Marriage is good! I suspect a few might object. Maybe you just had one of those domestic quarrels that occur in every marriage. Good? Maybe your spouse has been unfaithful, and you were left deeply hurt. Perhaps you grew up in a broken home or a home where domestic quarrels escalated into violence. Marriage good?

Yet I want to say marriage is good because God says it. He created marriage in the perfection of paradise to be good, and it is! Even Solomon wrote, “He who finds a wife finds what it good and receives favor from the Lord” (Proverbs 18:22).

The three great blessings of marriage

Marriage is good because God blesses it. Luther’s Small Catechism speaks of three major blessings of marriage: (1) loving companionship, (2) sexual happiness, and (3) the precious gift of children (The Sixth Commandment).

Loving companionship is certainly the first blessing of marriage. That was obviously what our Creator had on his mind when he said, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). God had the perfect solution to Adam’s loneliness. He created a companion perfectly designed to complement and balance his life in every way. Eve fit perfectly with Adam—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—to become a whole just like two pieces of a puzzle.

No other earthly relationship is so close. Parents always love their children and children honor their parents, but children leave home. Friends may remain loyal for a lifetime, but we have many friends. Marriage is the only relationship designed by God to yoke a man and woman together to face a lifetime of sharing the most intimate recesses of their beings.

What a blessing! In marriage, we are able to face life with its joys and sorrows knowing that there will always be that one special person to pick you up when you fall, to believe in you when you are not sure of yourself, and to share a joy or a tough decision when it arrives. It is precisely because marriage is such a blessing that there is such an enormous hurt when that relationship is ended either by death or human sin.

The second blessing of marriage is sexual happiness. God created us as sexual beings. He gave us the desire for the opposite sex. Not only did God create this powerful force in our lives, but he also gave the pleasure it produces.