Marriage is among the most weighty, yet heart-warming teachings in the Bible. Many people do not perceive it to be this way, but marriage presents theological truths in ways that nothing else can.  And despite the attempts in our culture today to redefine marriage, God has established the standards for marriage, with its many purposes. From these purposes, it can be easily seen that any attempt to redefine marriage by any other standard will fail and cannot legitimately be called marriage. Since God created and ordained marriage, we are not the determiners of what is right and wrong in marriage—God is. So then, among these purposes for marriage revealed in the Scriptures are:

Procreation

One of the most important purposes for marriage is procreation, that is, populating the earth. God says in Genesis 1:28, “And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth . . .” Necessary for populating the earth is a man’s seed and a woman’s womb. This is because God created man and woman to complement each other in every way, and through sexual intercourse, children are borne to men and women (Psalm 127:3-5). This is one of the foundational purposes of marriage.

Companionship

When God finished His creation work, the author of Genesis says, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31a). Something interesting happens when God takes Adam and puts him in the garden to “work and keep it” (2:15). We read, “Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (v. 16). Notice that God saw that it was not good for man to be alone. So God made Eve from Adam’s rib and Adam liked what he saw! Adam said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (v. 23). Then, the author states that the very existence of man and woman mandates marriage: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (v. 24). So one of the purposes for marriage is companionship. God created man to be in companionship with woman. This is another way they complement each other. God’s purpose in marriage is lifelong companionship—being in union with another human who shares your cares and burdens, laughs and tears.

Family

A third purpose for marriage is family. Many people do not take this into consideration, but family is God’s idea. Malachi 2:15 demonstrates this purpose, perhaps better than any other passage of Scripture. Malachi says, “Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring” (2:15a). One purpose of marriage is to create a stable home in which children can grow and thrive. Marriage should create an environment where a child can be taught, loved, disciplined, and grow in the faith. If family were not God’s plan, the church would lose its relevance and would likely not exist, for it is “the family of faith” (Gal. 6:10).

Sexual Purity

A fourth purpose for marriage is for sexual purity. In our world today, as in Bible times, sexual temptation runs rampant. The Bible says that the ultimate cure for sexual immorality is marriage: “But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband” (1 Cor. 7:2, emphasis mine). There are temptations all around us, and because of this (not being the only reason) men should seek wives, and women should seek husbands. Our sexual desires should be fulfilled by our spouse. This is because sex within the bounds of marriage is honorable and right in the Lord’s sight: “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous” (Heb. 13:4).

The Gospel

This is the grandest purpose of marriage. This is where the Bible’s teaching on marriage is at it’s highest peak. According to the Bible, the purpose of marriage is to represent Christ’s unbreakable, covenant love for His church, the Bride of Christ. Paul says in Ephesians, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (5:25). This statement is doubly informative. First, it tells us how husbands should love their wives. They should love their wives like Christ loved the church. Second, it tells us how Christ loved the church. Here, marital love informs Christ’s covenant love, and Christ’s covenant love informs marital love. That is, the way a husband loves his wife is how Christ loves the church, and the way Christ loves the church is how husbands should love their wives. This tells us that, just as a husband has an exclusive, unbreakable love for His wife, so Christ has an exclusive, unchanging, unbreakable love for His church. And this theological truth only works with a Bride and Groom (Rev. 19:7-8). Anything that seeks to redefine that standard for marriage is shattering the greatest picture of all: God’s own love for us in the gospel. That’s why marriage cannot be redefined.

Those are the fundamental purposes for marriage as revealed in the Scriptures. No legal document or equality-rally can thwart God’s purposes for His divine ordinance. He alone has authority to say what is right and wrong in marriage. We see from these what we should pursue in our own marriages, and if we are engaged, what we should prepare for.