How Marriage Works: Four Supernatural Secrets - Part Two

Matthew 19
1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. 3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” 4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” 7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.” 10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” 11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

INTRODUCTION

Marriage is one of the most profound mysteries created by God as the flow on from creating man and woman in his image.

It was never meant to be a simply tool for recreation, and it wasn’t meant to be a tool for raising kids till they were able to become independent. It had a significance in the plan of God to be a tangible lifestyle reminder of something that was not as easy to see, but was even more exalted: the love God has for his people – or the love of Jesus for the church. Not only so, but marriage was singled out as the one relationship on earth that was going to be described as “two becoming one flesh, so they are no longer two but one” (Matthew 19 quoting Genesis 2:24) We have other examples of unity. There is meant to be unity between believers (Galatians 3:28). That unity was further defined by Jesus by speaking about it in the context of the relationship between the members of the Godhead (John 17:21-23). Jesus even talks about that unity as “I in them and you in me.” The preposition denotes a very strong bond.

But marriage outstrips them all. This relationship to be lived out between a single man and a single woman was to be a reminder and carry something of the flavour of the greater but similar love between Jesus and the church. (Ephesians 5).

Little wonder that Satan wants to tamper with this intention. Since he hates anything that in any way reflects the image and nature of the Divinity, he has attacked marriage from the beginning of time. In our culture that attack is aimed at the core of its foundation – namely the indissolubility of the oneness. In our age when somewhere between 35-40% of marriages dissolve the fidelity of God is being treated as the expendable factor in favour of a hundred different substitutes that are reasoned to have greater value. The disciples recognized this when they said to Jesus that if what he was saying was true, then it was better not to marry rather than risk such a misappropriation of divine grace. It is interesting to notice Jesus’ answer. On yet another occasion he doesn’t answer the question directly. Whenever this happens you know he is wanting to turn their attention away from what they perceive as the issue to what he want to reveal as the issue.

In answer to the question that it was such a profound betrayal of divine grace for the oneness and the fidelity of marriage to be fractured, Jesus referred to the fact that there are three kinds of people who will not be in a position to understand about marriage oneness:

The first is the person who were created to live as an unmarried person. There are people for whom marriage would be like owning two left shoes. If you only have one left foot you have no need for two left shoes. If you are an exception to the general rule (“it is not good for a man to be alone” Gen. 2) then you will never be completed by marriage in the way that other people are completed by marriage.

The second is the person who is created to be married, but because as a result of human failure: selfishness, sin, deceit, etc. In western society many people will remain want to be married but will fall foul of what I call the Hollywood syndrome. The mystery of marriage has been so strongly tied to sexual attraction and the idea of love has been so tragically tied to self gratification that men who should consider marriage will wait for “the perfect girl” to appear. Girls, likewise will fall foul of the same deception and look past possible relationships for the man created by Mills and Boon and the like. As a result of cultural values that are created from human rebellion and sin many will be made eunuchs.

The third is the person who chooses celibacy in order to serve God. They are built for marriage, but they have placed that desire below their desire to serve the living God.

Jesus uses an interesting word as he describes the three kinds of people who will not be able to accept the teaching about indissoluble oneness. He uses a word that basically talks about how much space there is somewhere.[1] These people will never have room in their life to receive this revelation. In citing three groups of people who will never marry he is asserting that the revelation is available to those who do get married.

This is backed up in the final statement when Jesus says: “The one who CAN accept it SHOULD accept it.” The problem in our day is that there are thousands of people who can accept indissoluble oneness but choose not to. There is a very clear testimony to this because just about everyone who got married did no on the basis of the fact that they wanted a relationship that involved indissoluble oneness. They generally stood there and said those very words in the marriage service: “…until we are parted by death.” The reason they said them was because in their minds they were making a commitment for life. I know there are all kinds of ungodly substitutes among the clever people of our day who are all too keen to scoff at their Creator. This is a sign of decay, not a giant step forward. Despite the adversarial sector, ordinary people still have a view that a marriage commitment is an indissoluble oneness relationship. Jesus emphasizes that the only ones who have no experience of that revelation are the people who have not experienced marriage.

If marriage is this mysterious invention of the Creator to accompany the fact that he has made two very different people then we need to embrace its mystery on the basis of divine revelation.

When you next read a statistic that says there is as much divorce in the church as there is in the community please fall on your knees and weep before God for the fact that Christian people have taken up the revelation about forgiveness and the gift of eternal life on the basis of the fact that God has said it, but they have failed to embrace the same supernatural wisdom when it comes to managing their marriage – both before they get married and after they have been married.
The before problem is that Christian people will fail to heed the idea that God wants to create an indissoluble oneness relationship if they proceed. The mistake will be because they approach the covenant of marriage as if it were an episode of “Perfect Match” or “Batchelor.” They approach marriage from the point of view of being desperate and dateless. They confuse core commitment with emotional chemistry (its not that chemistry is wrong, its just that it will not provide all the information needed to build a relationship based on commitment. It is commitment that makes a relationship capable of indissoluble oneness. The chemistry is a divine bonus. It is the icing, not the cake. What stimulate commitment is not the same stuff that stimulates sexual attraction and the rest of the chemical reactions. It is much easier to generate chemistry in a climate of commitment than it is to generate commitment in a climate of chemistry.
The after problem is that Christian people who have access to revelation will often set goals based on the values that come from a sinful, sex saturated society - or they will respond on the basis of past experiences that have no inherent claim on the present relationship. They will also often seek to resolve issues, not by throwing themselves before God to understand how what he has said should be applied and would bring both resolution and redemption, but they default to magazine values and a myriad of humanly generated ideas. Often those ideas will represent values that are opposed to Holy Spirit anointing and power rather than opening themselves up to it. In other words, they will marry under the canopy of revelation and dissolve under the canopy of human ideas.

DIVINE MYSTERY THREE:
DISCOVERING SUPERNATURAL ONENESS

“and the two will become one flesh’ ? So they are no longer two, but one.”


This is a strange use of language. How would you describe a very close relationship between a man and a woman. You might say, “We are very close.” Sometimes people refer to the fact that in a close relationship people spend a lot of time together and we would say, “they are inseparable.” However you describe it, you wouldn’t ordinarily speak about two different human bodies becoming one human body.

We need to take account of what the New Testament says when it describes sexual immorality by saying that when a person has sexual intercourse with a prostitute he becomes “one with her in body.” (1 Corinthians 6:16). There is no doubting that the experience of intercourse symbolizes the oneness, but it is surely not the case that this is ALL it is speaking about. This would be most obvious to me from the text of Genesis 2:

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24).

If all that is being spoken about is the experience of sexual intercourse, that verse would be saying:

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will have sexual intercourse together.”

This matter is further argued by Jesus in the passage from Matthew we are looking at today when Jesus emphasizes the indissoluble oneness idea by adding, “so they are no longer two but one.” If all it was referring to was sexual intercourse, Jesus would have just as easily said, “So they are no longer two people who don’t have sexual intercourse, they are joined by sexual intercourse.”

I want to suggest that the correct way to understand this is to see how the Bible often uses forms of hyperbole to describe things that are patently indescribable. In the same way that we use poetry and music and art to describe reality that is beyond linguistic description. Most forms of the arts create meaning through the use of absurd image. If you want a common man’s example of this look at the never ending list of superheroes from James Bond to Indiana Jones to Luke Skywalker. These characters are deliberately enlarged to represent something that people dream about. They are examples of hyperbole. Does anyone think there are people who can do what James Bond does or what Zorro does. Not in any generation anywhere. It is an example of people extending their finite experience into an infinite one. It is actually part of the God-awareness created in us.

The difference between George Lucas and the Bible is as different as the idea of hyperbole is the same. With Biblical poetry or hyperbole God is wanting us to extend our expectation beyond what is natural to humans into what is made possible by the supernatural working of the Spirit of God. This is the nature of the oneness described in Genesis 2 and here referred to by Jesus in Matthew 19. It is a beyond what is ordinarily possible oneness. I say oneness and not unity because unity describes two separate people working together. The oneness of marriage is two separate people experiencing more than a close working partnership and more than something that is entered into for mutual benefit. It is the formation of a new kind of being. That entity is called Christian marriage.

Let me see if I can describe this oneness in more helpful detail. I think this is the greatest challenge for Christian marriage. It is also the key to warding off the danger of indissoluble oneness becoming a dissoluble disaster.



THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH


This is supernatural - and is designed for every married couple
it is beyond human ability oneness
it is a work of God
it is a mystery to be discovered, not a program to be implemented
it is only embraced the way every other work of grace from heaven is embraced


It is like becoming one person in a way that increases the potential of each individual; it has nothing to do with whether we are together all the time or whether we do everything together and it must never be mistaken for a form of co-dependence or possessiveness
Oneness without that liberates, rather than oppresses
Oneness that enables not controls destiny
Oneness that generates security through trust


It is an oneness with a sense of equality that needs to be honoured, cherished and served
It is not a question of personality based dominance
It has nothing to do with headship and submission: Headship that makes one person’s opinions or preferences dominant is not headship. Submission that makes one person’s feelings and preferences less important is not submission.


It is a process, not an event.


It is permanent. You can learn to live without the other person, but you can never recover from the impact of this amazing indissoluble oneness




The supernatural indissoluble oneness is a process or goal to work toward, not something that suddenly appears. It needs to be committed to as a process. When challenges come they need to be measured by the way they either contribute to, or detract from the God ordained process of two people becoming one flesh Here are some questions that a married couple could ask themselves as they monitor their journey to this destination:

1. Do we have the sense that as the months and years of our marriage pass by, that we are aware of a greater sense of oneness?
2. What are we doing as a couple to exercise faith in the working of God’s grace so that He will produce that oneness in us ?
3. Is our oneness becoming more an more a think that we cannot think of dissolving?
4. Do we have a spiritual life as a couple that would qualify for the grace of God to flow into our marriage and produce this oneness?
5. Do we each have a growing commitment to understanding the other so that we can contribute to the fulfillment of their individual destiny?
6. Is there a growing sense of equality in our relationship rather than competitiveness or dominance (personality based or politically based)?




DIVINE MYSTERY NUMBER FOUR:
DISCOVERING SUPERNATURAL JOINING

“what God has joined together, let man not separate”


The form of this word is only used with reference to something God did when a person becomes married. It is the act of being “God joined.” Its derivative is worth looking at because it comes directly from the Biblical picture of the yoke. Here are the ways in which this word is used in the New Testament. The picture is directly parallel with the work God is committed to and what God has done.


1. Mt 11:29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
2. Mt 11:30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
3. Lk 14:19 “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’
4. Ac 15:10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?

5. Gal 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
6. 1Ti 6:1 All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered.



Co-habitation is not co-mittment
Christian marriage is the work of an act of God. God does something when people become married. There is a question to be begged by Jesus words that people from our culture are always keen to ask. In a society where a lot of people live in the same house in a relationship that looks like a marriage but where there has been a decision to co-habit but not co-mittment. If we need to ask the question whether a commitment made between two people without a ceremony is a marriage commitment, the answer can only be “I don’t know.” The issue for me always is: ‘Why would you want to leave the relationship in doubt when you can know for sure that God is going to join you together when you stand before him to exercise faith for a lifetime.

Faith for a lifetime
This is what the wedding ceremony is all about. It is the enacting of a covenant. The Bible clearly places marriage as the tangible human relationship that represents the commitment and love God has always had for his people. (Ephesians 5). For that reason it is a covenant ceremony that God has enacted and having enacted that ceremony, he sticks to this covenant without fail:

If we died with him
We will also live with him
If we endure
We will also reign with him
If we disown him
He will also disown us
If we are faithless
He remains faithful
For he cannot deny himself 2 Timothy 2:11-13



The covenant act of God was not something done between consenting adults in private. It was foreshadowed before the nations of the ancient world as God led a people out from under the tyranny of slavery in Egypt. Part of that act was the shedding of innocent blood throughout the households of God’s people. They went and killed a little innocent lamb and sprinkled blood on the doorposts of their house. It was no small thing that when death passed through Egypt that night their firstborn sons were spared. It was not small thing that they left Egypt with its spoils by the intervention of the God of heaven and earth. It was not by accident that they crossed the Sea and it was not be accident that they stood before a mountain filled with fire and smoke and God came down and began to dwell in their midst.

Then for fourteen hundred years the faithfulness of God put up with every form of rebellion, and petulance and compromise among he people that you could imagine. He watched as people built asherah poles and adopted every foul practice of the people who’s land they were supposed to conquer. He watched as they formed alliances with the kings of nations. He watched as the temple was at times shut down. He watched these people stone the messengers of his love and he watched Nebuchadnezzar pull every stone in the city and the temple from its place and set fire to the mountains of rubble they created. He watched as less than five percent of the people who had initially refused to sing the songs of Zion because of the profession of their love for it, return and when they returned they mucked around building homes for themselves rather than the temple of the Lord.

That was only the foreshadowing.

Then on a day in Jerusalem the sinless One stood before a kangaroo court and was belted and whipped within a human inch of his life, before being taken to a cross. The torture, while horrendous was merely a symbol of the greater burden he would bear as he carried your rubbish and mine to the cross and then into the grave.

This is the covenant act of a covenant keeping God. Its not a little self obsessed moment of sentimentality between two people whose chemical juices have been stirred by one another.

And marriage is the relationship that God has chosen to put his seal upon. The God of heaven has determined to do something very special. You might have thought that it was a great family gathering. You might have been so nervous that you felt like fainting. You might have been almost overwhelmed by the enormous measure of detailed organization.

But God wasn’t looking forward to that as much as he was wanting to bring a supernatural gift to the celebration: God joining ! He was going to join you together in a bond that was created and sealed in heaven before it was represented on the earth.


A seal for a lifetime
This bond is like salvation itself. When we put our trust in Jesus and offer our lives to him God also joins us to something. He joins us to himself forever. We were formerly alienated from him. We were like the orphans from the streets of Calcutta. Our salvation is like the visit of a loving benefactor who comes to the streets and says to all the children there, “Who would like to become my children and come to my house, eat my food, enter into my care for as long as they live?” Can you imagine what would follow? So God invites us on the basis of Calvary love to become a member of his household. We are joined. We become children born not of a human will, born not by any act of human decision but we are born again.

When a man and a women stand together in a church or in some place where they seek the favour of God. God answers. Something happens in that ceremony. God shows up. God joins them….not because they have a certificate published by the Australian Government, not because their ceremony is beautiful, but because God decides to do something in response to their faith. If you seek the blessing of God, you receive the blessing of God….whether you are born again at the time or not, whether you understand everything you are doing or not. God responds to your faith.

God joins you together with a seal that is designed only to be broken by the death of one or the other.

Like the covenant of salvation. God will never break that covenant. Even if we are unfaithful he will remain faithful. The covenant can only be broken if one or the other choose to disown God and separate themselves. That’s why its essential to see what is happening with a decision to separate a marriage. We are tampering with a work in progress of the God of heaven and earth. He is committed to the relationship. He is committed to overcoming the barriers if we will only seek his grace. He has joined us. He wants to make us one. He wants to help us discover our unique destiny. He wants to see both husband and wife experiencing the redemptive program that uniquely happens through marriage.

He can speak but we can refuse to listen
He can provide for us but we can refuse to access his provision.
He can have grace for us to receive help and we can ignore his offer
He can join us together and we can tear oneness apart.

God hates divorce. There is no relationship he cannot restore. There is no problem he cannot overcome. There is no act that cannot be forgiven and healed from. There is no barrier that cannot be broken down. God never institutes divorce proceedings. You will not find him rejoicing after the decision of a human court to agree.

God can forgive people for destroying a marriage in the same way as he can forgive anyone for anything.
God can heal.
God can give another chance, and another.

It’s what he wants that really matters. I hate it when he wants to do something wonderful and we fail to grasp it.

We need to take hold of the divine mystery of marriage.


1. MALE AND FEMALE
The mystery of a man and a women being so different yet belonging together

2. LEAVING AND CLEAVING
The mystery of a single destiny involving two different people

3. INDISSOLUBLE ONENESS
The mystery of a supernatural oneness that gives more of everything that matters

4. GOD JOINED
The mystery of God’s covenant act of joining for life.
[1] The word in Greek is “choreo” and the other places where it is used are cited here.

Mt 15:17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body?
Mk 2:2 So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them.
Jn 2:6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.
Jn 8:37 I know you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word.
Jn 21:25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
2Co 7:2 Make room for us in your hearts. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have exploited no one.
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.