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What the Bible says about Demeaning of Marriage Relationship
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Genesis 1:28

Immediately after He created humans as male and female, "God blessed them." The Theological Word Book of the Old Testament says that a blessing is "to endue with power for success," which is its essential meaning in just about every usage in the Old Testament. We can also define it by recognizing its opposite—a curse—the intention of which is "to bring great evil upon" to hinder success.

Thus, God gave the newly created couple a blessing to bestow power for success on them. We could also say that in this context, this divine blessing was their wedding ceremony. By this blessing, God gave Adam and Eve the right and the authority to enter this union, just as a marriage ceremony does today. It also gives them the authority and power to produce what God expected of them. With God's blessing given to the institution and to the individuals involved, the chances for success become significantly greater. In fact, with God's eager blessing, a married couple really has no excuse for failure!

The marriage ceremony used by the churches of God stresses that the bride and groom are making a covenant before God and man. The ceremony includes a laying on of hands that sets the couple apart in their union, showing that God Himself seals the contract—the marriage covenant—between the groom and the bride. In addition, in the prayer that accompanies the laying on of hands, the minister typically asks for blessings to come upon them—a blessing on their relationship, a blessing on their offspring, a blessing for their prosperity, etc.

The apostle Paul writes in I Corinthians 1:9, "God is faithful." When God gives a blessing, He follows through by giving what is needed for its fulfillment. God's Word is not empty: "So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11). So a groom and his bride have little excuse for not producing what God desires to result from their marriage.

To provide godly blessings, therefore, is a significant purpose for this institution. Marriage is truly a blessed arrangement. Not only does marriage have God's sanction, but He also loads it with benefits from His own hands. He blesses a man and his wife with advantages that are in no other union because He is intimately involved, a party in the covenant. In a Christian marriage, the power needed to make it work is available from God.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part Two)

Genesis 2:21-24

It is a damning testimonial of our society's state of morality that changing the definition of marriage is being seriously discussed. If the discussion results in marriage being opened up to combinations of people other than one man and one woman, we can mark it as the death-knell of the nation. No society has ever endured far beyond the demeaning of the marriage institution.

From a biblical perspective, marriage is humanity's founding institution. After He created Adam and Eve, God immediately united them as husband and wife. Their union became the bedrock upon which human civilization was built. As much as evolutionists have tried to dispel the notion, humanity is one large family, and family begins with marriage.

Various kinds of families have been tried throughout history—polygamous, incestuous, communal, etc.—but none of them have really worked. All stable, enduring societies cherish the one-man-one-woman lifelong bond of marriage. Rome, for instance, flourished during its centuries as a republic due to its tenacious grip on what has become known as the "traditional family." It is renowned for its total lack of divorce throughout this period. Rome's slow decline can be traced to the time when easy divorce and open promiscuity began to cheapen the marriage covenant's worth.

This should give us an indication of where America—and to a similar extent, the rest of the Western world—is on the timeline of societal decline. Divorce and promiscuity became commonplace not long after World War II. In the nearly sixty years since that time, divorce rates have hovered around 50%, and out-of-wedlock sex is nearly universal. Roughly a third of America's births are illegitimate. And since the late 1970s, homosexuality has increasingly become accepted as just another lifestyle choice, despite the ravages of AIDS.

The legal recognition of traditional marriage acknowledges its benefits to society as a whole. Traditional marriages produce children, who extend the nation's existence, ideals, goals, and wealth for another generation. Traditional families are healthier, more stable, and more productive than other kinds of families, resulting in a net gain for society. Homosexual unions can never even hope to provide society any of these benefits.

The apostle Paul writes in Hebrews 13:4, "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge." The use of both "fornicators" and "adulterers" is significant here because the former covers all sexual immorality, while the latter describes marital infidelity. Homosexuality, then, included under the general term "fornication," has no place in godly marriage. Using Paul's language, it is defiling, thus perverse, base, and unwholesome. There should be no debate within the church of God that such an abomination has any place among God-fearing Christians.

Looking beyond this ungodly attempt to pervert the noble institution of marriage, Christian husbands and wives need to take stock of their own relationships, asking such questions as: Are we making the most of our marriages? Are we good examples of what Christian marriages should be? Are we honoring God in these God-plane relationships? Do our children see how much we love each other? Are we truly united in belief and practice? How can we improve our marriages?

Then, even if society crumbles around us, we will have created an environment of strength and unity in which to rebuild an even better world for our children and grandchildren.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
In Defense of Marriage

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

What an individual does—good or evil—affects the lives of others as well. Whether committed by man, woman, boy, or girl, there is no such thing as a victimless crime or a private sin. Sins of commission and omission affect the doer, his family, friends, and society.

Robert Bork ("The Necessary Amendment," First Things, August/September 2004, p. 16) drives this point home in his comments about the effort to legalize homosexual marriage. Bork cites three reasons why "the consequences of homosexual marriage will affect you, your children, and your grandchildren, as well as the morality and health of the society in which you and they live."

First, sanctioning gay marriage will endorse heterosexual promiscuity. By its very nature, legitimatizing homosexual marriage demeans "traditional marriage, [which] comes to be perceived as just one more sexual arrangement among others." Studies of the consequences of same-sex marriage in Scandinavia and the Netherlands hint that nontraditional marriage arrangements break "the symbolic link between marriage, procreation, and family." When that happens, there follows

a rapid and persistent decline in heterosexual marriages. Families are begun by cohabiting couples, who break up significantly more often than married couples, leaving children in one-parent families. The evidence has long been clear that children raised in such families are much more likely to engage in crime, use drugs, and form unstable relationships. These are pathologies that affect everyone in a community.

Second, sanctioning gay marriage will result in an increase in the number of practicing homosexuals. To legitimize homosexual marriage goes a long way to equating heterosexuality with homosexuality. What were once elemental differences become blurred in peoples' minds. "By removing the last vestiges of moral stigma from same-sex couplings, such marriages will lead to an increase in the number of homosexuals." Bork continues by pointing out that young people, "as yet uncertain of and confused by their sexuality" may find it easier to develop a homosexual orientation. This in turn will lead to an increase in the "homosexual syndrome," a collection of physical and psychological symptoms homosexuals are far more prone to display than heterosexuals. HIV/AIDS is just one set of these symptoms. Attempted suicide rates, commonly 300% higher in homosexuals than in heterosexuals, manifest another symptom (see "How Normal is Deviance?" CGG Weekly, October 22, 2004).

The word gay, attached to homosexuals, is a real misnomer, for homosexuals' lives are not at all gay. The homosexual syndrome manifests itself even in the most "gay-friendly" cultures. This fact exposes how absurd is the argument that psychological disorders in gays are the result of "social disapproval." Bork points out that no research exists to corroborate the notion that society's disapproval of homosexuals' lifestyles results in their increased incidence of psychological disorders. The homosexual syndrome, then, is directly related to sexual perversion itself and is not the product of a guilt-trip forced on sodomites by a supposedly intolerant culture.

Third, sanctioning same-sex marriage opens the floodgate to even more outlandish behavior. Bork quotes William Bennett, who points out that homosexual rights activists, having won the battle for same-sex unions, will have no reasons to criticize

the marriage of two consenting brothers. Nor can they . . . explain why we ought to deny a marriage license to three men who want to marry. Or to a man who wants a consensual polygamous arrangement. Or to a father to his adult daughter.

In arguing this way, Bork is saying that legitimizing same-sex marriages crosses a line. Once crossed, no other moral barrier will hold against the onslaught of even the most bizarre proposals. How bizarre can bizarre become? Well, how bizarre is the proposal to legitimize pedophilia? After all, if a teenage girl no longer needs to receive parental permission to obtain an abortion, how far are we from legally approving intercourse between an adult and a consenting teenage boy? This is one of the most disturbing aspects of the floodgate principle. Mary Eberstadt shows that "the taboo against pedophilia is weakening."

Are those enough consequences of legitimizing same-sex marriages? Just three, but each one is horrid beyond words. In the name of "choice," America is destroying her young people. It is only a matter of time before even the most unspeakable deviant practices become legal, rampant, public, and "acceptable" in America. And, all that to the hurt of sinner and society alike.

Charles Whitaker (1944-2021)
Sodom, Here We Come


 




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