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What Does Christ Mean In Matthew 19: 5-6, They Shall Be One Flesh?
Posted : 14 Sep, 2013 12:52 PM
What Does Christ Mean In Matthew 19: 5-6, They Shall Be One Flesh?
"The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
4. And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
5. And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
6. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Matthew 19: 3-6
"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.
24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." Genesis 2; 23-25.
John Gill says of Matthew 19: 5-6 that the "... close union between a man and his wife..... is not to be dissolved for every cause, it being stricter than that which is between parents and children; for the wife must be cleaved unto, and father and mother forsaken: not that upon this new relation between man and wife, the former relation between parents and children ceases; nor does this phrase denote an entire separation from them, so as to have the affection alienated from them, or to be disengaged from all duty and obedience to them,..."
Gill goes on to say "This is the true sense, for neither more nor less can possibly be meant; and denotes that near conjunction, and strict union, between a man and his wife, the wife being a part of himself, and both as one flesh, and one body, and therefore not to be parted on every slight occasion; and has a particular respect to the act of carnal (word deleted for CDFF censorship) which only ought to be between one man and one woman, lawfully married to each other."
So, "they shall be one flesh" is, in part, a metaphor. Two people cannot become one flesh, but a man and his wife can be partly joined with their bodies. "They shall be one flesh" is metaphoric also in saying a man wife should join together as one. This is still a joining together in the flesh, because flesh means man's body and his mind. Our modern English term is to become bonded together. There are hormones and brain transmitters which aid couples in bonding together, such as testosterone, oxytocin, and dopamine. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter which is involved in addiction to drugs like heroin and methamphetamine, which does not mean it is always bad, since it also helps to bond couples together in one flesh.
In Genesis 1: 26 God made man in the image of God, which means man was created to be a three part being, body, mind and spirit. Genesis 2: 7 says God breathed life into man and he became a living soul.
Several NT texts talk about man's spirit, such as I Corinthians 2: 11, I Corinthians 5: 5, I Thessalonians 5: 23.
I Corinthians 2: 11 says "For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God."
I Corinthians 5: 5 says "To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
I Thessalonians 5: 23 says "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
In I Corinthians 15: 45-47 Paul says "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
46. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
47. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven."
In Christ, the elect are given a small c spirit. �Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.� Philippians 2: 5
God commands man to become one flesh. Yet I Corinthians 2: 14 says �...the natural man receivedth not the things of the Spirit: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.�
Scripture does not contradict itself. In faith one cannot claim that Christ and Paul are in disagreement. Both the teaching that a man should leave his parents and cleave to his wife (Matthew 19: 5), and that the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit (I Corinthians 2: 14) stand as truth and as absolute facts. By help from other scriptures we have to figure out how both teachings stand and how the teachings work.
Even while they are in the flesh, and become one flesh as man and wife, those of the elect are transformed, or born again, into the Spirit, into that which is spiritual, by having the mind of Christ in us, by becoming new creatures (II Corinthians 5: 17). This process of being transformed from the flesh, from natural man, to spiritual man in Christ, does not reach fulfillment until as taught in I Corinthians 15: 51-57, �this mortal shall put on immortality.�
But going back a few chapters in I Corinthians to I Corinthians 7: 10-13 it says �And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband:
11. But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.
12. But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.
13. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. �
We can infer from this that we are not to leave a spouse because that spouse has not come to the knowledge of the truth and/or holds to fundamentally different doctrines. But we can also infer from other scriptures like II Corinthians 6: 14, not to be yoked together with unbelievers, that if we are not joined to a spouse and are looking for one, we should seek one who is in the truth. And the closer one person gets to the truth, the harder it will be to find a spouse who is that close also.
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