The importance of “family” can not be over estimated. This has been illustrated to us time after time by the mere living of life. However, what would you expect from the first institution ever established on earth, and that institution established by God Himself.

After the creation of man, “…the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him…And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Gen. 2:18, 21-24).

Thus the institution of “family”. Since the origin of family is God, the rules and regulations governing this institution must also find their origin with God. Therefore, if we are interested in having a family that is one that is pleasing in the eyes of God, we must turn to the inspired scriptures and find our blueprint there. As space permits, let us consider at least some of what constitutes a family as God would have it.

It would seem the logical staring place is with the two individuals that are going to be the main ingredients in a new family. God has legislated that those two individuals be a male and a female. Such legislation automatically rejects two males or two females.

This is pointed out, not to offend anyone who desires to be involved in a same sex relationship, but to present what God as said concerning a family that is pleasing to Him. In a number of places in our land, same sex marriages take place on a regular basis with government approval, but that is altogether a different matter than being pleasing to God. Contrary to what many would have us believe, the word of God does condemn homosexuality. It is condemned in the Old Testament (Lev. 18:22) and also in the New Testament (Rom. 1:24-27). This is certainly not the only rule or regulation that God has placed on the family, but it is the beginning point.

A second major realm of regulations are those surrounding the “till death do us part” concept of marriage. This concept is not a man made one, but actually a regulation from God. We need to start with the fact that God’s ideal plan for a marriage is that a man and a woman marry and remain married until death parts the two. The apostle Paul used this common understanding of marriage as an illustration on how the old law had died, freeing them up to be married to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He wrote, “For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man” (Rom. 7:2-3). Included in that passage is the condemnation of someone getting a divorce and then marrying someone else. It is adultery and no adulterers will be entering into the kingdom of heaven (I Cor. 6:9-10).

Of course, death takes its toll on marriages from time to time and as seen in that passage, death left the surviving party free to remarry if they so desired. So, the rule of God is one man and one woman and they are to stay together until death separates them. If one leaves the other before that and remarries they are guilty of adultery and therefore unfit for heaven. However, there is one exception to that rule of God. Since it is a rule of God, only God can make an exception to it, and He has. Jesus referred to the marriage saying “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matt. 19:6). The Pharisees in tempting Him then asked why Moses gave a command about a writing of divorcement. Jesus answered that Moses allowed such because of the hardness of their hearts, but that it was not that way from the beginning. He then provided the exception we have mentioned.

He said, “And I say unto you Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery” (Matt. 19:9). There is the exception given by God. Fornication on the part of one’s spouse gives them the freedom to divorce their spouse and then remarry. No other exception exist in the word of God concerning marriage, divorce and remarriage. Divorce and remarriage for any cause other than for fornication results in the loss of one’s eternal soul. This too is pointed out, not to offend anyone, but to show what the family as God would have it is like.

There are other aspects to a family as God would have it, but space prohibits covering them here.

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By Robert Oliver

Contributing columnist

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