God Made Marriage Good, Part 3 | What Makes Marriage So Good

Genesis 1-2

Let’s turn to Genesis chapter 1, that is a call to build according to God’s design. So, we’re going to use this building metaphor to build our outline, and we’ll just hit some of the highlights as we go through Genesis 1 and 2, and we’re just, we’re just wanting to recognize here that God made marriage good. When we build our homes, when we build our marriages according to God’s design. We set the foundation according to design. Set the foundation according to design. The foundation for our marriages, building our marriages, is God’s directive in intention for marriage. Which you can see in Genesis 1:26 to 28.

Genesis 1:26, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ And so God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female, he created them. And then God blessed them. And he said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

 So first we see from that directive, we see God created man and woman to glorify God. Created man and woman to glorify God, united them in marriage to glorify God. So, we can safely say the chief end of marriage is to glorify God. Say the same thing in the Westminster Confession, the chief end of man, what is man’s Chief end? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. We can say the same thing about marriage. Chief end of marriage is to glorify God.

Here at the beginning, God is revealing our teleology. Teleology is a fancy word for what’s the purpose for which it was created. God reveals the purpose for which we are, in which a marriage is created. The marital union of two sexually complementary divine image bearers is to bring glory and honor to God, and they do that by being who they are ontologically and then acting out according to their biological and relational design.

They live out their purpose. They live out their purpose, aimed at that chief end to glorify God. Now we’re familiar with the attributes of the essence of what it means to be humans created in God’s image; we all have a mind, will, affections. We’re able to reason and think, we can embrace our thoughts and affections. We’re able to plan according to the purpose of our will. We’re able to execute on our will within the bounds of our own power.

We have the capacity as human beings, male and female, for creativity, for love and loving, for the ability and desire to relate with and commune with God and to communion with one another. That’s all true of us. That’s all predicated on the fact that we’re created in God’s image. John Murray says, “Man was created in the image of God, a self-conscious, free, responsible religious agent. Such identity implies an inherent native, inalienable obligation to love and serve God with all the heart, soul, strength, and mind. This God could not but demand and man could not but owe.” End quote.

In other words, we have the freedom to choose according to our nature. We are fully free as human beings. We have freedom to choose according to our nature. Just as God has the freedom to choose according to his nature. That’s part of being created in his image. And so, like God, our righteous choice is the blessed duty to live for the glory of God. We follow his pattern.

Second, according to that section we just read, God created man and woman uniting them in marriage to represent God, to glorify God first and now to represent God. So, we could say the chief occupation of marriage is to represent God. That’s the nature of the work that we’re designed by God to do. Again, verse 26, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over all the,” creatures.

As God exercises his dominion and sovereignty over us as he uses his superior power, intellect, and authority for the good of those who are inferior, his creatures. We do the same thing with whatever is entrusted to our care. We’ve been granted a stewardship of creation, which were to use to show God’s care in accordance with his grace. We use our superior powers, gifts, intellects to use the authority God delegated to us by God for the good of others.

That practice of using great power, intellect, will, that practice starts in marriage in that intimacy of two marriage partners extends out from the marriage, man and wife to the children, to the family and from the family it extends outward from there to other human beings and it moves outward from there into the entire creation. So first, we’re created to glorify God. Second, we’re created to represent God. Third, God created man and woman united them in marriage to perpetuate the image of God.

This is one of the greatest joys of marriage, isn’t it? To perpetuate God’s image in our children. We’ll expand on this in a moment, but the first revelation of a sexual union in marriage is Genesis 1:28. The chief end for sexual union is procreation, to be fruitful, to be happy, in the fruitfulness, to multiply, to be joyful in that multiplication.

I remember counseling a couple. Another church, another time, their professing Christians, both of them, but I was so dismayed to discover that the man was denying his wife’s desire to have children. He had professional goals. He had a lifestyle that he wanted to maintain, activities he wanted to be involved with and having children was not any desire of his. With galling truth, is that he believed it was wrong for me or anybody to press his conscience about this, about having kids, about giving himself to his wife.

His wife longed for children but without a cooperating attitude in her husband she’s not going to have any babies. It’s tragic. Sad. Why would anybody do that? The procreative end of the sexual union points to this beautiful codependency between the man and the woman. It can’t be fulfilled apart from that other marriage partner. The co-image bearer equal and yet different, gloriously equal, gloriously different.

Procreation mandate shows a glorious complementarity in a mutual dependency. Together, the man and his wife, they participate together in perpetuating and extending the image of God in and through their offspring. More image bearers. More glory to God in spreading his image throughout the Earth. That’s the idea. So, we start building our house by digging down, setting that foundation deep according to God’s design.

It’s a very simple design. The foundation is understanding the end for which we’re created, the purpose and end for which marriage exists, the teleology. The chief end of man is to glorify God and the chief end of marriage is to glorify God. So, marriage is about representing God on Earth, and that sexual union is for perpetuating and extending the image of God.

So, with that as a foundation for marriage, we build the marriage house also according to God’s design. So secondly, we not only set the foundation according to God’s design, we build the house according to God’s design. Number two, build the house according to God’s design.

This is a structure for building our marriage is what we can refer to as God’s formative organization of marriage. His formative organization of marriage. This is the way God organized the marriage with each partner having a unique and specific role. Complementing one another, not overstepping, but actually being true complements to one another.

This is what sets the pattern for forming each individual according to God’s design for him as a male person, according to God’s design for her as a female person. This provides the formation for the offspring of that male female union, and by extension for the whole of society as well. Everybody knows what a male is to be, and everybody knows what a female is to be because they watch it patterned before them in marriage. In Genesis 2, we see two basic patterns of formative organization, patterns of authority and patterns of intimacy. Practicing these patterns is what builds the marriage for healthy formation, for maturity, for fruitfulness, and increasing joy.

So first, let’s talk about the pattern of authority. It’s evident in how God created Adam and then introduced him into the world. Paul notices this in 1 Timothy chapter 2 when he forbids women to be elders and teachers in the church. He says in 1 Timothy 2:12 and following “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man; rather, she used to remain quiet.” He’s talking about the local church and he says “for” here’s the reason is because, “Adam was formed first,” and, “then Eve.”

Paul sees a pattern in how God created Adam, creating him first and then creating Eve. Let’s look at this pattern in Genesis chapter 2, starting in verse 5. We see that God created Adam first. There’s a reason for this.

“When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up-for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land was watering the whole face of the ground-then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

We don’t have any more detail than that, so we’ll resist speculation, but the language pictures God getting down into the dirt like a potter who forms the clay using his hands, using his skill, directed by his will and his creativity, and for his own pleasure, for his own joy God forms this dirt into a man. The language is picturing God as a, almost like an artist, like the potter forming the clay.

There’s, there’s this language pictures tenderness, doesn’t it? The lips breathing into this lifeless form the, the breath of life. There’s a creativity, there’s a design, there’s a, there’s an intimacy implied there, a tenderness. When you come to verse 22, you can see in chapter 2, that God performed the first surgery. He takes from the already formed man from the dirt to make or fashion the woman from Adam’s rib.

It’s not worse or better, but it’s clearly different. He doesn’t form her from the dust of the ground that’s already been done. He forms her and fashions her out of already created material, Adam. Key point here is being that Adam was created earlier than Eve. He’s about to do a lot of learning apart from his future wife Eve being there.

Notice number two, that God showed Adam the environment first. Verses 8 to 14, notice there, “The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the site and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Stop there, but you see in verses 10 to 14, God showed Adam the water source of the garden, gives him a geography lesson, he tells him about the resources that are contained in the land. There’s a land there to explore, there discoveries to be made, there minerals to mine out of the earth, resources to develop, put into efficient use. And by all that discovery and mining and bringing to the surface, there’s also assumed here God is showing Adam or pointing to a pattern of studying the natural world.

Understanding its elements, understanding its gifts, categorizing them, putting them, doing science, you could say. Gathering facts from nature, organizing, systematizing and this really sets the pattern for the supernatural world as well. Studying the supernatural world. What we call doing theology. Adam is receiving the tools here for study, for learning. Where’s Eve? Not there yet. She’s unaware of all this. She’s waiting to exist. She’s tucked there into Adam side still. This is how God designed it.

Number three, God gave Adam work assignments first. So, we see God created Adam first, he showed him his environment first and then he gave Adam the work assignments first. Verse 15 “the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” This gives Adam a place to start. It shows him how to take up that creation mandate, how it is he’s going to exercise the dominion of verse 26 chapter 1, verse 28 chapter 1.

Again, Eve isn’t there to hear this. Next, we see number four that God gave Adam the command about the trees first, before Eve existed. Verses 16 and 17, “The Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Particularly vital piece of information, wouldn’t you say? Everything is good, everything is yummy, everything is tasty, everything is good for the diet, no problems, a but, but, but but one. It’s gonna kill ya. You gotta know that. Don’t pick that fruit. Now we see an element of danger in this perfect world. All that is in the world is not harmless, but there is a danger. There is a potential for harm.

Here we begin to see the reason that Adam is created first. The reason he’s first exposed, first warned. Adam is not only to be the head of his wife, the authority over his wife. He is to be the representative head of the entire human race. Adam is to use his priority of order and position, authority and strength for the purpose of teaching his wife and his teaching is to be driven by loving concern. A concern for her safety, a concern for her thriving, a concern for her flourishing. Here’s a beautiful picture of the kind of discipleship that God provides for Adam, as God has done the same for him. God teaches him, warns him, so he’s safe, thriving, and flourishing and Adam is to take that pattern now apply it to his wife as well.

Next we see, number five, God created Eve to help Adam. Verse 18, “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make for him a helper fit for him.’” This not only reveals the woman’s position and role, but it also reveals her incredible usefulness. Men take note, your wife is a good and perfect gift for you. Specifically tailored for you. She is useful, helpful, wise. She’s shaped and formed for you. Don’t treat her with anything other than the highest regard and honor. She’s God’s perfect gift to Adam. Eve is created for him. Created as a suitable complementary partner in the work that they’re assigned to do.

And now with all the background and intention revealed in creating and teaching Adam, we come to the matter of delegated authority. God’s delegated authority to Adam and tells him to put it to use. He gave, number six, gave, God gave Adam the authority of naming his fellow creatures and he does this again without Eve present. Verses 19 and 20, “Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock, the birds, the heavens, to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.”

Among all the animals nothing suitable for him. Among all the creatures that God made according to his glorious creativity and design and variation, not one of them was suitable for him, not one of them complemented him, not one of them could correspond and help him do what he’s assigned to do. So, after God created Eve, we can see that Adam used his authority again, for her sake, to serve her the blessed privilege of naming her as well. Verse 23 “She shall be called woman.”

Adam’s authority is a delegated authority, but is a very real authority. In God’s omniscience. God obviously knew what Adam would name each animal. Nothing surprised him. Nothing happened outside of God’s sovereign decree, but Adam is truly exercising his will. He’s making choices according to his nature. With his intellect, a pre fall intellect, creativity fully engaged, and so whatever name Adam gave, it stuck. That was its name.

This isn’t playtime or make believe it’s actual real authority. Again, the exercise of authority comes after Adam learned from God, not before. He had to learn how his authority’s to be used. So, he’s exposed to the reality of the world. He learns about all the opportunities in the world God designed and created. He learns of a potential danger, a very significant danger, death.

He receives his work assignment. He knows what he’s supposed to do, he knows who, how he’s supposed to exercise that dominion, how he’s supposed to do it in love and care and affection. And after receiving this fundamental lesson about how to use authority, Adam exercised his authority. In the spirit that God intended. As delegated for loving and serving others, and in the first instance in loving and serving his own wife.

All of this reveals the fundamental pattern of authority that God provided in the structure for the house, in the structure for marriage. God created humanity as a distinct gender binary, “male and female he created them” and each one of them created in his image, each one equal before God, and yet distinct by God’s design. Biology reveals ontology, and it’s a distinction that God created for our good.

Everything else that’s being imagined today, LGBTQ plus plus plus plus, Q, R, S, T whatever, it’s just foolish fantasy, isn’t it? It’s just playing make believe from start to finish; it’s total imagination. But really, it’s a terrifying delusion that people are caught up in and it’s a total nightmare, total nightmare. In the relationship of the male female binary in marriage, male female, God established Adam’s role as the authority and Eve’s role as the helpmeet. And God assigned Adam the role of loving head, loving authority over his wife.

He’s there to exercise a beneficent authority that God modeled for him first. He’s to pass that on to her. God assigned Eve the role of a suitable helper, a submissive partner, a wise counselor. This is no oppressor oppressed arrangement. This is not the powerful victimizing the powerless. God designed this institution for our good, for our blessing, and to say anything otherwise about what God designed, created, instituted, is a satanic lie.

It’s intended to turn men against women and women against men. It’s there to disrupt the harmony and destroy the unity and shred civilization, starting in the home. As Eve’s leader, Adam is her authority, he’s a knowledgeable guide, he’s a competent teacher and all of his ministry to her is motivated by a self-sacrificial love. As Adam’s helpmeet, Eve is the follower, she’s the capable helper. She loves her husband who teaches her things.

She’s wed together in her heart with him and he with her. She enables his work, her act of submission, wise followership, helps the two of them together to fulfill that creation mandate, to exercise dominion. That’s the pattern of authority that reveals God’s formative organization of marriage. Embracing, practicing, maturing in these complementary roles has a formative power on each of us as individuals, doesn’t it?

The institution itself is formed and shaped by our learning this. It’s protected, it’s guarded, and it’s for all of our posterity as well, all of our children learn from watching us. Well, after setting the foundation, building the house, there’s one more point in the outline that we’ll get to next time to talk about. How do we enjoy the house? Talk about that.

Let’s pray, our father we thank you so much for your wisdom, goodness, all expressed in your perfect design. How you’ve created things, how you’ve created us. We thank you so much for your loving kindness and your tender-hearted care in providing for us and even in protecting us. Giving Adam that warning about that one tree of which he must not eat. But that’s in the context of a wide variety and a plentiful bounty of goodness to enjoy in all the trees of the garden.

We thank you so much father for what’s revealed. Just the brief things we could touch on today in Genesis 1 and 2. We thank you so much for the pattern of authority and instruction. There’s so much for us to put into practice even just from this initial investigation into your word, but we do pray for your help and your grace. As we pursue this in our own marriages and families.

We pray that you would bless us with powerful outpouring of your spirit that we might do the word that you’ve revealed. That we might rejoice in the practice of our marriages, practice of intimacy, practice of loving one another. We ask this for your glory Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, by the power of your Holy Spirit, amen.