One Man and One Woman

           There is only one living and true God (Deut. 6:4; Is. 45:5-7; 1 Cor. 8:4), the God who revealed Himself in the Holy Bible. From all eternity God ordained everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. God created everything and after God made all other creatures he created two human beings of different sexes, thus creating only two sexes, male and female, in his own image.

           God created man first (Gen. 2:7). Knowing that man was a sociable creature who desired knowledge and affection with others like him, God then created woman (Gen. 2:21-22) who was of the same nature and rank of the man (Gen. 2:18). God could’ve instantaneously filled the earth with people just like he filled heaven with angels at once. Instead, He decided to populate the earth by generations through two human beings, male and female, with the two conjugally cohabitating with one another and living as one.

           God’s reasoning was likely something like this. Man and woman were beings of the same nature and the same rank, they would cohabitate and thus be near one another, they should look on one another with pleasure and delight, they would help one another, they would converse with one another, and this connubial relationship would form the nucleus of the family in which to nurture their progeny.

            The divine ordinance of marriage was thus created (Gen. 2:24), resulting in a marital regime that involved one man only and one woman only, joined intimately together to the exclusion of all others. The husband and wife enjoy this intimate physical and emotional union together and of course, according to God’s divine design, innumerable generations would result through the instrumentality of their sexual relationship. This marriage ordinance is the nucleus of the family, which provides a framework for enabling the married father and mother to nurture their children and to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4).

            The ordinance of marriage is a creation ordinance established by God (Gen. 2:24). Marriage is between one man and one woman (Matt. 19:4-6) and is a picture of the covenant between Christ and His bride, the Church (Gen. 2:22-24; Eph. 5:22-33). Any other intimate relationship between human beings is not marriage according to holy Scripture. If any of these other relationships between human beings is established by civil government, it does not place this other relationship within the biblical ordinance of marriage. For the Christian, such other relationships that may be established under civil law may be lawful under the law of the land but are nevertheless not biblical marriage and are thus contrary to the tenets of the Christian faith. Marriage is a divine institution constituted by God and He ordained marriage between a man and a woman as the indispensable condition of the continuance of the human race.

           Since marriage was instituted before the existence of civil society, it cannot be a civil creation and since He commanded human beings to increase their number and replenish the earth, God commanded men and women to marry. God and He alone has determined who the parties to the marriage ordinance are and that the marital regime would continue until the death of one of the parties (Matt. 19:6) and He Gives the only two causes other than death that would justify dissolving the marriage, sexual sin (Matt. 5:32, 19:9) and abandonment by an unbelieving spouse (1 Cor. 7:15). The husband and wife each owe fidelity to one another during the marriage and the vow is made not only to one another but by each to God. We should note that both fornication and sodomy are sins that are not allowed, especially in the marital regime established by God, and both violate the marriage vows. Any violation of the marital vows is a sin against God.

            Marriage is an honorable and sacred institution (Heb. 13:4) to which all other human relationships are secondary. Scripture presents marriage as the ordinary state of adult human beings. Scripture even declares that forbidding marriage is the doctrine of demons (1 Timothy 4:1-3). Children are fruits of the institution of marriage and the heritage from God, which is a blessed reward to mothers and fathers (Ps. 127:3-5). To be sure, society is founded on the distinction of the only two sexes and the ordinance of marriage is the means through which the natural and divinely constituted relationship of the sexes is preserved.