Marriage

Marriage is important to God

Knowing marriage’s importance in God’s eyes and its linkage with sexuality and the headship of the husband helps us see why Satan and the lost so passionately campaign against the sanctity of marriage, the husband’s authority, and sexual purity. By denying the truth about these things they’re able to mount a multifaceted attack on the core building block of society according to God’s design, the family. One of Satan’s goals is to grow his kingdom by deconstructing marriage and family.

By denigrating marriage, including redefining it to include same sex couples, Satan sows disdain for God’s loving provision of marriage as a blessing, an enablement for service, and a reflection of the Trinity and Christ’s love for the church. By distorting and conflating the concepts of equality and the headship of the husband, Satan sows discord between men and women both within marriages and society at large and fosters rejection of God’s authority. By promoting sexual immorality he sows disdain for the sanctity of the marriage bed and for mankind as the image of God.

Satan’s opportunities to promote lies in his attack against Biblical manhood and womanhood are many and he eagerly pursues them by advancing false moral laws along multiple fronts. He can do this because false moral laws are irrational, incoherent, and often self-contradictory. Though there’s only God’s one truth, there can be many lies. And though God has made His laws regarding manhood and womanhood clear, Satan is able to sow confusion, even among Christians.

But we needn’t be confused. Since all false moral laws are slavishly based on a rejection or distortion of God’s law they’re easily discerned. We could write them ourselves using God’s laws as the template. Consider marriage:

God says marriage is a sanctified union of a man and woman. Satan says it’s neither sanctified nor only between a man and a woman. Rather, marriage is a social contract between two or more persons of the same or different gender.¹ By this he unlinks marriage from God.

God says the purpose of marriage is to receive his blessings, serve him, reflect the Trinity and reflect the relationship between Christ and the church. Marriage is ultimately for the glory of God. Satan says the purpose of marriage is to reflect a romantic love relationship and obtain societal rights and privileges. He says marriage is ultimately for the pleasure and benefit of people. This further unlinks marriage from God.

God says the most important type of love within marriage is self-sacrificial, each spouse selflessly desiring the best for the other. Satan defines marital love as romantic love, a positive emotional attraction to and physical desire for another. By this Satan promotes individualism, selfishness, and lust over unity, true love, and responsibility.

Jesus (God) said the only possible basis for divorce is sexual immorality (Matt. 19:9);² otherwise it’s to be for life (1 Cor. 7:39).

Satan says there are no restrictions regarding divorce. Once marriage fails to meet the perceived needs of one spouse, romantically or otherwise, it should be dissolved. This too promotes selfishness and individualism. It also denies the importance of marriage, changing it from a sanctified union to a contract of convenience.

God says a man and a woman, complementary but different, become one flesh in marriage. Though valuing men and women equally he declares a division of authority and roles within marriage. He clearly assigns primary authority, the role of leader, to the husband. Otherwise, the differentiation of roles is less clear. In general, based on the punishment God gave in the Garden of Eden, the ideal includes the husband providing for the family and the wife nurturing the children.

One of Satan’s false laws says men and women have different genitalia but are otherwise the same. Woman provides man nothing he couldn’t get from another man, and vice-versa. Accordingly, married persons don’t become one flesh–that’s a bogus concept restrictive to individual autonomy. Rather, spouses retain their individuality and separateness, without qualification.

Likewise, Satan deceptively conflates equal value with equal in all ways and sameness. Based on that lie he declares there’s no differentiation of authority or other roles within marriage. These lies serve the same general purpose as the others–they attempt to un-link marriage from God, devalue marriage, promote selfishness and lust, and sow discord between husbands and wives.