IS MARRIAGE STILL COMMENDABLE?
In our society marriage is disintegrating and its values depleting, divorce rate is skyrocketing; gay marriages are instituted and getting unholy welcome while single parenthood had long gained general acceptance and becomes another way of life. The common law provision supporting cohabitation for six months as marriage does not help matters. The questions that often come to mind are: Is marriage still commendable? Is marriage preservation still relevant? In our society today and most advanced countries of the world, young people are happy single; they may cohabitate, make love, born and raise children but still single. Some enjoy rides together, countersign credit cards and lend money to each other, share in each other’s burdens but are not good enough to commit to one another; they seem to enjoy their freedom. Most folks perceive marriage as bondage and somehow old fashioned or something that has lost its values and dignity in this age. The young men are more skeptical of marriage than ladies. One young man decried: ‘at slightest turn you loose your freedom, treasure, property and children to a woman and get kick out. Boo, the laws of the land are in their favor and more so marriage kills love.’ Could it be a wrong perception of reality or a deliberate avoidance of commitment? Are there indeed genuine and disturbing fears? These happenings are commonplace.
Notwithstanding, marriage is a union between two persons-man and woman, whereby they vow to be committed to sharing life together. This corporate existence is God’s designed and instituted for companionship, multiplication and fruitfulness, and nurturing life together. Because this union is God’s oriented, ordained and intended to transcend all human relationship it’s often perceived to be problem free. When couples are pronounced husband and wife, they have become one flesh, even though physically they are two persons; spiritually they are cleaved and glued into one. After God created mankind, He commanded them to have dominion, subdue, multiply and fill the earth. Human multiplication involved copulation of two opposite sex [not same sex relationship]. Then God caused a man into deep sleep and out of him made a woman and brought her to man. Adam excitingly acknowledged, ‘This is now the bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.’ Adam named her woman because she was taken out of man and not ‘woo to man.’ It signifies that the first marriage was a union of a man and a woman who had existed within one body before and became one again after marriage [Gen.2: 22-24].
Pastor T.D. Jakes wrote, “After marriage the two became one – a couple or a unit, working together, surviving together and striving together.” God intends that each couple remain dedicated to each other, through Him. Therefore marriage covenant is made with one’s spouse and with God at the center. God is the originator and designer of marriage relationship and in Him all the imperfections work perfectly for His pleasure and glory.
Marriage is honorable among all. Couples should respect and honor each other least their fires extinct. If marriage is to be honored it means it’s worthwhile, dignified and has a sure foundation. It’s to be taken for neither granted nor treated with lesser concern. It derives its definition and authority from God rather than contemporary cultural ideas. No matter what cultural practice is obtained, marriage is God’s idea, led and determined by Him. Also God who instituted it will judge immorality and unfaithfulness [Hebrews 13:4].
Jesus expressed the original intent of marriage when He said, “Don’t you know that in the beginning, the creator made them male and female? And for this reason a man shall leave his mother and father and joined to his wife and they become one person with his wife and no longer two. Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate” [Matthew 19: 4-6]. Isn’t it therefore honorable to be married? Little wonder Proverbs 18:22 says: He who finds a wife finds a good thing and favor from the Lord. Whatever is honorable is commendable. God became a husband to Israel while Jesus has the Church as His bride and also her Head. God spoke to the Children of Israel through Prophet Jeremiah: “marry and have children. Then let your children get married so that they also may have children. You must increase in numbers and not decrease [Jeremiah 29: 6]. For men to subdue and dominate the earth, they got to multiply and increase in number. We have to get married and raise children, teach them fear of the Lord and to obey His commandment, so as to possess the land, win and conquer in battles.
Marriage is not only honorable but marriage bed should be undefiled. Both couples should enter into marriage relationship pure and undefiled. Marriage should begin in marital bed; two come together naked in body and soul. The Institutor of marriage intended a pursuit of purity and newness. Couples were never to have had sex before marriage. That being the case, there was no basis to compare one person’s act of love with another; they would’ve no bad experience of past relationships. Whatever they do would be fresh and new [Leviticus 21:13-15]. Any act of impurity was punishable by stoning to death. Apostle Paul advised that it was good for one not to marry but to avoid the sin of immorality, let everyone marry and be subject to the laws of marriage and maintain sexual purity [1Cor.7: 2-3; Rom7: 2-3].
It’s no surprise that Apostle Paul advised Church Officers to be faithful in marriage and be able to manage their household well. He as well urged young widows to get married, have children and take care of their household so as to give our enemies no chance of speaking evil of them [1Tim.3: 12; 5:14]. These injunctions are more relevant today than there were in the days of early Church. Our society enjoys sexual promiscuity and is invaded by AIDS, HIV and other incurable infectious diseases. In the Old Testament, sexual sins attracted punishment by stoning to death but in our days incurable sexually transmitted diseases stone the body and there are heaps of stones beside many hotels, motels and brothels. Despite the imperfections often experienced in marriage due to not heeding to the formula of mutual submission and sacrificial love, the word of God commend marriage as honorable.
Marriage has been so persecuted in our age than any other by same sex mates, broken vows, comparing relationships and experiences infected by sore past, infidelity and disease spreading yet those who put their faith in God and hold to the tenet of the institution, are like clay in porters hand. We may be marred and damaged yet when we become renewed in Christ He cleans us again and by the power of the Holy Spirit put together the pieces and remolds us into perfect whole. Whatever one may be going through in marriage, it’s nothing for the designer to touch and heal. Only be willing to let go and sacrificially begin again. For marriage to be commendable it must be entered with commitment and determination to make it work, uphold and nourish it daily. From the start it must acknowledge God at the center, be treated as a priority and impute daily nourishment. Marriage is both honorable and commendable but the crown is obtained through the cross. That’s why people still believe in the institution and daily couples take the vows of togetherness, sharing lives and pursuing excellence.
Elder Ogbonnaya can be reached by email: gkapin53@yahoo.com