And having said that, obviously, your heart aches because there’ve been so many unfaithful wives and so many unfaithful husbands who have made havoc out of marriage. And that’s part of the curse; that’s part of the fall. That’s part of the — and we’ll see that when we get into Chapter 3. That’s part of the chaos that comes. But this is God’s ideal, and this is the wondrous way in which it all began. As soon as the fall came, Chapter 4 of Genesis, you have polygamy. Chapter 9, you have evil thoughts and evil words. Chapter 16, you have adultery. Chapter 19, you have homosexuality. Chapter 34 of Genesis, you have fornication. You have rape. Chapter 38, you have incest. Chapter 38, you have prostitution. Chapter 39, you have seduction. The enemy of the souls of men, as soon as the fall came, went after that relationship of marriage with a vengeance. Because that is the defining relationship of man’s life. It doesn’t say God created man, then he created woman, and then he had man join a union, or join the royal order of the goats, or a club, or get a membership at the country club or get a membership at the gym, or any other kind of relationship. The relationship for man in which he finds his greatest fulfillment and in which righteousness is passed from one generation to the next, is marriage. And that is the defining relationship for man. And immediately after the fall, it just gets assaulted. Conflict comes into it. And then you have polygamy, wickedness, adultery, homosexuality, fornication, rape, incest, prostitution, seduction, and that’s the story of the rest of history. And then you can add divorce. But as Jesus said in Matthew 19:8: “From the beginning, it was not so. It was not so.”
In the beginning, it was perfect and it was wonderful. And there was no shame about anything in that relationship, because there was no evil. Therefore, there was no consciousness of any potential evil. This was the wonder of the original creation. Well, you can see where we are in the text. The next words, Chapter 3 Verse 1: “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field.” And here we go into the tragic fall of man, and we’ll look at that next time.
Let’s pray.
Father, we thank you again for your word. So many thoughts flood our minds and hearts as we think about the wonder of your creation, what it was like. We thank you, Lord, for this: That in Christ we have a measure of paradise regained. We thank you that in Christ we can know again the wonderful delight and joy and bliss and wonder, love, of marriage; that in Christ marriage becomes the grace of life; that in Christ we can leave and cleave in a strong bond, becoming one for life. We thank you that in Christ we can enjoy communion with you, as well as with each other. In Christ, we can go, as it were, into the paradise again, and walk and talk with you in the cool of the day, as the man and the woman once could do. We thank you that in Christ there is a great measure of paradise given back. We thank you for the joys of marriage, for the blessedness of that relationship with all its richness. We thank you, Father, for showing us again the wonder of your creation, and we give you all the glory. It didn’t happen by chance; it didn’t happen by random mutation. Every single thing that came into existence, including man and woman, were made by You, by your creative hand for your purpose. And Father, we pray that You would cause us always to believe Your word no matter what it says, because it is in fact your very word, spoken to us through inspired writers like Moses, who wrote the Pentateuch.
And we thank you, Father, for the light that it sheds on life. You want the best for us. You have again shown us the best is marriage; a faithful husband, faithful wife, lovingly devoted to each other for life. That’s your best gift in the human realm. We thank you for it. And Lord, make our marriages what you would have them to be. Fill them with grace, and fill us with the Spirit, that we may live lives that cause us to enjoy the best. Keep marriages together; keep married people from sin. Keep your church free from the sins that destroy marriages. Keep your people who are married free from the seductions of sinful people who would seduce away a husband or seduce away a wife or cause a divorce. Restore to your people the ideal, as much as we can possibly enjoy that ideal in this life, and we know we can. We can be married for life and enjoy the sweetness and the delight of that most wonderful of all relationships. And we pray to that end for your glory in Christ’s name. Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
