When I was fifteen, Kansas voters cast their ballots on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. I asked my dad how he was going to vote, and he told me he supported the ban.
A few months earlier, I would have agreed with him. But some of my friends had been speaking out against the measure, and I thought they might have a point. “Isn’t that discrimination against gay people?” I asked my dad.
“Well,” he said, “marriage is different.”
For many Christians, that sentiment sums it up. While they are willing to be tolerant toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, the idea of granting marriage rights to same-sex couples is a bridge too far. And the idea of blessing same-sex marriages in the church seems entirely out of the question. Christian marriage is holy, an institution ordained by God. It isn’t something we can redefine based on personal feelings or shifts in public opinion.
I agree, Christian marriage is different. To be honest, I write this chapter with some trepidation. In his book This Momentary Marriage, John Piper mentioned that he waited forty years after his wedding day to write a book on the subject, and I think there is real wisdom to that approach.1 As a young, unmarried believer, I won’t venture to offer advice on married life.
Yet I’m in a different situation than most others who write about marriage. Because I am gay, any marriage I might want to enter would involve another man. And many Christians today question whether a relationship between two men can even be a marriage. With that in mind, I have invested considerable time and effort into studying the meaning of marriage.
This chapter is not intended to address everything marriage accomplishes or all the ways marriage can bring us closer to God. I’m not in a position to write about those things. My focus is far more basic. Now that many of us recognize that same-sex orientation is both fixed and unchosen, we need to modify one of two Christian teachings: either the voluntary nature of lifelong celibacy or the scope of marriage. The meaning of Christian celibacy as a gift and chosen calling is undermined when we insist that gay Christians remain celibate as a rejection of their sexuality. (We looked at this issue and the related Christian teachings in chapter 3.) But what about the scope of marriage?
Can same-sex marriage fit a Christian basis for marriage? Let’s explore the biblical teachings that touch on this issue. Along those lines, we’ll seek to answer two questions: What is the meaning of marriage according to the Bible? And, can same-sex unions fulfill that meaning?
MARRIAGE AS A REFLECTION OF CHRIST AND THE CHURCH
Ephesians 5:21–33 is arguably the most theologically rich passage in the Bible regarding marriage. In this text, the marriage covenant is related to something much larger than itself. According to Ephesians, marriage is intended to model Christ’s love for his church. We read:
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.
Do you see what this passage is saying? It’s taking the marriage language of “one flesh” from Genesis 2:24 and pointing us beyond our original understanding of it. There’s no mention here of children, in-laws, property transactions, or marriage as the foundation of a stable society. As important as those things are, this text is looking deeper.
Human marriage, Ephesians says, is a “profound mystery” that points to the ultimate relationship: Christ’s eternal union with the church. Given that Christ’s covenant with us is unbreakable, our marriage bonds should be equally enduring. So the most important aspect of marriage is the covenant the two partners make.
Perhaps the dominant message about marriage in modern society is that it’s primarily about being happy, being in love, and being fulfilled. Nearly everyone desires these things, of course. But what happens to the marriage bond if one spouse stops feeling fulfilled? What if one partner falls out of love, or they both do?
For many in our society, the answer seems obvious: The couple should seek a divorce. Why should two people who no longer love each other stay together?
But that is not the Christian message. For Christians, marriage is not just about us. It’s also about Christ. If Christ had kept open the option to leave us behind when he grew frustrated with us or felt like we were not living up to his standards, he may have abandoned us long ago. But the story of the gospel is that, although we don’t deserve it, God lavishes his sacrificial love upon us anyway.
In marriage, we’re called to reflect God’s love for us through our self-giving love for our spouse. God’s love for us isn’t dependent on our day-to-day feelings toward him, on how hard we work to please him, or even on how faithful we are to him. It’s grounded in his nature and his covenant. Ephesians 5:1 tells us to be “imitators of God” (NASB). Because God’s love is boundless, ours should be as well. That means marriage isn’t, at its deepest level, just about our happiness and fulfillment. At its core, marriage is also about displaying the nature and glory of God through the covenant we make—and keep—with our spouse.
HOW DOES THIS VIEW OF MARRIAGE APPLY TO SAME-SEX COUPLES?
If the essence of marriage involves a covenant-keeping relationship of mutual self-giving, then two men or two women can fulfill that purpose as well as a man and a woman can. But is lifelong commitment between two adults sufficient for realizing a Christian basis for marriage? Or is there something unique about heterosexual relationships that prevents same-sex couples from truly illustrating Christ’s love for the church?
The first response one might make based on Ephesians 5 is that same-sex unions are necessarily excluded from a Christian basis for marriage because Scripture uses only heterosexual language when describing it. But given the widespread association of same-sex behavior with lustful excess in the ancient world, it isn’t surprising that the biblical writers didn’t contemplate the possibility of same-sex marriage. Our question isn’t whether the Bible addresses the modern concepts of sexual orientation and same-sex marriage. We know it doesn’t. Instead, our question is: Can we translate basic biblical principles about marriage to this new situation without losing something essential in the process? We need to determine, from a biblical standpoint, whether the essence of Christian marriage permits the inclusion of same-sex couples, or whether it necessarily involves the union of a man and a woman.
We know covenant keeping is essential to Christian marriage. But is gender difference between the spouses also essential?
The Call to Procreate
One reason many non-affirming Christians believe gender difference is essential to marriage is the obvious one: Only a man and a woman can biologically procreate. In Genesis 1:28, after verse 27 says that God created humanity “male and female,” we read: “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.’ ” Since same-sex couples cannot increase in number through biological procreation, does that prevent their relationships from fulfilling the Bible’s basis for marriage?
From a strictly Old Testament perspective, that position has some merit. In Genesis 12–17, God established his covenant with Abraham. He promised to make Abraham “into a great nation” and to bless him with offspring as numerous as the stars in the sky (see Genesis 12:2; 15:5). When God reaffirmed this covenant with Isaac (see Genesis 26) and Jacob (see Genesis 28), he again emphasized his promise of physical offspring.
In the Old Testament, God was understood to extend his covenantal blessings to Israel primarily through biological procreation. The fear of having his name blotted out is why Saul pleaded with David, “Now swear to me by the LORD that you will not kill off my descendants or wipe out my name from my father’s family” (1 Samuel 24:21). That fear also explains the reaction of Jephthah’s daughter in Judges 11, when she learned she would be sacrificed. She asked her father for two months to weep with her friends. But she didn’t ask to weep because she would soon die, but because she would never marry (see Judges 11:37–39). The emphasis on procreation also led to the marginalization of infertile women and eunuchs. Eunuchs were actually barred from entering the assembly of the Lord (see Deuteronomy 23:1).
But the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus ushered in a host of transformative changes, and one of those changes is vital to our conversation here: Biological procreation no longer determines membership in God’s kingdom. Spiritual rebirth through faith in Christ does.2
Under the old covenant, one could simply be born into the people of God. But as Jesus explained to Nicodemus, under the new covenant, “no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (John 3:3). In the words of John Piper, God’s people are now “produced not by physical procreation but by spiritual regeneration.”3
This change in how the kingdom of God is built has had lasting consequences that pertain to our discussion of same-sex marriage.
First, marriage and procreation are no longer seen as the necessary ways of growing God’s family.
Second, lifelong celibacy is a valid option for Christians, even though it generally wasn’t for the ancient Israelites.
Third, the definition of family has changed for Christians.
Jesus was preaching to a crowd when his mother and brothers showed up, asking to speak with him. He responded by saying, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Jesus pointed to his disciples and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:46–50).
That shift in understanding is reflected when we call one another a “brother in Christ” or a “sister in Christ.” Relationships in Christ are more enduring even than bonds between biological family members. Jesus emphasized that the bonds shared by spouses and members of biological families are temporary because they will not exist in eternity.
“The people of this age marry and are given in marriage,” Jesus said. “But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection” (Luke 20:34–36).
The New Testament’s focus on personal faith rather than procreation has another important consequence: Even a celibate person can become a spiritual parent by bringing others to faith in Christ. Isaiah foreshadowed this development: “ ‘Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,’ says the LORD” (Isaiah 54:1).
So, too, eunuchs now have reason to rejoice. Isaiah quoted God as saying, “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant—to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters” (Isaiah 56:4–5). In Christ, that prophecy is fulfilled. The first Gentile convert to the faith was likely none other than an Ethiopian eunuch (see Acts 8:26–39).
Is Procreation a Fixed Standard in Marriage?
You may be wondering: Even if procreation is no longer expected of all God’s people, is it not still expected of all married couples? Does sex, in order to be moral, need at least to offer the possibility of reproduction?
In the original creation story, procreation is not presented as the primary purpose of marriage. While Genesis 1:28 does say to “be fruitful and increase in number,” Genesis 2 never mentions procreation when describing the first marriage. And despite the significance of procreation in the Old Testament, infertile marriages were not considered illegitimate. The marriages of Abraham and Sarah (see Genesis 18) as well as Elkanah and Hannah (see 1 Samuel 1) were valid even in the long years before they had a child. In the New Testament, too, Jesus may have made one exception to his prohibition of divorce, saying a couple could divorce in the case of infidelity (see Matthew 19:9). But he made no exception for couples who are unable to bear children. In Jesus’s understanding of marriage, covenantal commitment is foundational. The ability to bear children is not.4
Additional teachings in Scripture support the understanding that procreation is not essential to marriage. The Song of Songs is an ode to the joys of erotic love and intimacy, wholly separate from a concern for procreation. The Song centers on the delights of bodily pleasure, uplifting sexual arousal and satisfaction as good parts of God’s creation. Recall, too, that in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul encouraged married couples to have sex “so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (verse 5). Paul never suggested that sex was only or even primarily for the purpose of procreation.
From a theological perspective, marriage primarily involves a covenant-keeping relationship of mutual self-giving that reflects God’s love for us. The evidence we’ve considered here indicates that marriage is only secondarily—and not necessarily at all—about having biological children. Same-sex couples’ inability to procreate does not exclude them from fulfilling the Bible’s basis for marriage.
THE MATTER OF GENDER HIERARCHY
While Ephesians 5 doesn’t mention married couples having children, it does mention—or at least assumes—gender hierarchy. It calls a man the “head” of his wife just as Christ is the head of the church, and wives are told to submit to their husbands in the same way the church submits to Christ. But same-sex couples can’t live out that dynamic. So does the hierarchical aspect of marriage as described in Scripture mean marriage must be between a man and a woman?
This question brings us back to the big-picture idea we discussed in chapter 5: Is the Bible’s reflection of patriarchy normative for Christians, or is it limited in a way similar to Scripture’s accommodation of slavery? We saw before that ancient societies didn’t simply uphold differing roles for men and women; they accorded women inferior value.
Few, if any, Christians today would endorse the degrading views of women that shaped the world of Leviticus. However, many Christians do hold beliefs about gender relations that could be summed up as “equal value, different roles.” That’s the kind of hierarchical gender complementarity we looked at in chapter 2. Gender complementarity is often reflected in distinct gender roles in marriage. In that view, husbands act as the leaders and wives as their followers. As long as spouses affirm the equal value of both genders, might we conclude that such an approach to gender relations is consistent with the New Testament vision of relationships free of patriarchy? Let’s look into that question.
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul wrote that three types of hierarchies would fade away in Christ. The first two were distinctions between Jew and Gentile and distinctions between slave and free. The third was that of male and female. Paul’s main concern at the time was ending the division between Jews and Gentiles, and Galatians 3:28 is focused on our ultimate status in Christ, not our present status in society.5
But in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us to pray that God’s kingdom will come “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). In opposing slavery, Christians in the nineteenth century took that message to heart. Since there won’t be a distinction in God’s kingdom of slave and free, Christians decided to abolish the inhumane institution of slavery in the West.
But what does that have to do with the requirements of marriage? Just this: Christians did not work for change so that slaves would be regarded as having equal value while maintaining a subordinate status and role in society. They chose to abolish the subordinate status altogether. While slavery remains a tragic reality in much of the world, the church now uniformly opposes it.
Given that Paul in Galatians connected the issues of slavery and gender hierarchy, we should as well. The New Testament explicitly links the submission of slaves to the submission of wives. First Peter 3:1 begins, “Wives, in the same way [that slaves are to submit to their masters] submit yourselves to your own husbands …” The comparison comes from the instructions given in 1 Peter 2:18–25. Peter told wives to submit to their husbands in the same way slaves were instructed to submit to masters.
We see a similar parallel in the words of Ephesians 5 and 6. Wives are told to submit to their husbands in Ephesians 5, and in chapter 6, slaves are instructed to submit to their masters, “just as you would obey Christ” (Ephesians 6:5).
Yet both hierarchies will fade away in Christ, and Jesus calls us to make that a reality now. Scripture lays the groundwork for a redemptive reordering of gender relations in God’s kingdom, so gender hierarchy can’t be said to be essential to marriage. Even if, when a man and a woman marry, they don’t have a hierarchical relationship, no one claims their marriage is invalid on that basis. Acceptance of these marriages indicates that, even with opposite-sex spouses, gender hierarchy isn’t part of the essence of Christian marriage. In keeping with the focus of Ephesians 5, the essence of Christian marriage involves keeping covenant with one’s spouse in a relationship of mutual self-giving. That picture doesn’t exclude same-sex couples.
Before we draw a final conclusion, we need to take into account the second type of gender complementarity, which I’ve referred to as anatomical complementarity. Ephesians 5 quotes Genesis 2:24, which describes how “a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” Some interpreters argue that the sexual aspect of marriage is not merely a union between two partners, but a reunion of two particular—and anatomically distinct—bodies that originally came from the same flesh. Because same-sex couples share the same anatomy, this argument continues, they cannot become “one flesh” in the biblical sense.6
But as New Testament scholar James Brownson explained in his book Bible, Gender, Sexuality, this interpretation oversexualizes the phrase “one flesh.” In the Bible, the term “flesh” is used metaphorically to describe ties of kinship. Genesis 29:14 recounts how Laban, upon learning that Jacob was his relative, exclaimed, “Surely you are my bone and my flesh!” (NRSV). Likewise, in 2 Samuel 19:12, David told the elders of Judah, “You are my brothers; you are my bone and my flesh” (ESV).7 So Genesis 2:23–24, when read in light of Scripture’s other uses of the term “flesh,” isn’t focusing on Adam and Eve’s anatomical difference. Its focus instead is on their basic commonality as two people forming a new kinship bond.
The phrase “one flesh” in Genesis 2:24 connotes sexual union as well. As Tim Keller has written, “The word ‘united’ … means ‘to make a binding covenant or contract.’ This covenant brings every aspect of two persons’ lives together.… To call the marriage ‘one flesh,’ then, means that sex is understood as both a sign of that personal, legal union and a means to accomplish it.”8 But ultimately, the phrase doesn’t depend on a particular sexual act, but on the deep, relational connection that sex can create. As Brownson has written, the “one-flesh” language “points beyond the physical act to the relational connections and intimacy that undergird and surround it.”9 Sexual mechanics for two men or two women vary from what transpires between a man and a woman, but the strength of the resulting bond can be the same.
It’s precisely the strength of that bond that underlies the Bible’s restriction of sex to marriage. As the greatest form of bodily self-giving, sex should be combined with the greatest form of emotional self-giving: a lifelong commitment to a single partner.10
Paul reflected this view when he used the phrase “one flesh” in 1 Corinthians 6:12–20. He rejected the belief of some of the Corinthians that how they used their bodies didn’t matter. God won’t destroy the body, Paul reminded them. God will resurrect it, just as he did for Christ.
Paul explained that our bodies “are members of Christ himself,” so to “take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute” is out of the question (verse 15). Paul then used the phrase “one flesh” to clarify his point. “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’ ” (verse 16).
Becoming “one flesh” encompasses much more than the act of sex. It includes the entire covenantal context in which God intends for sex to take place. Having sex with a prostitute was particularly galling to Paul because it united two bodies without also uniting their lives. It was thus a hollow distortion of the Bible’s grand vision for “one-flesh” unions.
CAN SAME-SEX COUPLES BECOME “ONE FLESH”?
The Bible’s language of “one-flesh” unions, which does seem to be part of marriage’s essence, rules out sexual promiscuity. But the meaning of the phrase doesn’t require gender difference.
In Ephesians 5:31–32, the phrase “one flesh” is said to be a mystery that relates to Christ and the church. The relationship between Christ and the church doesn’t involve sexual union or anatomical difference. While the church is described as the bride of Christ in Revelation 19 and 21, the church is made up of both men and women. The nuptial language is symbolic. The Bible employs marital imagery, not to sexualize our relationship with Christ, but to emphasize how God brings us into his loving embrace. Not only does Ephesians 5 never mention gender-based anatomical differences, it focuses instead on the fact that husbands and wives are part of the same body. “The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body.… In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies” (Ephesians 5:23, 28).11
So based on Ephesians, gender difference isn’t necessary to become one flesh in the Bible’s understanding of those words. What is necessary is that two lives are joined as one in the context of a binding covenant.
THE DIFFERENCE THAT MATTERS
It makes sense that, if marriage is a reflection of Christ and the church, it should require some kind of difference between the partners. Christ and the church are not the same, after all. But neither are any two people the same. The Bible gives us no reason to think gender difference is the specific difference that’s necessary to illustrate Christ’s covenantal love for the church.
You may have heard the argument that same-sex love is a function of narcissism, because it involves seeking romantic fulfillment in one who is like oneself. But this is a narrow understanding of difference, and it’s not supported by Scripture. What seems to me to be most important in marriage is not whether the partners are anatomically different from one another. It’s whether the inherently different people involved are willing to keep covenant with each other in a relationship of mutual self-giving.
Differences in personality, passions, careers, goals, and needs are the differences that require each partner’s self-sacrifice, which reflects Christ’s sacrificial love for us. Those kinds of differences, when valued and sacrificed for, bring the Bible’s basis for marriage to life. Same-sex couples can and do live out that deepest sense of difference.
Granted, every kind of sexual love, including same-sex love, can be narcissistic if the partners approach it in selfish ways. But I think it’s the flawed understanding of sex as a “reunion” of two incomplete halves that’s most likely to foster a selfish attitude. If marriage is viewed primarily as a path to completing oneself, then it risks becoming self-absorbed. Marriage is designed to be a human reflection of the only love that offers true completion: God’s love for us in Christ.12
In God’s glorious, limitless love, he has imparted to us that most precious and humbling of gifts: our own capacity for love. Not all Christians are called to marriage, and the church should uphold the validity of celibacy for those who are called to it. But for those who do not sense a calling to celibacy, God’s gift of sexual love in marriage should be affirmed. There is no biblical reason to exclude the covenantal bonds of gay Christians from that affirmation.
My parents’ marriage of more than thirty years has set an example for me. My mom and dad have come to see that same-sex marriage doesn’t undermine the institution that has been so meaningful to them. And in fact, it’s now one of their deepest prayers to see me share in the joy and commitment of marriage with the support of a thriving Christian community.
If that day comes, I will treasure their wholehearted celebration.