How should Christians define marriage? Which authority should we trust on this topic? In this video, Pastor David Platt explains that God is the author of marriage, defining it as the exclusive and permanent union of a man and a woman. In recent years, many have claimed that this definition of marriage does not work anymore and that we have discovered a better way. Instead, Pastor Platt urges Christians to trust in God and submit to his Word as a bright and guiding light. We can have faith that God’s plans cannot be eradicated by any vote or court.
- How God Created Marriage
- How Humanity Has Changed Marriage
- Looking to God For What Marriage Is
Watch Full Message of Jesus and Marriage
God created marriage. God created marriage. This is where Jesus starts. When he is asked about marriage and divorce, he says in verse four, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning, made them male and female and said, ‘Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they’re no longer two but one flesh.'”
Marriage Defined in Creation
So Jesus takes us all the way back to the very beginning of the Bible, chapter two, where God creates man and woman, actually in chapter one, and then brings them together in this union called marriage. Like, think about it. God didn’t have to create us this way as men and women. He didn’t have to create marriage this way as one man and one woman coming together in a one-flesh union, but he does. And as he does, God defines marriage from the beginning for our good.
So let me pause there in your notes because I stress fully realize we live in a country that officially denies this. For millennia, civilizations have accepted God’s definition of marriage as an exclusive, permanent union of a man and a woman. And about 25 years ago we are reiterated that definition in our country across party lines, what was called a Defensive Marriage Act. But then six years ago, our Supreme Court struck down key provisions of that act and the way was paved for the redefinition of marriage across our country.
In a way that one prominent professing Christian Church leader said, “This is a huge moment when lots of us are realizing that the old way of seeing things doesn’t work. Our country, even professing Christian leaders among us have said the old way, the way God defined marriage in the beginning doesn’t work.
It is appalling audacity to come along thousands of years after God created and defined marriage, 2000 years after Jesus reiterated that definition and to say in the last six years, ‘We’ve discovered God’s ways don’t work, and we have come up with something better,’ and to say that while professing to be a Christian, God help us. From the beginning of creation, god has defined marriage for our good, so let’s trust and submit to his word.'”
Government Doesn’t Define Marriage
Oh, see the beauty of God’s definition of marriage, a man and woman both masterfully molded in the image of their maker with equal dignity and complementary roles coming together to form one flesh, a physical, emotional, and spiritual fitting together of two as one with powerful unity and diversity shared equality with variety, personal satisfaction through shared consummation. Mark it down. We don’t need to look to any court or to define marriage. God has already done that for our good and his definition cannot be eradicated by a vote of politicians or the opinions of Supreme Court justices. The supreme judge of creation has defined marriage and we gladly trust and submit to his words.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
