When Five Is Worth Ten
Marriage is one of the most important institutions established by God in the seven days of creation. And the Lord was very clear and specific about this institution. In regard to His creative work on the sixth day, it is written: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it” (Genesis 1:27, 28). After finishing His work during the six days, “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (verse 31).
There are some points worthy of special emphasis in these verses:
• God created a man and a woman (male and female).
• He blessed them as a couple and gave them special instructions in regard to the purpose of marriage: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.”
• Every work of God is perfect. After creating marriage on the sixth day, God saw that it was very good. That institution did not need any change or improvement. It was very good indeed.
Genesis chapter 2 gives more details regarding the family’s creation on the sixth day, “The Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him” (verse 18). And what kind of help did God provide for Adam? Another man? Absolutely not. “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (verses 21-24). The inspired record leaves no doubt about how to constitute a family: It must begin with a man and a woman. These two may then have the joy to see children born unto them.
“God Himself gave Adam a companion. He provided ‘an help meet for him’ - a helper corresponding to him - one who was fitted to be his companion, and who could be one with him in love and sympathy. Eve was created from a rib taken from the side of Adam, signifying that she was not to control him as the head, nor to be trampled under his feet as an inferior, but to stand by his side as an equal, to be loved and protected by him. A part of man, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, she was his second self, showing the close union and the affectionate attachment that should exist in this relation. ‘For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it’ (Ephesians 5:29). ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one.’ ”1
The wise writer declared: “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions” (Ecclesiastes 7:29).
After the fall of man, marriage was perverted. In Genesis 4:19 it is written that “Lamech took unto him two wives.” “Polygamy had been early introduced, contrary to the divine arrangement at the beginning. The Lord gave to Adam one wife, showing His order in that respect. But after the Fall, men chose to follow their own sinful desires; and as the result, crime and wretchedness rapidly increased. Neither the marriage relation nor the rights of property were respected.”2
Before entering Canaan, the promised land, God gave explicit instructions to the people of Israel regarding their behavior and the things to avoid that were common practice among the heathen nations. Leviticus chapter 18 gives a clear picture of God’s plan for preserving sound morality among His people.
The first point mentioned is marriage between persons of near kindred. Then God speaks about sexual relations between children and parents, which was normally practiced by the people who ignored God’s law. Verses 6 to 17 give detailed instructions about this point. From verse 20 on, there are objective instructions against:
1. Adultery. “Voluntary sexual intercourse between a married man and someone other than his wife or between a married woman and someone other than her husband.”3
According to the Old Testament laws, those who were caught in adultery were punished with death by stoning. The way Christ dealt with Mary shows that the gospel provides forgiveness and restoration for those who are victims of Satan regarding any sin, including sexual immorality. Christ, in His sermon on the mount, said: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew 5:27, 28).
2. Fornication. “Human sexual intercourse other than between a man and his wife; sexual intercourse between a spouse and an unmarried person; sexual intercourse between unmarried people.”4
3. Male homosexuality. “It is abomination” (verse 22). Homosexuality, however, has a broad meaning: “erotic activity with another of the same sex.”5
4. Intercourse with animals. “It is confusion” (verse 23). And the Lord added an explanation: “For in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you (verse 24).”
“And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: (for all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you. For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people. Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the Lord your God” (verses 25-30).
Speaking about the heathen, the Spirit of Prophecy says: “Their religion was idol worship, and they had been taught to practice cruel and degrading rites.”6
In reality, among the heathen, immorality was connected with their worship ceremonies. For instance, about Ephesus, we read: “Ephesus was not only the most magnificent, but the most corrupt, of the cities of Asia. Superstition and sensual pleasure held sway over her teeming population. Under the shadow of her temples, criminals of every grade found shelter, and the most degrading vices flourished.”7
In Romans chapter 1, the apostle Paul describes the moral condition of the pagans in his time: “Even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet” ( verses 26, 27).
Paul speaks clearly against all kinds of sexual perversion: male homosexuality (men with men) and lesbianism (women with women). And he finishes chapter 1 saying that they had known “the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death” (verse 32).
Sodom, Gomorrah, and other cities that were destroyed due to gross immorality are examples of the way God deals with those who surrender themselves to such practices and do not repent.
Recently in the city of San Francisco, California, U. S. A., a presentation was made to the whole world. There was a big show of abomination when “same-sex couples” were married by the mayor in the City Hall. But this kind of immorality is not happening in San Francisco only. In all the so-called civilized world such depravity is showing that the words of Christ are most timely: “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:28-30).
The apostle Paul presents what is intended by the Lord for His people living in these last days of world’s history.
“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. . . . Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband” (Ephesians 5:31, 33).
“God celebrated the first marriage. Thus the institution has for its originator the Creator of the universe. ‘Marriage is honourable’ (Hebrews 13:4); it was one of the first gifts of God to man, and it is one of the two institutions that, after the fall, Adam brought with him beyond the gates of Paradise. When the divine principles are recognized and obeyed in this relation, marriage is a blessing; it guards the purity and happiness of the race, it provides for man’s social needs, it elevates the physical, the intellectual, and the moral nature.”8
Through the gospel of Christ, it is God’s plan to restore the institutions that were given to mankind at creation.
The apostle Peter, after the healing of the lame man, made the following appeal: “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:19-21).
He speaks about the “restitution of all things.” The Sabbath of the seventh day and marriage are for sure included in these “all things.”
“God desires that heaven’s plan shall be carried out, and heaven’s divine order and harmony prevail, in every family, in every church, in every institution.”9
“In the time of the end every divine institution is to be restored.”10
“When the Pharisees . . . questioned [Christ] concerning the lawfulness of divorce, Jesus pointed His hearers back to the marriage institution as ordained at creation. ‘Because of the hardness of your hearts,’ He said, Moses ‘suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so’ (Matthew 19:8). He referred them to the blessed days of Eden, when God pronounced all things ‘very good.’ Then marriage and the Sabbath had their origin, twin institutions for the glory of God in the benefit of humanity. Then, as the Creator joined the hands of the holy pair in wedlock, saying, A man shall ‘leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one’ (Genesis 2:24), He enunciated the law of marriage for all the children of Adam to the close of time. That which the Eternal Father Himself had pronounced good was the law of highest blessing and development for man.
“Like every other one of God’s good gifts entrusted to the keeping of humanity, marriage has been perverted by sin; but it is the purpose of the gospel to restore its purity and beauty.”11
“We can see in the cross of Calvary what it has cost the Son of God to bring salvation to a fallen race. As the sacrifice in behalf of man was complete, so the restoration of man from the defilement of sin must be thorough and complete.”12
“The humiliation and agonizing sufferings of Christ in the wilderness of temptation were for the race. In Adam all was lost by transgression. Through Christ was man’s only hope of restoration to the favor of God.”13
“The very essence of the gospel is restoration, and the Saviour would have us bid the sick, the hopeless, and the afflicted take hold upon His strength.”14
“Jesus knows the circumstances of every soul. You may say, I am sinful, very sinful. You may be; but the worse you are, the more you need Jesus. He turns no weeping, contrite one away. He does not tell to any all that He might reveal, but He bids every trembling soul take courage. Freely will He pardon all who come to Him for forgiveness and restoration.
“Christ might commission the angels of heaven to pour out the vials of His wrath on our world, to destroy those who are filled with hatred of God. He might wipe this dark spot from His universe. But He does not do this. He is today standing at the altar of incense, presenting before God the prayers of those who desire His help.
“The souls that turn to Him for refuge, Jesus lifts above the accusing and the strife of tongues. No man or evil angel can impeach these souls. Christ unites them to His own divine-human nature. They stand beside the great Sin Bearer, in the light proceeding from the throne of God. ‘Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us’ (Romans 8:33, 34).”15
The same mercy and love Christ offered to Mary He offers to each one who is willing to accept the divine provision for sinners. To Mary He said: “Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (John 8:10, 11).