Marriage is a creation ordinance instituted by God in the book of Genesis. God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:18). After God created Eve and brought her to Adam, he said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). These verses demonstrate that marriage is to be a complementary union between a man and a woman. Jesus, responding to the Pharisees’ question on marriage, said, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matt. 19:4–6).
Complementarity highlights the fact that marriage is a partnership between two equals who have unique gifts and callings within the marriage relationship. When God called the woman a helper fit for the man (Gen. 2:18), he was not suggesting that she was in any way inferior to him as to her personhood. In fact, the title of helper was frequently attributed to God throughout the Old Testament (Exod. 18:4; Deut. 33:29; Ps. 70:6). Thus it doesn’t signify a lesser status, but a particular role or calling. When she is described as a helper fit for the man, the Hebrew word carries the idea of correspondence or mirroring. “The man’s form and nature are matched by the woman’s as she reflects him and complements him. Together they correspond. In short, this prepositional phrase indicates that she has everything that God had invested in him.”
These observations on biblical marriage are important because they teach us that marriage is never supposed to look like one spouse ruling over the other despotically. The apostle Paul made this absolutely clear when he likened marriage roles to the relationship that exists between Christ and the church. “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church” (Eph. 5:22–23). Christ’s headship over the church isn’t characterized by harsh words and a heavy hand, but self-giving sacrifice. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. . . . In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies” (Eph. 5:25, 28). Jesus led by serving, therefore husbands should view it as their calling to serve as strong providers, nourishing and cherishing their wives. As the church submits to Jesus, wives are called to submit to and respect their husbands. A helpful resource for unpacking what this looks like on a more practical level is Tim and Kathy Keller’s book The Meaning of Marriage, especially the appendix “Decision Making and Gender Roles.”
In light of the recent discussions in our day about same-sex marriage and transgenderism, it’s also important to mention how complementarity relates to those subjects. Same-sex marriage cannot fulfill an integral element of the complementarity we see in Genesis: male and female biological distinctness. Same-sex relationships were condemned throughout Scripture as being unnatural distortions of sexuality (Gen. 19; cf. Jude 7; Rom. 1:26–27). Sexual relations between
the same gender and confusion of gender (Deut. 22:5) both undermine the creational picture of marriage, as well as the gospel parable Christian marriage is to exhibit to the world (Eph. 5:32).
The beauty of biblical marriage is that it is truly unity in diversity. Man and woman, created uniquely different, are united by God with their particular strengths to bless each other and the world around them. The two mirror each other in equality but complement each other in their roles as husband and wife. This is how God created marriage to operate, and it is a sign of our living in a fallen world that we have distorted it through abusing or abandoning our particular roles. True healing can come only by confessing that we have fallen short and setting our eyes on the perfect Bridegroom, Jesus, who fulfilled his role as the Savior of humanity. When we embrace his work for us, we are renewed in a right relationship with God and enabled to relate to one another as he calls us to, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Footnotes
Genesis 2:18, The NET Bible First Edition Notes (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2019).
Timothy Keller and Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (New York: Penguin, 2013).
