MARRIAGE-ONE FLESH
Husbands and
wives, recognize that in marriage you have become one flesh. If you live for
your private pleasure at the expense of your spouse, you are living against
yourself and destroying your joy. But if you devote yourself with all your
heart to the holy joy of your spouse, you will also be living for your joy and
making a marriage after the image of Christ and His church.
Desiring God, 1996, p. 178, Used by
Permission, www.desiringGod.org.
When a couple
speaks their vows, it is not a man or a woman or a pastor or parent who is the
main actor – the main doer. God is. God joins a husband and a wife into a
one-flesh union. God does that. The
world does not know this. Which is one of the reasons why
marriage is treated so casually. And Christians often act like they don’t know it, which is
one of the reasons marriage in the church is not seen as the wonder it is.
Marriage is God’s doing because it is a one-flesh union that God Himself
performs.
John Piper
This
Momentary Marriage – A Parable of Permanence, Desiring God Foundation, 2008, p.
23, www.DesiringGod.org.
As God by
creation made two of one, so again by marriage He made one of two.
Thomas Adams
A Puritan
Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by
permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 178.
All Christian
men and women supernaturally have the positional unity Jesus prayed for in John
seventeen. If they are husband and wife, they are also united by God into “one
flesh” (Genesis 2:24). The Hebrew word for “one” is echad which means “one, alike,
altogether, or all at once.” The very same word is used in Deuteronomy 6:4 for
“the Lord is one.” In other words, somehow God makes the husband and wife into
“one” as the Trinity is one, a compound unity.
Martha Peace
The Excellent Wife, Focus Publishing
Incorporated, p. 28.
The goal of
the Christian husband and wife in their marriage is to have a oneness that is
characterized by a loving spiritual and physical bond that glorifies God and
thereby enhances personal spiritual growth (Genesis 2:24; Ephesians 5:22-33;
Galatians 6:1; Hebrews 13:4). Oneness and spiritual growth are achieved as each
partner helps the other become as much like the Lord Jesus Christ as possible.
This spiritual growth and oneness in marriage does not happen by chance. It
happens in direct proportion to how diligent a couple is in pursuing it.
Martha Peace
The Excellent Wife, Focus Publishing
Incorporated, p. 34.
Sexual
intercourse is more than a physical act; it is a symbol of a spiritual
relationship and the expression of the complete oneness of two persons in
married love… It is...the means by which they are confirmed and nourished in
that union. Sexual intercourse is the physical establishment and confirmation
of that oneness. The true dignity of sex is in its ability to enhance this
personal unity between two persons who have committed themselves to each other
in love and marriage. In sexual intercourse the couple becomes joined in an
indissoluble unity, called in the Bible “one flesh.”
Dwight Hervey Small
Design for Christian Marriage, Revell, 1971, p. 46, 96.
According to
the Bible, the marriage act is more than a physical act. It is an act of
sharing. It is an act of communion. It is an act of total self-giving wherein
the husband gives himself completely to the wife, and the wife gives herself to
the husband in such a way that the two actually become one flesh.
Wayne Mack
Strengthening Your Marriage, P&R,
1999, p. 120, Used by Permission.
Indeed, the
marriage act is the symbol or culmination of a more complete oneness, of a
total giving of yourself to another person.
Consequently, if the more complete oneness is not a reality, sexual relations
lose their meaning.
Wayne Mack
Strengthening Your Marriage, 1999,
P&R, p. 6, Used by Permission.
When two
people know, accept, and fulfill their varying but complementary
responsibilities, oneness in marriage is promoted.
Wayne Mack
Strengthening Your Marriage, 1999,
P&R, p. 16, Used by Permission.
Becoming one
flesh is a broad concept involving the totality of life. The context of Genesis
2 and the teaching of the rest of the Bible about marriage demand this. At the
same time, it is generally recognized that there is no place where this total
sharing is more beautifully pictured or fully experienced than in the sexual relationship
of the man and his wife.
Wayne Mack
Strengthening Your Marriage, P&R,
1999, p. 119, Used by Permission.
Marriage
itself is consummated with the literal bodily union of husband and wife. From
that point on, the husband should regard the wife as his own flesh. If she
hurts, he ought to feel the pain. If she has needs, he should embrace those
needs as his own. He should seek to feel what she feels, desire what she
desires, and in effect, give her the same care and consideration he gives his
own body
John MacArthur
The
Fulfilled Family, Copyright: John MacArthur, 2005, p. 68.
In marriage a
man and woman are so closely joined that they become “one flesh,” which
involves spiritual as well as physical oneness. In marriage God brings a
husband and wife together in a unique physical and spiritual bond that reaches
to the very depths of their souls. As God designed it, marriage is to be the
welding of two people together into one unit, the blending of two minds, two
wills, two sets of emotions, two spirits. It is a bond the Lord intends to be
indissoluble as long as both partners are alive. The Lord created sex and
procreation to be the fullest expression of that oneness, and the intimacies of
marriage are not to be shared with any other human being.
John MacArthur
Matthew
1-7, Moody, 1985, p. 311.
In God’s eyes
[the married couple becomes] the total possession of each other, one in mind
and spirit, in goals and direction, in emotion and will. When they have a child
it becomes the perfect emblem and demonstration of their oneness, because that
child is a unique product of the fusion of two people into one flesh and
carries the combined traits of both parents.
John
MacArthur
Matthew 16-23, Moody, 1988, p. 166.
The biblical
union of two people into one flesh did not involve the annihilation of personal
identity. The unity of marriage is not to be monistic but a unity in duality.
R.C. Sproul
The
Intimate Marriage, P&R Publishing, 1975, p. 31.
To
become “one flesh”…is to become “one person.” Male and female marriage partners
not only make an exact “fit” sexually, but their maleness and femaleness “fill
out” or “complete” one another in every respect. The two constitute a “whole.”
Jay Adams
One
Flesh, Tabletalk, June 2005, p. 14. Used by Permission.
The man and
his wife become one flesh (Gen 2:24). Together they form one complete unit. As
they come together physically, intellectually, emotionally, there is a
wholeness that did not exist before. They are fused into one.
Jay E. Adams
Christian Living in the Home, P&R
Publishing, 1972, p. 48, Used by Permission.