Marriage plus?

What, from a Biblical perspective, makes a marriage? The answer is usually taken for granted and rarely carefully considered in the light of Scripture. The general idea is a 'Christian wedding' makes a legitimate marriage. But the Biblical pattern, found Genesis 1 and 2, is different and establishes the principle that the first marriage lays down for all time the essential nature of marriage.

The simple arrangement described in Genesis 1 and 2 defines marriage as a human reality, not a theory or religious ritual. If the first marriage wasn't a true marriage then Adam and Eve were never man and wife and could never have provided the Lord Jesus with the pattern of marriage he insisted on: Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female'. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate. (Matthew 19.4-6)

This pattern cannot be altered by human cultures or state laws; not by societal, legal or religious conventions. Whatever constituted the first legitimate marriage determines the constitution of marriage for all time. The God-given pattern in Genesis is not a minimum requirement but the maximum required of any couple for their marriage to be legitimate in the sight of God.

Genesis 2.24 provides the pattern: Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. This divine blue-print was central to the teaching of the Lord Jesus (Matthew 19.3ff and Mark 10.6ff) and the Apostle Paul. Marriage is defined as an agreement between a biological male and a biological female who freely choose to live together in an intimate and permanent relationship (Genesis 2.25; 4.17; 11.29). Marriage reflects the inner life of the Holy Trinity: a loving, self-giving, equal companionship: a homoousious relationship, of the same substance, of full equality 

While no 'community' existed to witness the marriage of Adam and Eve, their marriage nevertheless set for all time the essential pattern for marriage as prescribed by God (Genesis 2.24 & Mark 10.7-9). The marriages of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Boaz and multiple cases in the Old Testament, where communities did exist, were no different from the marriage of Adam and Eve – a husband simply 'took' a wife. 

Most significant of all Scripture marriages from this point of view was the marriage of Joseph and Mary. Joseph was concerned not to expose Mary to public scandal, and, given Mary's condition, a wedding ceremony would unavoidably attract scandal. The most probable reason there is no mention of a wedding is because there was no wedding. The simple act of Joseph taking Mary to be his life-time wife was their legitimate marriage; even although in this case their marriage was not 'consummated' (Matthew 1.18-25).

Scripture introduces no 'added extras'. All complications are human inventions. These include the whole culture of 'weddings', which are not rooted in Scripture but human, civil customs, late developments of Church traditions and commercial, financial avarice.

New Testament Christian communities had no fixed liturgy for weddings. A wedding was a private or civil matter. Only centuries later, in the Medieval Catholic Church were wedding liturgies introduced, with the idea that marriage is a 'sacrament'. Protestants have always resisted that idea and viewed marriage as a religious institution - established by God's decree, and a civil institution - administered by the state or the community, sometimes with an optional but not obligatory church 'blessing'.

We search the Bible in vain for any specific definitions, descriptions or prescriptions concerning the procedures necessary to legitimise a marriage in addition to what we find in Genesis 1 and 2. There is no Biblical guidance on what a wedding might be or should be and no obligation that a wedding must initiate a marriage. Nowhere does the Bible stipulate any form of 'engagement' or 'betrothal'. Following this principal The Westminster Confession of Faith and The Baptist Confession of Faith 1689 omit any reference to 'weddings' where they refer to marriage.

Whatever a so-called 'Christian wedding' may be, it is not found in the Bible. Scripture does indeed record certain weddings and some wedding customs, but Scripture gives no warrant for the pattern of weddings that have been developed in our society: exchanging rings, 'giving away' the bride, white dresses and veils, wedding gifts or even wedding 'vows'.

It has to be understood that the record of an event in Scripture never constitutes a Biblical obligation or command to imitate that event. The Bible may describe weddings, it does not demand them. Biblical descriptions of events do not constitute Christian obligations to copy those events.

The essential element in the formation of a marriage is 'cleaving', free consent based on mutual understanding and agreement (Genesis 24.58). Consent is realised when a man and woman take each other, 'cleave' to each other, with mutual agreement, and, leaving their parents' control (though not necessarily the parental home) establish a new partnership together. This new union is, in Biblical terms, 'one flesh': a new family unit. 'Leaving' does not necessarily imply a geographical relocation, but a change of perspectives and priorities, from those of a single life to those of a shared life. 'Leaving' brings a shift of priorities. The married couple now recognise and respond to the newly established order of priorities. This 'leaving' is a change of status, from a primary submission to parents, to a primary commitment of the couple to each other. 'Leaving' the marriage, in the case of 'desertion', is the rejection of that commitment in favour of selfish autonomy.

The Christian is duty-bound to comply with the laws of the state. If those laws insist on a wedding, civil or ecclesiastical, the Christian must comply. This is in agreement with the Westminster Confession of Faith, which states that 'the law of the land is to be obeyed for conscience sake whenever it does not contravene the higher law of God'. When it does contravene God's law Christians are to treat civil laws as if they had no existence. Otherwise a so-called Christian wedding, according to personal taste, is optional. It is not possible to claim Scriptural support for such a ceremony.

It is not permissible to question the legitimacy of a marriage that follows the Scriptural pattern but where the couple declined to opt for a wedding ceremony. The decision to forego a wedding ceremony in a culture of mindless extravagance and wicked excess might be considered a virtue!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Ethics, 128,130) sums-up the Biblical essence of marriage:

'Marriage is the union of two human beings as human beings on the basis of the free decision of the individual. Marriages are not concluded either by the Church or by the state, and it is not solely from these institutions that they derive their title. Marriage is concluded rather by the two partners. The fact that a marriage is performed publicly in the presence of the state or the presence of the Church signifies no more than the civil and ecclesiastical public recognition of marriage and its own inherent rights.'