Genesis 2:20-24 … But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the mans ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Matthew 19:4-6 Haven’t you read, he replied, that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?” So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.
Commentary:
The two prior verses are probably the most quoted verses on the institution of marriage. When asked, most people remember that woman was created from man, to help man. Yet the significance of the bonds of marriage lay in a more subtle fact. Noted both the Old and New Testament verses, “man and woman are no longer two after marriage but become one.”
What does a good marriage look like? God no longer sees two people but one new person, created through the vows of marriage. Aristotle, a student of Plato and tutor of Alexander the Great, defines friendship as “a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” In a marriage, a couple must understand that God will see only the new being created by their union, becoming one flesh. “One flesh” is not “his and hers” nor is it “what’s mine is yours,” but a new single creation in the eyes of God and measured together in all both do together.
When marriage is viewed in this Biblical way, goals are set as one, work is done as one, play is done as one and service is done as one. For when you live as one, God joins into one and can never be separated.