The Purpose of Marriage

Has anyone thought about what God’s design for marriage really is?
Do you think that it is God’s Divine plan for people to express God’s love towards others?
We are supposed to show others what God’s love is about through our marriage.
When you are angry at one another, show displeasure towards each other or fight and argue all the time…it is NOT… the love of God nor a display of love that comes from God.
I John 4:7…Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8) He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
Marriage is a plan of God that brings a specific couple together in glorifying God.

A covenant is based on trust between two parties. In a covenant, both parties enter into it because they trust each other in every way.
A contractis based on distrust. A contact is signed or created between two parties that cannot trust each other and they have to depend upon the written order (law on paper) to keep each other in line with the contract laws.
A covenantis based on unlimited responsibility. Each party is responsible for the other in every aspect of their life. Responsible for happiness, Godliness, love towards one another, etc. no matter what happens. You are not bound by law but rather bound by God as your witness.
A contractis based on limited liability. A contract is a paper that is signed with limited liabilities involved. You are bound by law to meet certain requirements.

A covenantcannot be broken if new circumstances occur.
A contractcan be voided by mutual consent.
Malachi 2:14…Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.

Ephesians 5 is a letter to the church at Ephesus who had problems in their marriages due to fornication. Paul wrote to them explaining the reasons why they fornicate is because Christ is not the center of their marriage.
Couples were not committed to the Lord Jesus Christ nor were they committed to one another.
A key verse in Ephesians 5, is verse 21…Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
It is also noticed in many verses that the couple is to have a relationship that is like the relationship that Christ has to the church.
Compare your relationship with your spouse. Is it Christ-like?
TRUE love never ends. It is forever.
God’s love is forever and so must ours be.

The affection, love, and true companionship which grow out of a oneness of spirit as each partner models Christ’s unconditional love.
Look at the prayer of Jesus for His disciples in John 17:20…Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; 21) That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 22) And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23) I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
Companionship requires unity, a oneness, a desire to be single minded.
But both husband and wife must be individually one with Christ first.

The physical relationship is a reflection of the loyalty and affection shared among marriage partners who have become “one flesh,” and to keep the other from fornicating.

God intended for the married couple to be able to enjoy one another’s body for their pleasure.
Hebrews 13:4…Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
Note especially part b of this verse… but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
When God calls people “whoremongers and adulterers” He is referring to their lifestyle and heart. These are people who live their lives in a state of continual sexual sins.
God said that He will judge them. Because they belong in His court of judgment, and not the Judgment Seat of Jesus Christ.

The blessing of children in a marriage relationship allows that relationship to reproduce itself physically. It is an example of the “oneness” that results in a marriage.
Genesis 1:28…And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

The husband protects the wife by laying down his life for her…Ephesians 5:25… Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; This is a picture of sacrifice that protects the marriage.
The wife is to protect the home …Titus 2:4…That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
The husband and wife together protect their children to raise up a godly seed Malachi 2:15…And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed.
The word “seed” meaning children. God wants the parents to bring their children up knowing God and glorifying God, honoring God.

If God is not honored, and not glorified in you as an individual first, then the marriage will never work efficiently.
The “Primary purpose” is to honor God in your marriage.
When secondary purposes for marriage are placed above the primary purpose, discontentment, fearfulness, and disillusionment often result.