In Defense of Marriage

So, what did you come up with? Is marriage defensible, or are we left with "committed, healty relationships"? Are you able to provide reasons to Christian young people who are buying the line of society today that "Marriage is simply a committed relationship and doesn't need a ceremony, public statement, or civil agreement"?

No one offered their suggestions, so here's what I came up with. Understand, I'm speaking from a Christian perspective to Christians. I expect non-Christians to be non-Christians and don't hold them to a biblical standard. They are "blinded by the god of this world". Why would I expect them to see? So, to Christians ...

The first definition of marriage comes from Genesis. "A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Gen. 2:24). Leave and cleave ... and two become one. Jesus expanded on this very idea, kind of like a commentary from God on what He wrote. "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 they shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matt. 19:4-6). So this union is performed by God and is not meant to be separated. This, then, is a permanent relationship. He went on to say, "Whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery" (Matt. 19:9). Yes, that's pretty permanent. This is not a lightweight, "we're in love", private-promise event.

Further, all biblical marriages are public. There are no "private commitments". If we are Christians who truly believe that the Bible has authority and is the source of matters of faith and practice, then the universal example of biblical marriage is public, not private commitment, and we dare not violate that position.

In Rom. 13, Paul makes this "suggestion": "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment (Rom. 13:1-2). Since we are to obey the commands of our government, what does the government say is "marriage"? Marriage, in our society as in almost every society, is the legal union of a man and a woman. Therefore, for the government to recognize a marriage, it must be performed within the legal process. Without this legal process, the connection between people may be recognized, but not as marriage.

Now turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 13. I'll wait. Hebrews is near the end of the New Testament, right after the little book of Philemon and right before James. Is everyone there? Okay. The author of Hebrews says, "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous" (Heb. 13:4). Now, we've already determined that God has commanded us to obey the governing authorities, and we've seen that the governing authorities define marriage as a legal union. So this passage tells us to hold these unions in honor. Further, it says that sex outside of these legal unions ("fornication" and "adultery") are judged by God. Clearly that means they are wrong.

Thus far, then, we have the biblical arguments. Scripture defines marriage as, among other things, a permanent relationship performed by God, not to be broken. No biblical marriages are private commitments. Instead, we find that we are to obey the government which has defined marriage as a legal process and we are to hold marriage in honor. Sex performed outside of the confines of this legally recognized relationship is sin. There is one other aspect that ought to be considered. From a practical perspective, if marriage isn't recognized by governmental authority, then marital rights are not offered. There is no legal familial relationship. There is, in fact, no recognized family here. Varying places have varying rules on "domestic partnerships", so perhaps your difficulties will be more or less, depending on your location, but no such problems exist for the legally married. A married couple is universally recognized as a family, with all the inherent rights thereof.

There is one other side to consider. The question could be asked from the negative. Why not get married? I suppose there could possibly be reasons I haven't considered, but all of the ones I've seen or heard have all been, ultimately, from a refusal to "be one", to give up self, to truly commit. In other words (and this will sound quite silly when I say it), the reasons people give not to marry are reasons not to marry. In other words, they are reasons for people not to be living together, reasons not to be committed to each other, reasons not to even have a sham marriage they are trying to defend as real "without the paper".

There are more reasons, some practical, some biblical, some common sense. I think it is unavoidable that the Bible is in favor of marriage as a publicly-stated commitment. God initiated marriage. Jesus blessed marriage by performing His first miracle at one (John 2:1-11). On the other hand, there are no real good reasons not to marry if you are claiming to be committed. The world may play its games with words, but we Christians ought to be lights shining on a hill. Let's not dim those lights by joining the world in this kind of obvious immorality.