Marriage: Should the Church Preach Monogamy?

If the telos (the end goal and purpose) of marriage is simply monogamy, then one might ask why marriage can’t exist between two monogamous women or two monogamous men. While the Bible does place a high value on monogamy and the companionship that coincides with it, there are three additional reasons why Biblical marriage can only exist between a man and a woman.

As pastors, we need to preach God’s complete design for all that marriage is, which goes well beyond just being monogamous.

1. Marriage is for children

In the garden, when all is right and pure, God blesses Adam and his wife Eve and gives them what is now commonly called the “the creation mandate:”

“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28).

This mandate is still binding today and has two main aims. First, Adam and Eve were to have dominion over the Earth. They were to cultivate the Earth so that God and neighbor were honored by the gift that God had given in creation. And secondly, Adam and Eve were to be fruitful and multiply. That is, they were to have children. Those children would one day grow and then have their own children who would grow to have their own children. This exponential growth is God’s plan for filling the Earth with His image bearers.

The context of the mandate to multiply in verse 28 is significant. Just one verse earlier, in verse 27, Scripture tells us:

So God created man in his own image,
    in the image of God he created him;
    male and female he created them.

Notice God creates life. In His own image, He creates both male and female. In verse 28 that follows, while we do not have the same power to create life ex nihilo (out of nothing), we are called, as image, bearers to create life. We create according to the natural processes that God has given to men and women. Here is the point: creating life and having children reflects God.

God designed us, as His image bearers, to create life as males and females in the context of marriage. It’s no secret that homosexual marriage can’t produce children, hence undermining the idea that two monogamous men or two monogamous women can form a marriage.

2. Marriage honors nature

Without getting into the details of the birds and the bees, men and women are biologically different. Some academics give incredibly esoteric — maybe a better word is goofy – arguments that try to define what gender is, but any regular parent knows a toddler getting out of the bathtub will look down, point to a body part, and ask, “What’s this?” There are certain clear features of the human body that define what makes a boy a boy and a girl a girl, which even a toddler notices. And as children grow into mature young people, they begin to understand that a man and woman fit together. The anatomical differences are complementary. They fit.

It’s not a complicated science.

This is our nature. It’s how God made us. The design of our nature is that a man enters in, and a woman receives. The context for how this most basic aspect of our nature is fulfilled is in the safe and covenantal context of heterosexual marriage.  

Homosexuality, even if monogamous, can’t fulfill nature.

The parts don’t line up. Listen to Paul:

For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1:26-27)

Paul understands that homosexuality is a sin not just against God, but against our designed nature.

3. Marriage depicts the gospel

The first two points are significant but aren’t exclusively Christian. Any non-believing married couple can honor nature and have children. For the Christian, though, we know that marriage has an even higher telos. The union of a man and woman in marriage is a visible representation of the gospel itself. Marriage is a picture of Christ and the church:

“Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31-32).

To state the obvious, for this gospel picture to work, there need to be two different parties. The gospel is Jesus (party 1) loving the church (party 2). Jesus is not the church. The church is not Jesus. This is the beauty of the gospel. The gospel is a mystical union of Christ entering into an eternal covenant, sealed by His blood, to win for Himself His precious bride.

Similarly, this is also the beauty of marriage. A man and a woman, two different people, but also two different genders, joining together, till death do us part, in covenantal love. The Greek prefix homo means “same.” The gospel cannot be reflected in a homosexual marriage because it is the same attempting to join to the same. Ephesians 5 hinges on hetero (or “different”) parties being joined together.

As pastors, we live in an age of soundbites and quickly assembled arguments. The precious institution of marriage is one area that is especially vulnerable to these ill-formed statements in our sexually charged era. Brother pastor, with soft hearts, clear definitions, evangelistic zeal, and the guiding of the Spirit, may we bring clarity to our people.

Marriage is more than monogamy and cannot be expanded beyond the definition of one man and one woman for life.

It is a picture of what the world desperately needs, a picture of the gospel itself.

©2023 Jon Saunders. Used with permission.