The foundation that is usually accepted regarding the New Testament and is almost always ignored in the Old is that God relates to His people through covenants (not just for periods, but for contracts). But not just any covenant, not a covenant of king and servant: on the contrary, a marriage covenant. Covenant theology ignores this because it focuses on describing God's covenant merely in theological terms of sovereign-servant (there is truth in this, of course, but it is not the focal point). That's not how it happens in the Scriptures.
GOD OF COVENANTS
In Scripture, God does not act like an animal; He acts like a husband, always. We often confuse the concepts and think that the covenant at Sinai with Israel is of the common type in the Middle East between kings and vassals. But that's not how the prophets themselves saw that covenant. Although the concept of king-servant was present, the central focus is on husband-wives (Ezekiel 23:1-9). God made a marriage covenant with Israel (Jeremiah 31:32; Jeremiah 3; Ezekiel 23:1-9), and this needs to be taken into account when talking about marriage.
We also need not to confuse the concepts. When God wants to emphasize the role of savior and king, the covenant carries within it the blood, for without blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22). But when God wants to highlight His promises and the consequent relationship with the people, the blood takes a backseat, and the contract takes precedence. How do we know this? Well, the covenant that God made with Adam did not involve blood, as it was made only in terms of promises and threats. The Torah itself has a similar structure, with its feasts merely foreshadowing God's final covenant with the people, which would indeed be through the blood of Christ, and would place blood in the background, focusing on the subsequent relationship. But we should not get lost in comparisons. God made a Covenant with Adam, and this covenant is the basis of human relationships: God made us to relate through covenants.
It's also important to note the role of each part of the covenant: God is always the husband (never the wife), and the Church (including Israel) is always the wife (or wives, depending on what is being taught). Passages like Jeremiah 3 and Ezekiel 23 are the best examples of the plural case (wives), and Hosea 1 is the best example of the singular case (wife). Notice that the prophets themselves interpret the covenant at Sinai and with Abraham not as a covenant between a sovereign and subjects, but as a marriage covenant. It's not a metaphor. It's the actual relationship. Proof of this is that when Paul reaffirms the prohibition of relations with a "cult prostitute," he emphasizes that we are one spirit with Christ (1 Corinthians 6:17, 20). Metaphors cannot be doctrines that divide right from wrong, so it's essential to note that there is indeed a marriage between God and His people.
It would be absurd if it were otherwise. Think of Hosea. If the marriage between God and His people is a metaphor, then Hosea is making a metaphor of a metaphor (he marries a prostitute to symbolize God's relationship with His people in the Old Testament), and he can never reach reality. As far as we know, the Old Testament is a shadow of reality, not a shadow of another shadow (Colossians 2:17 – but note that the text speaks of the law, assuming that God's marriage in the Old Testament is a shadow).
Now consider Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel 16 describes Israel's journey from its origins to the Egyptian captivity, its multiplication in Exodus 1, its growth, maturity for liberation, and finally, marriage (at Sinai). It's important to note that the prophet does not describe all of this as a beautiful metaphor of God and His people because at the end of Ezekiel 16, God says He will treat Israel like an adulteress, yes, with the penalty of death, and that's what happens to the people: Israel is killed by other nations. If everything were a metaphor, not even death could be real. Moreover, God would not kill the people for a metaphor.
In perspective, it's easier to say that the marriage between man and woman is, in fact, a "metaphor." Why? We know from Scripture that marriage seals the fact that both become one flesh; this means that the death of the flesh ends the marriage. Considering that we are spiritually married to God, and this will not end, marriage in the present world only symbolizes God's marriage to His people, not the other way around. What is temporary, by definition, cannot be reality.
Think of it another way: Christ Himself says that in heaven there is no marriage (Mark 12:25), which is logical even from the Torah, as it only connects marriage to the flesh – only if the flesh were to continue to exist would marriage continue. Now, isn't that proof that, in reality, God created marriage to express His relationship with us and not that the marriage between God and His people is a reflection of the marriage between man and woman?
Also, God, being a good husband, disciplines and rebukes Israel. He teaches the people, and the people, for their part, have the covenant of submission to God and His commands. This is the marriage covenant. If the people violate this covenant, God pursues them. The truth is that the covenant does not cease to exist; on the contrary, even when God gives a certificate of divorce (Jeremiah 3:8), it does not say that Israel ceases to be His wife, but rather foresees that He will give Israel a better covenant, with lesser burdens and greater mercy (Jeremiah 3:12). In fact, God never abandoned Israel, as He saved the remnant from the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, having converted the first Jews in Acts 2–3. God indeed made the new covenant with Israel (the nation) represented as Judah and included the Gentile church in the covenant (the remainder of Israel). Then He made both into one church. Thus, the entire church and God became one spirit.
Now, marriage can only be dissolved by the death of the flesh, but with God, we are spiritually married. If the spirit does not die and, especially, our husband never dies, the marriage is never dissolved with God, ensuring His people complete salvation. Here, we are shown, therefore, that the marriage relationship further highlights the transience of physical marriage: God did not create Adam with the intention that his marriage would last forever. Rather, God intended only to teach something through the creation of Adam – that the last Adam would come (1 Corinthians 15).
Note that God's relationship is marital (Hosea 2:19, 20). Therefore, everything that is true about God's relationship with Israel/the Church is true regarding the marriage of Husband-Wife(s). Marriage is the full expression of God's relationship with His people.
Note: Just as God is not obligated to marry, we cannot presume that man is either. However, as we should note, God's marriage to His people allows for many blessings, which presupposes the same for the marriage between man and woman. If we consider the full meaning of marriage, we will understand that God gives it as a blessing and not as a commandment. We will return to this below, commenting on Genesis 2.
GENESIS 2 – THE CONTRACT
And Adam said, "This is now 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. (Genesis 2:23-25)
We need to contextualize Genesis 2. The text is not talking about the ideal model of human relationships. There's no such thing in Scripture. The text doesn't deal with "ideal" things; that's our invention because we can't explain with our minds why some things are allowed. Instead, it's teaching about what the marriage contract is. We'll demonstrate below.
How do we know the text isn't talking about an ideal? Because not even Jesus cites it that way in Matthew 19 or Mark 10. Jesus, when citing the passage, proves that it's directed toward the marriage contract, not marriage in its relationships. We need to remember that the creation of Adam was exclusively for him to represent Christ (1 Corinthians 15:45), so the figure can't be confused with things that are not essential to it. For example, if God wanted, He could have created Adam with children, but He didn't, to express the full relationship of Christ with the Church. God didn't want Christ to be alone, so He gave Him the Church.
Let's flip it: does it mean the ideal of marriage is not to have children? As you can see, the text itself says the opposite of that. So, we can't assume that because Adam was created in a certain state, that state is the ideal. In fact, Adam couldn't be the ideal in any way, because, as Paul shows, creation was not the ideal, but had the original intention of expressing the coming of Christ, not being an end in itself (1 Corinthians 15:45-50). Thus, it's not a text strictly about sin in relation to sex but about the contract.
Note: What would be the ideal? Being married or single? For instance, in Heaven, we don't marry anymore (Mark 12:25), is that proof that the ideal for us is not to be married? What is the ideal: creation or Heaven? This apparent contradiction only exists because we reason in terms of Greek ideals and not by biblical notions of right and wrong. God didn't create man to be the way he was created, because creation is good, but not glorious. Adam couldn't inherit the kingdom of God because he was corruptible, as evidenced by his fall (1 Corinthians 15:50). Thus, at no point is the original creation, in Scripture, used as an ideal, but as something to be surpassed – and this applies even to marriage itself, as the original creation doesn't express the ideal of marriage, only the commandment tied to the marriage contract, that's all. Heaven, even though it is the Ideal, says nothing about marriage on Earth, so any attempt to use either as an ideal results in failure.
Speaking of sin, the text is not about a commandment. As we have already shown in "What is the Law of God?", commandments have demarcation lines of transgression. "Not to marry" finds its line where? In age? In financial conditions? Worse, in Jeremiah 16:1, 2 the Lord Himself forbids Jeremiah to marry. God cannot contradict His own commandments; He will never command a man to lie with another man's wife, or to kill an innocent. Therefore, we can say that this text is not a commandment about to marry.
If we go further, we will see that Paul instructs, in 1 Corinthians 7, that ordinary men should not marry (the order is different for bishops, even in the context of persecution). And for what reason does Paul say this? Because of the present moment [when the church lived under persecution between the years 40 and 70 AD (1 Co 7:26, 27)]. Is Paul contradicting the Law of God? By no means! He knows well that there is a matrimonial law (Romans 7:2, 3), but this law is not about the obligation to marry, but about the act of marriage itself, which is the contract.
Now, we know that there is some commandment in the text of Genesis 2, but if it is not about having children or getting married, what is it then? Simple, God's commandment is about what the marriage contract is, hence the explanatory clause ("therefore" and "they shall become one flesh", meaning they cannot cease to be). As Jesus himself demonstrates, God's commandment is that the marriage contract binds individuals for life (Matthew 19:6). Only in this and in this is the commandment.
What are the evidences of this in the text itself?
The text says "his" wife: we have the feeling that this is a natural writing that simply implies that the individuals became husband and wife after becoming one flesh. But the truth is that this text says the exact opposite. The order in which things happen will clarify, see how it is written and see what is demonstrated:
According to the logic of the text, the order of events is: (a) his wife (b) leaving father and mother (c) hold fast
Why do we know this? Simple, the text doesn't say that the man joins "a" woman or "the" woman, but "his" woman, meaning she is already his wife before the union, and the union doesn't make them husband and wife – this is clear and direct in the text, without needing further explanation. Also, it doesn't say "hold fast with your girl" or "with the virgin", as the text aims to show that the contract precedes the physical union, and thus uses precise words. The text aims to demonstrate that Eve was already Adam's wife before he joined her, and this contractual union has the physical bond as the limit of the contract's validity. We will see other texts that prove this, but we need to clarify more details.
For example, leaving father and mother is something that can only happen before the union of the two, as this act signifies the creation of a new family. Thus, the text is teaching about the separation from the family due to the marriage contract. So, only the parents are present here. They are the authorities of the marriage, and the marriage is recognized before them.
Note: The text is not concerned whether the contract is written or verbal, as we see, God's contract with man is not written, although symbolized by the trees in the middle of the Garden. The text is also not concerned with pragmatic issues, such as whether the lack of civil registration can cause any problem or not for political administration (submission to civil authorities has no relation to the validity of the marriage contract before God – at most, it is a record due to our submission, but this record has no real value). See below.
Here still fits another piece of information: why is it the son who leaves father and mother? Because contrary to what is often said, marriage was consummated in the woman's parents' house, as a means for her parents to have proof that she was a virgin (Deuteronomy 22:13-18; Song of Solomon 3:4) – the objective of the text is solely to prove the woman's virginity, with the route taken being nonessential to validate the marriage.
Another question raised by the contract is: who can accept it? Although this answer is given several times in the texts we will study next, we need to understand what Genesis accepts as the "parties." These parties are not – as Catholics think – the Church, nor are they – as Protestants think – the Political Government, nor are they – as liberals think – the individuals, although in extreme situations they "witness" between each other and God. Let's explain.
The only ones present in the text are the man's parents, which indicates that the weight of the contract is not merely on the woman's parents, but on the acceptance by the man's parents. They are the ones who accept the marriage or testify in favor of it. Only the parents (not the siblings, nor the State, etc.) have this power in the scriptures. This text of Genesis teaches about the marriage contract, not about the politics acquired by man afterwards, therefore, we must understand that this is the assertion of the text. The man does not marry because a church said so, or because a politician said so, but because the parents (of both parties) accepted and agreed in a vow.
In summary, in Genesis 2, the commandment is "they shall become one flesh," that is, "they shall not cease to be one flesh," thus becoming the marriage contract. This contract is established intrafamilially and is for as long as the flesh lasts, making the violation of this contract a sin (spoiler: divorce does not violate the contract but what happens after it).
GOD OF COVENANTS
In Scripture, God does not act like an animal; He acts like a husband, always. We often confuse the concepts and think that the covenant at Sinai with Israel is of the common type in the Middle East between kings and vassals. But that's not how the prophets themselves saw that covenant. Although the concept of king-servant was present, the central focus is on husband-wives (Ezekiel 23:1-9). God made a marriage covenant with Israel (Jeremiah 31:32; Jeremiah 3; Ezekiel 23:1-9), and this needs to be taken into account when talking about marriage.
We also need not to confuse the concepts. When God wants to emphasize the role of savior and king, the covenant carries within it the blood, for without blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22). But when God wants to highlight His promises and the consequent relationship with the people, the blood takes a backseat, and the contract takes precedence. How do we know this? Well, the covenant that God made with Adam did not involve blood, as it was made only in terms of promises and threats. The Torah itself has a similar structure, with its feasts merely foreshadowing God's final covenant with the people, which would indeed be through the blood of Christ, and would place blood in the background, focusing on the subsequent relationship. But we should not get lost in comparisons. God made a Covenant with Adam, and this covenant is the basis of human relationships: God made us to relate through covenants.
It's also important to note the role of each part of the covenant: God is always the husband (never the wife), and the Church (including Israel) is always the wife (or wives, depending on what is being taught). Passages like Jeremiah 3 and Ezekiel 23 are the best examples of the plural case (wives), and Hosea 1 is the best example of the singular case (wife). Notice that the prophets themselves interpret the covenant at Sinai and with Abraham not as a covenant between a sovereign and subjects, but as a marriage covenant. It's not a metaphor. It's the actual relationship. Proof of this is that when Paul reaffirms the prohibition of relations with a "cult prostitute," he emphasizes that we are one spirit with Christ (1 Corinthians 6:17, 20). Metaphors cannot be doctrines that divide right from wrong, so it's essential to note that there is indeed a marriage between God and His people.
It would be absurd if it were otherwise. Think of Hosea. If the marriage between God and His people is a metaphor, then Hosea is making a metaphor of a metaphor (he marries a prostitute to symbolize God's relationship with His people in the Old Testament), and he can never reach reality. As far as we know, the Old Testament is a shadow of reality, not a shadow of another shadow (Colossians 2:17 – but note that the text speaks of the law, assuming that God's marriage in the Old Testament is a shadow).
Now consider Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel 16 describes Israel's journey from its origins to the Egyptian captivity, its multiplication in Exodus 1, its growth, maturity for liberation, and finally, marriage (at Sinai). It's important to note that the prophet does not describe all of this as a beautiful metaphor of God and His people because at the end of Ezekiel 16, God says He will treat Israel like an adulteress, yes, with the penalty of death, and that's what happens to the people: Israel is killed by other nations. If everything were a metaphor, not even death could be real. Moreover, God would not kill the people for a metaphor.
In perspective, it's easier to say that the marriage between man and woman is, in fact, a "metaphor." Why? We know from Scripture that marriage seals the fact that both become one flesh; this means that the death of the flesh ends the marriage. Considering that we are spiritually married to God, and this will not end, marriage in the present world only symbolizes God's marriage to His people, not the other way around. What is temporary, by definition, cannot be reality.
Think of it another way: Christ Himself says that in heaven there is no marriage (Mark 12:25), which is logical even from the Torah, as it only connects marriage to the flesh – only if the flesh were to continue to exist would marriage continue. Now, isn't that proof that, in reality, God created marriage to express His relationship with us and not that the marriage between God and His people is a reflection of the marriage between man and woman?
Also, God, being a good husband, disciplines and rebukes Israel. He teaches the people, and the people, for their part, have the covenant of submission to God and His commands. This is the marriage covenant. If the people violate this covenant, God pursues them. The truth is that the covenant does not cease to exist; on the contrary, even when God gives a certificate of divorce (Jeremiah 3:8), it does not say that Israel ceases to be His wife, but rather foresees that He will give Israel a better covenant, with lesser burdens and greater mercy (Jeremiah 3:12). In fact, God never abandoned Israel, as He saved the remnant from the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, having converted the first Jews in Acts 2–3. God indeed made the new covenant with Israel (the nation) represented as Judah and included the Gentile church in the covenant (the remainder of Israel). Then He made both into one church. Thus, the entire church and God became one spirit.
Now, marriage can only be dissolved by the death of the flesh, but with God, we are spiritually married. If the spirit does not die and, especially, our husband never dies, the marriage is never dissolved with God, ensuring His people complete salvation. Here, we are shown, therefore, that the marriage relationship further highlights the transience of physical marriage: God did not create Adam with the intention that his marriage would last forever. Rather, God intended only to teach something through the creation of Adam – that the last Adam would come (1 Corinthians 15).
Note that God's relationship is marital (Hosea 2:19, 20). Therefore, everything that is true about God's relationship with Israel/the Church is true regarding the marriage of Husband-Wife(s). Marriage is the full expression of God's relationship with His people.
Note: Just as God is not obligated to marry, we cannot presume that man is either. However, as we should note, God's marriage to His people allows for many blessings, which presupposes the same for the marriage between man and woman. If we consider the full meaning of marriage, we will understand that God gives it as a blessing and not as a commandment. We will return to this below, commenting on Genesis 2.
GENESIS 2 – THE CONTRACT
And Adam said, "This is now 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. (Genesis 2:23-25)
We need to contextualize Genesis 2. The text is not talking about the ideal model of human relationships. There's no such thing in Scripture. The text doesn't deal with "ideal" things; that's our invention because we can't explain with our minds why some things are allowed. Instead, it's teaching about what the marriage contract is. We'll demonstrate below.
How do we know the text isn't talking about an ideal? Because not even Jesus cites it that way in Matthew 19 or Mark 10. Jesus, when citing the passage, proves that it's directed toward the marriage contract, not marriage in its relationships. We need to remember that the creation of Adam was exclusively for him to represent Christ (1 Corinthians 15:45), so the figure can't be confused with things that are not essential to it. For example, if God wanted, He could have created Adam with children, but He didn't, to express the full relationship of Christ with the Church. God didn't want Christ to be alone, so He gave Him the Church.
Let's flip it: does it mean the ideal of marriage is not to have children? As you can see, the text itself says the opposite of that. So, we can't assume that because Adam was created in a certain state, that state is the ideal. In fact, Adam couldn't be the ideal in any way, because, as Paul shows, creation was not the ideal, but had the original intention of expressing the coming of Christ, not being an end in itself (1 Corinthians 15:45-50). Thus, it's not a text strictly about sin in relation to sex but about the contract.
Note: What would be the ideal? Being married or single? For instance, in Heaven, we don't marry anymore (Mark 12:25), is that proof that the ideal for us is not to be married? What is the ideal: creation or Heaven? This apparent contradiction only exists because we reason in terms of Greek ideals and not by biblical notions of right and wrong. God didn't create man to be the way he was created, because creation is good, but not glorious. Adam couldn't inherit the kingdom of God because he was corruptible, as evidenced by his fall (1 Corinthians 15:50). Thus, at no point is the original creation, in Scripture, used as an ideal, but as something to be surpassed – and this applies even to marriage itself, as the original creation doesn't express the ideal of marriage, only the commandment tied to the marriage contract, that's all. Heaven, even though it is the Ideal, says nothing about marriage on Earth, so any attempt to use either as an ideal results in failure.
Speaking of sin, the text is not about a commandment. As we have already shown in "What is the Law of God?", commandments have demarcation lines of transgression. "Not to marry" finds its line where? In age? In financial conditions? Worse, in Jeremiah 16:1, 2 the Lord Himself forbids Jeremiah to marry. God cannot contradict His own commandments; He will never command a man to lie with another man's wife, or to kill an innocent. Therefore, we can say that this text is not a commandment about to marry.
If we go further, we will see that Paul instructs, in 1 Corinthians 7, that ordinary men should not marry (the order is different for bishops, even in the context of persecution). And for what reason does Paul say this? Because of the present moment [when the church lived under persecution between the years 40 and 70 AD (1 Co 7:26, 27)]. Is Paul contradicting the Law of God? By no means! He knows well that there is a matrimonial law (Romans 7:2, 3), but this law is not about the obligation to marry, but about the act of marriage itself, which is the contract.
Now, we know that there is some commandment in the text of Genesis 2, but if it is not about having children or getting married, what is it then? Simple, God's commandment is about what the marriage contract is, hence the explanatory clause ("therefore" and "they shall become one flesh", meaning they cannot cease to be). As Jesus himself demonstrates, God's commandment is that the marriage contract binds individuals for life (Matthew 19:6). Only in this and in this is the commandment.
What are the evidences of this in the text itself?
The text says "his" wife: we have the feeling that this is a natural writing that simply implies that the individuals became husband and wife after becoming one flesh. But the truth is that this text says the exact opposite. The order in which things happen will clarify, see how it is written and see what is demonstrated:
(a) The man leaves his father and mother
(b) hold fast
(c) to his wife
(b) hold fast
(c) to his wife
According to the logic of the text, the order of events is: (a) his wife (b) leaving father and mother (c) hold fast
Why do we know this? Simple, the text doesn't say that the man joins "a" woman or "the" woman, but "his" woman, meaning she is already his wife before the union, and the union doesn't make them husband and wife – this is clear and direct in the text, without needing further explanation. Also, it doesn't say "hold fast with your girl" or "with the virgin", as the text aims to show that the contract precedes the physical union, and thus uses precise words. The text aims to demonstrate that Eve was already Adam's wife before he joined her, and this contractual union has the physical bond as the limit of the contract's validity. We will see other texts that prove this, but we need to clarify more details.
For example, leaving father and mother is something that can only happen before the union of the two, as this act signifies the creation of a new family. Thus, the text is teaching about the separation from the family due to the marriage contract. So, only the parents are present here. They are the authorities of the marriage, and the marriage is recognized before them.
Note: The text is not concerned whether the contract is written or verbal, as we see, God's contract with man is not written, although symbolized by the trees in the middle of the Garden. The text is also not concerned with pragmatic issues, such as whether the lack of civil registration can cause any problem or not for political administration (submission to civil authorities has no relation to the validity of the marriage contract before God – at most, it is a record due to our submission, but this record has no real value). See below.
Here still fits another piece of information: why is it the son who leaves father and mother? Because contrary to what is often said, marriage was consummated in the woman's parents' house, as a means for her parents to have proof that she was a virgin (Deuteronomy 22:13-18; Song of Solomon 3:4) – the objective of the text is solely to prove the woman's virginity, with the route taken being nonessential to validate the marriage.
Another question raised by the contract is: who can accept it? Although this answer is given several times in the texts we will study next, we need to understand what Genesis accepts as the "parties." These parties are not – as Catholics think – the Church, nor are they – as Protestants think – the Political Government, nor are they – as liberals think – the individuals, although in extreme situations they "witness" between each other and God. Let's explain.
The only ones present in the text are the man's parents, which indicates that the weight of the contract is not merely on the woman's parents, but on the acceptance by the man's parents. They are the ones who accept the marriage or testify in favor of it. Only the parents (not the siblings, nor the State, etc.) have this power in the scriptures. This text of Genesis teaches about the marriage contract, not about the politics acquired by man afterwards, therefore, we must understand that this is the assertion of the text. The man does not marry because a church said so, or because a politician said so, but because the parents (of both parties) accepted and agreed in a vow.
In summary, in Genesis 2, the commandment is "they shall become one flesh," that is, "they shall not cease to be one flesh," thus becoming the marriage contract. This contract is established intrafamilially and is for as long as the flesh lasts, making the violation of this contract a sin (spoiler: divorce does not violate the contract but what happens after it).
