A Misconception About the Purpose of Marriage

By Rev. Ernest O'Neill

We are all utterly convinced that the purpose of marriage is to make me happier, or to make me more comfortable, or to help me to enjoy life more and that’s why you have such a hard time with marriage as the years pass because, you find that in fact it doesn’t always do that.

That is a misconception about marriage.  What is the purpose of marriage?  It’s very clearly stated in scripture loved ones, if you look at it.  Genesis 1:27 and it has nothing about your comfort and happiness in it.  Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”  That’s the first purpose of marriage.

The whole purpose of God creating the world was to express himself as he really is.  To express his own tenderness, his own justice, his own righteousness, his own mercy and immediately he thought of his own image he thought male and female.  That’s the way that verse runs.  In the beginning God created us in his image male and female he created us.  Immediately God thought of his own image he thought male and female and all of us understand that.  That it requires male and female to express the full beauty of the God who is the Father of Jesus.  All of us that is who have ever been in a men’s locker room, or who have ever been in a women’s club, or who have ever attended a boy’s school, or ever attended a girl’s school.  All of us know fine well that it takes male and female to express the beauty and balance of Jesus’ character and the determination, and the flexibility, and the strength, and the tenderness is contributed by each one.  By one at one time and by one at another until the full balanced beauty of God is expressed to the world and that’s why God made us male and female.

That’s why even in this group this morning there is a more balanced picture of God because there are men and women here; there are brothers and sisters here.  And that’s the primary purpose of God drawing a man and a woman together.  Not for their sake at all, but so that the world will see his beauty in two people, because God himself of course said to his Son, “Let us make man in our image,” and God’s own beauty can only be seen in a communion of at least two people with each other.  But so full and so complete is his character that it requires the tenderness at times of a woman and the strength at times of a man.  The determination at times of a woman and the flexibility at times of a man, it requires – you didn’t think I’d say it that way?  But it requires both and that’s why God made us man and woman and that’s why a body of Christ needs men and women equally united and equally cooperating together.