What Does God Say About Polygamy, Homosexual Marriage, and Transgenderism?

 When people look at the Bible and see cases of polygamy (having multiple wives), they are not distinguishing between what God commands of us and the history of how we have ultimately treated God.  If you look at it in that perspective in an honest light, man has never been faithful to a faithful God.  

God is the one who designed marriage.  He is the one who invented marriage.  Marriage is not a man made institution.  It was the farthest thing from man’s mind, and from the current debauchery of society today, we can see that man’s nature is not towards marriage.  Look at how many broken marriages there are and even couples living with each other outside of the sacred bond of marriage.  God in fact gave the first woman to the first man.  The woman was a gift from God, hence in our marriage relationships, we should always look at our partner as a gift from God Himself.  When Moses tells us about this, he makes a comment in Genesis 2:24 stating, 

24 Therefore A MAN shall leave his father and mother and be joined to HIS WIFE, and they shall become one flesh.

The singular is used in both instances.  Hence, monogamy was and is God’s standard for marriage.  This would later be echoed by our Savior Jesus Christ in Matthew 19:4-6 where Jesus also addressed the issue of homosexuality and transgenderism by quoting OT scripture.

4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

The Pharisees had asked Jesus about the issue of divorce and Jesus reminded them of the gift and the sanctity of marriage that was created at the beginning.  He is extremely specific in these passages so that there is no mistake as well.  In verse 4, He quotes Genesis 1:27 emphasizing that God perfectly created mankind into two genders and two genders only, male and female.  He follows by quoting the previously referenced verse of Genesis 2:24 by stating that a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife.  The feminine pronoun is used in this instance and is done intentionally.  There seems to be an erroneous argument that is going around today that Jesus Christ never spoke on the topic of homosexuality, marriage, and transgenderism.  However, as you can see here, He absolutely did.

When we read the Bible, we see a recollection, or divine history of God’s relationship with mankind.  This is relayed through the “covenants” given by God to man.  A covenant is very much like a marriage in which two parties agree to be devoted to each other, to be loyal, and to be faithful.  We first see that type of relationship with Adam and Eve.   Sometimes referred to as the “Adamic Covenant” where God promises to take care of them, to provide for them, to fellowship with them in eternal bliss as long as they do not sin against Him by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  As we see though, they become disloyal, selfish, and do not obey God, therefore breaking the covenant or in another way, they cheat on the relationship they have with God.  Due to this, they plunge humanity into death, chaos, and evil.  There are consequences to sin.  Again, it was mankind who broke this covenant and not God.  God then makes a new covenant with Noah, sometimes referred to as the “Noahic Covenant” but as we know, that too, goes down the tubes in man’s sinfulness.  Again, God kept His promises, but man decided to sin and betray the relationship that they had with God.  God of course does the same with Abraham and His people called Israel.  We see the same though as we read the Scriptures.  A series of God delivering His people, keeping His promises, but then His people sinning, betraying, and cheating on God with the idols of the nearby nations.  In fact, the events of Hosea illustrate the adulterous relationship that Israel had against God.  God uses the illustration of marriage when He discusses His loving relationship and commitment to His people.  He refers to Himself as the Bridegroom and to the Church (those who believe in the Son Jesus Christ) as the Bride.  He used this instance with Israel as well and in the book of Hosea, we see God have Hosea take Gomer, a known prostitute as wife.  Gomer, who had disgraced herself publicly, had lost everything, and was in a sea of debauchery was raised to a high position, loved on by Hosea, and given much riches and had everything one could dream of.  So, what did Gomer do, of course, she cheated on Hosea.  She cheated, prostituted herself among the masses again, and was caught.  When Gomer was then being sold again on the public block to be disgraced, to live a life of misery, Hosea steps up and pays everything he had for her.  Sound familiar?  That is the same that Christ does for us.

So, why am I bringing all of this up and what does this have to do with the fact that we see polygamous relationships even by some of the most well known heroes of the faith such as Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon?

What I just mentioned is that throughout the pages of the Bible we see how man does not remain faithful to God and to His leading.  We see how they refuse to accept His teachings and because of that, they suffer from it.  Throughout the pages of Scripture, we see the consequences of sin.  This is not done as some sort of plot line or something to keep us interested in a story.  This is done strictly so we can have the examples and that we may learn from them.

God promised Abraham in His covenant with him that He would make Abraham a great and mighty nation.  When Abraham became impatient with God and His timing, He sinned against God by taking matters into His own hands.  He took Hagar, Sarah’s maidservant, as an additional wife and surrogate mother for his child.  What was the result of this polygamous relationship?  Sarah became jealous of Hagar and threatened Abraham to the point that he cast Hagar away and his son Ishmael with very little provisions.  Sinful indeed.  Unloving indeed.  However, God gave a promise to Hagar that he would bless Ishmael as well, making his offspring a mighty nation as well.  Hence, the Arab population that we see today.  God kept His promise while Abraham did not, and that sin caused drastic consequences.

Jacob also had two wives.  While that was not his original intent, it did happen.  Was that a good situation?  Absolutely not!  We see a history of strife between Rachel and Leah.  We see jealousy and hatred between the two up to the point of their deaths and this passed on with their children as we would see jealousy amongst their sons.  They did not honor God’s plan for marriage, therefore disaster occurred.

In the book of Judges, we read where some of the judges had many wives but they only did this because deep down, they aspired to become kings.  In fact we know that it was mainly kings that would have multiple wives.  The Bible suggests to us that the majority of the culture then actually only had one wife as was ordained by God and that only those with selfish desires were the ones with multiple wives and again, we would see the consequences and penalty of their sin.

The Bible again relates to us that when you go against God’s ordinance that it becomes nothing but trouble.  Look at the life of David.  David, who had many wives, still wasn’t satisfied by that.  Due to his covetousness and greed, he betrayed and murdered his loyal subject Uriah the Hittite, had an adulterous affair with Bathsheba, and took her as a wife.   What happened?  Nathan the prophet uses a parable talking about a man who owned thousands of sheep (David and his many wives) and a man who owned only one lamb but cherished that lamb with everything he had (Uriah and Bathsheba).  When the time for sacrifice came, the man with a thousand sheep, instead of indulging and using one of his, kills the man and takes the other lamb.  David becomes outraged and says that this man should pay with his own life.  At that point Nathan makes the proclamation, “You are that man!”   David falls under the judgement of God.  He loses his future son with Bathsheba and from that point on, David is constantly at a time of war.  David, who always wanted to build a house for God, is denied that right, only for it to be passed onto his son.  Again, we see the consequence of sin. 

Polygamy is not a good thing and not a thing ordained by God.  Just because we see that some of these leaders did it during the time does not validate it nor allude that God approves of it.  Instead God used the sinfulness and failures of these mighty men to show us that no one is immune from the effects of sin and to show us the gravity of sin in our lives and the consequences of it.  Whenever these questions come up, usually from unbelievers, we should ask the question if they have read the Bible.  We should also still read the Bible in whole.

The Old Testament saints are great examples of faith, but were not necessarily great examples of morality.  Just….like….us.  It shows our frailty and our tendency to sin.  It shows how God can deliver us and rescue us.  It shows how God can and will use us.

So, when we see sinful behavior by men of renown in the Scripture, we should not use that as a source of validation, but instead use it as a voice of caution.