In the sermon 'Marriage Math,' Jason Dohm explores the biblical foundation of marriage using Genesis 2:24-25. He explains the concept of 'Marriage Math' as one plus one equals one, emphasizing the unity of husband and wife. Dohm discusses the principle of 'leaving and cleaving,' highlighting that new married couples should form their own households, separate from their parents. This is part of God's design to fulfill the dominion mandate, where each household serves as an outpost for God's kingdom. The sermon also addresses the permanence of marriage, as intended by God, and critiques polygamy and divorce as contrary to this design. Dohm connects marriage to the New Testament, showing how it symbolizes the relationship between Christ and the Church. The sermon concludes by discussing the transformation of shame through the gospel, illustrating how Jesus bears our shame and honors us. The message underscores the importance of cultivating unity in marriage and guarding it against external influences.

The title of the message today is Marriage Math. This is an homage to my co-elder James Longquist, whose terminology I'm borrowing here. Marriage Math in the Longquist house is one plus one equals one. A husband plus a wife equals a husband-wife. Well, a unity.

And We have only two verses this week, but because these verses are foundational to a Biblical understanding of marriage, why could we use that in our day? A Biblical understanding of marriage. And because they set up what is coming in chapter 3, which is the fall of mankind into rebellion against God, we thought it was worthwhile to just take these two by themselves. So as we come to the text, let's ask for God's help. Our God, if I bear the banner that hung over last week's sermon was, thank you God for women, and the banner over today's message is thank you God for marriage.

Thank you for bringing a man into such close unity and union with a woman for the sake of your own great name in the world. May this be true among the marriages among us, that this brings honor to you and the world. We know we need it. We thank you for all the blessings and benefits that come through human marriage, your goodness to us through it. Pray that all this would be on display in the preaching in Jesus name.

Amen. Two verses, let's take them one by one. Hopefully Your Bibles are still open to Genesis chapter 2. The last two verses, let's start with verse 24. Follow along as I reread Genesis 2.24.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh." There's your marriage math. One plus one equals one. In this verse we have leaving and cleaving. If you've heard of that, that's actually based on the King James version. Instead of be joined to, which is what we see in our New King James Bibles, The King James renders it cleave unto.

A man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, leaving and cleaving. New married couples are not to be absorbed into the household that the husband grew up in, or the household that the wife grew up in. They become their own new household. This is what God is teaching us here and insisting on here. God is insisting that new married couples are not absorbed into one household or the other that they came from, but that they become their own new household.

And this is a consequence of last week's text. As a consequence of last week's text, therefore this week's text. Because God knew that it was not good that a man should be alone, God made a man, God made a helper comparable to him out of his own side. So this is part of you to be a companion and help. Because of that, therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

Because man needed the companionship of another image bearer like him but not identical to him, this is what we would say of men and women, right? They're like each other but they're not identical to each other, and that's good. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Because the mission for mankind requires man to have one who can help with the capacities and capabilities and attributes that reflect God himself. None of the animals fit that.

God brings all the animals to see what he would call them and Adam saying, this won't do, this won't do, this won't do. Causing Adam to feel the need. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh." Woman was formed out of the side of the man, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and now God brings them back together and rejoins them as it were. So this is what's happening in our text. God puts Adam into a deep sleep and out of his side, he takes of his side or maybe his rib, it can mean either one, the Hebrew word being translated, he takes of the man and he makes the woman and he brings the woman to the man and now he rejoins them together as one.

Adam, your rib's back! And better than ever. Proverbs 18-22 He who finds a wife, finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. We are watching Adam obtain favor from the Lord. It is a mark of God's favor on his life that he gets Eve to be a companion and to help.

It is not good that man should be alone, But he who finds a wife finds a good thing, he gets good. Of himself, he gets back better than ever. God is not creating, God is creating not one big human household. Somewhere at the top there will be a supreme patriarch. He's not doing that.

But a multitude of individual households that will engage, that will each engage God's mandate to fill the earth and subdue it, to multiply and take dominion. Each household is then a dominion mandate outpost. And so is yours, and so is yours, and so is mine. A husband and a wife looking to God together, walking with God together, and living to his honor to advance his kingdom. This is what we have in Genesis 1 and 2.

That is God's design and intent. And now, in the new covenant, that's not in this text, But we have the new covenant, do we not? Now in the new covenant, we would also say that each household is a great commission outpost. So all of our households are individual great commission outposts, a husband and a wife looking to God together and walking with God together in Christ, better yet, better still, wrestling to discern the best way to make disciples of the nations, starting in their own household and working outward. God has given us each the most influence in our own household.

So we start with the Great Commission mandate, with being a great commission outpost in our own households where God has given us the most influence and then we work outward from there. So it doesn't stop with our own household, but it starts in our own household because God has handed us the most influence there. So, do husbands and wives still have to honor their parents? Yes. It's a commandment, one of the ten.

Honor your father and your mother, that it may be well with you, that your days may be long. Comes with a blessing. And that duty to honor father and mother never goes away, But do they have to obey their parents once they're married? No, they do not. No, they do not.

Now, if God is giving you godly parents, they ought to be some of your most trusted counselors. Amen to that. You honor them until they die and then what do you do? You still honor them. You can actually dishonor your parents after their death and you shouldn't do that.

It's wrong to do that. But things fundamentally change. You leave the authority of your parents and you cleave. Cleave literally means to cling. It's a lifelong Bear hug.

Lifelong bear hug. Not bear hugging your parents, but bear hugging each other, husband and wife together, forming a new household, a new dominion mandate outpost, a new great commission outpost, to walk with God together, to look to God together in Christ, and to wrestle with the best way to make disciples of the nation, starting in your own household and then working outwards to your neighborhood, your community, your workplace, your state, your country, the nation's. Now, five things I'd like to say, just sort of five implications maybe of this text. Number one, this is a man and his wife. This is one man and one woman.

One man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife singular, one woman, and the two become one. Not three or four, however many other. Two become one. Genesis 2, 24 is God's definition of what he intended for marriage period on men. Was there polygamy more than two marrying in the ancient world?

Yes. Do we find polygamy more than just one man and one woman marrying? Do we find that in the Old Testament? Yes. I would say we should think of it as a, as regulated as a reality.

Just as divorce, by the way, is regulated as a reality, even though Malachi 2 says that God hates divorce. But polygamy is never commended in the Old Testament. It is regulated as a reality in the Old Testament, like divorce is, but it is never commended in the Old Testament and it normally ends in disaster in the biblical historical accounts. You read your Bible, I read mine. See how polygamy goes in the Old Testament.

It normally ends in disaster in the biblical historical accounts with some being loved to some being unloved Mistreatment heartache This Genesis 2 24 is God's definition of what he intended for marriage. One man, one woman. Number two, this leaving is normally geographical. Literally a new street address. You got to send out change of address notices to your friends.

But it does not have to be. And what this verse is talking about is much more profound than just geographical. It's so much more than just change of address notices here. Meaning there are children who leave geographically and acquire a new street address, maybe even in a new city or maybe even in a new state, but who have not left in the more profound way that is required by this text. Whose parents, one set or both sets, have too much influence over this new household.

You can live in a different state and that still be true. Everyone in that scenario needs to repent. The parents need to repent of wielding that kind of influence over that household, and the children need to repent of allowing it. Wow, you didn't think you were going to hear that today, did you? So there.

And there are children who have not left geographically or have returned for some period of time who have left in the more profound way that is required by this text. Example, Anna and Tyler were expanding their house last year. They came back under our roof. Anna came back under our roof for three and a half months. There was never a hint of question about the jurisdictional boundaries, even though they were not geographically in a different place than us.

They were guests in my home, not members of my household. And I knew the boundaries. And if they had needed to, they would have asserted the boundaries. Good for you, I'm glad. Number three.

By the way, in the Old Testament you see some of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, living in close proximity or together with some of their children. So it doesn't have to be geographical leaving. Number three, this joining is fundamental. It is a joining of two into one. So this is no business partnership.

That you can just dissolve this when it becomes inconvenient or hard or no longer fulfilling. This joining is fundamental. It is joining two into one. The physical union of husband and wife is involved, but this is about so much more than just physical union. So yes, there is an actual physical expression of this, but that's just one one little slice of the pie.

This is a fundamental union across the categories of life. My time is now our time. My money is now our money, our possessions, our house, our commitments, our reputation, our needs, Our children, our objectives, and on and on and on. So, choose carefully and choose well young people. Okay.

Young married people. Young unmarried people, look up. Jackson, you're not married, look up. Choose carefully and choose well. This is the most fundamental union of your life.

It will shape every day of your life And young people who choose carelessly and don't choose well live with the consequences of that for the rest of their lives for decades. You can look back down now. Peter calls a husband and his wife, quote, errs together of the grace of life. That's 1 Peter 3, 7. Errs together, you inherited together, the grace of life, the gift of a life together.

Like joined together, like you're living one life. In marriage, God gives you a life together. You get to build it together. It's exhilarating if you do it looking to God and walking with God in Christ. It's exhilarating to build a life together.

You should look forward to it. It's worth looking forward to. A shared life, to become one unit, not dissolving the individuality. You don't cease to be you. Become part of some amorphous blob.

That's not in the notes. Not dissolving the individuality, but joining them, bonding them together so that the individuality of each is an essential part of the new whole. There's a new whole and The individuality of each is essential to it. Number four. Jesus said, this text means, marriage has always been intended by God to be permanent for life.

Jesus said that. How do we know that? Because he quotes this text when he says it. Turn to Matthew 9. Turn Matthew 19.

Well, you changed that in the notes. Matthew 19. Matthew 19. I'll start with 3 through 6. Matthew 19 verses 3 through 6.

The Pharisees also came to him, came to Jesus, testing him and saying to him, him and saying to him, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? And Jesus answered and said to them, have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female? He just quoted Genesis 1.27. God made them in his own image, male and female, he created them. And said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh." That's our text, Genesis 2.24.

So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. That's the key phrase. Therefore, because of Genesis 2.24, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two become one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate." So, Jesus looks at a marriage and says, God did that.

God joined them together. It was not just the inclinations of two people. It was the inclinations of two people, but it wasn't just that. God was joining them together. God acted and enters into the marriage covenant and joins together.

The two become one. Don't you dare touch that. From the inside or from the outside? In your own marriage or for somebody else's marriage, don't you touch that. Let's keep reading.

Matthew 19, 7 through 9. They said to him, this is the Pharisees who were testing him, They said to him, why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away? He, Jesus said to them, Moses, because of the hardness of your heart, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits adultery, and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery." Here's the key phrase. From the beginning, it was not so.

So divorce was and is permissible within a very narrow range of circumstances resulting from devastating sin. But all of that runs contrary to the design and intent of God. It is God regulating a world of sin and answering the question what now? There's been devastating sin, what now? God regulates those circumstances because this is the world we're living in.

All of that runs contrary to the design and intent of God. God didn't do that. God brought the two together and joined them as one. Divorce is an accommodation and allowance in response to devastating sin. It has nothing to do with what God commands and wants.

In Malachi 2.16 God says he hates divorce. It doesn't get any clearer than that. Listen to the verse itself. For the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce, for it covers one's garment with violence." says the Lord of hosts. It's like clothing yourself with violence.

The word can also be translated cruelty. It's like an expression of cruelty. Let's keep going. Matthew 19 now verses 10 through 12. His disciples said to him, Jesus' disciples said this to Jesus, if such is the case of the man with his wife, it's better not to marry.

We can't divorce them. We shouldn't marry. That's what his disciples said. But Jesus said to them, all cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sakes.

He who is able to accept it, let him accept it." So we learn from this that marriage is not for everyone, not for every person, but it is the rule, Not the exception. Most people are going to get married. And lifelong singleness is the exception, not the rule. Most will be married, few will be single for life. Most cannot accept singleness for life.

I count myself among them. I cannot accept singleness for life. That's me. It wasn't good for me to be alone. Even today, it's not good for me to be alone.

So one man joins to one woman for life. The intent is permanence. That is Christian marriage. Number five. Paul unveiled the ultimate mystery of progressive revelation.

So what's progressive revelation? Well, we don't get all the truth of the Bible in Genesis. We get the starting points of it. And then as the Bible progresses, as God sends other prophets to give us more scripture. We learn more.

We get fuller pictures of things until we have the full revelation of God. The book of Revelation is the end of the Revelation. So we've got it all now, Genesis through Revelation. There's not going to be more. The canon is closed.

The Bible is complete. But in this progressive Revelation, starting from little to get to a lot, and the fullness of what God intends to reveal, there's an ultimate mystery. Paul revealed that marriage has always been a shadow of the greatest reality, the Gospel. If you can find a greater mystery than that to be revealed near the end of the revelation of God to mankind in Scripture, I don't know what it would be. A greater revelation than the Gospel?

This shadow, marriage, has always been, though we didn't know it, though mankind didn't know it, has always been a shadow of the greatest reality, the gospel. Turn to Ephesians 5. So I'm going to New Testament places that quotes our text. And Paul, like Jesus does in Matthew 19, quotes our text in Ephesians chapter 5. In Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5, I'll read 22 through 33. Ephesians 5 22, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. That he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word.

That he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this reason, here's the quote of our text, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Paul instructs husbands and wives and he grounds his instructions in the relationship between the Lord Jesus Christ and his blood-bought people the Church. Husbands, act this way. Why? Because we're playing out a drama here, and you've been given the role to play the part of Jesus Christ.

So That's why you're supposed to act this way as a husband in your marriage. Wives, act this way in your marriage. Why? Because you've been assigned a part too. You've been assigned the part of the blood-bought people of God, the church.

And the church ought to relate to her spiritual husband, the Lord Jesus Christ, in these ways. So you act this way in your marriage because you're reflecting something that's bigger than just you. You're reflecting the ultimate marriage, Jesus Christ and His blood-bought people. Let me read again verses 29 and 30. For no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as the Lord does the Church.

For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. The reason a husband should nourish and cherish his wife as if he were nourishing his own flesh is because the believers union with Jesus Christ by faith secures that for us. Jesus bought with at the price of his blood our nourishment and our cherishing by our spiritual husband the Lord Jesus Christ. And Marriage was designed to reflect that oneness, union with Christ. If you want a master's degree in the gospel, would you like a master's degree in the gospel?

I do. Get married and start working on your assigned part in the gospel drama. You'll learn something about the gospel. Okay. All right.

You have a part to play. Go, look at what the church is supposed to do, supposed to be. Start playing your part in the gospel drama. You'll learn a lot about the gospel. Husbands, go study the gospels.

Look at Jesus, how he treats his people, his love, how he nourishes and cherishes, how he lays his life down. Start playing your part in the gospel drama. You'll learn a thing or two about the gospel. You want your master's degree. This is a good way to pursue it.

All right. Let's apply this verse. Let me give you three applications. First is in, number one is in the form of a question. Have you left?

Have you left? Not geographically, but in this more fundamental way. Is there any place where your parents still have undue influence? Are your parents going to have influence until you die? I hope so.

I hope you've been given godly counselors who will have a good influence on you. But that's not what I'm talking about. Also, now some of us are parents who have married children. Are we attempting to have undue influence? Is it possible that we just won't let them leave in this fundamental way?

It's a good question to ask. Have you left? Have you let them leave? Two. Also a question.

How are you cultivating and reinforcing the two become one unity that God creates in marriage? You should be cultivating it. You should be reinforcing it. This two become one unity, fundamental, every level that God creates in America. So my guess is Before chapter 3, this was essentially effortless between Adam and Eve.

Essentially effortless. They might not need the exhortation to cultivate and reinforce this two-become-one unity. But after chapter 3, when we go through what the curse is and the headwinds that sin brings into a marriage, the difficulties that our having a sinful nature now, inherited a sinful nature, brings into marriage, we need to ask ourselves that question. How can I cultivate this? How can I reinforce what God originally intended, but God has made hard?

Number three, your marriage is obviously for married people. Your marriage should be vigorously guarded on all fronts. Why? Because God loves marriage and he hates divorce. There is an undue jealousy, a kind of crazy jealousy, which is bad and unhealthy.

But understand, God is jealous. God is jealous. And his jealousy, there's no hint of unhealthiness. We should be jealous of our marriages. We should ask ourselves, have I left any doors cracked?

Any vulnerabilities? Back to our text, moving to verse 25. If you believe that God loves marriage and hates divorce, you should vigorously guard your marriage. And in a world of sin, you cannot afford to be naive when you have an enemy that doesn't sleep. Verse 25.

Genesis 2 verse 25, and they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. In this verse we have complete intimacy, no shame. Complete unhindered intimacy with not a hint of shame. I submit to you that no clothes was representative of no barriers of any kind between the first man and his wife. So there were no clothes, and that's what this is talking about.

But I think that's just representative of no barriers of any kind. They could know everything about each other without either one of them being ashamed. This was life in the pre-sin world. Adam and Eve could see everything about each other and know everything about each other and not be ashamed. Other and not be ashamed.

Hebrews 13-4 says this. It's an important verse actually, Hebrews 13, 4. Marriage is honorable among all, and the bad undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. So intimacy in marriage is honorable, not shameful. This is what we have in the garden.

Naked and unashamed. Intimacy of every kind, but now we're talking about physical intimacy, the marriage bed, is undefiled. There's nothing, not a single thing shameful about the marriage bed. But Fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. That's where the shame is.

Sexual sin, there's shame. Sexual intimacy, among married people, there's no shame. That is undefiled. Sin is the source of shame. Sin is the occasion of shame.

Sin is the reason to be ashamed. No sin, no shame. Look ahead to what sin does. Either next week or the week after. Look at Genesis chapter 3 verses 8-11.

This is right after they had just eaten the fruit that God had told them you must not eat. Verse 8, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, where are you? So he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself and God said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded that you should not eat?

There was not even an awareness of nakedness before sin, before they ate that fruit. They didn't even know that they were naked. If you would have said, Adam, you're naked, he would have said, what's that? Adam, you need clothes. He would have said, what are clothes?

There was not even an awareness of nakedness. There was no knowledge of clothing. Interestingly, two different Hebrew words are used for naked in Genesis 2.25, our text, and in Genesis chapter 3. So in English, it all looks the same. We see no distinction because they've been translated as the same word.

There's nothing wrong with the translation, but there's nuance. There's a reason that there's a different Hebrew word used. In 2.25, the Hebrew word is very simply, bare. No clothes. Here in chapter 3, there is more of a sense of exposed.

Exposed. So when you go to the prophets and you see a word where God says, I'm going to expose your nakedness, it is figurative, and it's the Hebrew word that's used in chapter three, not in chapter two. In chapter two, they're just there. They just don't have any clothes. But in chapter three, when Adam feels shame and God comes, he uses the word that has more of a sense of I'm exposed.

I shudder to think of how ashamed I would be if people knew everything about me. What if people knew your most pride-filled thoughts, Your most angry, vengeful wishes. Your most sinful cravings. Your most self-righteous, unmerciful impulses. Letting yourself off the hook and nailing everybody else for the smallest infractions in your mind.

I love the song that we sing, Where's Room? This is from verse 2 of Where is Room. Sinner, where is room for guilt? Has not Jesus borne your shame? Was he not cut off that you might the Father's honor gain?

We talk about the gospel, but we often call it The great exchange. What do we mean? We mean that we exchange sin for righteousness. My sin is put upon Christ and His righteousness is put upon me. We exchange it.

We mean my guilt, the guilty verdict, and the penalty due for that verdict is put on Jesus Christ and his innocence. And a verdict of innocent, not guilty, sinless, is pronounced on me. We exchange. But also, my shame, This feeling that comes from knowing what's right and knowing that time after time after time after time the things that God told me I should do, I said, no, I'm not doing that and the things that he said, don't do this. I learn to do it.

And I feel that shame. That goes to Christ. Go back and read the crucifixion accounts and see how shame was heaped on Jesus Christ. Shame was heaped on him. That's my shame.

That's the shame that ought to come to me, but it's coming to him. And the honor that he ought to have for his goodness, his obedience, His perfect life, His honor becomes mine. The application here is obvious. If you have not fled to Christ, and your shame is sticking to you, We just want to say, your brothers, your friends want to tell you, it doesn't have to stick to you for another minute. Jesus will take it and bear it.

He'll take the spinning and the reproach that you ought to have, that you feel. Somebody spit on me for what I'm like. Somebody reproach me for what I'm like. He'll take it and bear it. And in its place, you'll get the honor that Jesus deserves.

Let's pray. God, how good the gospel is. Thank you that the lines between the things that we're studying each week and getting to the gospel that it's easy to do it's a short line connecting those dots is so Easy to do because of how good and comprehensive and free flowing the gospel is. Thank you for bearing the shame of the people who ought to be shamed. And yet, you would exchange, take it upon yourself, the shame that we deserve and give us the honor that you deserve.

We marvel, we think, is this too good to be true? No, your word has said, we believe your word. If for no other reason than it's on your own authority, we believe it And thank you for it in Jesus' name, Amen.