Introduction

Marriage – that most wonderful of covenants that a man and woman pursue together – has, tragically, even within the Church, become diluted and estranged from the original designs God had for it. Today, even within the Church, it is seen as merely a temporal affair, good only for rearing children. It is viewed as inferior to other states of life, with perpetual virginity as the ideal and marriage as a compromise.

It is most certainly not a compromise, nor is it inferior to perpetual virginity (for it is in fact higher, more pleasing to God, and offers greater room for holiness than consecrated virginity). Nor is its primary focus child-rearing, as marriage was instituted by God before the concept of childbearing existed. Most importantly, however, marriage does not end in this Vale of Tears with death; it is a bond once forged that will remain connected throughout eternity, and it will be the very bond you share with your spouse in the Beatific Vision.

There is much that the secular world, the Church, and pro-natalist groups misunderstand about this primordial sacrament. It is vital, therefore, that a correction be issued so that people may enter more deeply into this wonderful element of what it means to be human. This article will explore the true meaning of Genesis 2. 18, Matthew 22. 30, and 1 Corinthians 7 – passages often misinterpreted to the denigration of this sacrament.

Before we begin to reclaim a correct interpretation of Scripture, it would be helpful first to revisit precisely what the modern Church teaches about marriage, the better to highlight its errors. As defined in various places, the Church essentially sees marriage as:

‘A covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole life, is by its nature ordered to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament.’ [1]

With ‘the spouses’ union achieving the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life.’ [2]

The definition upon which I base my argument differs, maintaining that sacramental marriage – the type of marriage the Church espouses – is only part of the married state. The married state is an eternal covenantal relationship, Trinitarian in nature and form, between a man, a woman, and God. It is ordered to the good of the spouses (namely their salvation) and serves as the primary relationship above all other bonds of kinship or fraternity. It is eternal and therefore never ceases.

Whereas matrimony – or sacramental marriage – is the sacrament consisting of the marital act between a man and a woman within the bonds of wedlock, ordered toward strengthening this bond in this life. It ceases at death.

Scripture

Genesis 2 and God’s Designs

Perhaps the best place to start is with Scripture itself. There are a few things worth noting here. First, marriage was created by God in the Garden of Eden in response to man’s loneliness. God, who is perfect relationship and has known eternally the closeness of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, sees man – who at this point is in relationship with God – and declares that it is ‘not good.’ That is a groundbreaking statement, because God, who knows all, sees that it is just Him and man and states categorically that this type of relationship is not good for man. He creates for man another person to form a Trinitarian relationship with Him (the type of relationship God has always known perfectly): a helper to enable man to enter more deeply into relationship with God.

Secondly, consider the manner in which the woman – who will go on to be named Eve – was created. Eve was created from Adam, not from the dirt as Adam was; she was created from Adam. No other creature owes their origin to another in Scripture; only Eve, the pinnacle of God’s creation. Created already elevated so that she and Adam might join together and pursue God together, united as one flesh. This is significant because it shows that in her creation, God compensated for the lowliness of Adam – which created a deficiency in their relationship – by, in union with the woman whom He created elevated, elevating the now one-flesh to a higher status than it was at the onset of creation. Hence why the sole goal of a married couple is to help each other reach the Empyrean and subsequently the Beatific Vision, where this Trinitarian relationship finally reaches its zenith.

Let us now take a close look at the passage and see what other elements of the primordial sacrament God constitutes as its nature:

‘And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself […] And Adam called all the beasts by their names, and all the fowls of the air, and all the cattle of the field: but for Adam there was not found a helper like himself. Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. And the Lord God built the rib that he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.’ [3]

The whole of this passage points further to the error in the statement of the Catholic Church in the Catechism, namely that marriage ‘had been raised to the dignity of a sacrament.’ [4] God already created the sacrament elevated and desired this for all of humanity. What Christ did was restore the dignity of the sacrament from the continual denigrations and attacks it had received, owing to the hardness of human hearts in the Old Testament – such as divorce, polygamy, relations outside of wedlock (both premarital and adulterous), as well as remarriage.

The point of the Incarnate Word, as He Himself says, is: ‘Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled.’ [5] Christ perfects and restores what was already created. Hence why, for a Christian who follows Christ, the commandments surrounding this primordial sacrament are so demanding. ‘But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.’ [6] A Christian’s goal is perfection and living out the commandments without fault or compromise – as is suggested by another element this passage contradicts within the Catechism: the primacy of relationships.

It is plain that the passage states that married couples become one and supersede the parental bond; I shall therefore gloss over this point. What is perhaps deeper and more significant in an exegesis is the phrase ‘they shall become one flesh.’ Unlike a surface-level argument, this contends that at the moment of their marriage, Adam and Eve became one unique creature. Considering the elevated nature of the relationship between man and God – wherein man alone among creation is unique in having been made ‘to our [the Trinity’s] image and likeness’ – the argument stands that God cannot separate Himself from what He is a part of. [7]

If God cannot separate Himself from His relationship with man (as only man, by his own sinful actions, can separate himself from God), how then could God sever the bond between man and woman: a bond that He Himself created as essential to humanity? As the Apostle Paul later states: ‘The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.’ [8] The union of a man and a woman’s bodies is solely for the Lord – for relationship with God. There exists no conceivable argument as to why God would break this bond.

1 Corinthians and Paul

The passage of Scripture most frequently invoked to justify an erroneous interpretation of marriage is that found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians:

‘But I speak this by indulgence, not by commandment. For I would that all men were even as myself: but every one hath his proper gift from God; one after this manner, and another after that. But I say to the unmarried, and to the widows: It is good for them if they so continue, even as I. But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to be burnt. But to them that are married, not I but the Lord commandeth, that the wife depart not from her husband. And if she depart, that she remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband. And let not the husband put away his wife.’ [9]

The all-important context is vital in interpreting this passage. As Aquinas states plainly, ‘the Apostle did not forbid the marriage act.’ [10] Paul, like later figures in the Church such as Augustine, Ambrose, and Pius XII, attempts to argue that the perpetual virginal state is preferred by God over that of the married state. The argument against this is beyond the scope of the present article; however, it should be noted that this position – maintained by later theologians such as Ambrose and Augustine, and by the modern Church in Pius XII’s Sacra Virginitas – rests upon a misinterpretation of earlier passages in Scripture, as I hope to demonstrate elsewhere. For now, it is important to note that Paul is presenting what he personally believes – and he himself states it is by indulgence and not commandment – and that his counsel is a response to the wildly sexually immoral church in Corinth, which was engaged in widespread adultery, fornication, and prostitution. [11]

This is not a commandment, nor is it a theological exposition of the complete nature of the married state; rather, it is Paul correcting what is going wrong in Corinth. Recall his earlier statement: ‘I gave you milk to drink, not meat; for you were not able as yet. But neither indeed are you now able; for you are yet carnal.’ [12] If the nature of marriage is eternal, and the focus of the couple should be on reaching the Beatific Vision together, is not Paul here merely stating that those who are only temporally focused – or carnal, as he puts it – are ill-suited to enter this state until they have first set their eyes upon the Empyrean and God? Must we not first understand the fullness and beauty of the gift of the married state before we set out upon it with our spouse?

For the record, this argument is applicable to all of the Pauline Epistles – including the letter to the Romans, in which Aquinas erroneously held that marriage is ended at death – as the Pauline letters are essentially applied teachings addressed to specific contexts and are not an exposition of the fullness of revelation. They were composed for the formation of the burgeoning Church, not to mention the continued scholarly debate surrounding the authorship of certain of these letters. [13]

Matthew 22 and the Problem of the Sadducees

The final passage of Scripture I wish to examine is Matthew 22. 30. It is frequently invoked to present marriage as temporal and as subordinate to consecrated virginity. The fuller context of the passage is essential for dismissing this erroneous interpretation:

‘That day there came to Him the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection; and they asked Him, saying: Master, Moses said: If a man die having no son, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up issue to his brother. Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first having married a wife, died and not having issue, left his wife to his brother. In like manner the second, and the third, and so on to the seventh. And last of all the woman died also. At the resurrection therefore whose wife of the seven shall she be? For they all had her. And Jesus answering said to them: You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven. And concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken by God, saying to you: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.’ [14]

The argument commonly drawn from this passage is that Christ expressly states that people ‘shall neither marry nor be given in marriage’ in heaven and will rather be like angels. However, Christ uses the active verb marry – or, in the Koine Greek, γαμοῦσιν – and the passive form γαμίζονται (‘to be given in marriage’). I argue that, like all sacraments, matrimony itself points towards something higher in the Empyrean. Therefore, there is a twofold expression of marriage: one that is eternal (namely the state in which we shall exist with our spouse and God in the Empyrean), and the other transitory (the sacrament that we call matrimony, which enables a couple to enter into the married state).

The sacrament of matrimony consists in the marital act between a man and a woman within the bonds of wedlock. One is not married in the church building; rather, one is married at the moment of consummation – the conjugal act – and hence virginity is essential in entering the married state, as one can only enter this bond once. The church service is merely a public and solemn witness to the couple’s relationship.

What Christ is therefore referring to is that the sacrament of matrimony will not exist in heaven – or, to put it more plainly, there will be no sexual relations in heaven. The conjugal act will not be required, as its sole purpose is the unification of a man and a woman. (Many studies have been conducted on the neurochemical basis of sexual intercourse and its capacity to form a permanent bond with one’s partner – another reason why virginity is required to enter married life, and why casual sex is an abhorrent corruption of God’s design for human sexuality.) [15] Christ does not say that the married state will not exist in heaven; rather, as many prominent theologians have envisioned, the Empyrean will be a return to the purified state preceding the Fall – as it was in the Garden. And since marriage existed in the Garden before the Fall, we will still be united to our spouse in that state. Indeed, as Aquinas proposes, the conjugal act does not appear in the Garden prior to the Fall: it is only following Genesis 3 that the conjugal act enters as the means by which fallen humans going forward will be united in marriage. [16]

This is not to mention the context in which He was speaking. The Sadducees were attempting to entrap Him and to discredit Him before their followers. This is not a serious theological argument that they were making; as the text plainly states, they themselves did not believe in the resurrection, and therefore their own argument carries no merit.

What is notable about their specific stance, however, is that it is used as the same justification by the Church for permitting remarriage and for holding that marriage endures only until the death of one of the spouses – as the Church, too, albeit this time professing the resurrection, does not fully understand the power of God to maintain that bond even when the spouses are separated by the Vale of Tears.

The argument runs that marriage must be temporal and dissolved at the death of a spouse, for otherwise God would be compelling multiple persons to remain bound to the same individual. I say most solemnly that this is a gross misinterpretation of this passage – and, indeed, a gross misinterpretation of death. Death is not the ending of life; rather, it is the translation of the believer to eternal life: ‘For life is not cut short by death.’ [17]

‘Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall all indeed rise again but we shall not all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise again incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. And when this mortal hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory.’ [18]

If, then, at death God preserves us as we are – albeit purified from sin – how can one claim that the covenantal bond He Himself has entered into would be broken by Him? The use of this passage by the Church to specify the temporal nature of marriage is erroneous and disregards our understanding of the resurrection, much as the Sadducees disregarded it before Christ.

Conclusion

With the scriptural foundations established, it remains to draw out what underlies the whole argument: the nature of love itself. We often conceive of love as a merely human construct, hence why its power tends to be diminished in our imaginations – but that could not be further from the truth.

Love is the most powerful reality in existence, for love is God Himself: ‘He who loveth not, knoweth not God: for God is love.’ [19] The Incarnate Word, when He came down to save us – what do the Scriptures say of Him? ‘Greater love than this no man hath.’ [20] Paul, writing to Corinth, declares of love: ‘It beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.’ [21]

It would be an error, therefore, to suppose that love has limits. If love is without limit, is it not self-evident that the marital bond – forged in that very love – cannot be severed by the temporary physical separation of death? Does not Scripture affirm this? Such is the power of love, and such is the dignity of marriage. The Church would do well to re-embrace a biblical view on marriage.

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