Chiming in on the Same-Sex Marriage Debate
Seems like there are a lot of professing Christians who have now moved to a position of support, regarding same-sex marriage. We expect it out of Hollywood and pop-culture in general. We shouldn’t be surprised that politicians are following the cultural tide. But we should be appalled that those who profess the name of Christ would stand on those things that reject the Word of God as our authority. It is scary to see and hear the number of young Christians who are allowing the culture, rather than the scripture, to shape their beliefs, opinions, and overall worldview. People often misuse and misinterpret a verse or passage of scripture to support an opposing view, but the Word of God is clear on this. There is a constant, overarching theme in scripture when it comes to marriage and what God intends it to be. I want to point out three things that God intends marriage to produce, and provide, for this world. So-called same-sex marriage fails at all three points.
Marriage is for Making Babies
The first one is simple and obvious. Even though we live in a society in which 30 million children live without both parents at home, we know that God intends for Godly marriages to produce Godly legacies. This requires that the most intimate physical act between two people be expressed and enjoyed in such a way that God is glorified. One of the earliest mandates God gave humanity was to reproduce it’s own kind. In Genesis 1:28, God tells man to "be fruitful and multiply." God then brings the first man the first bride and performs the first marriage. It is a biblical marriage, and it involves a man and a woman. It takes a man and a woman to make a baby. Two men cannot do it. Two women cannot do it. God designed it that way. He reiterates this mandate to Noah when the earth is in need of repopulation following the flood.
Marriage is for Making Us Holy (sanctification)
Within the context of a marriage, we are called to serve one another in the progressive work of the Holy Spirit in making us more like Christ. This requires a relationship between two people that is, what we will call, "complementarian." To make it simple, a husband and wife are to serve one another in such a way that they are growing in Christ. My highest priority in marriage is the spiritual growth and discipleship of my wife, Little. Through this, our kids will grow in their own faith. We are in an amazing position to reflect the Trinitarian love of God.
If marriage is the most intimate of relationships, then even our sexuality is to serve holiness. By God’s grace, he even made sex and sexuality to be very gratifying and pleasurable, but not without design. The goal of it all is to bring holiness, and that requires complimentarianism. Paul says in Ephesians 5:26 that I am laboring for my wife’s sanctification. This is the high calling of being a man, a husband, in marriage.
Marriage Shows us the Relationship of Christ and His Bride, the Church
The church is not the same as Christ, the head of the church. Paul tells the Ephesians that Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves the church. This is a self-sacrificial love. Even within the biblical idea of submission, we have the church submitting to Christ and Christ submitting to the father. The Son is, no doubt, equal to the Father, and that is the picture wives are given of submission. The Son, however, shows us how to serve our wives, by laying down his own life, and even his own position, to be murdered for his bride and for her salvation.
Same-sex marriage cannot duplicate any of this. Marriage, then, is a biblical mandate. Anything seen by God as a mandate is not negotiable. The Corinthian church gives us clear examples of what happens when a church is shaped by the culture. God does not negotiate or compromise when it comes to his character and our holiness. Marriage is so woven into the story of redemption that it is impossible to sever the two. On a more sobering note, perhaps the reason so many “church kids” are climbing on board the same-sex marriage bandwagon, is because they have never seen a heterosexual marriage cover these three biblical realities. We should be convicted and convinced of the high call of marriage, and we should labor to that end in our own marriages, and pray toward that end in our singleness.
The church is still the bride of Christ, and nothing can legislate away that reality.