those who shall be raised from the dead nor those who shall be translated without seeing death will marry or be given in marriage, and no children will be born there, but they will be as the angels of God, members of the royal family. Adam stood in innocence in Eden, and it would have been an almost infinite humiliation for the Son of God to take man's nature even as Adam had it then.
Jesus did not take that innocent humanity but accepted humanity as weakened and defiled by four thousand years of sin. Like every child of Adam He accepted the results of the working of the great law of heredity, as shown in the history of His earthly ancestors, to share human sorrows and temptations and to give the example of a sinless life. Into the world where Satan claimed dominion He came as a helpless Babe subject to the weakness of humanity, meeting life's peril in common with every human soul and fighting the battle as every child of humanity must fight it, at the risk of failure and eternal loss.
Leaving, Cleaving, One Flesh
A man leaves his father and his mother, and a wife likewise leaves father and mother, sisters, brothers and friends, to cleave to the spouse, loving that spouse better than anyone on earth and making the spouse's wishes his or her own, so that they live together in harmony and happiness. Consecration to God, giving self wholly to Him with eye single to His glory and cut loose from seeking to please relatives and acquaintances, does not wean from the spouse but draws closer to the spouse and brings about this leaving and cleaving. The marriage law arising from the making of woman from Adam's rib and his recognition of her as bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh was ordained at creation for all humanity until the end of time as a source of blessing and human development.
Cleaving means holding to each other through all the vicissitudes of life as long as both shall live, so marriage is a step taken for life. Every engagement must therefore be carefully considered beforehand, with both weighing whether they can keep that lifelong union. Yielding to impulse and unconsecrated passion, as in choosing an unbeliever for a wife and promising to give up the Sabbath to obtain her, breaks this rule, sells the birthright for a mess of pottage, brings unhappiness into the family, imperils the soul, and brings the reproach of disloyalty upon the Christian life.
Becoming one flesh creates a close union and affectionate attachment in which the wife, made from the man as part of him, is his second self, with two lives blended and soul knit to soul, heart with heart, in spirit, words, speech, interests, sympathies, love and labor. The husband is to love and cherish his wife as his own body, and this instruction when followed makes home life pure and elevated, guarded by holy love. When Christ abides in the heart the blended couple are of one mind in the love and fear of God, glorifying Him with mind, heart, soul and strength by consulting together, praying together and searching the Scriptures together, and in this way God carries forward His work in the world. This oneness blends interests, sympathies, love and labor in the ministry of saving souls, sanctioned by the Lord in accord with His will that husband and wife be linked in His work to carry it forward in wholeness and holiness, and where Christ reigns and religion rules the home angels are guests hallowing the chamber, debasing sensuality is banished, thoughts turn upward and devotion ascends to God.
Becoming one flesh is not finished by the form of words spoken in the marriage vow, and few couples are completely united when the ceremony is performed. The blending of the two into a unit must happen in the future life together in wedlock through each giving true heart affection to the other, and then it can become a really happy union, so true marriage is not a lottery. That oneness blends without either losing individuality or separate identity, because God owns the individuality He entrusted to each person and His will is to be each one's will. Love for what is human stays secondary to love for God, with the wealth of the soul's affection flowing first to Him by creation and by redemption and only then love for each other standing in the divine order, learned especially in the first year as husband and wife learn each other's different traits and live to minister unselfishly to each other's happiness with affections tributary to each other. Oneness therefore does not mean selfish engrossment that shuts the couple away from society, narrows influence to each other and buries usefulness, for each remains a distinct person with personal influence to exert in the world under a most solemn vow made in sight of heaven and holy angels.
One flesh means husband and wife are joined in heart and faith to each other alone inside a sacred circle that no other person has any right to enter, upheld and shielded by sacred bonds and preserved by a sacred shield around every family. They are to be all to each other, with no secrets kept from each other to tell to others, and each heart is to be the grave for the other's faults. Neither is ever to joke at the expense of the other's feelings or to complain about each other to others in sport or in any other manner, because frequently indulging in such foolish and seemingly harmless joking ends in trial with each other and perhaps estrangement, and to captivate the heart of one who belongs to another, encourage love outside marriage, cause contention and strife between partners, or break down those bonds to gratify lustful feelings of the carnal heart violates the oneness ordained by God. Marriage is to be a real living as one through a lifetime with the bonds of wedlock the most desirable of ties, not a mere outward appearance of oneness while in reality remaining as two, which is a terrible nightmare. That lifelong oneness is kept by not wasting life in selfish regrets, indifference and dislike, by talking things over together, renewing early attentions, each acknowledging personal faults without taking up confessing the other's faults, each determining to be all possible to the other, and by never entertaining for a moment the thought of being bound by irrevocable vows to one who cannot be loved.
God created the race male and female on the principle of division of labor, the sexes as complements who complete each other, joined in likeness yet set in unlikeness and contrast. They differ in faculties, capacities, duties, adaptations, and in body, mind, heart and aesthetical and spiritual endowments, so that all departments of business, pursuits and professions are not a common arena where both may enter and wrestle for the prizes of life, and from crown to sole every vital organ by form, locality and function reveals its sex. This distinction must be kept universal and unmistakable in costume, with garments acting as a perpetual guard and restraining monitor going where the wearer goes, stopping where she stops and abiding with her, more efficacious than laws and courts to prevent society at large from becoming a Sodom at large, so that casting it aside is evidence of guilty intent and practicing, palliating or tolerating any departure betrays the virtue of both sexes. In creating the first parents as parents of all, God designed every human being to stand related to all others as part of one web of humanity, with provision for reciprocal action and mutual relation, all connected together and the whole connected to God, so that no one is independent, each part depends on the other, and no one can be dropped out without affecting the whole.
One Wife Lifelong Union
God's original order and wise arrangement is one man joined to one wife, Adam being given one wife as pattern and law for humanity, an arrangement exemplified in Noah's one-wife household. The verse shows a man cleaving to one wife with the two becoming one flesh, not to several. Taking more than one wife departs from that order and law.
Such taking of multiple wives is sinful and contrary to God's will even when practiced by otherwise righteous people, and God did not sanction it. Its widespread practice before and after the Flood did not make it right. Polygamy was introduced early after the fall when men followed their own sinful desires, and the antediluvians continued in polygamy with indulgence of passion in violation of the design.
Departure from the one-wife order brings discord, rivalry, jealousy, suffering, unhappiness and other evils, with rapidly increasing crime, wretchedness and wickedness. Abraham's marriage to Hagar marred his peace. At last the marriage relation was no longer respected as men coveted their neighbors' wives and took them by force and exulted in violence. Polygamy perverts the sacred institution joining one man to one wife in lifelong union, weakens its obligations and lessens its sacredness. Satan promotes it by studied effort because in no surer way can he deface the image of God in man and open the door to misery and vice, and it was among the sins that brought God's wrath upon the world before the Flood, becoming widespread again afterward.
The one-flesh barrier must not be broken down to form new connections. The union it establishes is lifelong and may be broken by separation on only one ground, adultery, a ground to be prayerfully considered.
Husband and Wife Together
To be joined as one flesh means the husband must love his wife as his own body, nourishing and cherishing her even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it to sanctify and cleanse it and present it holy and without blemish. That love is pure, elevated, cherishing and nourishing, not bitter and not the low sensual gratification of animal passion. It will not subject a wife to continual child-bearing before her strength is recovered, imperil her life, destroy her physical and spiritual powers or his own, fill her hands and mind so she is cut off from missionary service, or sacrifice her to his passion. It studies her spiritual and physical good in order to present her without spot and blameless, and it requires the husband himself to be purified even as God is pure and to present his body a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God.
The wife, made from the man as part of him and his second self, is to stand by her husband's side as an equal to be loved and protected, neither to control him as head nor to be trampled underfoot as inferior. God made woman a companion and helpmeet to be one with the man, to cheer, encourage and bless him, while the husband in turn is to be her strong helper. Those who enter marriage with holy purpose fulfill God's design and purpose for them, he to obtain the pure affections of her heart and she to soften and improve his character and give it completeness.
In this oneness the husband is head of the wife even as Christ is head of the church and Saviour of the body, covenanting to love and cherish her, and the wife is to be subject to her husband in everything as the church is subject to Christ, covenanting to love, obey and reverence him. God ordained between them perfect love and perfect harmony, with the wife to respect and reverence her husband and the husband to love and cherish his wife. Human love thus united with divine love is refined, purified, elevated and ennobled to bear its precious fruit, and the love binding husband and wife becomes a foretaste of heaven. The union is a great mystery concerning Christ and the church, and when this instruction of mutual love and reverence is heeded, home life is pure and elevated, guarded and garrisoned by holy love.
Marriage requires true, pure, deep, abiding, unselfish, heavenly love, since the wife is a part of the husband himself and his own flesh, and that love bears fruit in constant, natural, unforced effort to make her happy and in imparting blessings to her. It means the husband loves, honors and cherishes his wife in fulfillment of the marriage vow, makes her the object of his special and hearty attention, prefers her company above all others, naturally chooses her to accompany him when he goes out, seeks her society and feels lost without it. He values her not merely as useful and convenient in his house but as precious in herself, and thereby draws her out of reticence and wins her answering affection.
Marriage joins husband and wife as one in a solemn covenant before God with a united interest in all homemaking that must not be divided. Keeping this oneness requires both to submit the heart to God and obey the law of God, which keeps strife out and prevents separation of interests and alienation of affection. Satan works to break this oneness by using moments of variance to stir objectionable hereditary traits of character in husband or wife.
Sacred Blessing and Purpose
Marriage is a sacred, holy institution and ordinance established and sealed by God in Eden and guarded by His holy precept. It was ordained at creation as a divine institution and given as law for all humanity until the end of time, and what God declared good is a source of blessing and human development. When its divine principles are recognized and obeyed it is a blessing guarding the purity and happiness of the race, providing for social needs, and elevating the physical, intellectual, and moral nature. It originated with God as Creator of the universe, who celebrated the first marriage and gave marriage as one of His first gifts, one of the two institutions that continued after the fall beyond the gates of Paradise.
God ordained that woman should be united with man in holy wedlock, and marriage so joined with purity and holiness, truth and righteousness is sacred, sanctioned and blessed, and one of the greatest blessings ever given to the human family. He ordained a man and woman to be united in holy marriage and to raise families whose members may be counted among the family above. Its purpose is to raise up families crowned with honor who are symbols of the family in heaven, and the family relation formed here below is to give demonstration of what the family in heaven above shall be.
Marriage is a heavenly institution intended to bless humanity, but it involves responsibilities beyond the couple's love for each other. Those entering it must thoughtfully consider whether they can provide for a family, whether their children are likely to have physical health and mental and moral strength, the physical, mental, and moral well-being of future children, and the influence their family will have on society. Its privileges call for careful thought about their consequences, and those who honor the relation will act with reason and feel solemnly responsible for the children entrusted to their care.
Marrying is lawful and the fulfillment of duty, not sinful in itself, because all God's laws are marvelously adapted to meet human nature, and even in the days of Noah it was lawful to marry. Sin comes by perverting what in itself is lawful and corrupting God's gift by using it to minister to selfish desires and carrying what is lawful to excess. Eating and drinking, buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage were made the supreme objects of life in intense worldliness, with indulgence of appetite and base passion making imaginations corrupt and leading to violence and crime when desires were crossed, and the same worldliness will mark the days when the Son of man shall be revealed.
God gave directions for marriage that made it sacred and beautiful, but people forgot them and turned marriage toward uncontrolled passion. The bond should therefore be guided and sanctified by Christian principles rather than by inclination alone without seeking God's counsel or seeking His glory, lest believers unite with the ungodly. Jesus honored the marriage covenant and sanctioned the divine institution by attending the marriage feast at Cana, showing that its solemnity and its innocent pleasure and joy are pleasing to Him. He gives the marriage covenant marked respect, high endorsement, and divine authority, uses it to illustrate many important truths, witnesses that He will not refuse His presence on marriage occasions, and proves by His miracle there that marriage is ordained and not forbidden.
The marriage relation has God's commendation as a solemn ordinance ordained of God to be looked upon with the greatest solemnity rather than associated with hilarity and glee and pretense, with the glory of God ever made first. It is a solemn, sacred union that must not be entered without careful consideration, for because husband and wife are joined the wife has powerful influence over her husband for either good or evil, so that success or failure in life is often decided from the wedding day. True religion does not counterwork God's plan or treat the marriage law as unholy, and laws forbidding marriage put men and women in unnatural positions and open the door to adultery, fornication, and related evils.
Christ and Christian Home
Christ came not to destroy marriage but to fulfill every specification of the law, to pull down oppression, to restore the institution to its original sanctity and elevation, and to restore the moral image of God in man. He began that restoring work by sanctioning the marriage relation first celebrated in Eden when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Marriage was established as sacred and holy and sealed by God who made the first pair and prepared paradise for them, with woman made from man to be his companion and helpmeet, to be one with him to cheer, encourage and bless him, while the husband is to be her strong helper. Those who enter it with holy purpose fulfill God's design, the husband to obtain the pure affections of a woman's heart and the wife to soften and improve her husband's character and give it completeness, in perfect love and harmony where human love joined to divine love is refined, purified, elevated and ennobled to bear precious fruit as a foretaste of heaven.
The union is a great mystery concerning Christ and the church. In that oneness the husband is head of the wife even as Christ is head of the church and Saviour of the body, covenanting to love his wife as his own body, nourishing and cherishing her even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself to sanctify and cleanse it to present it holy and without blemish. In that same oneness the wife is to be subject to her husband in everything as the church is subject to Christ, and to love, obey, respect and reverence him. Where this instruction of mutual love and reverence is heeded, home life is pure and elevated and garrisoned by holy love, and Christian homes ordered by God's plan form Christian character as a symbol of the great family above.
Oneness in marriage is to be matched by oneness in Christ through shared belief in Him. Love for God comes first by creation and by redemption, with the wealth of the soul's affection flowing first to Him, and only then does love for each other stand in divine order, with love for what is human kept secondary. It is pleasing to God when those joined by the marriage vow as one seek together to learn of Jesus and become more and more imbued with His Spirit, consulting together, praying together and searching the Scriptures together. By this united seeking God carries forward His work in the world.
When Christ abides in the heart the blended couple no longer live for self alone but become one mind, blended in the love and fear of God as one to glorify Him with mind, heart, soul and strength. Marriage is a most precious domestic arrangement and sacred ordinance made by God to create homes, in which husband and wife blend together heart with heart in spirit, words and speech that show the exalted character of wedlock, while carrying selfish ideas into it breaks the plan and brings much unhappiness. The blending means each lives to minister unselfishly to the happiness of the other, making affections tributary to each other, a lesson learned especially in the first year of married life as husband and wife learn each other's different traits of character. That blending does not erase individuality, for God owns the individuality He entrusted to each person and His will is to be each one's will.
This oneness blends two lives into one, uniting interests, sympathies, love and labor with each other in the ministry of saving souls. Such linking of husband and wife in His work to carry it forward in wholeness and holiness is sanctioned by the Lord and is in accord with the will of God. The union joins soul to soul in deep, true, unselfish love and harmony, with affections serving each other's happiness, and it requires religion ruling the home and the reign of Christ, which alone prevents the grievous wrongs that embitter married life. Where this union exists angels are guests in the home and hallow the marriage chamber, debasing sensuality is banished, thoughts are directed upward to God and the heart's devotion ascends to Him.
Marriage was ordained by God in Eden at creation as a lasting law for all humanity, established as firmly as the Sabbath and given as one of His two great gifts to the race. A man and a woman leave father and mother and all former ties to cleave to each other in lifelong union, holding together through all the changes of life as long as both shall live. In becoming one flesh they are joined in a close and affectionate blending of life, with soul knit to soul and heart to heart in spirit, interests, sympathies, love and labor, without either losing separate individuality. God's order is one man joined to one wife in unbroken oneness, and taking more than one wife departs from that design and perverts the institution, bringing discord, misery and crime. The husband is to love and cherish his wife as his own body even as Christ loved the church, and the wife stands at his side as his equal companion and helper, a union Christ came to restore to its original sanctity and make a blessing for purity, happiness and the raising of families for heaven.
Eden Origin and Setting
Genesis 2:24 establishes marriage as a divine institution ordained by God at creation, in which a man leaves his parents and joins his wife so the two become one, given as law for all humanity until the end of time as a source of blessing and human development. It belongs to the record in Genesis 2 given for instruction and guidance, presenting part of God's standard of right-doing, and that standard is eternal truth and can never be changed. Marriage was thus established at the creation of the world, with Christ present as Commander in the heavenly courts.
God formed man from the dust and appointed Adam to be monarch of the world under God, then declared it was not good for man to be alone and made him a help meet. God caused deep sleep to fall on Adam, took one of his ribs, made a woman from it, and brought her to the man, and Adam recognized her as bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. From that act arose the marriage law that a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh. Marriage was constituted by God at creation as a divine ordinance made in Eden, to stand as firm and lasting as the Sabbath of the fourth commandment instituted in Eden when the foundations of the world were laid.
Its one-flesh barrier must not be broken down to form new connections, with adultery as the only cause God gave for separation, a ground to be prayerfully considered. Christ, the Christ of both Testaments, plainly and distinctly defined this marriage law in Eden to guard His people like a hedge about a vineyard, so there could be no ignorance or misunderstanding about it, standing alongside the Sabbath law given when God finished creation and rested on and blessed the seventh day. It is a law and institution formed by Christ Himself in Eden at the beginning, given at the same time the Sabbath law was given as one of God's two great gifts to man.
The family and the Sabbath were both established in Eden and are linked in God's purpose. The family was intended to share work, study, worship, and recreation, with parents guiding and teaching their children. The Sabbath preserves time for family members to commune with God, nature, and one another. God as Creator of the universe celebrated the first marriage and presented Eve to Adam with angels as witnesses to the ceremony.
Marriage was given as one of His first gifts to man, honorable and, when its divine principles are recognized and obeyed, a blessing guarding the purity and happiness of the race, providing for man's social needs, and elevating the physical, the intellectual, and the moral nature. It is one of the two institutions that continued after the fall beyond the gates of Paradise. The first parents in Eden lived in holy innocence and enjoyed communion with God and sinless angels.
Their union belonged to God's original purpose for perfect human happiness, their life together in untainted purity delighting in beauty, fragrance, fruit trees and birdsongs of praise. That life was an emblem of heaven and the love of God, with sights and sounds God still wants men and women to rejoice in today, for it is not His order for people to be crowded into cities in terraces and tenements. Sin marred that purpose and brought all the care and anguish that rends hearts, but the image of God is to be impressed again upon souls, the angels filling human hearts with the peace of heaven, so the Lord's people are joyful in His goodness, mercy and love while sinners on earth are still to be converted to Him.
The Eden home given at creation was lost by Adam and Eve's transgression of God's law, and no one must follow their transgression but must obey all of God's requirements. Those bending their footsteps heavenward point others to that Eden home. Christ overcame by perfect obedience to His Father's commandments, and through that same obedience humanity is brought back to the Eden home.
The marriage relation instituted in Eden was for this present life only and will not exist in Paradise in the new earth. Neither those who shall be raised from the dead nor those who shall be translated without seeing death will marry or be given in marriage, and no children will be born there, but they will be as the angels of God, members of the royal family. Adam stood in innocence in Eden, and it would have been an almost infinite humiliation for the Son of God to take man's nature even as Adam had it then.
Jesus did not take that innocent humanity but accepted humanity as weakened and defiled by four thousand years of sin. Like every child of Adam He accepted the results of the working of the great law of heredity, as shown in the history of His earthly ancestors, to share human sorrows and temptations and to give the example of a sinless life. Into the world where Satan claimed dominion He came as a helpless Babe subject to the weakness of humanity, meeting life's peril in common with every human soul and fighting the battle as every child of humanity must fight it, at the risk of failure and eternal loss.
Leaving, Cleaving, One Flesh
A man leaves his father and his mother, and a wife likewise leaves father and mother, sisters, brothers and friends, to cleave to the spouse, loving that spouse better than anyone on earth and making the spouse's wishes his or her own, so that they live together in harmony and happiness. Consecration to God, giving self wholly to Him with eye single to His glory and cut loose from seeking to please relatives and acquaintances, does not wean from the spouse but draws closer to the spouse and brings about this leaving and cleaving. The marriage law arising from the making of woman from Adam's rib and his recognition of her as bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh was ordained at creation for all humanity until the end of time as a source of blessing and human development.
Cleaving means holding to each other through all the vicissitudes of life as long as both shall live, so marriage is a step taken for life. Every engagement must therefore be carefully considered beforehand, with both weighing whether they can keep that lifelong union. Yielding to impulse and unconsecrated passion, as in choosing an unbeliever for a wife and promising to give up the Sabbath to obtain her, breaks this rule, sells the birthright for a mess of pottage, brings unhappiness into the family, imperils the soul, and brings the reproach of disloyalty upon the Christian life.
Becoming one flesh creates a close union and affectionate attachment in which the wife, made from the man as part of him, is his second self, with two lives blended and soul knit to soul, heart with heart, in spirit, words, speech, interests, sympathies, love and labor. The husband is to love and cherish his wife as his own body, and this instruction when followed makes home life pure and elevated, guarded by holy love. When Christ abides in the heart the blended couple are of one mind in the love and fear of God, glorifying Him with mind, heart, soul and strength by consulting together, praying together and searching the Scriptures together, and in this way God carries forward His work in the world. This oneness blends interests, sympathies, love and labor in the ministry of saving souls, sanctioned by the Lord in accord with His will that husband and wife be linked in His work to carry it forward in wholeness and holiness, and where Christ reigns and religion rules the home angels are guests hallowing the chamber, debasing sensuality is banished, thoughts turn upward and devotion ascends to God.
Becoming one flesh is not finished by the form of words spoken in the marriage vow, and few couples are completely united when the ceremony is performed. The blending of the two into a unit must happen in the future life together in wedlock through each giving true heart affection to the other, and then it can become a really happy union, so true marriage is not a lottery. That oneness blends without either losing individuality or separate identity, because God owns the individuality He entrusted to each person and His will is to be each one's will. Love for what is human stays secondary to love for God, with the wealth of the soul's affection flowing first to Him by creation and by redemption and only then love for each other standing in the divine order, learned especially in the first year as husband and wife learn each other's different traits and live to minister unselfishly to each other's happiness with affections tributary to each other. Oneness therefore does not mean selfish engrossment that shuts the couple away from society, narrows influence to each other and buries usefulness, for each remains a distinct person with personal influence to exert in the world under a most solemn vow made in sight of heaven and holy angels.
One flesh means husband and wife are joined in heart and faith to each other alone inside a sacred circle that no other person has any right to enter, upheld and shielded by sacred bonds and preserved by a sacred shield around every family. They are to be all to each other, with no secrets kept from each other to tell to others, and each heart is to be the grave for the other's faults. Neither is ever to joke at the expense of the other's feelings or to complain about each other to others in sport or in any other manner, because frequently indulging in such foolish and seemingly harmless joking ends in trial with each other and perhaps estrangement, and to captivate the heart of one who belongs to another, encourage love outside marriage, cause contention and strife between partners, or break down those bonds to gratify lustful feelings of the carnal heart violates the oneness ordained by God. Marriage is to be a real living as one through a lifetime with the bonds of wedlock the most desirable of ties, not a mere outward appearance of oneness while in reality remaining as two, which is a terrible nightmare. That lifelong oneness is kept by not wasting life in selfish regrets, indifference and dislike, by talking things over together, renewing early attentions, each acknowledging personal faults without taking up confessing the other's faults, each determining to be all possible to the other, and by never entertaining for a moment the thought of being bound by irrevocable vows to one who cannot be loved.
God created the race male and female on the principle of division of labor, the sexes as complements who complete each other, joined in likeness yet set in unlikeness and contrast. They differ in faculties, capacities, duties, adaptations, and in body, mind, heart and aesthetical and spiritual endowments, so that all departments of business, pursuits and professions are not a common arena where both may enter and wrestle for the prizes of life, and from crown to sole every vital organ by form, locality and function reveals its sex. This distinction must be kept universal and unmistakable in costume, with garments acting as a perpetual guard and restraining monitor going where the wearer goes, stopping where she stops and abiding with her, more efficacious than laws and courts to prevent society at large from becoming a Sodom at large, so that casting it aside is evidence of guilty intent and practicing, palliating or tolerating any departure betrays the virtue of both sexes. In creating the first parents as parents of all, God designed every human being to stand related to all others as part of one web of humanity, with provision for reciprocal action and mutual relation, all connected together and the whole connected to God, so that no one is independent, each part depends on the other, and no one can be dropped out without affecting the whole.
One Wife Lifelong Union
God's original order and wise arrangement is one man joined to one wife, Adam being given one wife as pattern and law for humanity, an arrangement exemplified in Noah's one-wife household. The verse shows a man cleaving to one wife with the two becoming one flesh, not to several. Taking more than one wife departs from that order and law.
Such taking of multiple wives is sinful and contrary to God's will even when practiced by otherwise righteous people, and God did not sanction it. Its widespread practice before and after the Flood did not make it right. Polygamy was introduced early after the fall when men followed their own sinful desires, and the antediluvians continued in polygamy with indulgence of passion in violation of the design.
Departure from the one-wife order brings discord, rivalry, jealousy, suffering, unhappiness and other evils, with rapidly increasing crime, wretchedness and wickedness. Abraham's marriage to Hagar marred his peace. At last the marriage relation was no longer respected as men coveted their neighbors' wives and took them by force and exulted in violence. Polygamy perverts the sacred institution joining one man to one wife in lifelong union, weakens its obligations and lessens its sacredness. Satan promotes it by studied effort because in no surer way can he deface the image of God in man and open the door to misery and vice, and it was among the sins that brought God's wrath upon the world before the Flood, becoming widespread again afterward.
The one-flesh barrier must not be broken down to form new connections. The union it establishes is lifelong and may be broken by separation on only one ground, adultery, a ground to be prayerfully considered.
Husband and Wife Together
To be joined as one flesh means the husband must love his wife as his own body, nourishing and cherishing her even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it to sanctify and cleanse it and present it holy and without blemish. That love is pure, elevated, cherishing and nourishing, not bitter and not the low sensual gratification of animal passion. It will not subject a wife to continual child-bearing before her strength is recovered, imperil her life, destroy her physical and spiritual powers or his own, fill her hands and mind so she is cut off from missionary service, or sacrifice her to his passion. It studies her spiritual and physical good in order to present her without spot and blameless, and it requires the husband himself to be purified even as God is pure and to present his body a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God.
The wife, made from the man as part of him and his second self, is to stand by her husband's side as an equal to be loved and protected, neither to control him as head nor to be trampled underfoot as inferior. God made woman a companion and helpmeet to be one with the man, to cheer, encourage and bless him, while the husband in turn is to be her strong helper. Those who enter marriage with holy purpose fulfill God's design and purpose for them, he to obtain the pure affections of her heart and she to soften and improve his character and give it completeness.
In this oneness the husband is head of the wife even as Christ is head of the church and Saviour of the body, covenanting to love and cherish her, and the wife is to be subject to her husband in everything as the church is subject to Christ, covenanting to love, obey and reverence him. God ordained between them perfect love and perfect harmony, with the wife to respect and reverence her husband and the husband to love and cherish his wife. Human love thus united with divine love is refined, purified, elevated and ennobled to bear its precious fruit, and the love binding husband and wife becomes a foretaste of heaven. The union is a great mystery concerning Christ and the church, and when this instruction of mutual love and reverence is heeded, home life is pure and elevated, guarded and garrisoned by holy love.
Marriage requires true, pure, deep, abiding, unselfish, heavenly love, since the wife is a part of the husband himself and his own flesh, and that love bears fruit in constant, natural, unforced effort to make her happy and in imparting blessings to her. It means the husband loves, honors and cherishes his wife in fulfillment of the marriage vow, makes her the object of his special and hearty attention, prefers her company above all others, naturally chooses her to accompany him when he goes out, seeks her society and feels lost without it. He values her not merely as useful and convenient in his house but as precious in herself, and thereby draws her out of reticence and wins her answering affection.
Marriage joins husband and wife as one in a solemn covenant before God with a united interest in all homemaking that must not be divided. Keeping this oneness requires both to submit the heart to God and obey the law of God, which keeps strife out and prevents separation of interests and alienation of affection. Satan works to break this oneness by using moments of variance to stir objectionable hereditary traits of character in husband or wife.
Sacred Blessing and Purpose
Marriage is a sacred, holy institution and ordinance established and sealed by God in Eden and guarded by His holy precept. It was ordained at creation as a divine institution and given as law for all humanity until the end of time, and what God declared good is a source of blessing and human development. When its divine principles are recognized and obeyed it is a blessing guarding the purity and happiness of the race, providing for social needs, and elevating the physical, intellectual, and moral nature. It originated with God as Creator of the universe, who celebrated the first marriage and gave marriage as one of His first gifts, one of the two institutions that continued after the fall beyond the gates of Paradise.
God ordained that woman should be united with man in holy wedlock, and marriage so joined with purity and holiness, truth and righteousness is sacred, sanctioned and blessed, and one of the greatest blessings ever given to the human family. He ordained a man and woman to be united in holy marriage and to raise families whose members may be counted among the family above. Its purpose is to raise up families crowned with honor who are symbols of the family in heaven, and the family relation formed here below is to give demonstration of what the family in heaven above shall be.
Marriage is a heavenly institution intended to bless humanity, but it involves responsibilities beyond the couple's love for each other. Those entering it must thoughtfully consider whether they can provide for a family, whether their children are likely to have physical health and mental and moral strength, the physical, mental, and moral well-being of future children, and the influence their family will have on society. Its privileges call for careful thought about their consequences, and those who honor the relation will act with reason and feel solemnly responsible for the children entrusted to their care.
Marrying is lawful and the fulfillment of duty, not sinful in itself, because all God's laws are marvelously adapted to meet human nature, and even in the days of Noah it was lawful to marry. Sin comes by perverting what in itself is lawful and corrupting God's gift by using it to minister to selfish desires and carrying what is lawful to excess. Eating and drinking, buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage were made the supreme objects of life in intense worldliness, with indulgence of appetite and base passion making imaginations corrupt and leading to violence and crime when desires were crossed, and the same worldliness will mark the days when the Son of man shall be revealed.
God gave directions for marriage that made it sacred and beautiful, but people forgot them and turned marriage toward uncontrolled passion. The bond should therefore be guided and sanctified by Christian principles rather than by inclination alone without seeking God's counsel or seeking His glory, lest believers unite with the ungodly. Jesus honored the marriage covenant and sanctioned the divine institution by attending the marriage feast at Cana, showing that its solemnity and its innocent pleasure and joy are pleasing to Him. He gives the marriage covenant marked respect, high endorsement, and divine authority, uses it to illustrate many important truths, witnesses that He will not refuse His presence on marriage occasions, and proves by His miracle there that marriage is ordained and not forbidden.
The marriage relation has God's commendation as a solemn ordinance ordained of God to be looked upon with the greatest solemnity rather than associated with hilarity and glee and pretense, with the glory of God ever made first. It is a solemn, sacred union that must not be entered without careful consideration, for because husband and wife are joined the wife has powerful influence over her husband for either good or evil, so that success or failure in life is often decided from the wedding day. True religion does not counterwork God's plan or treat the marriage law as unholy, and laws forbidding marriage put men and women in unnatural positions and open the door to adultery, fornication, and related evils.
Christ and Christian Home
Christ came not to destroy marriage but to fulfill every specification of the law, to pull down oppression, to restore the institution to its original sanctity and elevation, and to restore the moral image of God in man. He began that restoring work by sanctioning the marriage relation first celebrated in Eden when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Marriage was established as sacred and holy and sealed by God who made the first pair and prepared paradise for them, with woman made from man to be his companion and helpmeet, to be one with him to cheer, encourage and bless him, while the husband is to be her strong helper. Those who enter it with holy purpose fulfill God's design, the husband to obtain the pure affections of a woman's heart and the wife to soften and improve her husband's character and give it completeness, in perfect love and harmony where human love joined to divine love is refined, purified, elevated and ennobled to bear precious fruit as a foretaste of heaven.
The union is a great mystery concerning Christ and the church. In that oneness the husband is head of the wife even as Christ is head of the church and Saviour of the body, covenanting to love his wife as his own body, nourishing and cherishing her even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself to sanctify and cleanse it to present it holy and without blemish. In that same oneness the wife is to be subject to her husband in everything as the church is subject to Christ, and to love, obey, respect and reverence him. Where this instruction of mutual love and reverence is heeded, home life is pure and elevated and garrisoned by holy love, and Christian homes ordered by God's plan form Christian character as a symbol of the great family above.
Oneness in marriage is to be matched by oneness in Christ through shared belief in Him. Love for God comes first by creation and by redemption, with the wealth of the soul's affection flowing first to Him, and only then does love for each other stand in divine order, with love for what is human kept secondary. It is pleasing to God when those joined by the marriage vow as one seek together to learn of Jesus and become more and more imbued with His Spirit, consulting together, praying together and searching the Scriptures together. By this united seeking God carries forward His work in the world.
When Christ abides in the heart the blended couple no longer live for self alone but become one mind, blended in the love and fear of God as one to glorify Him with mind, heart, soul and strength. Marriage is a most precious domestic arrangement and sacred ordinance made by God to create homes, in which husband and wife blend together heart with heart in spirit, words and speech that show the exalted character of wedlock, while carrying selfish ideas into it breaks the plan and brings much unhappiness. The blending means each lives to minister unselfishly to the happiness of the other, making affections tributary to each other, a lesson learned especially in the first year of married life as husband and wife learn each other's different traits of character. That blending does not erase individuality, for God owns the individuality He entrusted to each person and His will is to be each one's will.
This oneness blends two lives into one, uniting interests, sympathies, love and labor with each other in the ministry of saving souls. Such linking of husband and wife in His work to carry it forward in wholeness and holiness is sanctioned by the Lord and is in accord with the will of God. The union joins soul to soul in deep, true, unselfish love and harmony, with affections serving each other's happiness, and it requires religion ruling the home and the reign of Christ, which alone prevents the grievous wrongs that embitter married life. Where this union exists angels are guests in the home and hallow the marriage chamber, debasing sensuality is banished, thoughts are directed upward to God and the heart's devotion ascends to Him.