The Write Place

Alistair Begg gave erroneous advice to a grandmother concerning attending her grandsons wedding (an incident I wrote about here). The issue raises the question as well about how we get to the question. Whether you can attend a ceremony celebrating the human created imitation union of a “gay wedding” is place higher up on the tree. It is a fruit not the root of the issue. You must first ask what is marriage, and what is the ceremony we call a wedding that initiates it.

What a marriage and a what is a wedding are two sides of the same coin and questions our culture doesn’t even know are being asked.

God institutes marriage in Genesis 2 (Where I discuss what a human is to the end of how Man and Woman model a view of the universe, link here). God presides over the first wedding.

¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for^[e] him.” ¹⁹ Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed^[f] every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam^[g] there was not found a helper fit for him. ²¹ So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²² And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made^[h] into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³ Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
    because she was taken out of Man.”^[i]

²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. ²⁵ And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Genesis 2:18-25

What this tells is that man and woman are complimentary parts, and that marriage itself is a God made union of man and woman. God made marriage personally, and he actually presided over the first wedding. It has a greater, grander purpose and scale than personal happiness and it fits in the created order of the world. It is not something made up that can be tinkered with. Neither is marriage something that is merely about personal happiness. It is cosmic in scope, fitting into the laws of nature for the compliment of male and female and as we are also told for the procreation of the species (Genesis 1:26-28).

Marriage cannot be understood apart from the idea of a covenant. While people often misunderstand the idea of marriage or covenant as mere contract the reality is far different.

Covenants are deep and binding. There is a covenant lord and servant, both of whom are bound to their oaths to serve the other.  A contract defines a relationship, but a Covenant goes a step further and defines being. Contracts have terms and conditions, but covenants have blessings and curses. Like contracts breaking the agreement brings the consequences, but the consequences for covenant infidelity are cosmic and severe.

So you will be delivered from the forbidden^[a] woman,
    from the adulteress^[b] with her smooth words,
¹⁷ who forsakes the companion of her youth
    and forgets the covenant of her God;

Proverbs 2:16-17

The covenant of marriage exists on the condition of man and woman. Those married in non-Christian settings have made this vow, they have simply made it in a corrupted imaging of Genesis 2 and Ephesians 5.

²² Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.^[a] 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, ³⁰ because we are members of his body. ³¹ “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” ³² This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. ³³ However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Ephesians 5:22-33

In an unbeliever’s marriage, there is a distorted image of Christ and the church. But the image is still there because there is a man and a woman. In a homosexual pairing there are two Christ’s and two churches. There is no one flesh union, there is no imaging. There is in short, no marriage and no marriage covenant, only a play and a facade that defaces the two individuals participating and professes a rebellion against the artist who performed the work of art that is male and female.

If male and female together are the condition to make that covenant, then can’t a believer attend the event of an unbeliever’s marriage? Of course, because God is still joining the two together.

We know this by God’s command through Paul concerning those who came to faith after marrying an unbeliever

¹² To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. ¹³ If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. ¹⁴ For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. ¹⁵ But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you^[b] to peace. ¹⁶ For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

1 Corinthians 7:12-16

The marriage is recognized, there is seen one household in Paul’s words. Children, even the unbelieving spouse are set aside as something holy because of their very real union with the believer. Paul warns not to enter into a marriage with an unbeliever (2 Corinthians 6:14-16), but recognizes the marriage as legitimate.

But what of the Christian? Why is it important that the Christian go or not go?
Christians are heirs, kings and queens, princes that reign and rule, inheritors of the kingdom of God. 

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Romans 8:16-17

 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,^[a] but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,

Ephesians 2:19

Can you imagine King Georg III’s son attending the signing of the declaration of independence? We are also called citizens of heaven, ambassadors as it were of this kingdom. The attendance of a foreign dignitary to an event lends it legitimacy and recognition as if that nations king were there.

Christians are not citizens of this age, but of the kingdom that is now and not yet, breaking through and conquering.

²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,

Philippians 3:20

The spiritual powers that be know this, and the intellectuals pushing this assault on the created order of which marriage is no small part, know it as well. Deep down, so do our friends and relatives who don’t believe. We naturally want to be God, and to that end or barring that we want God to bless what we call good.

A Christian could in the right circumstances go to an unbelieving friend’s wedding, who was in sin, so long as they make the truth clear about it being sin, because they attest to the fact that God is joining the two in union. Could you go to a wedding from another religion?

Depends on the religion and the ceremony, but the argument is actually open because they are weddings. Should you? Not always as idolatry is a concern, but the reality of the wedding covenant that God is enacting actually allows you to consider it. What Allistair Begg recommended was completely out of the category, and out of the question.