He answered, “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.” | Matthew 19:4–6
When God unties a man and woman together as one flesh, He has created a new being. No longer are they two, but one flesh.
Jesus points this out in Matthew 19. In this chapter, the religious leaders are trying to trap Him by asking Jesus about when divorce is allowed. The reason why this is a trap is because the Jewish rabbis disagreed on this, so no matter what answer Jesus gives, they assume that He will alienate a portion of His following. The answer He gives to their question (at the top) points them back to God’s plan for marriage.
Jesus uses the one flesh unity to push back against divorce. He says that divorce came into the world because of sin and hardness of heart, but it was not meant to be. Instead, what God has joined as one flesh should not be broken. When divorce occurs, brokenness occurs. Something dies. When man and woman split apart and go different directions, they have destroyed something that God made.
Divorce is a big deal. While God has made allowances for divorce in cases of abuse, abandonment, and adultery – it is still killing something that God created good. While the religious leaders in Matthew want to discuss what makes divorce allowable, Jesus makes it clear that it is never okay. God’s intention was for the two to be united by God as one flesh and to spend the rest of their lives living out this unity.
Sometimes marriage is hard and you do not feel unified. There is fighting. There is anger. These are times to remind one another that you are one flesh. God has united you. You need to fight to bring your marriage back into alignment with what God has created it to be.
One of the reasons that marriage is difficult is because when two people are made into one flesh, all parts of their lives are connected.
The sins of both people are brought together. No longer are your struggles just yours – they now affect someone else. Everything that you do is shared with someone else.
I tell this to couples as they prepare to get married. Often, they have sin that they are hiding: they are jealous; they are addicted to pornography; they drink too much; they have anger issues. Whatever it is. As a single person, they have been able to hide this. They can keep their sin private, thinking that it only affects them. In the one flesh relationship of marriage, this isn’t possible. As two are united, their sins and struggles become one.
While you can pretend to people you only see here and there, the person who you share your life with is going to suffer. And as you make your spouse suffer, you are also going to suffer. In many ways, it is only when you feel sin coming back on you (or your spouse responds with their own sin) that you truly understand what an offense sin is.
Which is where this relates to sex. The intimacy required to have sex within a long term relationship is affected by all of this shared sin. In order to share yourself with another person physically, there is work that must be done to connect relationally and emotionally. You cannot just avoid it and move forward. If you do, your sex life will be a struggle. Sex within marriage becomes a barometer for health on a larger level. It helps to reveal when sin exists that needs to be dealt with.
It also becomes part of the restoration. When sin and conflict are dealt with, God has provided this physical expression of oneness to be a celebration. This is the reason why ‘make-up’ sex is a good experience. It is bringing the relationship back into alignment with what it should be, rather than allowing sin to become something that is working against one flesh unity.