Marriage is what John Paul II used to call the "primordial sacrament", in that it was inscribed in human nature from the very moment the Persons of the Trinity said the words "Let Us make man in Our image", "male and female He created them", and "the two shall become one body". But this creation story makes it perfectly clear that marriage is a created institution that is the unique privilege of created men and women, i.e., created human persons, and not at all that of uncreated Persons.
By definition, only created persons can be "made in the image of God". But Jesus, as the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, is an uncreated Person as are the other Two Divine Persons of the Trinity. He is a Divine uncreated Person who became Incarnate. He assumed our humanity. Only created persons, and not uncreated Persons, can be said to be "made in Our image" as opposed to being "the same as Us".
The created man and woman find only in other created persons of opposite gender the possibility of making a complete, equal, and complementary self-gift of all that they are in their beings - their flesh, their souls, their PERSONS, and to do so requires by definition their equal and complementary dignity as created men and women. That is because men and women by creation are co-naturally fit for each other, precisely for the marriage relationship.
For a Divine Person to establish a 'marriage" with a created person is ludicrous on its face -- as it would now mean the most unequal and unfit of all bonds, that of God Himself marrying a human being. It would not only be a kind of desecration of the Trinity, by virtue of making the sacred into the merely profane, but even a desecration of natural marriage, since as a farcical counterfeit it defaces the conjugal union, as with all false facsimiles of the true and beautiful.
Moreover, even the idea itself of human-Divine marriage reduces God to something other than God. Jesus is not a created human person, which would necessarily be required for Him to be able to make a complete self-gift of His Person with a woman. Giving him an earthly wife would theologically and necessarily reduce Him to only a human person, which hearkens back to the Christological heresies of old, interestingly enough those which precisely raged during this same period of time.
Consider something else. Even though we know Jesus could not carnally marry a woman, suppose for a moment that He could. Would His death have dissolved the union? What then of His Resurrection? Would His wife then have been free to re-marry immediately after His death on the cross? Whose wife would she then be on Easter Sunday?
It seems both sacrilegious and even blasphemous to seriously consider the possibility of Jesus having conjugal relations with a woman. For Jesus, His very Flesh would have had to be considered virginal from the moment of His conception, since in no way could His embodied sexuality ever be actualized in carnal relations with a woman and still remain a true expression of His Personal Self-gift.
Thanks. But Jesus was not only Divine. He was also fully human. And we know his human nature could express itself quite naturally or normally. We are taught that His human nature spoke the famous Lament (Father, why have You forsaken me? — a question that would have made zero sense if Jesus were solely Divine on His mission of self- sacrifice, as per John) Also, the institution of marriage is a Divine prescription, one without sin. Indeed, it would have violated God’s law for the human Jesus to not marry ( And be fruitful). And Jesus assured us he came to fulfill the Law not abrogate it. That alone would have cast doubt on him/his mission.
All in all, I think it would have made a lot of sense if Jesus were married, especially in that place and time and culture. Marriage would be consistent with his teaching mission, indeed a social prerequisite or expectation for it, too. Conclusion: my personal bottom line on this right now is that I still can’t see any Insurmountable problem (that God couldn’t have solved) had Jesus been married — and that it would have been the thing for him to do especially if he wanted to successfully attract the most followers But again I have no particular pony in this race and was just picking up on the original poster’s article. Just as scripture doesn’t tell us he stayed single ( a status that would have been a natural cause of critical comment - and scripture tells us there were some people who did question or criticize him on far lesser matters) , certainly also scripture doesn’t record that he ever married. So I can’t answer this one. It’s an interesting chat. Thanks.
Well said. I put forth a different argument in post 80. Would I be right to guess that your are a priest?
Lots of mush-headedness in this threat, but that always happens on a post about Christianity.