Divorce & Re-Marriage- , , &

Genesis 1:26-28

Fellowship

Single, Marriage, Divorce, widowhood, and

Remarriage

Foundation - 01 Genesis first 2 chapters gives us the original history of man. Remember that man and woman were created on day six. Creation took place about 6000 years ago that's all, not billions and billions, but about 6000 or so years ago.

God created the universe on day six he finished off his creation by creating man and woman in his own image.

Genesis 1:26-28, Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

It was on day six that God created man.

What makes man distinct? God created the man both male and female is that he has created and she as well in the image of God. That is with certain essential components, characteristics and attributes that belong to God. These make men like God in some ways and unlike the rest of creation.

The image of God involves

• self-consciousness,
• rationality,
• personality,
• creativity,
• emotion,
• volition and
• capacity for relationships.

Man was created with the capabilities of relationship both with God and with other human beings.

Genesis 2:4-25, we have the original history of man. Genesis ¹ gives us the details of creation and Genesis 1:26-28, gives us the details of the creation happened on day six.

But here in Genesis chapter two are the details of that creation that happened on day six. Genesis 2 Verses 5 to 7, details of the Lord God forming the man and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life and man becoming a living being.

Verses 8 to 14, we see the Garden of Eden, where man was placed. Verse 15, job description of the man to take care of the garden. Verses 15-16, man should take the weed out and enjoy the garden with the exception of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The day he eats he will die.

Verses 18- 25, Relationship of man. This is essential to him being created in the image of God. When God said, “let Us make man in Our image”, this is the first time God has spoken of Himself as a plural. We know God is a trinity, but it isn't until the creation of man that God identifies himself in a relationship to himself by using a plural pronoun.

This fits the creation of man because man is also created to be essentially involved in relationships with God and with other people.

The largest part of Genesis Chapter 2 discusses man in his relationship to the helper that God provides for him.

• We are made for a relationship.
• A relationship like the relationship that God enjoys in the Trinity.

A very deep, a very profound relationship that touches the very essence of our being. Some think that they have a relationship with their cat, or dog, or some pet animals. Please understand that is not a deep relationship that touches the essential nature of the soul. It is a superficial, and it shouldn't even be called a relationship.

Relationships have to do with essential compatibility at the truest level of personhood.

Genesis 2:18, And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

God had created a whole universe and God had created a whole universe full of plants and full of animals and man was alone. Which was to say there was no real relationship for man.

Genesis 2:19-20, Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air,

and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

On that day, God paraded by Adam in rapid fire succession the creatures that he had made, and Adam could recognize because of his tremendous intelligence before the fall and before the effects of the fall cumulatively over 6000 years to which we have all been made victims. His mind would have been greater than what we could even imagine. Adam could notice some characteristic about the animal and give them an identifying name.

But it wasn't just to name the animals that God paraded them by. Otherwise God would have recorded all those names. It was really to show man that all of these creatures going by that could be identified by some unique characteristic which could be labelled when all of them had gone by.

Cattle being the domestic side of animals and the non- domestic being every beast of the field when it was all said and done for Adam there wasn't found a helper suitable for him. He was still absolutely alone!

There was no possibility of any meaningful relationship with any of that creation. Man cannot be fulfilled and satisfied relationally which is essential to His nature by any creative being other than one like himself. There was not found a helpmate suitable for him.

So, then we meet God the first anaesthesiologist and the first surgeon who caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept. He took one of Adam’s ribs it says it means he took his side.

Genesis 2:22-23, Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.23 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.” After the man wakes up from the divine anaesthetic, he finds that God delivers to him this most beautiful and most wondrous creature. This most exhilarating creature called woman.

God brings her to the man. You can only imagine the thrill that entered in to the heart of the man because he has literally seen a parade of all the available relationships and none of it matters to him and none of it can he identify with.

God doesn't just bring him another man, but a wonder of wonders, the perfect complement, woman. And the man gives the first love song. It's not real sentimental, this is now bone of my bones, it's a bit clinical. Flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. But I don't know whether sentimentality had developed at that time. It was rather factual. "As she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man."

She shall be called ‘isha’ because she was taken out of ‘ish’. Little play on words, there needs to be a similarity in the terms because she came from him, he is ish and she is isha. That's the creation of man and the creation of woman by God.

Man, out of the dust of the earth, woman out of the side of man.

Genesis 2:24, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. For the cause of this relationship/marriage, for the cause of this fulfilment. Thus, God did create marriage as the basic primary and essential relationship for man to be fulfilled. To fulfil his calling

which was to multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule it. For him to do that over the whole face of the earth, he couldn't do it alone, he had to populate the earth. He had to have a complimentary partner to make such a population possible. So, this is marriage designed by God.

Marriage is divine! Marriage came on the first day of man's creation, in God’s calendar it is day six. The pattern of God in the creation week, one man, one woman, one bond for life. One woman was meant to meet all of man's needs.

• His physical needs,
• his emotional needs,
• his need for socialization,
• friendship at a personal, and
• intimate level.

Man’s need to have a partner for the divine creative process that would populate the world and subdue it. All other sexual relationships are outside God's purpose and God's will.

There is no provision for sex outside of marriage. There is no provision for people who are married having a sexual relationship with someone other than their spouse. There is no provision for homosexuality. There is no provision for bestiality, which is any sexual relationship of any kind with animals.

A man leaves his father and mother, a wife comes to the man, they cleave together in a strong bond for life and become in that bond literally one flesh. That one flesh intimacy is certainly manifested most clearly in the child born of them whose genetic code is the perfect combination of those two partners.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. People who do that as a pattern of life will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Hebrews 13:4, Marriage is honourable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

Deuteronomy 5:21, ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbour’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour’s.’

Matthew 5:27-28, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So, marriage is the one and only human relationship that includes sexual activity.

It is designed by God to be

• full of love.
• Fulfilling,
• Accomplishing God’s plan, and
• Procreation

Genesis 1:28, Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” A wife is more than just a partner for the purpose of having children A wife is a partner for the purpose of companionship. Those who are in marriage for a wonderful harmony.

It is true that God designed marriage for procreation and partnership but also for pleasure.

Genesis 26:8, Isaac had been there a long time. One day Abimelek, the king of the Philistines, looked down from a window. He saw Isaac hugging and kissing his wife Rebekah. (NIRV)

It says in the Old King James version that "Isaac was sporting with his wife Rebecca." I will leave that to your imagination. But there is an element within marriage that is for sheer pleasure. But there is within marriage just the joy of touch. The joy of physical affection as well as friendship and procreation.

Another reason why God designed marriage is for purity. Most people are wired for marriage, if they're not married, that's a problem.

1 Corinthians 7:1, Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. It's fine if you're not married It's fine to be single. It's fine not to get married, it's not a bad thing.

There are some people who are gifted by God they can do that.

I mean a marriage isn't an absolute command by God.

1 Corinthians 7:2-3, Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. 3 Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. In other words, it's not wrong to be single, but it can be a problem that leads to immorality. Better to get married.

When you get married, let the husband fulfil his physical duty to his wife. Likewise, the wife to her husband.

1 Corinthians 7:4, The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Because of the potential for immorality God has wired us for physical fulfilment with a marriage partner.

1 Corinthians 7:9, but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. Burn with desire. So, God designed marriage for Procreation, Partnership,

Pleasure, and Purity. Next reason Provision.

Ephesians 5:25, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,

This is provision. The husband is to love his wife and make necessary sacrifices to give himself up to provide for her in order that he might sanctify her. Husband might make her holy, and pure.

Ephesians 5:28, So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. Husband ought to give her the same attention and the same care that he would give himself, which is very normal. He is to nourish and cherish her. The role husband ought to take is the role of a provider.

1 Timothy 5:8, But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. So, God designed marriage for Procreation,

Partnership, Pleasure, Purity, and Provider. Protector. Husband is to protect his wife from anything unclean, anything defiling. He is to make sure that she is kept from whatever would be an impure, unclean influence.

1 Peter 3:7, Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honour to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered. You must treat her like the weaker vessel because physically the woman is weaker, intellectually she's not, spiritually she may not be, but she needs the protection of a man.

This is part of what God has designed in the marriage. It is to provide a secure and warm place. A place of security, a place of protection for which the heart of woman longs.

Ephesians 5:32, This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

So, when you look at marriage you can see that this is indeed the relationship of all human relationships. This is the building block of society. This is the unit of human life which passes truth from one generation to the next which passes righteousness from one generation to the next. Which passes morality from one generation to the next. Which passes virtue and character from one generation to the next. This is marriage designed by God to provide procreation. And its procreation isn't just a duty, All that marriage is designed by God to be the world finds very difficult to experience because it's all been lost in the fall.

Galatians Chapter 3, we can see that such a wonderful marriage is been destroyed and corrupted. Only through obedience to the word of God, and through the power of Christ we can really enjoy again the paradise of marriage that was lost in the fall.

Our marriages can be like Christ's relation to his church. Christ loves his church, Christ provides for his church, Christ protects his church. Christ provides pleasure for his church. Christ fulfils his church. This is marriage. God has ordained it from the very beginning.

Let us go back to Genesis 2:25, And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Both were naked but there was no shame. Because man had no concept of evil desire, therefore there was no shame. They could enjoy the wonder of God's magnificent creation.

The climate must have been wonderful if they could live like that. The seasons and the change in the weather is related to the fall of man and the flood which changed the whole topography of the world and brought about the seasons as we know today when you wear something because if you don't, you will freeze to death.

God designed marriage for Procreation, Partnership, Pleasure, Purity, Provider, and Protector.