What Is Marriage? Part 1

Below is a collection of quotes that have been written by different people defining what they believe marriage to be. They came from a variety of different books, web site and magazine articles that we’ve collected throughout the years. We pray you will find them to be insightful:

Marriage is a sacred covenant designed and blessed by God. In marriage, God joins two persons into one (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:5; Mark 10:8). Originally, marriage (and family) was created by God to reflect His image in humanity. Because of humanity’s fall into sin, marriage (and family) exists to magnify the worth, excellence, and glory of God in restoring His image in humanity through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In short, human marriage exists to preach the gospel of God (1 Timothy 1:11). God intends every human marriage to re-present the divine marriage of God to the new, redeemed humanity (the Church, Christ’s bride —see Ephesians 5:22-32; Revelation 19:7-10 and Revelation 21:9-27) through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. (Edited from an article featured on Familylife.com titled: Overview: The Christian Marriage Covenant)

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The most widely accepted ideas of “what the Bible says” about marriage all agree upon one important point: marriage is a covenant of lifelong commitment between a man and a woman, not a contract which is subject to early termination. Certainly marriage involves contractual aspects such as compromise, bargaining, and many meetings of the minds over time, consideration, terms and conditions. But it involves much more.

It does not have a fixed period of time like most contracts. It is for life. It is not based solely on mutuality, but instead involves the agreement to sacrifice, persevere in love, remain steadfast in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, sharing the good and the bad, the joys and the pains.

Marriage as a covenant, therefore, should not be seen as a contract that can be broken or set aside simply upon the mutual consent of spouses or upon the consent of one spouse because of irreconcilable differences or a breakdown in the relationship that leaves one or both feeling hopeless.

This is so because not only are two spouses involved and often times children as well, but God is at the center of Christian and Jewish marriages. (From an article featured on Familylife.com titled: What is Covenant Marriage)

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Marriage is a model of Christ and the church. There are at least three reasons:

1. This lifts marriage out of the sordid sitcom images and gives it the magnificent meaning God meant it to have;
2. This gives marriage a solid basis in grace, since Christ obtained and sustains his bride by grace alone; and

This shows that the husband’s headship and the wife’s submission are crucial and crucified. That is, they are woven into the very meaning of marriage as a display of Christ and the church, but they are both defined by Christ’s self-denying work on the cross so that their pride and slavishness are canceled. (Pastor John Piper)