Sermon Tone Analysis

*God’s Design for Marriage, Part Two (Gen 2:24-25)*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on October 21, 2007/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

/ /

For a third week now we’re looking at the biblical teaching on manhood, womanhood, marriage and the family in Genesis 2.

 

The following answers were given by 2nd grade school children to a series of questions relating to God’s making of man and woman and marriage and motherhood in particular: \\ \\ /How did God make mothers?/ \\ One 2nd grader said “He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.” \\ 2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.

\\ 3. God made my Mom just the same like he made me.

He just used bigger parts.

\\ \\ /What ingredients are mothers made of?/ \\ 1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and [a little bit] of mean.

\\ 2. They had to get their start from men's bones.

Then they mostly use string, I think.

\\ \\ /Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom? \\ /1.

We're related \\ 2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's moms like me.

\\ \\ /What kind of little girl was your mom?/ \\ 1.

My Mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.

\\ 2. I don't know because I wasn't there [when my mom was little], but my guess would [she was] be pretty bossy.

\\ \\ /What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?

\\ /1.

His last name.

\\ \\ /Why did your mom marry your dad?/ \\ 1.

My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world.

And my Mom eats a lot.

\\ \\

That’s kind of light-hearted and silly, but it’s interesting to hear the ideas kids have about marriage and moms and dads and how and why God made us.

But some ideas adults have are not much better.

The prevailing adult idea presents man and woman as being mere products of millions of years evolution from molecules to men, protoplasm to people, certainly not special creation by God.

This view is utterly incompatible with the text of Genesis 2, which says God made man out of dirt and made woman from his side.

Many groups of grown-ups argue that marriage is just a convention or invention of man in patriarchal societies, it evolved as well.

If many adults were to answer what they knew about their spouse before they married or why they married, you might get a whole host of answers that aren’t much more impressive (or mature) than what those 2nd grade children shared.

The sad reality is that many kids could not answer the questions about mom and dad because they do not grow up with a mom and a dad (or their real mom and dad), and of those who do have both, only a small fraction of those couples are seeking to fulfill the roles God gave them in Genesis 2. Of those, fewer teach their children the biblical truths about God’s creation of manhood and womanhood and marriage and masculinity and femininity.

Radical feminists oppose marriage as unnecessary[1] and outdated – those who do believe in marriage are violently opposed to any ideas of male leadership~/headship, or wives’ submission~/subordination.

 

There is mass confusion in our day, which we cannot just blame on our culture.

The responsibility has much to do with parents, and the church.

Even more sadly, many in our world don’t even think questions about a mom and a dad are appropriate for kids, because after all they say it’s discriminating against “alternative lifestyles” and different types of families, such as domestic partners, and efforts right here in Sacramento in recent bills which conservative groups say put us on the path where any  public school reference to traditional “mom and dad” by itself could be considered discriminatory – right here in our State legislature /even while I’ve been teaching this series the past couple weeks /we have seen attacks and proposed attacks in the Senate on God’s view of marriage and family.

If we go a little farther towards San Fran., we are well aware of the Mayor’s legalizing same-sex marriages which continued at least temporarily in the Bay Area not long ago.

Even defining something as basic as a family and a marriage is under relentless attack, which is why it is so vital and urgent for us to be doing this study of God’s Word on this subject in Genesis 2.

 

24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed \\ \\

This one verse is one of the most important statements in the Old Testament, one of the most foundational truths that God ordained to be the fabric of society of His people.

God’s definition:

/ONE MAN, ONE WOMAN, ONE FLESH, FOR ONE LIFETIME/

 

God did not:

-          Make Adam and Eve to live with each other but not be married (v.

24 makes clear this was the first marriage and foundation of all marriages – cleaving /before/ one flesh)

-          make a backup wife for Adam, for when He would be tired with Eve (there were only two people on the planet!)

-          create Adam and Steve (2 men or 2 women as viable)

-          create multiple spouses (Adam and Eve and Sally and Janice and Isabel and Gertrude)

 

God could have created multiple married couples in the beginning.

He could have created families with kids.

He could have created a community all at once, so that later on the next generation would not have to marry within the same family.

But God did it the way He did in large measure to make the point as clear as possible that His original design and His continual design is for one man and woman to be one flesh, united in every way, till death parts them.

Remember, that Israel is the original recipient of this book, and this truth about God’s design for marriage would be important for them to get right from the start, as they prepared to enter the land of Canaan, which had very different marriage practices and ideas.

*Different Ways God’s Ideal for Marriage in Genesis 2:24 Was Compromised in the History of Israel*[2]**

| *Biblical terminology* | *Creation Ideal* | *History of Israel* |

| “a man … his wife” | Monogamy | Polygamy |

| “hold fast” | Durability, fidelity | Divorce, adultery |

| “a man … his wife … become one flesh” | Heterosexuality … \\ Complementarity | Homosexuality … \\ Dilution of gender distinctions |

/ /

/God made marriage as a gift for lifelong union, which verse 24 describes as a 3-step process for marital oneness:/

*/LEAVING, CLEAVING, AND WEAVING TOGETHER/*

This is covenant language, this is commitment language.

These same Hebrew words “leave” and “cleave” (or “cling”) were also used by Ruth expressing her commitment to Naomi.

Ruth 1:14 says “Ruth clung [/dabaq/] to her” and in v. 16 she says “Don’t urge me to leave [/azab/] you … wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God … the Lord do so to me, and more also if anything but death parts you and me.”

This is one of the greatest expressions of loyalty and commitment in the Bible and the passage uses the same words “leave” and “cleave” from Gen. 2:24.

*LEAVING* - The word “leave” could also be translated as “forsake” and is somewhat comparable to Christ’s call to forsake even your closest family members and to follow Him instead, Jesus even used a stronger word “hate.”

The point being, this new relationship and loyalty is supreme and is the new priority which makes all past relationships pale in comparison.

It is dramatic language to make a dramatic point.

Is this /physical/ forsaking or leaving?

Jesus didn’t require people to literally abandon their family or cease to love them and care for them in appropriate ways in order to be a Christ-follower.

Similarly, when you get married you no longer obey your parents as a child but you are still to honor them and care for your parents in time of need.

The forsaking or leaving in Genesis 2:24 does not mean the couple must physically leave the community or that they can’t live on the same property as their parents (the early Israelites in fact did live together with parents or extended family).

The point is mainly figurative, but it’s forceful – this strong word represents a decisive and dramatic change of new life together with unbreakable new allegiance to your spouse.

You emotionally leave your parents, you are not to be overly dependent on your parents, but are to establish your own relative independence and new life together.

Former ties of family are now superseded by the priority of the new family.

The husband-wife relationship is even more important than the parent-child relationship.

It’s important for parents to let their kids go when they’re married and to not interfere with their marriage or this principle in God’s Word.

*CLEAVING* - Stick to, cling to, adhere to.

The noun form was used of glue, husband and wife are glued together, stuck together.

Implied: like flesh ripping apart is what divorce looks like to God.

This is to be a permanent bond.

Job used this word to talk about his bones cleaving to his skin.

This Hebrew word was used of joints, body parts connected to each other.

This fits with the phrases in v. 23 “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.”

Adam uses this O.T. expression for close family ties, blood ties, a phrase which indicated deep love and commitment

 

Genesis 29:12-15 (NASB95) \\ 12 Jacob told Rachel that *he was a relative* of her father and that he was Rebekah’s *son*, and she ran and told her father.

\\ 13 So when Laban heard the news of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house.

Then he related to Laban all these things.

\\ 14 Laban said to him, “*Surely you are my bone and my flesh*.”

And he stayed with him a month.

\\ 15 Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because *you are my relative*, should you therefore serve me for nothing?

Tell me, what shall your wages be?” \\ \\ This passage clearly equates “my bone and my flesh” with a relative, or “kinsman” in ESV, or literally “brother” in KJV

/ /

Marriage in O.T. law was as strong as blood ties, and this phrase for close relationship and kinship is still an idiom we use of children in our day (“my own flesh and blood”)

 

In some contexts, it appears that when Jews spoke about both “flesh and blood” for a relationship, it was a covenant formula or a pledge for reciprocal loyalty.

-          The tribes who were not related to David said to him “we are your bone and flesh” (2 Sam.

5:1), which does not mean they were related biologically, but that they were pledging their loyalty and support to him, like a brother, no matter what

-          So with Adam and Eve ‘/bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh /becomes a covenantal statement of his commitment to her.

Thus it would serve as the biblical counterpart to the modern marriage ceremony, “in weakness [i.e., flesh] and in strength [i.e., bone].”

Circumstances will not alter the loyalty and commitment of the one to the other.’[3]

The word in v. 24 “cleave” or “cling to” or “be joined to” is even by itself a word used of maintaining a covenant relationship (Deut.

4:4, 10:20, 11:22, 13:4, 30:30).

You are setting aside the loyalty you once had for your parents and are replacing it with a covenant loyalty to your spouse as top priority.

*WEAVING* – like weaving two threads into one new piece of cloth, marriage is the weaving of two lives together so that they become one.

1 Corinthians 7 says your body no longer belongs to you, it belongs to your spouse.

Ephesians 5 says husbands are to love their wives as their own body and he who loves his wife loves himself?

Why?