Many times I write that the purpose of marriage is to produce godly offspring. I get comments telling me I am wrong. "What about infertile couples?" "What if a child dies young?" Ken and I were pondering these questions and these are words penned by Ken on this topic ~
Imagine it is the end of time and gathered around you is generation after generation of your family. Along the path comes Jesus who walks up to Grandpa and says,
"The Falk family... all 383 for grandma Ellen! Well done, all my good and faithful servants, enter into the joy of your master. The family of God is complete because of your faithfulness with Art to raise godly offspring."
Certainly marriage has a number of purposes including companionship, intimacy and to prevent lust and
fornication, but nothing comes even a close second to the ultimate purpose of
marriage than to create godly offspring. Where do Lori and I get this concept
from? What verse exactly besides the
clear verse of Malachi 2:15? I submit it is found from cover to cover of the
Bible, and in hundreds of verses all strung together where God sets and achieves
His purpose with creation.
I see in the scriptures the fundamental purpose of God as Making All Things New. There can be little doubt for the student of the scriptures that God had no interest in creating a world without humankind. Beyond this, that no matter how fun it would have been for God to have walked the garden each day with two perfect humans in Adam and Eve, the thought of God having just two children for eternity makes little sense when God can have millions or perhaps billions of children who are called by His name, the sons and daughters of God.
Imagine just for a moment that no offspring came forth from Adam and Eve and it becomes much easier to begin to feel that perhaps, just perhaps, the creation of a family of God IS at the very center of all that God is doing with His creation and why he commands “Be fruitful and multiply.” This command was not a command to fulfill man’s interest, but the design and purpose of God in creating His eternal family.
If one looks at the overarching purpose of God it can be summed up in a set of verses repeated over and over again in the beginning and middle of scriptures then summed up at the end of time ~
For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."
2 Corinthians 2:16
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
Revelation 21:7
One must look at the end of time to see the “why” of God's purpose. God certainly cares about Adam’s need for a help meet and a companion, and He certainly cares about mankind’s sexual needs being met through marriage, but really, these are very secondary issues to what God is doing with His creation, and mankind in particular. Actually, one could probably conclude that companionship, intimacy and sex for mankind is barely on God’s radar compared to the creation of godly offspring, because none of these things would even be necessary if God’s fuller and more complete purpose was not the creation of godly offspring.
Jesus seems to say {Matt 22:30} that there is no marriage in the heavenly or eternal state. If the other purposes for marriage are important, they pale in comparison to the lasting purpose of marriage, the purpose that stands the test of time, to create the family of God.
So what about those marriages who cannot produce offspring? God makes no mistakes and such couples are not left out of participating in God’s family. They can participate by adopting children and training them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, thus indeed fulfilling the ultimate purpose of marriage. They can also participate in evangelism and birth new believers into the family of God.
In conclusion, we are all sojourners here created “for good works which God has prepared in advance for us” {Ephesians 2:10}. Our gifts of love, time, money, and mercy are small gifts compared to the children we can personally help birth into the family of God. We have but one life to give and no amount of companionship, intimacy or sexual righteousness that marriage provides can compare in value to just one little soul birthed into the kingdom of heaven. This is God's greatest desire and how we can best be part of God's greater purpose for creation and mankind.
Children are what God is all about with His creation. Children, who will love and serve God, and complete God’s family, with Christ the first born amongst many. The statistics are clear that the vast majority of believers {85%?} are born into Christian families making the raising of godly offspring primary in the ultimate purpose of God. God is Making All Things New for the purpose of walking once again among His many children in the New Jerusalem and beyond . Christian offspring are the fundamental building block of God's eternal purpose.
This is why I believe Lori is right when she says that “the purpose of marriage is to raise godly offspring.” All other purposes for marriage pale in comparison as marriage will cease at the coming of eternity. Yet, our little treasures, those we helped birth from our seed, and by conversion, will live on glorifying God, with us, throughout eternity, as one big, happy, family of God.
Has not [the LORD] made them one?
In flesh and spirit they are his.
And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring.
So guard yourself in your spirit,
and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.
Malachi 2:15
Ken
Ken
