Message One: Returning to the Beginning—
Marriage Is God’s Ordination, and the Family Is God’s Design
Introduction—What Satan Seeks First to Destroy in This Age Is Marriage and the Family
What Satan seeks first to destroy in this age is marriage and the family. He knows that once marriage and the family are destroyed, it becomes very difficult for man to know God’s original intention through them, and also difficult to know the mystery of Christ and the church.
When we look at society today, we see marriage and the family under unprecedented attack: divorce has become widespread, many choose not to marry, marriage itself is abused, husbands and wives no longer live as husbands and wives, people cohabit without the binding commitment of marriage, families no longer function as families, and same-sex couples may marry and raise children. The very definitions of marriage and the family are being continually reinterpreted and rewritten.
Behind all this lies one fundamental error: man takes himself as the starting point in viewing marriage and the family.
People assume that marriage and the family are simply social institutions created by mankind in order to prevent social disorder. Therefore, laws and systems were established to regulate human relationships. Once this premise is accepted, people naturally conclude that since marriage is a humanly established social institution, it may also be redefined by man.
Yet after thousands of years of human experience, people have found marriage and family life full of problems. Consequently, different generations, cultures, and ways of life have continually challenged these institutions. Some insist that marriage must change with the times and be redefined; others go even further and conclude that marriage and the family themselves are the problem and should simply be abolished.
But what the Bible reveals is entirely different.
In reality, fallen man has departed from God’s original thought concerning marriage and the family. This departure has produced all kinds of evil, immorality, and brokenness. It has broken hearts, brought disappointment, and gradually caused people to believe that marriage is false and the family is a prison.
“Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.” — Matthew 19:8
The problem is not that God’s original design was defective. The problem is that fallen man departed from God’s original design.
Today, the time has come for God, through the church, to hold forth the word of life in this evil and adulterous generation and to bear a contrary testimony concerning marriage and the family.
According to Genesis 2, we know that marriage is ordained by God, and the family is designed by God.
Therefore, in the face of the present confusion surrounding marriage and the family, the real solution is not to redesign marriage or redefine the family, but to return to God’s original ordination and design.
Marriage and the family come from God. They are God’s thought and God’s design. If we would truly understand the meaning of marriage and the family, we must return to the intention of the original Designer.
We cannot depart from God’s ordination and design on the one hand, and at the same time expect God to bless our marriage and family life on the other.
Those who are already in marriage and family life but have departed from God’s intention need to repent, turn, and return to God’s ordination and design. Those who have not yet entered marriage and family life need to be prepared, instructed, and warned, so that they may learn to receive and hold fast to God’s original ordination and design.
May the Lord grant us both a heart of repentance and the grace of forgiveness, so that our conscience may be enlightened by the revelation and light in God’s word concerning marriage and family life, and so that we may repent and turn—not according to the world’s view, nor according to human tradition, but back to God’s original intention and His complete thought.
Let us together ask God for the grace of a new beginning in the matter of marriage and the family.
I. The Problems of Marriage and the Family Must Be Viewed from “the Beginning”
“Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.” — Matthew 19:8
When the Lord Jesus was confronted with questions concerning marriage, He did not begin with the social system of that time. He did not begin with human experience, nor did He remain within the limits of what the law of Moses permitted.
He brought man’s attention back to the most important starting point:
“From the beginning it was not so.”
This statement shows us that if we truly want to understand marriage and the family, we cannot study marriage merely from the standpoint of the problems we see today. Neither can we define marriage merely according to human needs, feelings, or happiness.
We must return to the beginning of God’s creation of man, to the time before marriage had been damaged by sin, and consider why God established marriage and why He designed the family.
Today people easily regard marriage as a social institution established by man for the purpose of maintaining order. If marriage is merely a human institution, then when times change and lifestyles change, it seems reasonable that the definition of marriage should also change.
When many difficulties arise in marriage, people may even begin to wonder:
Is the institution of marriage itself the problem?
But the Bible gives us a completely different starting point:
Marriage was not invented by man, and the family is not the product of social evolution. Marriage is ordained by God, and the family is designed by God.
Therefore, the real problem with marriage and the family is not that the original design was defective, but that fallen man has departed from the original design.
The Lord’s word, “from the beginning it was not so,” not only exposes man’s failure; it also shows us the way of recovery:
Since the problem came through departure from the beginning, recovery must come through returning to the beginning.
II. Marriage Does Not Begin with Man; It Begins with God
“And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” — Genesis 2:18
There is something very significant here:
The first thought concerning marriage did not originate in Adam.
Adam did not first say to God, “I am lonely; I need a companion.” Neither did Adam design an ideal family life and then ask God to help him realize it.
Rather, God was the first to say:
“It is not good that the man should be alone.”
Marriage and the family are both of God. They do not come from the earth, nor do they come from man. They are not defined by sociology, nor are they created by law.
Marriage and the family come from God. They are divine and heavenly.
Therefore, the source of marriage is not man’s need, but God’s thought. The beginning of marriage is not man’s feeling, but God’s judgment. Marriage begins with God’s will.
It is God who says:
“It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him…”
It is God who wills.
It is God’s intention.
It is God’s plan.
If we begin to view marriage from the standpoint of “What do I need?” then marriage naturally becomes an arrangement designed to satisfy our own needs:
I need companionship.
I need to be understood.
I need to be loved.
I need security.
I need someone with whom to share life.
These needs are not necessarily wrong in themselves.
But if they become the source of our understanding of marriage, then we will constantly evaluate marriage by asking:
Is this person meeting my needs?
Is this marriage making me happy?
Are my needs being supplied?
When these questions become the center of marriage, marriage very easily falls into disappointment and conflict.
But if marriage begins with God, then the first question we ask is no longer:
“What can marriage give me?”
Rather, we ask:
Why did God establish marriage?
What does God desire to gain in marriage?
When God designed the husband and the wife, what purpose did He originally have in His heart?
III. Ask “Why” Before Asking “How”
If marriage begins with man, fallen man naturally wants to take control of the situation.
Therefore, the question we most readily ask is “how.”
Whenever marriage and family are discussed today, the questions people most often raise are questions such as:
How can we build a happy marriage?
How can we communicate with our spouse?
How can we deal with conflict?
How can we be a good husband or a good wife?
How should we raise our children?
How can a family that is already troubled be restored?
These questions are practical, and each of them has its proper place.
But if we begin by remaining on the level of “how,” and devote all our attention to learning “how,” it shows that our starting point concerning marriage is already wrong.
The first question we need to ask is:
Why?
Why did God ordain marriage?
Why did God design the family?
If we have never asked “why,” we may spend a great deal of effort trying to build our marriage and yet still fail to obtain the proper result, because we do not really know why marriage exists.
Therefore, to those who have spent much effort trying to build their marriage, we have one very important word:
To have a happy family, the first thing is not to learn “how” to have a successful marriage, but to return to the question of “why” there is marriage at all.
This does not mean that marriage does not need to be cultivated, nor does it mean that husbands and wives do not need to learn.
On the contrary, marriage and family life require much learning and serious care.
But every proper “how” must be built upon the proper “why.”
We must have a proper understanding of marriage and the family. We must return to God’s view and God’s thought, receive God’s design and purpose, and also receive all the supply God provides for the fulfillment of this divine purpose.
Only by returning to the source of marriage and the family can many of our problems truly begin to be solved.
“How” asks about method; “why” asks about source and purpose.
If we do not know why God established marriage, we will naturally define marriage according to our own needs.
When our needs are met, we consider the marriage successful; when our needs are not met, we conclude that something is wrong with the marriage.
Therefore, our burden is not that we should never speak about “how.”
In the messages that follow, we will gradually consider the husband, the wife, help, submission, love, self-denial, nourishing and cherishing, mutual fellowship, and the practical lessons of family life.
But before we speak about all these things, we must first lay the foundation:
We are not to begin by studying how to manage marriage; we are first to return to God and ask Him, “Why is there marriage?”
IV. Marriage and the Family Are the Sphere in Which Man Walks with God and Lives Out God’s Intention
“So God created man in his own image… And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…” — Genesis 1:27–28
God created man so that man might bear His image and likeness to express Him, and might represent Him in exercising dominion over what He had created.
Then, in Genesis 2, the Bible shows us more fully the sphere in which this man—who bears God’s image and likeness and has received God’s commission—is to learn to live according to God’s intention.
It is here that God established marriage.
Therefore, marriage is not merely an additional arrangement added after God completed creation. Neither is the family merely an ordinary part of life outside of the so-called “spiritual things.”
Marriage and the family themselves are an important sphere ordained and designed by God in which man learns to live according to His intention.
The first generation, Adam and Eve, failed. But when we come to the seventh generation, we see a testimony of recovery—Enoch.
Genesis 5 says:
“And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.” — Genesis 5:22
This word is very precious.
The Bible places “walked with God” and “begat sons and daughters” together.
This shows that marriage and the family are not a hindrance to spirituality. On the contrary, marriage and the family are the very sphere in which we learn to walk with God and fulfill His intention.
In Genesis 5, we see a statement repeated again and again: a man lived so many years, and he begat sons and daughters.
According to our natural concept, we may think that since Enoch was one who walked with God, such a description should no longer apply to him.
Should not a person who walks with God withdraw from ordinary life and human relationships? Should he not rise above the affairs of daily life? Some may even think that a truly spiritual person should remain unmarried, or leave wife and children behind to follow the Lord, traveling everywhere to work for God and preach the gospel.
But the record of Scripture proves that this way of thinking is not God’s thought.
God’s view is not that the more spiritual a person becomes, the farther he moves away from marriage and the family.
Rather, in Eden, in that blessed sphere, God ordained marriage and designed the family. His intention was that man would not only enjoy God’s presence there, but would also learn to walk with God there and live a human life that is truly according to God’s intention.
Marriage and the family are not places that hinder man from walking with God; they are important spheres ordained by God in which man learns to walk with Him and live out His intention.
How a husband is a husband, how a wife is a wife, how parents treat their children, and how family members speak, respond, choose, handle conflict, and treat one another in daily life—none of these are small matters unrelated to spiritual life.
On the contrary, these are precisely the areas in which we learn to express God and become like Him.
It is in this sphere that we learn to manifest God’s image and likeness. It is also here that we learn not to live by ourselves, but to receive God as our life and as the supply of our life.
V. “It Is Not Good That the Man Should Be Alone” — Not a Matter of Loneliness, but a Matter of God’s Purpose
The words “It is not good that the man should be alone” are often understood to mean that man is lonely and therefore needs companionship.
Companionship is certainly included in marriage, but if we stop at this level, we have not yet touched the center of this word.
When God says “not good,” He says it in the context of creation.
In Genesis 1, God repeatedly says that what He created was “good,” and at the end He even says that it was “very good.”
But in Genesis 2, for the first time the words “not good” appear:
“It is not good that the man should be alone.”
Why was it not good?
Because God had already placed His image and likeness, His commission, and His purpose upon the man. Yet God knew that the man could not fulfill that commission alone.
Therefore God said:
“It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” — Genesis 2:18
The spouse is not merely given to solve man’s loneliness, but to help the man live in God’s intention and fulfill the commission God has entrusted to him.
Therefore, marriage is not merely a living arrangement formed by two people for their mutual happiness. It is two people living together within the purpose of God.
This is also why marriage cannot be measured only by the question:
“Am I happy?”
What God is first concerned with is:
Is His intention being fulfilled through this marriage?
VI. True Recovery Does Not Begin with Finding Methods, but with Returning to the Designer
When problems arise in marriage and family life, our most natural response is to look for methods:
How should we communicate?
How can we reduce conflict?
How should the husband speak?
How should the wife respond?
How should we raise our children?
These questions all have real practical value.
But if we merely look for methods without returning to the source of marriage, we may only be using human wisdom and experience to repair a life that has already departed from God’s original ordination and design.
The problems of marriage and the family cannot be solved merely by human wisdom and experience.
Marriage and the family must return to God’s ordination and God’s design in order to fulfill God’s purpose.
Therefore, true return always begins with a humble spirit and a heart willing to be taught again.
We need to ask before God:
Is my view of my husband from God, or from myself?
Are my expectations of my wife God’s expectations, or merely my own?
Am I building a family in order to fulfill my own ideal life, or am I willing for my family to become a sphere in which God’s will may be carried out and realized?
Am I continually demanding that the other person change, while being unwilling to allow God first to adjust me?
Marriage comes from God. Therefore, only by returning to God can we truly know what marriage is.
The family is designed by God. Therefore, only by returning to the intention of the Designer can we know how family life should be lived.
We cannot depart from His design on the one hand, and yet expect to receive the blessing contained in His design on the other.
Therefore, the first step in building a blessed family is not to demand that our spouse first conform to our ideal, nor to demand that our circumstances first change.
The first step is to say:
“Lord, I am willing to learn again what marriage is. Do not let my experience become the standard, and do not let this world define the family for me. Bring me back to the beginning.”
Only when we know where marriage comes from can we know where marriage is going.
Only when we know who designed the family can we know how the family should be built.
True recovery does not begin with technique; it begins with returning to the Designer.
Conclusion — May the Lord Grant Us the Grace of a New Beginning
We are living in an age in which marriage and the family are being redefined.
But what the church needs to do in this age is not merely to criticize what is happening in the world. More importantly, the church must bear a contrary testimony in the practical living of marriage and the family.
The world may redefine marriage, but the church must return to God’s original ordination.
The world may redesign the family, but we must return to the thought of the original Designer.
Neither should we regard the present problems of marriage and the family merely as “other people’s problems.”
Every one of us who is already in marriage and family life needs to allow the Lord’s light to shine upon us:
How much of my marriage is according to God’s thought?
How much has my family truly become a sphere in which I learn to walk with God?
How often am I demanding change from others without allowing God to readjust me?
May we have a simple prayer before God:
“Lord, bring me back to the beginning. Do not let me view marriage and the family according to this world, nor let me live according to my natural thoughts, experiences, and demands. Cause me to know again Your ordination, Your design, and Your purpose; and give me grace to learn to walk with You in my marriage and family life.”
Central Burden of This Message
Marriage is not an institution created by man; it is God’s ordination. The family is not an accessory to human life; it is God’s design. True recovery does not begin with technique; it begins with “returning to the beginning.” The foundation of a happy family is to return to the original design of the original Designer and to learn to walk with God in marriage and family life.