On June 26, 2015, by a vote of 5-4, the Supreme Court of the United States redefined marriage. We are living amidst the shockwaves of that decision, even in 2020. The impact is evident in public education curriculum, corporate kowtowing, frivolous lawsuits, media censorship and, perhaps most disturbingly, amidst evangelical Christianity, caving to the cultural whims of the moment. All the while, our brothers and sisters in Christ in the developing world look on, aghast, with mouths open and heads spinning.
Kevin DeYoung writes in The Good News We Almost Forgot,
“We know from Romans 1; Leviticus 18 and 20; 1 Timothy 1; the book of Jude-and the passage from 1 Corinthians 6—that same-sex intercourse is a perversion of the created order and offensive to God. And yet, many churches and denominations (to say nothing of state courthouses) are wrestling with the legitimacy of homosexual behavior…How can Christians talk about sexual immorality in a way that is both true and gracious? First, we need courage. We need courage to say that unchecked, unrepentant sexual immorality cannot be tolerated in the church. We need courage in our churches and denominations to affirm clearly, not just on paper, but in our preaching and actions, that unchecked, unrepentant sexual immorality is to be lovingly rebuked, not celebrated. Young people especially need courage to stick out like sore thumbs in their schools and teams and winsomely defend the belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman for a lifetime.”
Conservative Christians, holding to orthodox beliefs, rightly want to defend marriage for a variety of reasons, among them:
-Emotionally – the nurturing of future generations
-Physically – the continuity of our species through reproduction
-Societally – the stability for civilization.
As John MacArthur notes, “the family is the divinely created institution for the formation of restrained sinners who by generations of morality, discipline, love, virtue, and obedience, become a benefit to society, enjoy God’s gifts, and are grateful.”
While all of the above are valid motivations for defending the biblical definition of marriage, we must not forget the overarching theological rationale:
Marriage, between a man and a woman, is one of the primary means by which the Creator of the universe has chosen to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The story of God’s love is a story about marriage, and His inspired, all-sufficient, inerrant Word begins and ends with a wedding:
“In Genesis, we see Adam and Eve established as husband and wife. Then in the history of Israel, we hear God describe his relationship with the nation of Israel as a marriage covenant. The same terms are used for Christ and the church: Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the church. Heaven itself is described as a wedding feast. Before we even get to our systematic application, here is a major point of contemporary significance. Marriage, a picture of love between one man and one woman, is at the heart of the biblical story of God’s love. Therefore, marriage matters for a whole host of reasons. It matters because God created it, not society, and therefore God and God alone defines it. It matters because it’s a picture of God’s gospel love, hard-wired into creation. Change or redefine marriage, and you’ve gone a long way toward defacing and obscuring one of the most significant common-grace pointers to the love of God in Christ.”
(Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church, Michael Lawrence)
Our world today is filled with highly charged individuals mobilized for their particular cause, many of whom cannot adequately articulate the beliefs motivating their behavior.
As Christ followers, we can and should do better. We have God’s unchanging standard for marriage, as provided in Scripture.
