“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. Eph. 5:31-32
In the fifth chapter of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul declares that the one-flesh union between a husband and wife is a sacrament of the divine love and eternal union that Christ offers to His Church. Echoing the Apostle’s teaching, Martin Luther describes marriage as “an outward and spiritual sign of the greatest, holiest, worthiest, and noblest thing that has ever existed or ever will exist: the union of the divine and the human natures in Christ.”[1] Marriage was created by God to be the faithful, life-long, self-giving union of a man and a woman which is formed through a freely chosen covenant that is sealed by God and consummated in sexual intercourse that is open to procreation. The meaning of marriage springs from the very heart of Christ’s covenant with the Church, and we cannot change the definition of marriage without distorting the truth of Christ’s Gospel.
In order to be a sacrament of God’s covenantal love, the covenant of marriage must be defined by a self-giving, permanent fidelity. The marriage covenant forms a life-long relationship wherein each covenanter is called to give his or her life unreservedly to the other. In marriage, the two become completely one, and no remainder of the self should be withheld from the union. Such total fidelity is the only way in which the love of God can be truthfully expressed. Since God is boundless spirit and his being is entire and without parts, his love must be whole and perfectly complete. He does not change his affections or break his promises or exhaust his strength. Therefore, any sexual relationship that compromises the expression of completeness and constancy involves sin. Adultery – in thought, word, or deed – is an offense against both spouse and God, for it not only wounds the beloved, it also mars the sacramental integrity of the marital union. When we break our covenant of fidelity by turning our erotic desires toward another, we damage both the meaning and the presence of God’s love here on earth. Serial monogamy, or faithfulness to a single partner outside the covenant of marriage, likewise compromises the integrity of marriage. Only a public vow of permanent fidelity can rightly express the eternal love of God, for when God joined himself to his creation through the incarnation, he covenanted himself to the created world forever. Our security as the beloved Bride of Christ rests not merely in the perpetual repetition of God’s choice to love us today, but upon the eternal vow made by Christ, written with his own blood upon the cross, in the presence of the cosmic community.
Furthermore, since marriage is an embodied expression of the union between God and man, an ontology of the Other is essential to the nature of marital love. The ontological difference between the divine Creator and the human creature is the foundation of gender. The masculine gender is an expression of primary, originating, divine being while the feminine gender is an expression of secondary, receptive, created being. In a First Things article from 2015, Catholic and Evangelical leaders together affirmed that “maleness, femaleness, and their complementarity are among the central organizing principles of creation.”[2] The biological difference between a man and a woman is a physical manifestation of this transcendent gender binary. Therefore, sexual relationships between partners of the same gender are not and cannot be true expressions of marital love, for same-sex unions inherently distort the ability of marital love to serve as a sign of our longing for eternal communion with the transcendent Other. Any “conception of marriage that allows for same-sex unions denies this element of difference, rendering it unable to signify the mystical union of Christ and his Church.”[3]The marital union between a man and a woman – the union between two gendered people who are physically different – is a holy expression of our longing to be in the unmediated presence of God.
Marriage is also essentially defined by a sexual union that is open to children. Through the union of the male and female, “we participate in the divine creativity and its fruitfulness.”[4] The union of Christ and his Church is a generative, life-begetting union. In an essay discussing C.S. Lewis’s views on marriage, Michael Ward draws directly from scripture to explain the life-creating nature of the mystic marriage between Christ and his Church: “Christ ‘loved us and gave himself for us’ (Eph. 5:2, International Standard Version) and in response we ‘humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save’ (James1:21, Holman Christian Standard Bible).”[5] Thus marriage – a sacred sign of this life-giving, life-creating love – is likewise to be of a generative nature. Ward explains that this is why “matrimony” literally means “mother making.”[6] As Christ gives Himself to the church, she becomes the fruitful vessel of new kingdom life that is birthed for the flourishing of the world. Likewise, as a husband gives himself to his wife, she becomes the fruitful vessel of human life which is birthed for the flourishing of society.
God’s design for sex and marriage is sacramental; Marriage is a manifestation of the relationship that God has established between Himself and his covenant people. He has written the reality of his self-giving, unifying, fruitful love into the nature of our souls and the very flesh of our bodies. A true and virtuous marriage will preserve the integrity of this living icon. When we attempt to change any essential aspect of the marriage covenant, “a kind of alchemy is performed, not merely on the institution, but on human nature itself.”[7] To redefine marriage as a breakable contract, a same-sex union, or a sexually open relationship is to disfigure our human nature and distort the Gospel.
[1] Quoted in Evangelicals and Catholics Together, “And the Two Shall Become One Flesh: Reclaiming Marriage,” First Things, March 2015, accessed February 18, 2018, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/03/the-two-shall-become-one-flesh
[2] Evangelicals and Catholics Together, “And the Two Shall Become One Flesh: Reclaiming Marriage.”
[3] Evangelicals and Catholics Together, “And the Two Shall Become One Flesh: Reclaiming Marriage.”
[4] Ibid.
[5] Michael Ward, “Mistress for Pleasure or Wife for Fruit?,” Women and C.S. Lewis (essay provided to Apologetics Research and Writing Class, Houston Baptist University by Holly Ordway, December 18, 2018).
[6] Ibid.
[7] Evangelicals and Catholics Together, “And the Two Shall Become One Flesh: Reclaiming Marriage.”