Essential: Marriage
Marriage is an essential of the Christian faith as it relates to being in the Church. Just in case, I am saying marriage is an essential in the sense that we follow God’s design when going about it. I am not saying you must be married in order to be Christian.
First, let’s remove some misnomers and oxymorons.
“Lesbian [GBTQIA+] marriage” does not exist.
“Same-Sex Attracted Christians” is an invalid and soft title. You may be a Christian striving against the sin of homosexuality, but you may not be a content “Same-Sex Attracted Christian.”
A “committed relationship” is not marriage and is not a marriage equivalent.
“Open marriage” does exist and yet is most heinously corrupt.
Why would I say something so ridiculous as marriage is an essential of the faith? First, we can begin with Christ. Since our being united to Him in covenantal marriage by being joined to His Bride the Church is the only way to be saved, marriage is essential in the sense that we must be joined to Christ.
We can see in Ephesians that God had a clear design from the beginning.
22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. 24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. - Ephesians 5:22-25
31 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. 32 This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. - Ephesians 5:31
First, obviously, there are only to categories mentioned and they are mentioned with specific roles. It is apparently also necessary to point out that the Lord Jesus Christ is a man and His Bride is referred to in the feminine in conjunction with wives. Even still, this doesn’t get to why it’s essential to the Christian faith. To say that is to say you would break fellowship over this issue. Damn straight.
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. - 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.
All of the other sinful behaviors in that list I would call essential issues as well, but those are for another time.
Let’s walk through them then.
The sexually immoral: Fornicators and prostitutes. The word is pornoi, which means that goes too. None who makes a practice of sexual activity outside the bounds of marriage will inherit the kingdom of God.
The adulterers: one who is guilty with another’s wife (or any combination of a man and woman engaging in sexual activity outside of their spouse). None who makes a practice of adultery will inherit the kingdom of God.
The effeminate: soft or womanly men. The opposite is also true, that manly women fall outside this the kingdom. Included would be those who act, dress, speak, or otherwise adopt the attitudes of the opposite sex. Neither of these will inherit God’s kingdom.
The homosexuals: sodomites. Men or women who choose sexual relations and attraction to other men or other women of the same sex. These will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Paul opens with “Do not be deceived…” Why? First of all, because we don’t want to admit it to ourselves. We don’t want to say that we don’t belong in the kingdom, because that often means giving up the wickedness we cherish. More than that, particularly today, we choose to be soft on the expectation of righteousness in the Church. Paul does not say, “Yeah, they’re on kind of shaky ground.” No. He says plainly that these will not inherit the kingdom of God. End of story, full stop.
Two points that I want to add to this. First, a committed relationship is not a marriage. A marriage is a defined relationship between two people with explicit boundaries between one man and one woman, marked by vows, witnesses, and as Scripture asks that we submit to our governments as far as possible, the right legal paperwork is necessary. “I’m committed to her.” is not a marriage.
Second, your sexual orientation is not a difference between homosexuality (or whatever else) and heterosexuality. Homosexuality is sin. Treat the desire that way, as something to be slaughtered. If you were to walk around all day wanting to steal people’s wallets, but never do, is that desire now not sinful? Desire and temptation are two different things. The desire itself is sinful. The same with homosexuality. I am not saying you now have to be attracted to those of the opposite sex. As far as I can tell, Scripture nowhere requires that you have any form of sexual drive. It does require holiness, because our Father is holy (1 Peter 1:16).
Enough skirting the issue. Marriage is the only arena for anything sexual. A right understanding and practice of marriage is essential. The slaughter of sexual sin is also essential.
Are you ready?
