Q&A: 7 Aspects of the Nature of Marriage According to the Bible
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We have received a lot of questions on the Beautiful Christian Life Facebook page regarding what constitutes a legitimate marriage in God’s sight. Here are seven questions and answers on the topic of the nature of marriage according to the Bible:
1. Can people be married in their hearts?
Nowhere in the Bible does it state that a true marriage exists where people agree in their hearts that they are husband and wife. In the Bible there is always a legal aspect to marriage. This is why a certificate of divorce had to be issued if the marriage was dissolved under the Mosaic covenant (Deut. 24:1-4; Matt. 19:7-8) and why Joseph was going to quietly divorce Mary after he learned she was pregnant, as there was a marriage contract in force even though their marriage had not been consummated yet:
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. (Matt. 1:18-19)
Waiting for a period of time between the signing of the marriage contract and the actual consummation of the marriage was common practice during the time of Joseph and Mary’s betrothal. In his book Backgrounds in Early Christianity, church historian Everett Ferguson writes the following about Jewish marriage in the first century:
The marriage was a contract between families. It was effected in two stages: the betrothal (or ‘acquisition’ of the bride) and the wedding proper (taking the bride into the husband’s home). The betrothal had the legal force of marriage and could be broken only by divorce (cf. Matt 1:18-19).” It was accomplished by the bridegroom paying the bride-price (or part of it) or delivering a deed. The customary written contract (ketubah) included the husband’s duties to his wife and the sum due her in the event of a divorce or his death” (p. 74).
The bride in all her special adornments was joyfully escorted to the groom’s house for the wedding ceremony. Along with the pronouncement of seven blessings, the marriage contract was read at the ceremony, which took place under a canopy (huppah). The wedding was then celebrated for seven days (Ferguson, p. 74).
2. Why do we have to sign a piece of paper to make a marriage legal?
People wonder why a man and woman have to sign a document in order to be married. In the Ancient Near East, in which biblical history took place, a written document was commonly associated with covenants. According to Ligonier Ministries,
The signing of a piece of paper is not a matter of affixing one’s signature in ink to a meaningless document. The signing of a marriage certificate is an integral part of what the Bible calls a covenant. Biblically, there is no such thing as a private marriage contract between two people. A covenant is done publicly before witnesses and with formal legal commitments that are taken seriously by the community. The protection of both partners is at stake; there is legal recourse should one of the partners act in a way that is destructive to the other. (“God’s Will and Your Marriage,” part 1)
Christians are called to obey governing authorities. If there are laws regarding marriage in the country where a Christian man and woman reside who are seeking to marry, they need to obey them as long as they are not disobeying God in doing so:
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. (Rom. 13:1-2)
3. Does having sex with someone equal marriage (the “two become one flesh” passages)?
Some people think that two people are married if they have had sexual intercourse with each other based on the two-become-one flesh passages:
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24)
Having sex with someone, however, does not equal marriage. Because it was common practice in the Ancient Near East to have a formal marriage contract in force before the consummation of the marriage, in Genesis 29 it is likely that Laban tricked Jacob by putting Leah’s name in the contract rather than Rachel's:
Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.” So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast. But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and he went in to her.(Laban gave his female servant Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her servant.) And in the morning, behold, it was Leah! And Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?” (Gen. 29:21-25)
Additionally, Tamar slept with Judah and got pregnant (Gen. 38), but it was never a marriage. Judah had wrongly denied Tamar her right as was required in the Levirate marriage laws of the time to seek to bear children for her deceased husband through her husband's brother:
“If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.” (Deut. 25:5-6)
It is important to note that the Levirate marriage laws are no longer in force today as the Mosaic covenant, with its related civil and ceremonial laws, has been abrogated by the death and resurrection of Christ. Christians now live in the new covenant era.
4. Does a Christian couple need to be married by a minister?
A Christian marriage is a covenant in which promises are made in God's name, and God is the witness to seal the oath and judge if the oath is broken. The marriage covenant is between the man and woman, and God is the witness. The minister is the officiant of the ceremony. What constitutes a legal marriage differs from culture to culture. In the Old Testament, priests had no role in marriages.
While the Bible does not state that a pastor must be an officiant of a wedding to validate a marriage, this is the custom in the church today. Yet, there is no requirement that a Christian must have a church wedding. Marriage is officially a common institution. A justice of the peace or equivalent is fine.
5. Why didn’t Adam and Eve have a marriage license or formal wedding ceremony?
The marriage of Adam and Eve was unique because they were the only two living people at the time. Marriage ceremonies became necessary once there was a community of people. God was both the officiant and the witness in the marriage of Adam and Eve:
And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (Gen. 2:22-25)
There now exists a civil realm in which God has appointed leaders, and the civil realm usually enacts laws regarding marriage, which Christians are called to obey (Rom. 13:1-2).
6. How does the relational nature of earthly marriage point us to Christ?
Some Christians think that the biblical teaching about the church being the bride of Christ is an analogy of earthly marriage; yet, it is actually the other way around. According to theologian J. V. Fesko, it is earthly marriage that points us to a far greater relationship:
Marriage is the union between a man and a woman where the two individuals become one flesh as the apostle Paul tells us in the fifth chapter of Ephesians. The marital union, however, is a relationship that points to the greater relationship between Christ and the church….Union with Christ is also called mystical because as A. A. Hodge explains, “It so far transcends all the analogies of earthly relationships, in the intimacy of its communion, in the transforming power of its influence, and in the excellence of its consequences.” (J. V. Fesko, “A More Perfect Union?” Modern Reformation, May 2, 2007)
The special union a married couple has with each other is an earthly, temporal representation of the surpassing intimacy and love all believers have in their eternal union with Christ.
7. How does the legal nature of earthly marriage point us to Christ?
The legal nature of earthly marriage, while dissoluble due to sin, is meant to exist until death parts a couple. Legality also implies consequences for failure, such as we find in the Old Testament where Hosea’s marriage to the prostitute Gomer was a warning to Israel not to play the harlot with the Lord and instead return to him and be faithful. If Christ were not faithful to his bride, the church, he would be liable to judgment, which is impossible (Heb. 6:13; 2 Tim. 2:13). The union between Christ and the church is indissoluble—believers are beloved by Christ and forever belong to him:
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Eph. 5:25-28)
Just as the legal aspect of marriage provides security for both spouses and any children from their union, so does God’s justification of all who are in Christ provide security for believers that their salvation is secure, grounded in Christ’s finished work on their behalf. And all this is because of God’s unfathomable love for the world.
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The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God by Timothy Keller