Matthew 19:4-9 4And answering he said, “Have you not read that the one who created from the beginning made them male and female? 5And he said, ‘Because of this, a man will leave his father and his mother and join to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no person separate.”
Jesus answers the Pharisees’ question by appealing to creation theology found in Genesis 1-2. He uses the rabbinic method of argumentation that appeals to the earliest support in the Bible, which then holds more weight in the evidence. Much of biblical theology emerges out of Genesis 1-3. He assumes they had read the Torah and knew the story of how Adam and Eve were created, why they were created, and what their relationship to one another was intended to be like. Both male and females are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), yet each is also unique in what he or she provides in a relationship. From the beginning indicates that God’s original plan was for the individual male and female to be bonded together in a unique relationship that models God’s own image.
Jesus next quotes from the sacred Scripture found in Genesis 2:24. Marriage bonds two separate individuals into one united relationship. There is nothing more powerful in human relationships than a man and woman who both have put their trust in God. The verb in join to his wife (kollēthēsetai) gives the image of clinging to another or grasping and not letting go. The unity in the marriage relationship is to be held on to, and this can only happen with God’s help and our commitment to his ways. To become one flesh hints at sex that bonds two individuals together in the most intimate and vulnerable way. This type of relationship is not to be treated lightly, casually, or temporarily. It is the commitment of one soul to another for a lifetime.
Verse 6 indicates that God’s original plan for human beings is for one man and one woman to be bonded together in a marriage relationship. The formalities of a ceremony, which vary from culture to culture, are secondary to the commitment required for this unity. God brings people together into a marriage relationship. The vows a person makes to the other person are affirm God’s plan for humanity. The commitment to marriage is a bond that should not be broken because it has been created by God. To do so rejects God and breaks God’s will. Many Jews of Jesus’ day had made marriage a matter of convenience. In our day, marriage has become a matter of feeling. When the other person does not bring good feelings any more, then the marriage is no longer worth it.
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