A Biblical Case for Same-Sex Marriage

Marriage Was God’s Answer to Loneliness

By: Dr. Gregory S. Neal

One of the most common arguments made against same-sex marriage is that God created marriage primarily for procreation. If that’s true, the argument goes, then same-sex couples necessarily fall outside God’s design because our relationships can’t produce children through natural means.

The difficulty with that argument is that it simply is not how Genesis introduces the marital relationship.

When we allow Genesis 2 to speak on its own terms, the problem God sets out to solve is not infertility, childlessness, or the continuation of the species; it’s human aloneness. Before the concept of sin has even entered the story, and before Scripture says anything about sexual morality, God identifies the first thing in creation that is “not good”:

לֹא־טוֹב הֱיוֹת הָאָדָם לְבַדּוֹ
Lo tov heyot ha’adam levado.
“It is not good for the human to be alone.”
—Genesis 2:18

Throughout Genesis 1, God repeatedly sees what has been made and pronounces it טוֹב (tov), “good,” until finally the whole creation is declared “very good.” Yet in Genesis 2, in a world in which sin has not yet appeared, we encounter something that is לֹא־טוֹב (lo tov), “not good.” And what’s identified as “not good” is quite specific: הֱיוֹת הָאָדָם לְבַדּוֹ (heyot ha’adam levado), “for the human to be alone.”

The Hebrew הָאָדָם (ha’adam) is also worth noticing. At this point the word is not functioning simply as the personal name “Adam.” With the definite article attached, ha-adam means “the human” or “the human being,” and Genesis has already played on its relationship to הָאֲדָמָה (ha’adamah), “the ground,” from which the human was formed in Genesis 2:7. The story initially emphasizes the creature’s humanity and earthiness; only when the second human appears does the narrative introduce the gender-specific wordplay of אִישׁ (ish, man) and אִשָּׁה (ishah, woman) in verse 23. That doesn’t require us to imagine the first creature as literally sexless, but it does mean that the narrative’s first stated problem is not “there is a male but no female.” The stated problem is more basic: the human is alone.

Everything that follows in Genesis 2:18–24 is a response to that condition.

God says:

אֶעֱשֶׂה־לּוֹ עֵזֶר כְּנֶגְדּוֹ
E’eseh-lo ezer kenegdo.
“I will make for him a helper corresponding to him.”

The familiar translation “a helper suitable for him” can be misleading to modern ears. “Helper” often suggests an assistant, a subordinate, or a supporting character. But the Hebrew עֵזֶר (ezer) carries no such implication of inferiority. In fact, the Hebrew Bible repeatedly uses ezer for the help that God provides to human beings: “The God of my father was my help” in Exodus 18:4, for example, and the word appears repeatedly in descriptions of God as Israel’s help. Obviously, calling God an ezer doesn’t make God subordinate to the person being helped. The word identifies one who supplies what another lacks, and often precisely because the other can’t flourish or survive alone.

The second half of the expression is equally important: כְּנֶגְדּוֹ (kenegdo). It’s formed from נֶגֶד (neged), conveying the sense of something that is in front of, opposite of, or corresponding to another. The prefix ke- adds the sense of “as” or “according to,” while the suffix -o means “him.” The resulting phrase is difficult to reproduce elegantly in English, but “a helper corresponding to him,” “a counterpart suitable to him,” or even “one who stands facing him” comes closer to its meaning than does the old English “helpmeet.” The point is correspondence: someone recognizably like the human and capable of meeting the human face-to-face as another human being.

That’s why the animals can’t resolve the problem of aloneness. God brings the creatures before the human, but among them no ezer kenegdo is found. The animals are living creatures and part of God's good creation, but they can’t provide the kind of reciprocal human companionship the story is seeking. Only when another human being appears does the solitary human finally erupt into poetry:

“This one, at last,
is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh.”

“This one, at last.” The Hebrew זֹאת הַפַּעַם (zot happa'am) carries the sense of “this time” or “now at last.” After the unsuccessful search among the other creatures for a helper, there is finally a joyous recognition. The human sees another who shares the same humanity, or: “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” In other words, the climax here is not found in reproductive capacity, but in a fundamental recognition of correspondence and communion.

Only then does the narrator draw the conclusion:

“Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother,
clings to his wife,
and they become one flesh.”
—Genesis 2:24

Here again, the Hebrew gives the passage greater depth. The verb translated “clings,” דָּבַק (davaq), literally describes sticking, adhering, holding fast, or attaching oneself firmly to another. But throughout the Hebrew Bible it develops a strongly relational sense. Ruth “clings” to Naomi and Israel is repeatedly commanded to “cling” to the LORD. It can therefore communicate loyalty, attachment, devotion, and steadfast relationship as well as physical or sexual joining. In Genesis 2:24, the man transfers his primary attachment from his family of origin (which literally doesn’t exist in the Genesis 2 story) and clings to his wife. A new bond of primary loyalty has been created.

Then the two become בָשָׂר אֶחָד (basar echad), “one flesh.” While the idea of sexuality belongs within the meaning of that expression, it’s also true that “flesh” in biblical Hebrew can carry familial and kinship associations. The point is that becoming “one flesh” is far more than just a moment of reproductive intercourse: two persons who had belonged to different households have become a new human unit, and that human unit exists even when sex isn’t taking place. Some English translations even dynamically render the sense of the phrase as “one family,” which conveys the concept quite clearly.

Read in its own context, then, Genesis 2 is answering a remarkably specific question: How does God remedy human aloneness? The answer is through relationships. Genesis doesn’t say, “It is not good for the human to be childless.” Nor does it say: “I will make someone with whom the human can reproduce.” Instead, Genesis affirms God’s observation: “It is not good for the human to be alone.”

This is why Christians often begin reading Genesis 2 at the wrong place. We rush to verse 24 because that’s the verse most often quoted in arguments about marriage and sexuality. But verses 18 through 23 identify the problem that verse 24 is resolving. If we begin with “a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife” without first hearing “it is not good for the human to be alone,” we risk turning the conclusion of the story into something quite different from the story that produced it.

It must also be noted that the production of children is never mentioned in Genesis 2:18–24. The story doesn’t end with a pregnancy, a birth, or even a command to reproduce; it ends with a relationship: one human recognizing another, leaving their original household, clinging to their beloved, and forming a new “one flesh” bond. That realization doesn’t make children unimportant, nor does it mean that Genesis knows nothing about procreation. The first creation account in Genesis 1 certainly addresses reproduction when God blesses humanity with the words: “Be fruitful and multiply.” But there’s something frequently overlooked here: this blessing follows a prior similar command given to the creatures of the sea and the birds to “be fruitful and multiply,” and is also apparently intended to apply to the the creatures of earth, for which there is no separate directive. Reproduction is a blessing placed upon living creation, as whole, and not on us as individuals. It concerns humanity's participation in the fruitfulness of creation and its calling to fill the earth. It’s not presented as a test by which the validity of every individual marriage is measured.

The separate creation accounts of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 approach human existence from different angles. Regardless of how one understands the literary relationship between the two accounts, Genesis 1 has a cosmic scope: creation, fruitfulness, humanity in God's image, and humanity's vocation within the created order. Genesis 2 narrows the lens dramatically. It speaks about the human creature, the garden, work, relationship, vulnerability, and the discovery that solitary existence is “not good.” One concerns humanity's fruitfulness, the other concerns human companionship. And, we do violence to the second story when we insist that its principal subject must be the concern of the first.

This distinction also explains something Christians already recognize in practice. Most Christian traditions have never required demonstrable fertility as a prerequisite for marriage. We marry elderly couples who are far beyond childbearing years. We marry people who know themselves to be infertile. We marry couples whose medical circumstances make pregnancy impossible or inadvisable. We don’t normally consider those marriages less holy, less committed, or less genuinely marriages because children can’t be conceived by the couple.

Why? Because we already know that marriage is about more than reproduction: it’s about promising oneself to another person. It’s about fidelity. It’s about companionship. It’s about mutual care. It’s about creating a household and sharing a life. It’s about remaining together through joy and sorrow, abundance and hardship, sickness and health. It’s about becoming, in the language of Genesis, no longer solitary but bound to another in an enduring relationship.

Jesus’ use of Genesis 1 and 2 in Matthew 19 reinforces the importance of reading these texts in their context. Jesus is asked whether a man may divorce his wife “for any cause.” In his response he quotes Genesis 1:27, “male and female he created them,” and Genesis 2:24, “the two shall become one flesh,” before concluding: “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Jesus’ use of these verses is entirely descriptive, not prescriptive. He was using the account to illustrate the importance of his conclusion. Despite how many Christians are trying to use the Matthew 19 account, he wasn’t asked “who may get married?” He was asked about divorce, and Jesus’ appealed to the creation account in order to illustrate that the casual breaking of marital bonds wasn’t appropriate. His conclusion wasn’t: “marriage only exists to produce children” or “marriage is only between one man and one woman.” He never says anything even remotely like that. Jesus’ conclusion is “what God has joined together, let no one separate.” The ethical emphasis falls on the seriousness, fidelity, and permanence of the marital union, not on the limits of its institution.

This doesn’t mean that Genesis 2 is secretly a text about same-sex marriage. It plainly describes a man and a woman, and responsible interpretation should acknowledge that rather than pretending otherwise. But acknowledging what the text describes is different from claiming that the text establishes procreative capacity as the primary purpose, necessary condition, or defining essence of marriage. It doesn’t do any of that.

And once that claim is removed, another question becomes possible. If the problem God identifies is human aloneness, and if the goods celebrated by the passage are companionship, correspondence, mutual belonging, steadfast attachment, and the creation of a new bond of kinship, can those goods also exist within a faithful same-sex marriage? I not only believe they can, I have experienced precisely that within my own marriage.

LGBTQ people know what loneliness is. We experience the same human longing for companionship, intimacy, fidelity, mutual care, and enduring commitment that heterosexual people experience. We desire someone with whom we can build a household, share burdens, celebrate joys, endure grief, practice forgiveness, grow old, and remain faithful throughout our lives. Those desires don’t make us less human; they arise precisely because we are human. And when people of the same sex covenant to share a life, bear one another’s burdens, care for one another in sickness, forgive one another, sacrifice for one another, remain faithful to one another, create family together, and cling to one another across the decades, I see the same fundamental human goods Genesis 2 celebrates.

None of this diminishes the blessing of children. Many same-sex couples are parents, while many heterosexual couples never become parents. Children are gifts of grace, and the nurture of children is one of the profound vocations a marriage may embrace. But children are not what Genesis 2 identifies as the reason the human needs a partner.

Genesis 1 celebrates the fruitfulness of life and commands all living creatures, including the human species, to “be fruitful and multiply.” Genesis 2 turns its attention to something else: God looks upon the solitary human creature and declares that solitary existence is “not good.” Then comes another human. Then comes recognition. Then comes joy. Then comes clinging. Then comes one flesh. The narrative moves from aloneness to communion, not from childlessness to reproduction.

So if we are going to ask the question, “What is marriage for?” we ought at least to begin where Genesis begins. We should not begin by imposing upon the text a theory that says marriage exists primarily because the species needs babies. Genesis itself does not begin there. It begins with the human heart.

“It is not good for the human to be alone.”

Whatever else a Christian theology of marriage may affirm, it must take that declaration seriously. In Genesis 2, marriage emerges as God's gracious response to human aloneness: a relationship of companionship, mutuality, belonging, fidelity, and enduring love. And any biblical theology of marriage that makes procreation the starting point has begun with a question other than the one Genesis itself first asks.

To view the Inclusive Faith Podcast episode on YouTube: A Biblical Case for Same-Sex Marriage