The Great Design
Text: 1 Corinthians 7: 10- 24
Proposition: When we grasp the design in marriage as being foremost a portrayal of Christ’s covenant with the church we begin to see marriage in a higher way.
Introduction: Last week we looked at a question that the Corinthians had asked Paul. We know the question because of the answer, kind of like the Jeopardy television game show. You know, there would be statements like, “A small poll-ish church in Central Alberta once called, ‘The bin of $1 coins”… the answer…“What is Faith Community Church?” In kind of the same way we can guess what the question was by looking at the answer. Last week we looked at the first question that must have been something like, “Since unrestrained sensuality leads to immorality is the best path to holiness to take the opposite way, to be completely celibate? We looked at Paul’s response to that last week as he affirmed the purpose and role of being celibate but not to the point of splitting up a marriage. In verse 10 of this same chapter of 1 Corinthians 7 Paul now answers another question, “Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife.” So what might the question have been? Let’s have a look at that in a moment but first let’s ask God to direct our hearts and minds as we do so.
The 2nd Question… “If it is for the better, especially if I am to grow in holiness, is it okay to divorce?”
The answer Paul gives points them to see something more in marriage than just convenience or the meeting of such needs as companionship or sexual intimacy. Paul speaks to them the basic truth that marriage has a bond in it that is not meant to be broken. It’s why he says that if the wife leaves she should remain single or even to reconcile back to her husband. Consider for a moment what led Paul to make such a command. As a Pharisee he knew the Old Testament, the accounts of the creation of man and woman. He remembered that God created man first and then sent Adam on a quest for a suitable helper because God had said ‘It is not good than man should be alone, I will make him a helper comparable to him.’(Gen 2:18) The creation of woman out of Adam filled a higher role than just a friend or companion or even a person to have sex with. If that were all that was needed God could have made Adam and then another Adam out of the ground. He doesn’t, instead God takes from Adam the very flesh and bone of his own body and fashions a different being, woman. The first marriage was this amazing beginning of woman out of the very substance of man which means that there is now something missing in man that is resident in woman and something missing in woman that is resident in man. The two together comprise the image of God, different yet when together more completely represent the nature of the persons of the Trinity. The relational identity of a man and a woman come to a place of bond or covenant in marriage, together they point to not only the character of God but also to the very union that exists in the Trinity for surely that is what God meant when He said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness…”. (Gen.1:26) Adam sensed this amazing creation of woman calling her ‘ishshah’, out of man, woman. When Paul wrote to the Ephesians it was this very truth that he was pointing husbands to. “So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.” (Eph 5:28)
It’s been said that the creation of Man and Woman was not about the end purposes of having children, of continuing the species. No, the creation of Man and Woman in the relationship of being husband and wife was that they would love one another even as the members of the Trinity love One another. All sexual intimacy, all closeness and even the height of climax in sexual intimacy points not to procreation but to power of love and the great joy in the Trinity towards each other.
In Gen 2:24 it says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” The main point of sexual intimacy is not to have children, the main point is that sexual intimacy, which is meant to be what takes place in marriage, binds the two into one flesh. Thomas Adams was called the Shakespeare of the pulpit in the 1600’s. He once said, “As God by creation made two of one, so again by marriage He made one of two.” The quote is simple on the surface yet what it is implying is that marriage has a much higher design in it that is realized. We get the first part that God made two of one but the second part we tend to see as a statement about procreation rather than about the bond that makes the two into one flesh. Why is the one flesh principle so significant that marriage would be considered something God sets in place over a couple of believers in Him? That’s what Jesus was saying in Matthew 19:6, “So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Is it possible that marriage is meant to picture the bond of the Trinity, is it possible that marriage is meant to picture the bond of the Church and Christ, which means that if the Church is bound to Christ she is also brought into the very unity that exists in the Trinity yet in Christ? If these are true then is it also possible that God’s highest purpose for marriage is that it proclaims His nature and character and faithfulness to the church. If that is the case then divorce is as much a statement about God as it is a statement about my spouse. Is that the reason why divorce is so strongly commanded against by Paul?
To be sure as we read on in 1 Corinthians 7 we see that there are a just a few caveats that are considered just grounds for divorce. They are the desertion of an unbelieving spouse which then frees the believing member to remarry. There is the act of adultery which breaks the marriage covenant and frees the other spouse to remarry and there is death that frees the surviving one to remarry. The point of all this is not to look for loopholes to divorce, the point is to see the high, high value that God puts upon marriage, that God puts upon your marriage.
So let me put this in contemporary terms. Every attack on marriage today as it redefines gender and union is an attack on the not just the design of marriage but on the very Designer of it. It says in essence that there is no unity in God, there is no order in the person of God, there is no higher purpose in marriage then sexual satisfaction. It is saying that I can be like God, not under authority but free to define my own authority. Such attitudes and actions are done by people who are unaware of the fact they are being manipulated by spiritual forces that seek denigrate and destroy that which belongs to God. They are not your enemy, Satan is.
Inside the glory of the design of marriage lies also the wonders of grace and mercy in Christ. For every person who has ever gone through divorce these are medicines that restore the soul. There is forgiveness for every sin, there is restoration and renewal in Christ for every sinner. The principle here is to remain in the state in which you are called. If remarried then know there is life in this relationship. If the divorce occurred through wrong and sinful actions then confess those and know there is forgiveness and restoration, remain now in this state. If the divorce occurred as the consequence of desertion of an unbeliever, know there is now also the call to remain in the state you are now called in. That means releasing the past, releasing the guilt and shame than can cling to you like sludge on the bow of a ship designed for the open sea. Let it fall away into the forgiveness of Christ, this day you are called to follow Him. Know the design and by it know the Designer!