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Abstract

Marriage is the holistic, enduring and exclusive association between a man and a woman; an extension for other sexual assignings is inadmissible according to the biblical testimony on marriage. A formal marriage ceremony is not biblical-theologically constitutive, but is rather a social manifestation. Jesus renewed marriage in an eschatological sense according to God’s creative will as a holistic fellowship between a man and a woman, which tolerates neither divorce nor adultery. The Pauline relativization of marriage in the context of the eschatological reordering of all earthly things must itself be relativized in view of the expected second coming of Christ. This relativization of the original Pauline understanding of marriage is characterized in Eph 5. The reference to the love of Christ for His church is a paradigm for devotion to the other in marriage.