This week the United States Senate is scheduled to vote on an amendment known as The Federal Marriage Amendment, which, if passed and ratified, would legally define marriage in the United States as the union of one man and one woman. As citizens of the United States of America , we have the right to communicate our individual convictions to our elected representatives on such issues. The fact that, in God’s providence, we Christians in the United States have the Constitutional right to participate in the political process of civil government makes it all the more incumbent upon us to do so, according to the dictates of individual conscience under Scripture. At the same time, we must always realize that we are facing not merely political opposition in this nation but spiritual opposition which, ultimately, will not be overcome by political means but only through the power of the gospel. We must be Biblically realistic and spiritually wise about the real state of affairs in our culture today. It’s time to wake up, spiritually.

          It is, at least for me, a little bit disorienting to stop and think about the fact that United States Senate is prepared to debate and to decide how marriage will be legally defined in this nation. It seems incredible, on the one hand, and soberingly sad on the other. But, remember, whatever happens with the Federal Marriage Amendment, pass or fail, we and our children are now living, and will live, in a culture of sexual confusion, sexual anarchy, sexual immorality, and political hostility to the Law of God. Imagine --- no, don’t imagine; get a grip! --- the children of this congregation are growing up in a nation in which homosexual behavior is on the fast-track to “normal.” Our children are growing up in a society right on the verge of saying that there is no qualitative difference between homosexual union and heterosexual union. Our children are growing up in a society which is right on the verge of saying that it makes no difference, and it is no big deal, whether a child grows up with a mother and a father, two mothers, or two fathers.

          That ought to be a wake-up call for us all. We’d better have some good answers for our covenant children, because they’re already asking some hard questions. What do we really believe about what it means to be human, created in the image of God, male and female? What do we really believe about sexuality, and why? What will we teach our children? More importantly, what will we model for them? What does it mean to be “a family”? What is marriage, and why is it so important? And how shall we now live --- really live --- in a way that shows what we believe and why?

          Yes, it is true that we have big problems, big moral and spiritual and societal problems, in America today. But before before we get all worked-up, and hot under the collar, and before we start blaming “them,” (whoever they are --- the liberals, secularists, and gay activists), we need to take a deep breath. The political power of homosexual activism is an expression of God’s judgment upon this nation due to the unfaithfulness of His Church in this nation.  We need to look at ourselves, and repent of our own sins. Repentance is not a matter of condemning other people’s sins; repentance is a matter of condemning and putting to death our own sins, and then living in a new and different way by the power of the Holy Spirit in obedience to Jesus Christ, the Lord of all. And repentance means much more than just a mumbling acknowledgment that we are not perfect. Repentance means more than simply regret for what we have done in the past. Repentance, really, means “turning around,” changing direction, that is, changing behavior: putting a stop to something, and starting to do something new. Repentance means asking and answering the question, “How should we now live?”

          So before we go throwing stones in the “culture war,” we need to take a look at ourselves, and repent of our own sins, and change our behavior with regard to our own marriages, our family life, our corporate life as the church, and our personal lives. Because if our lives aren’t any different from the world, if the quality of our marriages and the quality of our family life isn’t any different from that of the pagan society around us, our children will see right through our hypocrisies, plain as day. And that is exactly what the homosexual community is banking on: that the conservative evangelical Christian community can’t walk its talk.

Are you willing to repent, today, of the sin of neglect of time and attention and nurture and care and discipline devoted to your marriage and family? Are you willing to stop the destructive behaviors in your marriage and family relationships: behaviors of laziness, apathy, selfishness, harshness, sarcasm, fault-finding, blaming, abdication of responsibilities, overbearing control or passive neglect and abuse? Are you willing to repent of the sin of chasing trivialities, busy-ness, endless distractions, and spend time building a family that will last for generations? Husbands, are you willing to follow Jesus Christ and lay down your life for your wife, in self-sacrificial love? Wives, are you willing to honor God’s ordering of the marriage covenant, and respect your husbands? Fathers (this applies also to mothers, but it applies especially to fathers in relation to the issue of homosexuality): Fathers, do you understand how much your little boys need you --- your infant sons (you’d better be changing their diapers!), your toddlers, your little grade-school boys? They need to feel you: your hugs, your kisses on their lips, your strength, and your tenderness. They need to smell your skin. They need to gaze in wonder at their own reflection in your adoring eyes. They need to feel your love. They don’t need your money and the toys you can buy for them. They don’t need another video game: they need you. And your daughters need you too, and your daughters need to feel that your presence, your power, and your covenant headship is a presence and power and headship of love and devotion and tenderness and humble self-sacrifice. Are you willing to be there for them before it’s too late? Men of the Church of Jesus Christ: are we ready to repent, change, and walk the talk? If not, the Federal Marriage Amendment won’t help us at all. So, let’s start walking.

          We learn from the Scriptures that the marriage of man and woman is at the very foundation of the Creator’s purpose for this world. Genesis 2 tells us of the marvelous creation of the woman, and of the first wedding. But what we learn first and foremost from the Scriptures is that marriage is God’s idea; or, it is better to say, marriage was “instituted by God,” “ordained by God.” The point is that marriage is not merely a human social construct, a human idea, a human arrangement to be defined or re-defined as we like.

          It is clear from Genesis 1 and 2, and it is clear from Jesus’ teachings, that the Divine intention and the Divine definition of marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman. Therefore the redefinition of marriage to include “homosexual marriage” is an attempt to defy divine fiat, an attempt to redefine what only the Creator has the authority to define. This is not the first time that this has happened in our nation. There was a time when courts declared people of African descent to be less than fully human, in defiance of the Creator. Today, an unborn child does not enjoy the “unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The legality of abortion defies the Creator. So, likewise, the very idea of “homosexual marriage” is itself another expression of fallen humanity’s rebellion against and defiance of the Creator, an attempt to usurp the heavenly throne --- to make marriage “me” centered instead of God-centered. But, of course, “me-centeredness” in marriage, instead of God-centeredness, is nothing new, even among professing Christians. But “me-centeredness” in marriage is always a prescription for miserable marriage or the end of a marriage.

One of the first points which I make in pre-marital counseling is that marriage --- the marriage of the bride and groom to-be --- is first of all for the glory of God. Your marriage is not just about “you,” and your individual happiness or your happiness together as a couple. Your marriage is about God; it is rooted in His plan and His purpose for His glory. So, to the degree that your marriage is “about you,” it is “about you” only in terms of living together, working together, growing together in a way that brings praise and honor and glory to the Creator who brought you together.

          Although Genesis 2 does give us the historic account of the creation of Adam and Eve, it is filled also with spiritual truth which teaches us about the true meaning of marriage. Although the LORD God had personally formed the man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and although the LORD had placed the man in the garden of Eden and given him good work to do, and although the world was a good place filled with good things, nevertheless, the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone.”

          Now, why was it “not good that the man should be alone”? Do you think that it was just for Adam’s sake that God said that? No. It’s much deeper than that. Adam was created in the image of God. But God does not exist alone. God is not a lonely, solitary Being. From all eternity, God has existed in a relationship of mutual love, a communion of love, between the Father and the Son. And the love between the Father and the Son is a love so real, that it has its existence as a living, divine Person, the Holy Spirit. And so we sang this morning: “God in three Persons, blessed Trinity --- a tri-unity, a fellowship of divine love. Don’t worry if this blows your mind: it ought to. No one really understands it. But you can understand this: God has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God exists as a fellowship of love within Himself. God is, by His own, divine nature, a Being of relational love, interpersonal love. He is not a lonely, isolated, solitary Being. Therefore, human beings were created in His image to reflect this character of relational love and communion. The union of husband and wife in body, soul, and spirit is intended by God to reflect the union of love within God’s own divine nature.

Of course, in God’s providence, some people are called to lifelong singleness. That does not mean that they do not reflect the image of God or that they are somehow spiritually inferior: of course not. Who was it that most perfectly reflected the image and glory of God? (Was He married?) So, marriage itself is not essential in terms of living a life of purpose to the glory of God, or in terms of experiencing the loving fellowship of God. But marriage was instituted for humanity in general, so that in the holy bond of marriage, men and women might give holy expression and visible illustration to the invisible reality of the union of love which exists in the fellowship of divine love within the Trinity.

I realize that that’s pretty heavy stuff, but grasp as much of it as you can: it was not good for the man to be alone, because God intended that man live in a union of love which reflects the union of love in the fellowship of the Trinity.

The verses which follow may well contain some divine humor, but they are intended to teach us something very serious. God brought the animals to Adam. You can imagine it:  dog, horse, giraffe, cat, hippopotamus. “But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him.” (There is a point of practical application there upon which I will comment no further).

Adam needed a “helper,” a companion suitable for him. Adam needed a helper-companion who would complement him. This implies a creature --- listen carefully --- a creature different from him. But it also implies a creature like him:  a creature that is different from him, but also like him. God makes the point by first of all bringing to Adam the creatures that are completely different from him, not sharing his likeness. They are not suitable for Adam. “So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman …” (Genesis 2:21 -22).

Note carefully that God did not make Adam another creature exactly like him. He did not make another male human. And here’s the reason why: absolute sameness cannot be joined in oneness, without violating the very nature of the thing itself. This principle is built into the reality of creation, because it reflects the reality of the Trinity: the Father and the Son and the Spirit are “one,” but they are not the “same.” At the level of human experience, for example: You may have tried to hold two magnets together, but learned that you can do so only by over-riding the natural law. And, even though most of you do most things with your right hand, isn’t it a good thing that you don’t have two right hands? If you had two right hands, exactly the same, you could not do this …(putting hands together in clasped union).

And so, God made a creature essentially like Adam, of his substance, equal in terms of being created in the image of God, yet different from Adam … but different not for the sake of distance from Adam, but for the sake of oneness with Adam, for the sake of union with Adam --- a union which, by definition of the Creator’s design, Adam could not have with another male: a union of love which would bring forth life. This is the human reflection of that divine, eternal, transcendent communion of love between the Father and the Son in the bond of the Holy Spirit which brings forth … life.

And so Adam exclaimed, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.”

Listen to Calvin’s commentary on this passage:       

Adam was taught to recognize himself in his wife, as in a mirror; and Eve, in her turn, to submit herself willingly to her husband, as being taken out of him.

…something was taken from Adam, in order that he might embrace, with greater benevolence, a part of himself. He lost, therefore, one of his ribs; but instead of it, a far richer reward was granted him, since he obtained a faithful associate of life; for he now saw himself, who had before been imperfect, rendered complete in his wife.[i]

And really, this how every husband ought to view his wife --- as a part of himself, given back to him by the hand of God the Creator, that we might cherish our wives and love our wives and care for our wives as we do our own bodies. This is precisely what the Holy Spirit teaches us through the Apostle Paul, in his Letter to the Ephesians, chapter five.

Also, concerning the creation of Eve out of Adam’s rib, as teaching us spiritual truths applicable to marriage today, consider this pastoral counsel from Matthew Henry:

…the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.[ii]

Isn’t this truly a beautiful portrait of marriage as intended by the Creator? But marriage, as we said earlier, is about more than the couple; ultimately, marriage is about the glory of God, and especially about the glory of God as revealed in the redeeming love of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5 teaches us that Christian marriage is to be a living illustration of the union between Christ and His bride, the Church. And even this --- Christ’s love for the Church --- can be seen in Genesis, chapter two. Here, in Genesis chapter two, we can see, foreshadowed and prefigured, Jesus Christ upon the cross! Matthew Henry comments:

Adam was a figure [symbol] of him that was to come [Christ, the second Adam]; for out of the side of Christ, the second Adam, his spouse the church was formed, when he slept the sleep, the deep sleep, of death upon the cross, in order to which his side was opened, and there came out blood and water, blood to purchase his church and water to purify it to himself.

          Think of that!  Your marriage is a spiritual reality … a spiritual reality which is to be a metaphor, a living symbol ---  a living, walking, talking illustration --- of the love and faithfulness which binds Christ and the Church. Marriage is a holy bond because it is instituted and ordained by the Holy Trinity, the infinite and eternal Creator, who has taken upon Himself human flesh and blood to enter into a covenant of redeeming love and faithfulness with us through His Son, Jesus Christ, who loved His bride, the Church, and gave Himself up for her. This is what your marriage is all about! Husbands and wives: walk in love with one another; have fellowship with one another in faithfulness; show forgiveness and mercy to one another with tenderness; live and work and worship together with thanksgiving and joy: so that your marriage --- your marriage! --- might proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world! Amen.