Introduction

Marriage is a gift from God and a sacred institution. Having a clear biblical basis for marriage is a good place to start. Having a sound Christian perspective on marriage is vital today as many in our society are trying to redefine marriage to fit their particular social or political agenda.

God designed us for a relationship with Him. The whole of Scripture speaks of our relationship with Him: how to have it, how to hold onto it, how to rest in it, how to communicate it, how to enjoy it. But God did not want us to just have relationship with Him alone. He created others that we might also learn to live with and love those He places in our lives. He said in 1 Corinthians 12:18-21, “But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired.” If God is in the process of placing us into the body of Christ (the Church), doesn’t this also mean He places each one of us with the spouse of His choice?
Since God places us in relationships, we must ask ourselves the question:

Why marriage?
What is it about marriage that is so important to God?
What is it about marriage that is so important to me?

The Importance of Marriage to Each Spouse
Could it be that God has created marriage, the most intimate of human relationships, for the purpose of refining us, chiselling off our selfish human nature, and making us more “other-centred”? Isn’t this what He means when He says that we are being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29 – “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son …”)? How best to make us “other-centred” than to give us a spouse, very different from us, to hone us into His image?

The Importance of Marriage to God’s Plan for Mankind
Marriage also has purposes beyond each individual marriage that relate to God’s plan for mankind. In fact, there are three clear purposes outlined in Genesis:

1. Reflect
Christian marriages are to reflect God’s image:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.… So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27).
Each individual (as a male and as a female) is created in the image of God. However, a married couple has a unique capacity to reflect His image as husband and wife. When we recognize our purpose is to reflect the image of God, we see that we have an opportunity to be a witness to a lost world.

2. Reproduce
God’s second purpose for marriage is to reproduce:
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28a).
Marriage is an opportunity for men and women to produce children. Children are a gift from God and with them comes great responsibility: children are to be raised in His “likeness.” (Though many married couples do not have children, they still have an opportunity to disciple others to conform to His “likeness.”)

3. Reign
The third purpose for marriage is to reign:
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28a).
According to this verse, married couples are to “subdue” the earth. To accomplish this requires good stewardship in the physical realm over that which God has given. It also requires diligence in the spiritual realm. Together married couples are to be “soldiers” directed by God to accomplish His intentions on earth.

Marriage as a Witness to the World
“By this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another” (John 13:35). Marriage is a significant institution by which a lost world can see Christianity in action. Marriage is the most intimate of human relationships in which husbands and wives learn to model Christ’s love. Marriage is the 18-year training ground for children so that they can also love “one another.” Marriage provides a unique opportunity to reflect Him as a couple. Marriage provides a platform for accomplishing God’s intentions for mankind.

Main Message: Marriage is designed by God and for His own purpose. It is not an institution to be taken lightly and therefore adequate preparations are needed to enter into marriage.

Exploration

Ephesians 5:22-33 ESV
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, …
Ephesians 5:25-33 ESV
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, …
Proverbs 21:9 ESV
It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.
Proverbs 19:14 ESV
House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.
1 Peter 3:7 ESV
Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honour to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
Matthew 19:2-9 ESV
And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 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.” …

Application

Determine that you will prepare yourself for marriage as God desires and with His reasons, and if you are already married, it is ok to re-orient your reasons and foundations for marriage.