Bible, Sex & Marriage

A Biblical View of Sex and Marriage

"Doesn’t the Bible teach that all sex outside marriage is wrong? And, if so, according to the Bible mustn’t sex between same-sex couples always be wrong unless they can be married in God’s eyes? But they can’t, can they?”

As an evangelical Christian my understanding from Scripture is that God wants sex to be kept special for marriage. So, sex outside marriage is wrong. Therefore, for me the key question is not whether sex between people of the same sex is wrong, but: can people of the same sex be married in God’s eyes? If they can then, just as with heterosexuals, consensual sex within marriage is good and sex outside it is bad. That’s why this website is about the biblical case for same-sex marriage and not the biblical case for gay sex!

To try to answer these questions requires us to look at the whole of Scripture and its underlying trajectory. When some evangelicals talk about the “traditional biblical" standards of sex and marriage, to outsiders it sounds as if they’re speaking about fixed concepts, perhaps etched in stone by Moses along with the Ten Commandments. But when we actually look at Scripture we see that, far from being fixed in stone, the concepts of marriage and sexual ethics evolved significantly throughout the Old Testament, according to different cultural and legal contexts, and then evolved further after Christ.

Again, please note to examine this topic it was necessary to include occasional references to specific sexual activities

This section is quite long. As a runner, I’d say it’s like a half-marathon – 13.1 miles/21 kilometres. So, I’ve given you the following distance markers for each part of the course, so you can see how far you’ve got :

Part 1 - The Ethical Evolution
Part 2 – “Scripture only talks about gay sex to condemn it, so mustn’t same-sex marriage also be wrong?”
Part 3 – “Doesn’t Adam & Eve’s story show us God only ever intended marriage to be between a man and a woman?”
Part 4 – “Could same-sex couples fulfil the Old Testament model for marriage before the Fall?”
Part 5 – “Could same-sex couples fulfil the Old Testament model for marriage after the Fall?”
Part 6 - “Didn’t Jesus confirm the Old Testament pattern of male-female marriage as the model for all time?”
Part 7 – “Doesn’t Ephesians 5 give us deeper reasons why marriage can only ever be between man and a woman?”

For those who don’t have the legs for such a long run I’ve given you a rather shorter 5K course in my Summary of the main points linked here.

But for those wanting to dig even deeper, please read my lengthy essay I will link here, The Evolution/Revolution of Marriage and Sexual Ethics in the Bible.

But let’s get one thing out of the way first. In my view, Scripture nowhere gives direct endorsement of same-sex marriage or any other form of same-sex sexual union. I’m aware that some revisionists will disagree with me and cite Jesus’s encounter with the Roman centurion recorded in Luke 7:1-10.

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They’d say the Roman centurion and his “dear servant” must have been gay lovers. So, by praising the Centurion’s faith and healing his servant, Jesus must have impliedly endorsed their same-sex sexual union. I looked carefully into this theory. For various reasons, I’m afraid, I just don’t think it adds up any better than traditionalist arguments about the androgenous Adam (discussed below). I believe this interpretation runs contrary to both the text and context of the passage. (And Matthew Vines agrees with me). I will include my analysis of the passage in my long essays I'll link above. But a key point here is if their relationship had been sexual it would seem to have been just the sort of unequal, abusive relationship between master and young male slave that Paul later roundly condemned. Would Jesus really have affirmed such a relationship? I think we know the answer!

So, spoiler alert! after fully exploring the Bible’s view about sex and marriage, I will not conclude that the Bible directly supports same-sex marriage. But I will reach clear conclusions on two important points:

Does Scripture rule out same-sex marriage?
Could same-sex relationships, at least potentially, meet Scripture’s key standards and purposes for marriage and sex within it?

Part 1 - The Ethical Evolution

Under the Old Testament, sexual ethics were primarily about male property rights over their women – primarily their husbands’ (but before marriage their fathers'). Women were expected to remain chaste and only have sexual intercourse with one man – their husband. But men were free to have sex with as many women as they liked as long as they had the money to make them another wife or legal mistress (concubine) and provided they didn’t infringe another man’s rights by sleeping with his wife or virgin daughter. Hence the king “after God’s own heart”, David, had 8 wives as well as numerous unnamed concubines, through whom he fathered at least 18 children. However, when he stepped out of line to commit adultery with another man’s wife, Bathsheba, he soon knew God’s wrath! But his son by that marriage, his successor Solomon, took polygamy to the max, collecting wives and concubines like other men collect stamps, acquiring an incredible 700 wives and 300 concubines!

Furthermore, less affluent men were free to have sex with commercial female prostitutes, which was nowhere outlawed in Scripture. And, whilst they may not have been able to afford a second wife or a concubine, the one-sided male right to divorce on demand allowed them to dump the old wife they were bored with and replace her with a newer model.

New Testament sexual and marriage ethics are much higher than the Old Testament’s.

Between them, Jesus and Paul made clear:

Men and women should be united in the “one flesh” union of marriage for life and so men should not divorce their wives. (Matt. 19)
Sex symbolises that “one flesh” union and so should be reserved for lifetime marriage partners. So, if men divorce and re-marry, sex with their new wife is adultery (Matt. 19 and 1 Cor. 6:18).
Everyone should learn to control their sexual appetites and should not take sexual advantage of another person (1 Thess. 4:3-6)
Men should not have sex with prostitutes (also 1 Cor 6:18)
Men should not have more than one wife; if they do they’re unfit for church leadership (1 Tim. 3:2).
If a man even looked at another women lustfully he was committing adultery in his heart (Matthew 5:28). Therefore “sex” must encompass much more than the act of intercourse – extending to all sorts of erotic acts and desires to do them.

Therefore, as the New Testament sees it, all forms of sex are wrong if they happen outside the unique “one flesh” relationship of marriage. So, if people want to enjoy sex then to avoid sexual immorality they should get married. Scripture only talks about marriage as between a man and a woman. So, does that mean sex between same-sex couples must always be wrong because marriage always requires a man and a woman? Or could marriage include a “one flesh” union of two men or two women?

Part 2 – “Scripture only talks about gay sex to condemn it, so mustn’t same-sex marriage also be wrong?”

No, I don't believe so, because the Bible addresses something very different to sex within a same-sex marriage and simply never addresses whether people of the same sex can be married.

As we've seen, the Bible actually only rarely mentions same-sex relations – four times in the Old Testament - Genesis 19, Judges 19, Leviticus 18 and 20 - and three times in the New - Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1. (Jude 7 is in fact about the offence of sex between humans and angels.) When they are mentioned they certainly are condemned but what was condemned and why, and how does this relate to the conduct that revisionists today are condoning?

In fact, as we've seen, the only same-sex act Scripture mentioned and condemned was all-male anal intercourse. Nothing at all is said about any other male homoerotic acts nor about any all-female sexual acts. So, if we’re looking for a comprehensive code on what, if any, gay sex acts are allowed or not the Bible simply doesn’t give it. And so, for those traditionalists reading the Bible as if it were a clear authority against all homoerotic sex, I do think you need to re-read your Bible. It just isn’t.

As I believe we’ve seen from both the New and Old Testament verses, there were very particular reasons why anal intercourse between men was strictly condemned at those times. In both contexts the sex involved was promiscuous, involving either idolatrous religion in the Old Testament or exploitative, abusive relationships such as master and slave-boy in the New Testament.

This is very different to the same-sex sexual relationships that revisionists like me are defending today: sex within a faithful, permanently committed, monogamous relationship that we would call marriage. The Bible nowhere condemns all-male sexual intercourse within such a relationship because, as we saw earlier, they were unheard of at that time. In particular, no all-male marriages took place until two to three years after Paul died - when Emperor Nero entered his sham marriage with his castrated slave-boy, Sporus. For further detail of what Paul would have known about such relationships see my long essay which I will link here and its section analysing the evidence about this issue. See also Matthew Vines’ excellent exploration of this issue at: https://reformationproject.org/same-sex-marriage-homosexuality-biblical-world/ , and which is also covered in his updated book.

So, it wasn’t an issue the Bible needed to address at the time and therefore it didn’t - any more than it discussed the ethics of contraception, gene therapy or driving a diesel car. This certainly doesn’t mean God has no opinion on these important issues; just that his word doesn’t directly tell us.

Some may argue that in condemning male anal intercourse the Bible did so based on the physical act regardless of the relationship in which the act took place. But that's not how the Bible usually defines what sexual acts are acceptable. Generally the Bible’s ban on sexual acts is all about the relationship within which the sex takes place. Just look at the sexual code in Leviticus 18. It’s generally all about the sex being wrong because of the relationship e.g. between brothers and sisters, sons and mothers.

In the case of all-male anal intercourse the Bible did not need to say … except if the two men are married, because all-male marriages simply never happened then. Yet there is nothing physically different in anal sex between two men than between a man and a woman - other than, if anything, it may be slightly more risky for a woman because of anatomical differences to men.

The New Testament makes clear that the only proper place for sex to take place is within a marriage, but as long as that’s where the sex happens it places no restrictions on the type of consensual sex act - manual, oral and yes even anal sex. It believe it would be rather naïve to think those other forms of sex did not regularly take place among spouses in Paul’s congregations given that:

Human nature teaches us they’ve always happened
The Old Testament said nothing to condemn them
Paul actively encouraged marital sex without qualification for the sake of sex and not for procreation (see 1 Cor. 7)
In an age before contraception for practical reasons there would have been a greater desire for non-coital marital sex.
All the while the Council of Jerusalem ban continued the Levitical sex rules, anal intercourse could be one way a man could have sex with his wife during her period without breaching them

Paul would have known all this and yet never takes these different forms of marital sex off the menu for married couples. Therefore, by saying nothing about these marital sexual activities did he not effectively condone them? If so, whilst I have no personal experience of it, there surely cannot be anything inherently wrong about the act of anal intercourse itself which makes all-male anal intercourse wrong.

Traditionalists will reply, but it’s inherently wrong because it involves sex between two people of the same sex and so it’s an act against God’s natural order.

But if all-male sexual intercourse was so wrong for all time because it happened between people of the same sex why does the Bible nowhere condemn any all-female sexual acts? After all, we know from the Jewish Talmud that they went on. Does this not show that the mere fact sex is between people of the same sex is not some stand-out moral factor that automatically leads to its divine condemnation?

Therefore, I believe, we can see that the key moral question the Bible raises is - what type of relationship should sex take place in? The New Testament’s answer is simple: marriage (see e.g. 1 Cor. 6:15-16).

So, when all-male intercourse takes place outside marriage, as it always did when the Bible was written, it is wrong. Unsurprisingly, therefore, such sex is always condemned when occasionally mentioned. But IF two men, or two women, can marry each other in God’s eyes, then there is no logical reason to condemn any form of consensual sex between the two of them.

Revisionist evangelicals like myself are not disagreeing with Paul and Moses or any other biblical writer when they condemned male-only intercourse. We too would have condemned the same acts because at that time they all happened promiscuously and as part of an idolatrous cult or an exploitative, abusive relationships and never within marriage.

But the only same-sex sexual acts we are condoning are within a same-sex marriage. So, I believe, that biblically they are of an entirely different moral character to the type of same-sex acts Scripture had in view when it condemned them.

Therefore, can we any more reasonably use the Bible to condemn such acts than to refuse blood transfusions because of Scripture’s ban on eating blood, as the Jehovah’s Witnesses do? In both cases wasn't Scripture addressing something that was physically similar but morally very different?

So, I believe, the real question must be - could God accept marriage between two men or two women? That’s what we’ll look at next.

Part 3 – “Doesn’t Adam & Eve’s story show us God only ever intended marriage to be between a man and a woman?”

For the reasons explained below, I’m now convinced the answer is no. That’s because, on closer examination, I found their story shows the essence of the original marriage model was similar, equal permanent, life partners forming the closest kinship bond. On the face of it, couldn't same-sex couples fulfil that relationship model just as well as opposite sex couples?

I set out below a summary of my findings and the main reasons for them. For a more detailed account, please read my lengthy essay which that I will link above . This includes a full exploration of the meaning of key Hebrew words and concepts like male ish (male), ishah (female), kenegdow ezer (suitable helper) and basar (flesh). And it gives a full analysis of why I’m now convinced my original traditionalist understanding of Adam and Eve’s relationship actually ran contrary to the Hebrew text.

The “Androgenous Adam” Theory

Let’s get one thing out of the way first of all: Professor Gagnon’stheory of the “sexually undifferentiated” Adam. I call it the “androgenous Adam” theory simply because I prefer alliterative names for things!

Most traditionalists may not have heard of him, but Professor Gagnon remains the leading theological heavyweight behind the traditionalist view of same-sex relationships and marriage. It’s his interpretations that have had the greatest influence on more well-known traditionalist teachers and speakers, like the late great John Stott and, more contemporaneously, Preston Sprinkle, and Mike Winger. And Professor Gagnon’s androgenous Adam theory is quite foundational to his thinking on this subject. My essay I will link above above dives deep to fully analyse his theory against the text and context. This explains why I’m convinced his foundational theory is heavily cracked and broken and so unable to support the case he builds upon it.

I certainly do not claim to be the first to pick up these flaws. Most of these points are addressed in a much more scholarly way by leading revisionist theologian, Professor James Brownson, in his brilliant book, Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships (see the link in my Further Resources section here)

Prof. Gagnon’s theory is that an originally "sexually undifferentiated" Adam was split in two by God to make a male, Adam, and a female, Eve.

However, I believe his theory really just falls at the first hurdle, because it’s simply contradicted by the Hebrew words of the text: the Hebrew word for male - ish and female- ishah are used when describing who the rib was taken from to create the woman. These are specifically gendered terms for male and female. “This one shall be called ishah (woman) for out of ish (man) she was taken.” So, the text seems very clear that the original Adam was ish, i.e. male, when God carried out the divine surgery of removing his rib to create the ishah, i.e. female.

If Robert Gagnon’s theory were correct then it should surely have said that the ishah (female) was not taken from the ish (male) but from the adam (the non-binary human as Gagnon sees it).

Also, if the original Adam were this sexually undifferentiated, dual person, who embodied the wholeness of humanity, which God then divided in half, why would he be alone and need a companion? This after all is why God created Eve in the first place according to Genesis 2:16. So, why did God divide him in half in the first place?

The man is still referred to as ha-adam = Adam later after the woman is taken out of him. This is the very same Hebrew word used to refer to him before the woman taken out of him. This seems very odd. Surely this person should have been given a new name, as two entirely new identities had been created out of one?

The text clearly seems to describe something physically taken from/out of the whole - whether a rib or part of his side; rather different to literally splitting someone in half. If God was splitting the whole of him down the middle and dividing him in two, surely a different Hebrew verb would have been used, e.g. shas – to divide/split? The Hebrew word here translated as “made” or “build” – way-yi-ben - is used 55 times in the Old Testament and always means “build”. This seems consistent only with God taking a small part of the man, e.g. his rib, and building it up into another person.

I’m sure Professor Gagnon would sincerely disagree with me, but to my own untrained eyes, it seems this theory has much more in common with pagan Greek myth – in Plato’s Symposium - than with Scripture. And rather more scholarly people than me have previously suggested this, including Prof. James Brownson.

In fact, Greek philosophers like Plato have much to answer for, I believe, in various unscriptural errors the church has taken up, particularly through Augustine - including the concept of hell as eternal conscious torment and Calvinistic divine determinism. Those are whole other debates! But if Greek philosophers steered the great St Augustine in some wrong directions, perhaps we shouldn’t be too harsh on Prof. Gagnon if he too was misled by a Greek.

Not only does his theory seem to run counter to the words of Genesis, but on closer analysis, I believe, Adam and Eve’s story indicates the essence of their original partnership was not of complementary difference but equality and similarity (see below).

As James Brownson points out, it is also unbiblical to suggest, as Prof. Gagnon seems to, that the “re-union” of male and female to re-form the original whole human being shows us the ultimate realisation of the divine image in humankind. Scripture shows that Jesus is par excellence the ultimate and best expression of the divine image in human beings and he was fully male! “the light of the gospel displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God“ (2 Corinthians 4:4). Also, Paul teaches that, if anything, celibacy is the higher calling for those seeking to follow Christ and therefore reflect God’s image in us.

My “Adam of the apes” theory

One thing I’m still quite traditionalist about is my understanding that Adam and Eve were probably real historic people, albeit living many 10,000s of years ago (and I don’t believe Adam was literally formed out of the Earth’s dust). However, what I say below would apply equally if they were literary figures in an allegorical poem (which I accept is possible).

I believe Adam was probably originally an “Adam of the apes”. (I describe this as my theory because I don’t recall hearing anyone else suggest it before, but I suspect they will have done). “My” working theory is that God must have intervened in Adam’s conception and gestation inside his ape-woman mother’s womb to create a then unique God-imaged ape-man, i.e., the first human being. This was later paralleled when God intervened in the conception and gestation of Jesus inside his human mother’s womb to create a unique God-man. Of course, if I’m right, this wouldn’t be the only parallel between Jesus and Adam. Unlike Robert Gagnon with his androgenous Adam theory, I don’t claim there’s any direct scriptural support for my theory, but I believe it makes sense of what follows in the story, and is not contradicted by any of the text. By contrast, as noted above, I believe the androgenous Adam theory contradicts both.

If my theory is right then in searching for a suitable helper among the animals Adam was probably searching among the humanoid apes he was born to - biologically like him. To my mind, only when we accept there were biologically similar creatures among the other animals does Adam’s original search for a mate among the other animals make any sense. Was Adam really looking up at giraffes and saying, “Nah, too tall!”? I don't think so!

Why and what Adam needed in Eve

So in this “Adam of the Apes” theory Adam could have found an anatomically compatible female among the humanoid ape-women with whom he could have procreated children (and to whom God could have miraculously added his image as he had done with Adam himself). But such a partner would have been intellectually and spiritually too different to be a suitable help-mate for him – lacking the unique higher qualities of a human being made in image of God. Therefore, God made from Adam’s side/rib another creature who was just like him – another human being in God’s image.

The whole emphasis in the passage after that is not on Adam and Eve’s differences, even in a compatible way, but their similarity. Hence, Adam’s joyous reaction when he first sees Eve, probably best captured by the Message (although, not for the last time Eugene Peterson’s wonderful paraphrase is remarkably similar to the most literally accurate translation, Young’s Literal 1898): “Finally! Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh! Name her Woman for she was made from Man.” (Genesis 2:23) In other words, finally someone really like me! Made of the same stuff as me! This contrasted with the other creatures among whom he couldn’t find a suitable mate.

In this chapter of Genesis there’s also no mention of the need to procreate children

nor of any anatomical differences between Adam as a man and Eve as a woman, nor even any direct reference to them having sex. Of course, the second human being Eve did have to be created as a female partner for Adam because otherwise God’s human being project would have ended with them! But this was not referred to at all in the passages focusing on their creation or coming together in chapter two nor their life together in chapter three before the Fall.

“It is not good for the man to be alone”

I believe the fundamental pivot to Adam’s story in chapter 2 is verse 18: “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone, I will make a helper suitable for him.” Coming as it does at the very dawn of humanity’s creation, I believe this verse should be foundational to our understanding of human nature and human relationships, especially marriage. So, fully understanding and applying its message should lead to great good and failing to do so, great harm.

God recognised it was “not good” for Adam to be “alone” and in answer to his loneliness problem he did not merely provide him with another human being he could chat to but a strong equal partner to do life with, a kenegedow ezer: a strong, equal helper, that would walk and work alongside Adam and be of a similar, not different, kind to him – Eve. (Elsewhere in Scripture ezer is used to describe God as Israel's helper).

So up to the Fall their kenegedow ezer marriage model meant Adam and Eve were fully equal partners with no sense of Adam having authority over a submissive wife. Hence Adam ate the forbidden fruit at Eve’s suggestion, and after the Fall part of her punishment for this was that she wouldn’t be allowed to call the shots anymore and Adam would “rule over” her.

It seems clear to me that the commentary in verse 24, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh”, must relate back to the whole preceding account of God creating Eve, and Adam’s recognition of their close kindship and likeness. This in turn surely relates back to the reason for Eve’s creation in verse 18 – to cure his sense of being alone and provide him with a suitable partner. So, it seems clear, the reason why men and women have got married since is so that they can be suitable life helpers to one another. It seems to me that the strong implication is that generally human beings will share Adam’s need for that unique life partner to help them do life, because that’s what God provided Adam with in answer to his need not to be “alone”.

The “one flesh” union

The narrator of Genesis adds, “Therefore a man will leave his mother and father and cleave unto his wife” so that they “become one flesh” (KJV). This therefore explained the marriage pattern that followed Adam and Eve, and which the original audience of Genesis would have known - of men and women forming a “one flesh” union.

This “one flesh" union does not primarily mean having sex, as I’d originally assumed, misled by the natural association of the English translation of “flesh” with sex. Indeed, Adam recognizes his one flesh kinship with Eve as soon as he sees her, before they’ve had sex. In Matthew’s gospel Mary and Joseph are also considered married before they've slept together (Matt 1:25).

The part sex plays in the “one flesh union”

However, the Hebrew word basar certainly can and does incorporate a physical, sexual union within marriage. This concept is recognized in the New Testament (albeit in Greek), e.g. 1 Corinthians 6:16 “Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, ‘The two will become one flesh.’” Having sex with another person seems to symbolize forming the one flesh marriage bond, just like baptism symbolized passing from death to new life in Jesus. And so sex should be reserved for marriage only.

We know from experience that sex between two people is capable of helping cement the bond between them – whether that is just from the intimacy of a cuddle, massaging your partner’s feet or more overly sexual contact. And whilst good sex does not have to involve orgasm, we also know that on orgasm our brains release large amounts of “feel good” chemicals like oxytocin and dopamine, which can promote feelings of connection and bonding between partners (see e.g. What Happens in Your Brain During Orgasm? @www.verywellmind.com ) Yet orgasm does not require coital sexual intercourse and indeed most women cannot experience orgasm through intercourse alone and require other external stimulation (see e.g. Women’s Experience of Orgasm During Intercourse @ https:// pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29079939/ )

And there is nothing to say that morally or spiritually the sexual consummation of marriage, has to involve coital intercourse. Legally, it always has done so, but Jesus taught us to look at the heart of our behaviours and motivations. Hence he considered even looking at another man’s wife lustfully was equivalent to committing adultery with her.

So, let’s say a boyfriend and girlfriend want to pay lip service to the traditional biblical standard of no sex before marriage. They avoid coital intercourse but they indulge in all other forms of sex - oral, manual, etc. Would we really say they hadn’t physically united like a married couple? I’m pretty sure what Jesus or Paul’s answer would be! Or say a husband and wife marry but avoid coital sexual intercourse because the woman suffers from endometriosis which makes coital intercourse very painful for her. They have sex but all forms other than coital intercourse. Would we really say they hadn’t physically consummated their union?

Of course, coital male-female sexual intercourse is necessary to create children from sex. However, in focusing on Adam and Eve’s creation and marriage in chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis there is not even an indirect reference to the need for a husband and wife to procreate for it to count as a marriage. If there was then perhaps we should be ruling out marriage between men and women much over the age of 40!

The wider meaning of “flesh”

The Hebrew word for flesh used here, basar, had a much wider meaning than flesh. It also meant kinship in its various forms and was not unique to male/female marriage. This was why later in Genesis Laban remarked that his nephew Jacob was “the same flesh” (basar) (Genesis 29:14). So, to form a basar “one flesh” union in marriage, meant to form the closest of kinship bonds, so that the primary kinship bond transferred from your parents to your spouse. Hence Jesus said, once married, a husband and wife should not divorce.

“Being united with” or “cleaving unto” a husband or wife was also not unique to marriage and was sometimes used of same-sex relationships. The Hebrew word, debaq, meaning “uniting, sticking to, cleaving to or joining” was used in the Old Testament in many different contexts. This included to describe Ruth resolutely “clinging to” her mother-in-law Naomi after vowing she would never leave her. (Ruth 1:14)

Part 4 – “Could same-sex couples fulfil the Old Testament's model for marriage before the Fall?”

There might be commands or reasons later in Scripture that ruled out same-sex marriage. However, just based on Genesis 2 and 3, the essentials of the marriage relationship seen before the Fall, I believe, offer no good reason why such a relationship could not be formed by two men or two women. That’s because, contrary to what I’d originally assumed, none of the essentials of marriage seen here require gender complementarity, a male-female sexual union or procreation of children. Instead, I believe Genesis 2 and 3 indicate the following essentials are required to be a suitable marriage partner:

a partner of a similar intellectual and spiritual kind, i.e. made in God’s image
a partner who can be an equal help-mate to do life alongside
a partner with whom you can form the closest lifelong kinship bond with
insofar as the “one flesh” union is cemented through sex there is nothing there suggests this can only be fulfilled through coital sexual intercourse

If in Genesis 2 and early 3 we replaced Eve with a Steve or Adam with an Adah, would we in fact find they’d work equally well together? (For the evidence about whether that they do or not, please see my final section, The Answers)

I believe the commentary at Genesis 2:24 only referred to men and women marrying because same-sex marriage was something that Genesis’ first audience, the ancient Hebrews, would almost certainly never have come across. (Despite some evidence of rare lesbian marriages in the country they’d just left). Marriage between a man and a woman was essential for their patriarchal society and was the means of producing children to expand God’s kingdom of Israel, so that they could become “as numerous as stars in the sky”, as Yahweh had promised Abraham. So their only lived experience of marriage was between a man and a woman.

If the writer had added “and for this reason also sometimes a man will leave his parents and be united with another man and likewise a woman with another woman”, his Hebrew audience would have thought he'd lost the plot and reacted, "What on Earth is he going on about!?"

I can also see now that this commentary was not written as law or prophesy, as I’d once assumed, because Genesis is fundamentally a book of history, not law or prophesy, and any commands or prophesy given in it, e.g. God to Adam and Eve after the Fall, are spoken directly to the individuals. Also, if it were meant as a command then any man who did not marry a woman but remained celibate would have been breaking the command. Jesus and Paul would have been in serious trouble!

Part 5 - "But could same-sex couples fulfil the Old Testament’s model for marriage after the Fall?"

No – not until after Jesus. Because part of Adam and Eve’s curse resulting from the Fall was the need for marriage to involve the complementary roles of a submissive woman/wife and dominant man/husband ruling over her. As it says in Genesis 3:16: “To the woman he said, ‘I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labour you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’”

Eve’s curse was God’s very first curse on humans for breaking his very first law . But Galatians 3:13 tells us , “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” And a few verses later Galatians 3:28 tells us: "Furthermore in Christ there is now “neither male nor female” (Galatians 3:28).

However, as a traditionalist, I used to argue the Genesis 3:16 complementary marriage roles were effectively made permanent, albeit more gracious, by Jesus’s own “command” in Matthew 19 and by Paul’s marriage metaphor in Ephesians 5. But I now believe I had fundamentally misunderstood both those passages.

Part 6 – “Didn’t Jesus confirm the Old Testament pattern of male-female marriage as the model for all time?”

That's what I used to believe. However, after carefully re-examining Scripture, for the reasons set out below my conclusion now is: No, because this was not the question he was answering.

What Jesus said

Jesus’s only recorded teaching about marriage is in Matthew 19: 3-11 (and its parallel in Mark 10:1-12):

“Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason? “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away? Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

For 30 years, my view was that by quoting from Genesis 2 here Jesus had ruled that for all time marriage could only ever be between a man and a woman and he was therefore ruling out same sex marriage. But was he? What issue was he actually addressing here? I believe the answer is quite simple – look at the question he was asked: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” Jesus was quoting the passage simply to answer the Pharisees’ question about a man’s right to divorce his wife and make the point that marriage was meant to be an unbreakable kinship bond. It would have hardly helped his argument if he'd gone out of his way to also address a question no one was then asking about same-sex marriages! (then unheard of). So, it would surely have occurred to no one then that Jesus was here ruling out marriage between two men or two women.

However, the way I used to see it, Jesus’ words about men and women becoming "one flesh" in marriage in Matthew 19:3 was God through his Holy Spirit revealing to us a truth in Scripture beyond what his original audience could have known - that marriage must only ever be between a man and a woman. But I now realise that is a misunderstanding of how God speaks to us through Scripture. It’s also taking a very different approach to how evangelicals normally apply Scripture. For sure, all Scripture is “alive and active” (Hebrews 4:12). So, when the Holy Spirit shines his light on Scripture he often shows us its truths applying in new ways to our own situation. But surely what’s happening there is that we are seeing how the same underlying truths that the original audience could have seen apply to our own particular situation they could not have seen.

There are occasional prophetic words of Scripture which work on two different levels, one of which which was only recognizable later, e.g. some of David’s messianic prophesies in the Psalms. However, outside those rare realms, (as the Bible Society's Bible Course reminds us), most evangelicals recognize that to understand Scripture we must first understand what it was intended to mean to the original audience in their particular context in which those words were given. From that base we can then discern the passage’s underlying truths and look at how those truths may apply to our own situation. But if we look at the words Jesus was using here in their context, I believe, it's very clear he was not seeking to make any point about the need for a unique combination of a man and a woman to form a marriage. He says nothing about needing different gendered roles to make a marriage, let alone needing any anatomical complementarity, which traditionalists like Robert Gagnon think so important. His message about marriage was simply that it was intended to be the most precious, closest of human kinship bonds – the “one flesh” bond, and should therefore not be broken.

I believe we also see here Jesus moving marriage towards a different, older, marriage model. By contrast to the law of Moses and the one-sided rights it gave a husband, Jesus says husbands should have no more right to divorce their wives than wives do their husbands. So, I believe, Jesus’s message points us away from the post-Fall gendered hierarchical marriage model, which by definition could only be fulfilled by a man and a woman. I believe that Jesus here points us back towards how marriage was “from the beginning” before the Fall – a uniquely close, unbreakable bond of two equal partners.

As I believe we saw earlier, there was actually nothing about this original form of marriage described in Genesis 2 that, in theory at least, could not be fulfilled by two men or two woman, (save that practically speaking this first couple had to be a biological man and woman or else God’s human race project was going nowhere!)

So, I believe, all Jesus’s words tell us about same-sex marriage is that if same-sex marriages are acceptable to God they should be permanent kinships bonds like all marriages. But they do not tell us - one way or another - whether same-sex marriages are acceptable to God.

"But didn’t Jesus say the whole purpose of marriage was to join men and women?"

Some may say, hasn’t Jesus deliberately linked the creation of humans as “male and female” with the “reason” for marriage that God gave in Genesis? So, even if we discount the "androgenous Adam" theory, wasn’t Jesus saying God’s whole purpose behind marriage was to unite men and women as “one flesh”? Since marriage between two people of the same sex can never fulfil that purpose surely it can never be marriage in God’s eyes?

This seems like an attractive argument, but ultimately I don't believe it stands up to a more careful examination of Scripture. If you go back to the original passage in Genesis that Jesus quotes, I believe it's clear that “for this reason” relates not to creating humans as “male and female” but to the reason why God created Eve as a marriage partner for Adam: his need for an equal partner who was like him (unlike the other animals) and that he could do life with: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Since Adam was presumably heterosexual, like most of us, for him that partner needed to be a woman. In Jesus’s day joining a man and a woman happened in every single marriage because same-sex marriage was then unheard of. And in that patriarchal world marriage was an essential means of protecting and providing for women. They did not enjoy the same rights as men, but by becoming one flesh with a man in marriage through their husbands they could benefit from his rights. That’s why a husband’s one-sided right to divorce on demand was such a great risk to women. However, none of this rules out that our unique marriage life-partner couldn’t be someone of the same sex, if that person can fulfil that same need for a life-partner Adam had (which we’ll explore later). Jesus never addressed that question , because it was not the question the Pharisees or anyone else was asking him.

Jesus strikes an early blow for feminism!

I also believe the reason why Jesus here links the creation of men and women with marriage is because he was making a deliberate point that women ultimately should count as equal marriage partners, as they were before the Fall. I believe Jesus was here striking an early blow for feminism. Even though it was not yet the right time to return to that fully equal marriage model, it seems clear to me, Jesus was setting down a marker that ultimately women do and will count as equal human beings with men, both made in God’s image. So, women shouldn’t just be thrown away by their husbands demanding divorce at their whim. Husbands and wives are both bound by the one flesh union of marriage. Just because a husband as a man currently had all the rights in marriage, one right he should not exercise was divorce, because that went against the very purpose of marriage - to form a “one flesh” union, i.e. an unbreakable, closest kinship bond.

The folly of overstretching things

I believe it's quite clear that what Jesus was not seeking to do here was say whether that unbreakable “one flesh” union could only ever be formed by people of the same sex, because that was not the question he was being asked. By reading into Jesus’s words a meaning that goes so far beyond the issues he can have been addressing, in my view, we are taking an approach to Scripture that we evangelicals don’t normally do with other issues. It’s especially at odds with the way most traditionalist evangelicals normally treat Scripture on this issue. With passages like Ephesians 5, Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6, traditionalists generally seek to stick closely and sometimes quite literally to the words they understand were used at the time. In my view, it's wholly inconsistent with that to read into Matthew 19 a point Jesus surely cannot have intended to make at the time – that same-sex marriages are and always will be unacceptable to God.

To sum up…

To stretch Scripture well beyond its original meaning is quite a dangerous thing to do. To my mind, it’s similar to the way Jehovah’s Witnesses misinterpret Old Testament laws against eating bloody meat to mean a ban on accepting blood transfusions. The Council of Jerusalem did (temporarily) require Christians to follow this Old Testament regulation, but neither Moses nor the first apostles could have understood those laws required God’s people to do something very different: avoid life-saving blood transfusions – something no one had ever heard of until many centuries later.

So, where we are left with Jesus’s words about same-sex marriage, I believe, is silence. And we can surely no more conclude from his silence that he condemns same-sex marriage than he supports it. Jesus also says nothing about abortion, driving diesel cars, recreational drug use, or infertility treatment and likewise we can’t conclude from his silence that he supported or condemned any of those modern practices. We need to make the time and effort to dig deeper into Scripture's truths with the guidance of the Holy Spirit to discern what God’s will is on this issue, rather than just snatching at verses like this that on more careful analysis simply don’t address the issue.

Part 7 – “Doesn’t Ephesians 5 give us deeper reasons why marriage can only ever be between man and a woman?”

Again, that's certainly what I used to believe, but, after thoroughly re-examining Scripture, my answer now is: No, because, contrary to popular belief, we’re not Jesus's wife, but his brothers and sisters (and his body). I set out below a summary of my findings and the main reasons for them. For a more detailed account please read my long essay which I will link again here.

Note - if I’m wrong and Christ is somehow spiritually married to the Church, the Church is by definition both men and women. So, this could be used to support same-sex marriage. But I’m certainly not going to use, what I believe to be, a common misunderstanding of Scripture to plead my case!

Traditionalist interpretations

For many years I was convinced Ephesians 5:21-33 was key to understanding why marriage can only ever be between men and women. I read it in parallel with Revelation 21 and 22 - the church coming down from heaven as Christ’s bride (or so I thought). I was convinced that together they set an age-enduring complementarian model for marriage: the husband represents Christ as head over his obedient wife representing the church. And because this is the all-time model for marriage and, since Scripture teaches marriage is the only proper place for sex, sex between people of the same sex will always be wrong, because by definition they cannot be married.

Many Catholics go even further as they see marriage as a holy sacrament like baptism or communion. For them and some evangelicals too, we can no more change the nature of marriage than mess around with communion or baptism. … As a Baptist I’d say Anglicans and Catholics have actually messed around with baptism quite a bit by replacing full immersion of genuine converts with splashing little babies’ foreheads! But I digress! … If Ephesians 5 establishes all this, the “homosexuality” clobber passages are just a side-show. Ephesians 5 has already floored the revisionist case with a knock-out blow.

What the passage actually says

However, I can now see there was a clue in my 1984 “Nearly Infallible Version” as to why Ephesians really does not deliver this knock-out blow : the NIV’s passage heading – “Instructions for Christians Households”. Doesn’t something strike you as odd about that heading? Why is it not headed something like, “The eternal model for earthly marriage”? And why does this same heading apply over the page beyond chapter 5 up to chapter 6, verse 9?

Now, clearly such headings are not part of the original God-breathed words of Scripture. But, on this occasion, I believe the NIV editors chose the heading wisely to accurately sum up what Paul was addressing in this passage going all the way up to 6: 9. To get a proper sense of what it’s about I believe we need to read the whole passage, as Paul would have written it, without the chapter and verse numbers:

“ Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favour when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favouritism with him.” [After that it’s all about “the Armour of God”]

I’d always read this passage as declaring that Christ is the husband to the church as his bride. But I can now see that’s not quite right. The church is seen as part of Christ’s body for which he gave himself up. Paul is saying to husbands: love your wife as if she were your own body – just like Christ did for his own body – the church, giving his life for the church. Yes, there are certain parallels, because a husband and wife become one flesh just as the church become one flesh with Christ. But the passage does not say the church is his wife.

Why I believe the church is not actually Christ’s bride

Scripture does sometimes refer to both Israel and Jesus’s followers as Yahweh’s or Christ’s wife, e.g. the whole book of Hosea and 2 Corinthians 11:2 . But I believe marriage is simply used there as a metaphor to help us understand the closeness and permanence of the bond between God and his people by comparing it to the closest human equivalent. But it’s no more intended to be literally true than when Scripture compared our relationship with God to a vine and its branches or a shepherd and his flock.

Like many other evangelicals, I now see that nowhere does the New Testament support the position that the Church is literally Christ’s bride any more than the bread and wine we share in communion are literally transformed into Christ’s body and blood (Again, I respectfully disagree with my Catholic siblings there). In fact, Jesus himself declares that when his followers are resurrected “they will neither marry nor be given in marriage.” (Matthew 22:30). He did not add “except to me”! It would therefore surely be entirely inconsistent with our Lord’s own words if the apostles were saying that we were literally Christ’s bride. Jesus certainly described himself as the bridegroom but his followers are never described as his bride at the wedding; instead they are his wedding guests. See e.g. the Parable of the Wedding Banquet (Matt. 22:1-14) and the Parable of the Ten Virgins (Luke 14:15-21)

Rather than being Christ’s bride, our relationship with God is described as God’s adopted sons and daughters alongside Christ (See e.g. John 1:12-13 and Galatians 4:1-7). Christ is not our husband but our big brother (See e.g. Mark 3:34 and Romans 8:29) And so that’s how Jesus taught his disciples to see their relationship with God, inviting them to treat his Father as theirs – summed up supremely in the Lord’s prayer, “Our Father …”

So, I believe, there can be no logical argument from Scripture that earthly marriage must only be between a man and a woman to symbolize the church’s eternal marriage to Jesus, because Christ is not our husband but our big brother!

But what about Revelation 21 and 22?

Contrary to my original understanding, I now recognise that the Revelation 21 and 22 references to Christ’s bride are talking about his heavenly city, the new Jerusalem , not the church. She comes out of heaven as a stunningly beautiful place of joy and peace where we will live with him for eternity: “ ‘Come I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ And he carried me away in the Spirit the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall with twelve gates … Nothing impure will ever enter it … but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” (From Revelation 21:9 onwards)

So it seems clear to me that his bride is the heavenly city. And the city surely cannot even be a metaphor for his church here because we are told we, his church, will enter that heavenly city if our names are written in the book of life. We surely can’t be both the place we enter and those who enter!

How can Jesus’s bride be a city? I don’t know. It’s a mystery! You could just as easily ask how could Jesus’s bride be billions of people - both men and women? Both are very difficult concepts to understand but, as I see it, only one of these directly contradicts Jesus’ own words that “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage.” (Matthew 22:30)

It’s unbiblical to over-spiritualise marriage – ask Calvin!

In Ephesians 5 the profound mystery Paul talks about is not earthly marriage but Christ’s eternal relationship with us, his church, not as his spiritual bride but as his body: “… we are members of his body … This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”

As noted above, us evangelicals and most Protestant Christians do not consider marriage a sacrament. This was a fundamental point of the Reformation. We believe communion, not marriage, was given to us as our only earthly symbol to remember what we were in Christ and what he’s done for us - reminding us that we are not his wife but part of his body that he died for. And Ephesians 5 acknowledges this key eternal fact.

Therefore, we shouldn't treat marriage as if it were a sacrament. John Calvin (of whom I was once a great adherent!) made the point that marriage is a “holy honourable estate or profession ordained by God” as “a good and holy ordinance just like farming or shoemaking”, but, as he acknowledged, essentially it is a lifelong commitment between two human beings which can then become legally binding. This is like other commitments and contracts, such as employment or parenthood or becoming an MP or councillor. It is not a contract with God but a contract before him and he expects humans to honour their commitments, especially lifelong ones. Hence why Jesus speaks so firmly against divorce. In marriage your partner becomes part of your closest family and so to divorce them is equivalent to abandoning your children. But it is a practical and legal arrangement not a spiritual one. If it were otherwise non-Christians couldn't enter that relationship, but the Bible fully recognises marriages with non-Christians (see e.g. 1 Corinthian 7:12-16).

The complementarian error

Paul says “the husband is head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church” . He does not say a husband should be head of his wife. He was surely just describing a then current social and legal fact alongside an eternal spiritual fact. In that patriarchal world a husband was always head of his wife - you had no choice about it! - and Paul was surely just saying how you should do that required patriarchal relationship in a Christ-like way. He was pointing to the ultimate role model of how you do headship – Christ. Effectively he was saying these are the roles society gives you, but do them in a loving, Christ-like way where you respect and serve each other.

Paul was surely not intending to enshrine a law in Scripture for all time that wives must have a subservient role to their husband, any more than he was intending to make the master-slave relationships a permanent fixture.

Slaves’ children also became the Master’s slaves at birth and a Master’s slaves were inherited by his heirs. So, if we took a rigid “time-frozen” view of Scripture, to be faithful to Ephesians 6 and 1 Peter 2:18, the master-slave relationship would be perpetually inherited by the descendants and many of us would still be or have slaves today!

Likewise, when Peter said submit to and “honour” the authority of the emperor (1 Peter 2: 17) he was not meaning there should always be an earthly emperor ruling over people. On that basis democracy is unscriptural!

What the passage actually meant

On a careful examination, I believe we can see the whole text - Ephesians 5:21 to 6:9 - is just very practical spiritual advice for Christians about how they should live out their faith within their households in the situation in which they found themselves - in the very patriarchal, hierarchical first century Greco-Roman world. Hence the NIV’s title “Instructions for Christians households.”

That God intends us to understand the passage this way is, I believe, shown by the way the passage then goes onto address fathers’ relationships with their children and masters’ relationships with their slaves. Nearly all Christians today would agree that, although the master/slave relationship was part of the normal socio-economic structure at that time with which Christians were expected to live, ultimately human slavery was an evil thing and (at the right time) God intended something better. And yet in this passage the master-slave relationship is also compared to our relationship with Christ: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ”. Remember this passage (and a similar one in 1 Peter 2:18) were used by early 19th century slaveowners and opponents of abolition to defend the oppression of slaves. I believe we need to be very careful before we use the same passage in a similarly legalistic way to defend the oppression of another minority - by denying to gay people the freedom to marry someone of their choosing enjoyed by heterosexual people.

Why Paul had to accept gender complimentary marriage … for now

I believe Ephesians 5/6 is a very good example of the tensions that the apostles were having to wrestle with in overseeing the radical equalizing changes that Christ had brought about: a kingdom where Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, and men and women were ultimately equal (Galatians 3). They could have just immediately told the church to treat men and women as complete equals in everything and told all slave masters – not just Philemon - let your all slaves go free. But how that would have worked out in that very patriarchal, hierarchical, slave-owning society? It would surely have resulted in huge dissension and disunity within the body of Christ. And by doing things so against the norms of even the “better part” of society it would have risked bringing their new churches into disrepute with the whole of Greco-Roman society, perhaps even getting churches closed down.

Scripture’s trajectory should inform our understanding of the passage

That Ephesians 5/6 is not intended to set strict models for all time, I believe, is also made clear by the pointers elsewhere in Scripture towards more equal human relationships. For example, Paul’s radical declaration in 1 Corinthians 7 of a full equality in the matrimonial bedroom and Paul’s letter to Philemon encouraging him to let his escaped slave go free. And, of course, in Galatians 3 we see stated the clearest signpost of the new order of Christ’s kingdom that we should be working towards – that there should be no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female but all should be one and equal in Christ. However, as others have pointed out, what we see in the New Testament is the tension of living in evolving times post Christ of the “already but not yet”. We are transitioning from unequal, old pre-Christ relationships to free, equal models. As Jesus instructed of his followers in his pattern for prayer, we should be praying for those kingdom values to “come … on Earth as in heaven.” (Matt. 6:9-13)

If we demand gender complementary marriages shouldn't we ban women from leadership?

If we take Ephesians 5 as a strict model for marriage for all time then, to be consistent, surely we must apply 1 Corinthians 11:3-11 in the same way. Paul there insisted women should submit to the headship and authority of men in church, with men again being compared to Christ in his own headship over the church. As we’ve seen earlier, what started as gendered post-Fall marriage roles in Adam and Eve then naturally flowed out into men’s and women’s roles in society generally, since the married family unit was the institution undergirding all society. Therefore, in my view, those who advocate there must still be gendered submissive/dominant roles in marriage are applying scriptural principles inconsistently if they do not also insist that women must not lead churches.

Paul made a similar objection of scriptural inconsistency to the circumcision party – if they were being consistent in their legalistic interpretation of Scripture they shouldn’t just insist on applying that particular bit of the law but the whole law, including all the ritual/purity laws.

This is why when I insisted that marriage could only be between men and women I also insisted that women could not lead churches. Hence about 16 years ago I was one of a minority of two who vehemently opposed my Anglican church being permitted to appoint a female priest on the grounds that it was “unscriptural”. Because I now understand Scripture very differently on these issues I’m now very happy to be led by a female pastor, and also by a female managing partner at work! Both of whom are excellent. And let me be clear - I was still not being consistent in how I applied Scripture. I still used to laugh at churches who required women to wear hats in church, but actually this was something which Paul also mandated in 1 Corinthians 11 (verses 4-5)!

But, as I can now see, neither passage was intending to freeze the Church or society in some first century social time warp. When Paul speaks of men as being head of women, either in marriage or the church, he is just describing the reality of his time. Paul is not saying, “and this is how it should always be”. Quite the reverse. Instead, in Galatians 3 he gives us a vision and goal of full equality between men and women (and slaves and free). He also demonstrated how this transition to fully equal male and female roles and values was already starting to happen in both marriage and the church. For example, in his final verses of Romans he acknowledges women in key church leadership roles - even an apostle in the case of Junia (Rom. 16:7) and, radically in 1 Corinthians, he declares a woman owns her husband’s body as much as much a husband owns hers ( 1 Cor. 7:4). Even the Ephesians 5 passage itself illustrates the movement towards equal marriage roles as it instructs husbands and wives to “submit to each other”, something previously unthinkable to patriarchal first century Jews or Greeks.

What the passage teaches us for today

I believe the passage’s main teaching for us today is summed up in the opening verse: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” And I believe that principle can be translated from the patriarchal marriages of those times to marriage partners in equal relationships today, whether a man and a woman or, if Scripture permits it, two men or two women. Each should serve and submit to the other and love each other, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Another key theme of this passage is our attitude to prevailing legal authorities as followers of Christ –how we submit to authority and how we exercise it over others in a Christ-like way – husbands and wives, fathers and children, masters and children. Whether we exercise authority, are subject to it or are equals, we should do everything in a loving, servant-hearted way, following his example when he washed his disciples’ feet and ultimately when he gave his life for us. This has lessons for us today, not just in our homes but, for example, in how we behave as employers or employees or as public officials .