The 7 Biblical Goals for a Godly Marriage

Why is marriage such a struggle for so many people?

Many people know that marriage is a good thing created by God. But when you actually ask them to articulate the biblical purpose and goal of marriage, things get a little hazy. And I believe this is one of the reasons so many people struggle in marriage.

If you want your marriage to work as God intended it to, you have to know the reason why God made marriage in the first place. For those of us with kids, we’re constantly trying to warn them that if they use something in a way it wasn’t designed to be used, it will break! Air beds aren’t designed to be used as trampolines. But they work great for sleeping.

Likewise, marriages break when we try to use them in ways that they weren’t designed to be used. But when we use marriage to accomplish God’s goals for us, our relationship with our spouse can thrive.

In this article, I will explain the Bible’s main purpose for marriage (Point 1). And then I will explain how this main purpose can be expressed in unique ways that only married people can experience (Points 2-6).

1. The Main Goal of Marriage Is the Main Goal for Everything – To Glorify God

Anytime you ask a question that starts with, “Why does God . . . ?”, you can always answer it in the same way – for his glory.

Scripture is extremely clear: Everything God does, he does first and foremost for his own glory.

This may sound selfish to our human minds. But when you really study the Scriptures, you quickly realize that God’s God-centeredness is actually the most loving thing he can do for us. Jeremiah 32:38-39 (NLT), “They will be my people, and I will be their God. And I will give them one heart and one purpose: to worship me forever, for their own good and for the good of all their descendants.”

For God to deny his own worth and to elevate anything above himself would be to deny the truth that he is best. Additionally, God doesn’t glorify himself through putting us down. Rather, God glorifies himself through showing us love. The Bible is very clear that our good and God’s glory are beautifully intertwined.

Thus, when we apply this truth to marriage, we must always remember that the goal of marriage is actually to glorify God.

However, all Christians can glorify God, whether they are married or not. And most of the ways a married person glorifies God will be the exact same as an unmarried person. And yet, according to the Scriptures, there are some unique ways to glorify God that only married people can experience. That is the focus of the next six points.

2. Marriage Allows You to Glorify God Through Covenant Love

There is no other relationship like marriage. Children and parents, brothers and sisters, and other family relations are connected through bloodlines. Friends, church members, and fellow citizens lack the intensity and lifelong commitment. Only marriage offers a lifelong commitment by choice to someone who’s not your own bloodline. Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

And through this covenant, God is glorified. How? Well, we need to remember what the glory of God actually is. In short, to glorify God, you are bearing his image accurately. The glory of God is when the invisible qualities of God are made visible or knowable to those around you. (For a deeper study on this topic, you can read my article called What Is the Glory of God According to the Bible?)

Thus, like God, who makes a covenant of love with his people by choice, not because he has to, a married man and woman have a unique opportunity to bear God’s likeness to each other and to the watching world through their choice to love each other for life (Isaiah 62:5, Ezekiel 16:8).

3. Marriage Allows You to Glorify God Through Covenant Commitment

Love and loyalty are forever connected. You can’t have one without the other. The marriage covenant is an act of loyalty that reflects God’s loyalty to his people like nothing else can. When you choose to enter the covenant of marriage, you are choosing to commit to this one person for your entire life.

Matthew 19:6, “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Traditional marriage vows reflect this unique, God-like loyalty:

“I, [Name], take you, [Name], to be my [wife/husband]. I promise before God and these witnesses to be your faithful [husband/wife], to share with you in joy and in sorrow, in plenty and in want, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish as long as we both shall live.”

No other relationship allows you to glorify God through this level of commitment.

4. Marriage Allows You to Glorify God Through Marital Companionship

All Christians are called to be active members in and of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-31). And no matter who you are, single or married, you were not designed to live life alone. With that said, marriage alone gives you a partner for life.

Genesis 2:18, “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’” Eternally existing as three persons, one God, and creating humans to share in his fellowship – God is relational at his core.

Commenting on the love of a husband and wife, Paul wrote, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:32).

Thus, to bear God’s image, spouses have a unique opportunity afforded only by marriage companionship.

5. Marriage Allows You to Glorify God Through Holy Sex

Another way only married people get to glorify God is by having holy sex together. Sex without your spouse is sin. Sex with your spouse is pleasing to God.

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 tells us to flee from all sexual sin because our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. It then states, “So glorify God in your body.” When you have sex with your spouse, it glorifies God.

6. Marriage Allows You to Glorify God Through Creating a Family

No matter the circumstances, whether out of wedlock or in wedlock, every child bears the image of God and thus brings him glory (Psalm 139:13-14). God is not pleased with premarital sex, but God is always pleased with the birth of a child. And yet, Scripture is clear that God’s intended way to produce children is through the marriage relationship alone.

Malachi 2:14-15, “. . . she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring.”

Life is messy, and God’s grace is sufficient. But in God’s original design, children were meant to be conceived within a loving family, sheltered by a loving marriage.

7. Marriage Allows You to Glorify God Through Being a Witness to the World for the Gospel

Remember, if you want your marriage to thrive, you have to use it for the reasons God gave it to you. Ultimately, God gave us marriage to help us glorify him. And one of the main ways we are called to glorify God through marriage is by using it to show the world the love relationship between Christ and his church.

Thus, if you want to thrive in marriage, you must allow your union to point people to Jesus. Ephesians 5:31-33, “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

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