Photo by Amanda Mocci

A variety of religious teachings and interpretations about marriage and divorce run rampant in the world. But what does the Bible actually teach about these things? Specifically, what are the foundational underpinnings for biblical marriage and divorce?

This two-part post will look at marriage and divorce, as the concepts of marriage inform the concepts of divorce. (Part 2: Divorce)

Part 1: Marriage

Many interpretations and opinions exist as to what marriage is. What is the Bible’s teaching on the foundation of marriage? 

The Creator’s original pronouncement reveals all knowledge about marriage—what it is, why it exists, and how it works—as this is the foundational teaching:

The first thing to note is that God created woman because it was “not good that the man should be alone.” The foundational purpose of the creation of woman was for relationship with man. Woman was to be “fit for him.” In other words, this creation was to be like Adam, and not like any of the other creatures God created and brought before Adam.

It really is the case that the Bible here presents the scenario that God told Adam it wasn’t good for him to be alone, and that he was going to “make him a helper fit for him.” God then creates many living creatures and brings them before Adam, “but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.”

Adam was expectant. He was waiting for what God said he was going to do. But nothing brought before him was fit for him. So God acted again.

And here is where we begin to glimpse the foundation of marriage—what it is, why it exists, and how it works. God causes Adam to sleep, and then takes out one of his “ribs,”¹ and the rib he took “he made into a woman and brought her to the man.”

Adam’s response?

This at last….

He was waiting expectantly. All those other creatures God made and brought before Adam were not fitting for him. So at last, says Adam,

bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. (Genesis 2:23)

The only creature fitting for Adam was what was made from a part of himself. By taking a part of Adam, God makes a creature fitting for Adam, because it is of his same essence. And Adam sees in the woman a part of himself that was taken from him. Bone of his bones. Flesh of his flesh. She is called woman “because she was taken out of Man.”

A part of Adam was taken from him of which he would only receive back in the woman. Adam is now in some way less than what he was originally. But the point is not that Adam is now somehow deficient or endangered being less than his originally created form, but that by God’s design a part of himself was taken from him that he may be brought back to completion in union with the woman.

This is why what comes next is perhaps the most profound sentence in the entire creation narrative:

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)

What it means that “they shall become one flesh” is that Adam is receiving back a part of himself that was taken from him, the woman, and the two being united make one flesh. This is God’s design which is brought back to completion in marriage. It has both physical and spiritual components. This applies also to all men and all women after Adam and Eve. Every man and woman has the design to be together as one flesh. What Paul said about the creation order supports this concept:

man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. (1 Cor 11:8-9)

Please note that the design of one flesh completion does not render an unmarried person, man or woman, as somehow lacking or deficient or unworthy to God in some way (on the contrary Paul as an unmarried man calls this a “gift” (1 Corinthians 7:7). What it means is God designed man and woman to together be one flesh. It is the nature of man and woman.

(Consequently, the concept of one flesh completion is why to the Creator marriage can never be defined as being between anyone or anything other than a man and a woman. It is not possible because it can not achieve the purpose for which marriage exists.)

Marriage is the holding fast to one another. A wedding is the commitment and joining ceremony to marriage. Marriage is the unbroken union where one flesh is made. It is the relationship where creation is functioning as it was designed—two as one flesh. The part of the man that was taken from him is now joined with him in the woman.

And yearning and desire of one for another come from the design that woman was made from a part of the man, and that the two will rejoin to become one flesh. This is the natural design of man and woman and the basis for what causes feelings of attraction.

Further, it is God who brings this union to oneness. This is why Jesus said,

“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matt 19:4-6)

There are physical and spiritual components to marriage. Both man and God play a part: man and woman commit to one another, and God joins them together to make one flesh. “What God has joined together” applies to both the physical and spiritual dimensions. When a man and woman get married, they become one flesh because of how God has designed man and woman. This can be seen as God’s doing, as his joining together. Does God do some kind of special joining action in the spiritual realm at every wedding ceremony on earth? Probably. I say probably because this is unclear from the available scriptural data.² Regardless, it is his joining because of how he created man and woman to be one flesh in marriage, with implications in the physical and spiritual dimensions.

Marriage is the part removed rejoining that from which it was taken, being a re-creating/becoming of one flesh.

This is why Paul also said:

husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” (Ephesians 5:25-31)

Paul clearly teaches husbands to love their wives based on the “one flesh” concept.  

In summary, the foundation of marriage is that a part of Adam/man was taken from him of which he would only receive back in Eve/woman, of which the two in marriage rejoin/unite to become one flesh, achieving completion, thus bringing God’s design for man and woman into its ultimate and proper functioning order.