Part V - A Prescription for Marriage

First of all, I would like to thank my fellow bloggers for their awesome posts in this series on birth control. Each one was challenging and edifying for me – as I’m sure they were for everyone else. And don’t let this summation stop you from continuing the debate. It’s an issue that needs to be talked about, and a question that is sure to be posed in college bible studies, marriage counselings, etc. After all, iron does sharpen iron.

This series has been centered on “the morality of birth control, and its place in a Christian marriage.” We’ve discussed biblical evidence such as Genesis 1:28, 30:2, 38, Psalm 127, 128, Proverbs 5:18-19, 1 Corinthians 7:4 and 10:31, as well as many others. We’ve looked at the thoughts of theologians such as Luther, Piper, Mohler, and more. We’ve gone over enough scenarios and analogies to float a battleship. But most importantly, we have sought to know the will of God.

I will be the first to admit, when I began this series, I figured the issue was a much cleaner cut than it turned out to be. I’m certain that I aided in its murkiness with my scattered logic, and flash-in-the-pan explanations; but I pray you were able to get the gist at least.

As I think back on what I would have liked to have said better or clearer, or perhaps changed altogether – Luther’s quote on the purpose of marriage comes springing to mind. By quoting it in Part I, it mistakenly became the center-piece for the rest of my comments, when I did not initially intend it to be that way. Although I do agree that “the purpose of marriage is not[only] pleasure and ease but the procreation and education of children and the support of a family”, I did not intend that quote to be my thesis. Luther makes no attempt to elaborate on his statement – and I felt ill-equipped to do it for him.

That being the case, let me explain what I would like you to take away from my part of these posts.

When God created man, and the institution of marriage, He knew what He was doing. When He saw that it was not good for man to be alone, He created a companion, a partner in the form of a woman. What was the difference between the man and the woman? One could argue, there were many things. But you’d be hard pressed to leave out the fact that Eve was created with the power to conceive children. That was the one thing that Adam could not do by himself. God ‘could’ have easily created a companion for Adam that could not bare children. That would solve the lonely problem, right? But God chose to create a vessel that could have children. Could the case then be made, that is one of the chief reasons that God made Eve the way He did? I’d say so. He made her able to procreate. Then, he turned to the couple and instructed them to….what? “Enjoy yourselves?”

I know I’m being asinine, but that’s not what God said, nor what He meant, or perhaps might have even implied. No, God said, “Be fruitful and multiply”. But God didn’t leave his creatures hangin’ (so to speak). He made the completion of that command pleasureful. And to go further, it turns out that He allowed (percentage wise) man to have more ‘pleasure’ than ‘multiplication’. (Or in english, a couple doesn’t necessarily conceive every time they engage in intercourse.)

Song of Solomon speaks vividly about the God given pleasure of the marriage bed. Paul’s writings to the Corinthians, highlight the relationship between man and wife and this pleasure. Proverbs 5 makes it clear that sexual pleasure is to be a part of a holy marriage. BUT IN WHAT CONTEXT? Nowhere, in any Scripture pertaining to marriage, is there the separation between pleasure and procreation. Nowhere. There are verses that speak only of its pleasure – there are others that speak only of procreation; but NONE remotely allude to the option to separate them. In all the inspired Scriptures, we see marriage described as man and wife becoming ‘one flesh’. One flesh does not denote separation, does it? Just the opposite…it illustrates the supreme union of marriage, and all of it’s responsibilities of loyalty and love, and procreation. Procreation is undeniably a page of the blessed story of Christian marriage; and if it is intentionally removed – it’s Author must surely take offense.

The matter is not one of legalism, no more than fidelity, or abortion. A man who is faithful to his wife can not be labeled a legalist, no more than a man who pickets an abortion clinic. The one is merely being true to his marriage, the other true to the sanctity of human life. Should couples not also be true to their marriages and its responsibility to be open to human life? I would say so.

And today, as if on cue, the Lord gave me a word as I read the daily devotional from “A Year With C.S. Lewis”. The August 7th entry was entitled “Holy Intentions”. Listen to what Lewis says:

“The Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ’s words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single organism – for that is what the words ‘one flesh’ would be in modern English. And the Christian believes that when He said this He was not expressing a sentiment but stating a fact – just as one is stating a fact when one says that a lock and its key are one mechanism, or that a violin and a bow are one musical instrument. The inventor of the human machine was telling us that its two halves, the male and the female, were made to be combined together in pairs, not simply on the sexual level, but totally combined. The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union. The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating. It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more that you ought to try to get the pleasure of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again. – from Mere Christianity”

May all that we do, in singleness and in marriage, be unto the Glory of God.

Blessings upon blessings,
Bro. Hank

P.S. – I will do my best to get the rest of that interview up for y’all...someday, I hope...