Sermon Tone Analysis

*God’s Design for Marriage (Gen 2:18-25)*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on October 14, 2007/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

 

Deuteronomy 6

/ 1Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: /

/ 2That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.

/

/ 3Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.

/

/ 4Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: /

/ 5And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

/

/ 6And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: /

/ 7And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

/

 

When Jesus was asked what is the first and greatest commandment, he began quoting with verse 4. Before declaring what we are to do (love the Lord) God begins by declaring who He is.

This is the same way the Ten Commandments begin, not first with declaring what we are to do, but declaring first and foremost and fundamentally who God is (“I am the Lord your God”).

Deuteronomy 6 is one of the most important passages in all the Bible on the family and parenting.

Of course the fabric and foundation of this begins with the marriage relationship, which is also the fabric and foundation and central institution upon which both churches and societies depend.

So we will spend another week looking at the fundamental truths in God’s Word on marriage.

In our day and age there is a lot written about families and parenting and marriage and relationships, but in God’s revelation, this does not have first place or highest priority.

Before the marriage and family, we must know who God is, in all the fullness and attributes and glory He is presented in scripture, and our affections and exclusive love for Him is, according to Jesus, the greatest command: “/Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one”/

/ /

Since Old Testament times and even to this day, this verse has been recited by pious Jews twice daily and read at every synagogue meeting in Hebrew.

This God who they were called to love with all their being is revealed fundamentally as being “one.”

This Hebrew word /echad /means “one” in the sense of “unity”

 

Every religious Jew would know this verse by heart and many would also be very familiar with the first time this word “one” was used in Torah

 

Gen 2:24 /For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two shall become one /

 

This oneness of two persons is the fundamental truth of marriage, and that phrase is quoted 4x in the N.T. and perhaps alluded to in the O.T. as well (Malachi 2:15).

Eph 5 quotes this verse and says marriage is a mystery that is really about Christ and His church.

This fundamental oneness of God, using the same Hebrew word, we later learn is similarly a unity and oneness that allows for more than one person (which we as Christians understand as the Trinity).

And the first picture or illustration of the nature of God is revealed in the institution of marriage that God created to reflect His glory

 

1 Cor.

11:3 “the head of woman is man, and the head of God is Christ”

 

There is a direct analogy and correlation between the Trinitarian relationship of Father and Son and the relationship of husband and wife, with the man as head, equal with her yet different in role.

The Father and Son’s eternal relationship with each other and with the Holy Spirit has existed from all eternity, among themselves there has always been love and happiness.

And God created marriage to a reflection of His glory and relationship with Himself

 

A dozen or so of us from GCBC got to hear John Piper this weekend speaking on the Pleasures of God, which were some of the most refreshing and mesmerizing messages I’ve heard focusing attention on the supremacy of God and the pleasure He has always had in Himself and His works.

He reminded us biblically that God did not need to create you or me or this world or anything, but the scriptures seem to reveal that the reason God did create in Genesis is because of His glory and His desire to go public with His glory and His name, overflowing His joy in the universe to creatures.

Click here to listen to the messages online from the conference.

The Bible says explicitly God created us for His glory and whatever we do whether food or drink, certainly marriage as well – all is to be to the glory of God.

To say it another way, the chief end of /marriage/ is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

God created man in Genesis 1 in His image, male and female, to be fruitful and multiply and represent His character and fill the earth with His glory.

And one of the primary ways God has ordained to display His glory and who He is on this earth is through marriage.

God intentionally created marriage for the same main reason that He ultimately does everything – for His own glory and pleasure.

We must live in marriage for His pleasure and glory as well if we will ever experience the satisfaction and happiness God intends.

So before we talk about marriage, I want to talk about God.

The spiritual health of any marriage, family, individual, or church is dependent on its view of God, and will rise or fall depending on its conception of God.

To whatever degree we are centered on God we will experience blessing and happiness, and on the other hand, to whatever degree we are centered on anything less than God or seeking happiness and satisfaction in anything other than God and His Word, we will experience futility and emptiness (cf.

Rom 3:23 and 1:23)

If God is not the weighty, all-glorious, all-sufficient, all-consuming center of our lives, all the right talk of the importance of marriage or the home will be mere talk.

John Piper has edited an excellent book I put on our website called /A God-Entranced View of All Things: The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards.

/The prince of Puritan theologians is described this way: 

 

‘What Edwards saw in God and in the universe because of God, through the lens of Scripture, was breathtaking.

To read him, after you catch your breath, is to breathe the uncommon air of the Himalayas … this high, clear, God-entranced air … When Jonathan Edwards became still and knew that God is God, the vision before his eyes was of an absolutely sovereign God, self-sufficient in himself and all-sufficient for his creatures, infinite in holiness, and therefore perfectly glorious … always motivated by the passion to display his glorious sufficiency (which is infinite).

He does everything that he does—absolutely everything—for the sake of displaying his glory.

Our duty and privilege, therefore, is to conform to this divine purpose in creation and history and redemption—namely, to reflect the value of God’s glory—to think and feel and do whatever we must to make much of God.

Our reason for being, our calling, our joy is to render visible the glory of God.

Edwards writes:

All that is ever spoken of in the Scripture as an ultimate end of God’s works is included in that one phrase, /the glory of God.

/. . .

The refulgence shines upon and into the creature, and is reflected back to the luminary.

The beams of glory come from God, and are something of God and are refunded back again to their original.

So that the whole is /of /God, and /in /God, and /to /God, and God is the beginning, middle and end in this affair.’

[p.

22-23]

So this is the foundation – first and last, foremost is that God be glorified in our home.

I believe that with all my heart and want to apply that quote to marriage: “Our reason for being, our calling, our joy is to render visible the glory of God” [in marriage].

Something a lot bigger than /us/ is at stake in how we understand our roles as husbands and wives, the greatest reality in the universe is to be on display.

There’s something far more important than our comfort and desires and perceived rights in marriage – marriage exists to manifest and magnify the glory of God to the world.

The various pagan nations around and before and after Israel had their own creation stories, myths about how man and woman came about, but none of their neighbors had a separate account of the creation of the female.

It is only in the biblical presentation that ‘the woman is not subsumed under her male counterpart.’[1]

Man’s celebration of the creation of woman and her significance – her nobility, dignity, and calling as equal image-bearer of God and vital partner to her husband – this emphasis and view of woman is not found in any other ancient Near Eastern texts.[2] It’s God’s view.

Last week, we discussed how God made woman equal with man in many ways, but God also made her different from man in her role:

-          The Husband is to lead and love like Christ

-          The Wife is to follow and submit humbly like Christ

-          The Man has a great responsibility as head of the marriage and family, and his wife is to be his suitable helper and support and complement, not undermining or usurping him

 

In the excellent book, /Recovering Biblical Manhood and Woman, /male headship is defined this way: ‘In the partnership of two spiritually equal human beings, man and woman, the man bears the primary responsibility to lead the partnership in a God-glorifying direction.

The model of headship is our Lord, the Head of the church, who gave Himself for us.

The antithesis to male headship is male domination … the assertion of the man’s will over the woman’s will, heedless of her …’[3] A husband is responsible before God to be sensitive to his wife in an understanding way, and sacrificial toward his wife, but is still the head of the home and the man of the house, the responsible one for final decision-making.

Of course the real test in submission is not when you agree, but when you disagree – after you’ve discussed and shared your view, wives, do you keep badgering your husband endlessly till you get your way?

Can you think of times recently where you’ve discussed an issue extensively and disagreed, but submitted as to the Lord?

Wives or husbands, if you have been abdicating and departing from your roles, it’s time to repent and seek forgiveness from God and your spouse for your failings and strive to work together to live up to God’s standards which are for His glory and your benefit.

We see in v. 18 God know what is good and not good for Adam, and the clear lesson is that God knows what is good for man and marriage today as well.

He lays down the rules He does so not to be a kill-joy but to provide us true joy and fulfillment as He intends

 

Last week we also noticed that the N.T. teaches that God created woman /after man/ also as a model or pattern of spiritual instruction and leadership, not just in the home, but in the church as well (1 Timothy 2:11-13) – men are to be the spiritual leaders ~/ teachers in the church.

James Boice points out correctly that the spheres in which scripture speaks of headship and submission are the family and in the church (which by deliberate divine parallel is also a family, family of God)

 

‘Nothing in Genesis implies that every woman is to exist for every man, still less be obedient to him.

Moreover, even in the case of marriage the submission involved is voluntary.

No woman is obliged to accept a proposal.

But if she does and she is a Christian woman, she must know that the pattern for her relationship to that man is found in Genesis 2 where God said that he would make a “helper suitable for” Adam.

If she cannot be a helper to her man or does not want to be, the woman should not marry her man.’[4]

There were two other points we didn’t get to last week – God made woman FROM THE MAN, and He also made her FOR HER MAN

* *

*First, God made woman FROM THE  MAN*

 

1 Cor.

11:7-8 says “… /the woman is the glory of man, for //man does not originate from woman, but woman from man”   /

/ /

Paul uses this principle in Corinthians to illustrate headship and submission.

In Ephesians Paul says that the man is not only to lead but is also to love his wife as his own body.

Adam was the original prototype for this, of course – he viewed his wife as his own body (flesh and bone even) because she was in fact from his own body.

/ /

Gen 2:21-23 /So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.

The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.

The man said,/

/         "This is now bone of my bones,/

/         And flesh of my flesh;/

/         She shall be called Woman,/

/         Because she was taken out of Man."/

/ /

There’s a play on words in verse 23 – “she shall be called woman [Hebrew /ishah/] because she was taken *from man* [/ish/]”