He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Matthew 19:4-6
Jesus taught that every marriage of a man and a woman was a sacred work of God. It was as holy as the very first marriage, and just as original a work of God. God joins together a husband and a wife. They are no longer just two separate human lives, but are now one marriage, made by God, for His glory. This is seriously beautiful as each marriage is a unique creation of God.
Jesus makes no exceptions to this divine work in every marriage. God does the work of bringing two people together and making them one. This truth, that two become one by God’s direct creative hand, is the very decree of God according to Jesus. This is sacred and holy. No marriage can then be trivial.
Christians must keep this solemn and holy view of marriage before us. We must not shrink away from it, although the culture around us may trivialize marriage, making it more and more about feelings and less about spiritual commitment. Christian marriages are failing because we don’t take Jesus seriously when He tells us God does the joining, and dissolving one marriage to enter another is an act of hardness of our sinful hearts (Matthew 19:8-9). My marriage is a holy, sacred, beautiful creation of God. It is also hard work to live in this union because my wife and I must always apply the gospel to our lives, since we are two sinners, saved by grace, but still being conformed to Christ so that we can model the beauty of Christ and His Church. By grace, I must treasure these things about marriage.
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