A Sacred Bond

Marriage is a not-to-be-broken bond of unity between a man and his wife.

Genesis 2:22-25 says:

“And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “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.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

I say it is not to be broken, because it is breakable. It is broken all the time. But to break it is to break a unity that is forged in the spiritual realm by God. This has spiritual and physical ramifications. Everyone from a divorced family has scars of various kinds because of the damage this does. 

Marriage is supposed to be sacred. Not just marriage in general, but your marriage, your union, is supposed to be sacred. This is because the relationship between a man and a woman represents the relationship between Christ in his Church.

Ephesians 5:31-33 tells us:

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

Marriage is supposed to represent the relationship between Christ and his Church. Whenever a couple, Christian or otherwise, but especially Christian, divorces, this sends the message to the world that Christ might abandon his church.

Now, this is a false message, because Christ will not abandon his Church, but it is the message that abandoning a marriage sends. Because the man represents Christ and the woman represents the Church: 

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Saviour. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (Ephesians 5:22-24). 

Marriage is supposed to be sacred and life-long, not interchangeable. The Church has a lot to answer for with high divorce rates. What we do sends a message as much as what we say. 

There are many ways in which Christians do not hold marriage sacred. Separation is just one of them. But it is a big one. Not holding marriage as sacred doesn’t just damage the Church, it encourages the world to do likewise, and that has been a disaster.