QUESTION: Everything after Adam and Eve and prior to Christ constitutes a way of life under the curse of sin. Jesus returns us back to what marriage is meant to be from the beginning. The OT also blessed war and genocide for the purpose of cleansing the land. Will you argue that’s a viable option for us, too?
–
ANSWER: Marriage, as it was in the beginning, never changed “under the curse of sin.” I don’t know how you came to this conclusion. So, your question regarding war and genocide is inapplicable. A male and a female who are virgins or widowed can still marry, and it is, as it was designed in the beginning before the fall, other than fleshly death wasn’t in the equation. If they remain faithful to each other until one dies, then that marriage is definitely what God originally intended. What Jesus was referring to when He declared to the Pharisees, “it was not so in the beginning,” was divorcing with the Bill of Divorcement, where a wife could be sent away with a certificate to become another man’s wife. As Jesus alluded to in Matthew 5:32, this certificate “caused” her to commit adultery along with the man she married, which is against the original design of marriage. However, there is a greater dimension of marriage between an eligible Christian male and female according to the design in the beginning. It is called a “Biblical marriage.” I allude to that unique dimension in my chapter, Biblical Marriage: A Christian Exclusive.