Spirituality of the Law
51
again. This practice led to great wretchedness and sin. In the Sermon
on the Mount Jesus declared plainly that there could be no dissolution
of the marriage tie, except for unfaithfulness to the marriage vow.
“Everyone,” He said, “that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause
of fornication, maketh her an adulteress: and whosoever shall marry
her when she is put away committeth adultery.” R.V.
When the Pharisees afterward questioned Him concerning the
lawfulness of divorce, Jesus pointed His hearers back to the marriage
institution as ordained at creation. “Because of the hardness of your
hearts,” He said, Moses “suffered you to put away your wives: but from
the beginning it was not so.”
Matthew 19:8
. He referred them to the
blessed days of Eden, when God pronounced all things “very good.”
Then marriage and the Sabbath had their origin, twin institutions for
the glory of God in the benefit of humanity. Then, as the Creator joined
the hands of the holy pair in wedlock, saying, A man shall “leave his
father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall
be one” (
Genesis 2:24
), He enunciated the law of marriage for all the
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children of Adam to the close of time. That which the Eternal Father
Himself had pronounced good was the law of highest blessing and
development for man.
Like every other one of God’s good gifts entrusted to the keeping
of humanity, marriage has been perverted by sin; but it is the purpose
of the gospel to restore its purity and beauty. In both the Old and
the New Testament the marriage relation is employed to represent the
tender and sacred union that exists between Christ and His people,
the redeemed ones whom He has purchased at the cost of Calvary.
“Fear not,” He says; “thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts
is His name; and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.” “Turn, O
backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you.”
Isaiah
54:4, 5
;
Jeremiah 3:14
. In the “Song of Songs” we hear the bride’s
voice saying, “My Beloved is mine, and I am His.” And He who is
to her “the chiefest among ten thousand,” speaks to His chosen one,
“Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in thee.”
Song of Solomon
2:16
;
5:10
;
4:7
.
In later times Paul the apostle, writing to the Ephesian Christians,
declares that the Lord has constituted the husband the head of the wife,
to be her protector, the house-band, binding the members of the family
together, even as Christ is the head of the church and the Saviour