There are many fictional origin stories for the family. The pagan myths, Darwin’s included, are full of chaos, violence, disaster, exploitation and sorrow. This commentary on the family by the pagan cult is reflected in pagan culture. The most popular movies, shows, plays and novels are full of anything but the biblical pattern for family. If there is a straight family depicted as of late, it is hell on earth. Writers for television and movies are monolithic in their story arcs. “Traditional” families generally fall apart into some kind of culturally approved and liberating disarray. The losers and the sinners are always those who hold fast to some kind of traditional model for the family. The heroes are always those who reject “traditional” models. This plot is as expected as the evangelistic appeal in a Kendrick brothers movie.
The glib tossing away of God’s design for family reminds me of the Texas Aggie who returned the chainsaw to the hardware store complaining that it didn’t cut down trees. The clerk gassed it, oiled it and started it up and the startled Aggie exclaimed, “What’s that noise?” Those bailing on the “traditional family” do not know how it actually works. They are ignorant of its definition, design and goodness. In sin, they embrace chaos, preferring their way to God’s.
There is a sense of dystopian comfort in the chaos of the pagan deconstruction of the family. The traditional family is seen as a structure of oppression. As it breaks down, or is intentionally broken down, people break free. They break free by leaving “home.” This freedom does not bring lasting happiness, however. All the sexual frustration and relational disasters discovered in abandoning God’s design for the family are explained by “systemic injustices” and “structural oppression.” There is no salvation on these roads, however. A pilgrim fleeing the city of oppression never loses his burden. He only gains a satisfyingly complex, alternative context in which to interpret his misery—apples of sin in settings of deceit. He says, “It’s not that I am sinning against God. That’s not the problem. It’s that I’m being sinned against by my oppressors.” The homeless wandering of the sexual revolution offers a jaded camaraderie. “We’re all just victims of the system. Should victims be blamed?” But what if we are all accountable to the God Who made us in His own image? Family cannot be understood without first examining what it means to be made in God’s image. God created Mankind both male and female. Adam and Eve were made in the image of God and were immediately organized into a family.
We err if we assume that the sexual chaos of our day has gained enough momentum to achieve escape velocity from the sufficiency and authority of Holy Scripture. There is no sexual deviance which the Bible does not address. There is no rebellion that the Bible does not confront. When we open the pages of Scripture and look for our Lord Jesus, to consider His words and ways and follow Him in regards to family, what do we find? He too was confronted with controversy about the family. How did He respond? He authoritatively answered with Holy Scripture, and His answer invites our careful investigation. When Jesus was challenged with a hot topic on family, He responded with quotes and application from Genesis 1:27 and 2:24. Chaos Family had also been normalized in Christ’s day. He countered with Creation Family:
Matthew 19:1-6 Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that He departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2 And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there. 3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” 4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
The Pharisees, no doubt jealously provoked by the great multitudes and healings, tested Jesus. They selected a topic sure to divide the crowd and dampen their enthusiasm for Jesus. Their question about divorce proceeded from a longstanding controversy. Two rabbinical schools of thought differed on many issues including divorce. The liberal school, Hillel, read Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 and allowed divorce for any reason. The conservative school, Shammai, read Moses’ words and concluded that unchastity was the only good reason for divorce. How many men in that great multitude had divorced their wives? How many of those Pharisees had? The recent divorce and incestuous remarriage of Herod made this issue all the more poignant. You can hear the crackle of this charged question in their qualifier, “for just any reason?”
The debate sought to pit one interpretation against the other, one side against the other. Jesus did not pick side A, He did not pick side B. He said, “No!” He redirected everyone’s attention to God’s authority as expressed in God’s word. How did He accomplish this? How did He slice through the Gordian Knot of this emotionally charged contention? Jesus asked one of my favorite questions, “Have you not read?” Shammai said one thing about Moses; Hillel said another. Jesus did not teach like the scribes, however. With authority He declared God’s word on the matter. From the beginning God made men and women in His image and brought a man and a woman together in marriage as a new family. Because marriage is God’s ordinance and joining, no man should break it through divorce.
The debate about family and human sexuality in the Summer of ‘23 featured “side A” and “side B.” Democrats, Budlight, Target, Disney and the government schools represented side A. Republicans, Blaze media, Tim Pool, Ron Desantis and the Grassroots Army represented side B. ChickFilet just wanted to serve chicken sandwiches to everybody. With Jesus, the church must look at the two sides and say, “No! Have you not read?” Before we say that, it would be a good idea for us to actually read the Bible for ourselves.
Consider Jesus’ first quote in Matthew 19:4. He quotes part of Genesis 1:27. The whole context read aloud hits the ear with pleasing repetition and symmetry. Pondered in the mind it offers riches by extended meditation: 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.”
When addressing the confusion about family in His own day, Jesus starts with the basic definitions as scripted by the Creator. There was more confusion about family in the Hellenistic culture at large than the Jewish culture at home, but when Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, addressed the Gentiles, he also pointed back to Genesis (Romans 1:18-27; 1 Corinthians 7:1-16; 1 Timothy 2:8-15). It does not matter in our cultural moment if Jesus would have us address the remnants of Christendom or utter pagans, God’s very good design expressed in Genesis is the starting point for all men and women. Why is this so? We are all made in God’s image. Jesus quotes half of Genesis 1:27 to draw His hearers’ attention to the whole context. If this is Jesus’ starting point, it is ours as well.
Some may wonder why Jesus answers the Pharisees in the way He does. Why does Jesus quote Genesis 1:27, given the controversy? Unlike the priestly authorities of pagan culture, the Pharisees were not confused as to the origins of men and women. They believed God specially created men and women on the sixth day of the creation week, just like Moses wrote in Genesis. The Pharisees were not confused as to what kinds of persons got married. They knew that a man married a woman. They knew this was the only relationship in which sexual gratification was proper. One might expect Jesus to pass over these settled matters and strike immediately upon the contention about divorce. He does quote Genesis 2:24 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” This verse appears far more relevant. Consider, however, its force with the weight of Genesis 1:27 bound to it. Jesus’ application is all the more effective due to the combination of both passages. Genesis 2:24 might be received as a mere custom—this is just how things are done—if it were not for the fact that God made mankind from the beginning male and female.
The first quote proves the authority for the second. In other words, Jesus tells “why” things are done before answering “how” things are done. Jesus clearly faults the Pharisees’ entertaining of divorce at all. Had they only read Genesis 1:27 and 2:24, the issue would not come up for debate. They would not be asking this question if they understood what it means for God to make man in His image, according to His likeness, male and female. As Creator, from the beginning, God made man both male and female and joined them in marriage. Given these facts, how can the Pharisees assume that divorce is legitimate and only be interested in asking, “for what reason?” The Pharisees are straining gnats and swallowing camels. We will see in Matthew 19:7-9 they magnify Mosaic permissions in God’s covenant with Israel while minimizing the undergirding reality of being made in God’s image. The image of God is primary to God’s covenants and necessary for understanding them. The same proves true for the covenant of marriage and family.
God did not create man in the same fashion as the rest of Creation. Man’s uniqueness is felt strongly by all those made in God’s image. Questions about marriage, divorce and raising children do not even begin to apply to the rest of the creatures. The breeding patterns of monkeys have absolutely no bearing concerning the image of God. The sexual dynamics of the larger animal kingdom do not serve as an authority for those created to exercise authority over the animals. Man has been created exceptionally. As such he cannot rely on his observations of other lower creatures or even his observations of his own fellow men. He will not be able to discern from the “is” of his elevation the “ought” of his multiplication. When men and women copulate like monkeys do, their lives are afflicted with the ruin of fornication and adultery. That alone does not assert the positive. How are men and women to relate sexually? An authority far elevated over them, the One Who made them exceptional in the first place, must tell them.
