Does Ethics Matter to Christology?

Very recently, the Vatican made headlines announcing that same-sex unions could not be blessed by the Roman Catholic Church.

Aside from this being completely uncontroversial and in keeping with the Catholic Church’s teaching, the issue at hand does raise an opportunity to reflect, however briefly, on the relationship between Ethics and Christology. Let me put the formula this way right up front: If Jesus misunderstood marriage, he cannot be trusted and he is not, therefore, the Christ. How can I say such a thing?

In Matthew 19:4-6, an episode emerges where the Pharisees ask Jesus about divorce. In the course of his answer, Jesus says, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Notice what Jesus affirms: He assumes the Genesis account of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is normative and binding. He is affirming the Genesis blueprint. Marriage is exclusively this and not anything else, according to Jesus.

What are the ramifications of this episode that would be easy to overlook? Jesus believes himself to be speaking truthfully in accordance with his divine and human nature. Truthfulness implies trustworthiness. Only that which is trustworthy can be truthful. But if we cannot trust what Jesus affirmed as the definition of marriage in Matthew 19, why trust Jesus at all? Either the teaching is perfectly true or else Jesus is a fraud. But if he’s mistaken, he’s a fraudulent savior and thus, no savior at all. Imperfection disqualifies Jesus’s efficacy to save sinners because he would not be fully God. All he would be is an incorrect sage. Either Jesus Christ, the God-man, understood marriage perfectly, or else he simply is not Jesus Christ.

Herein is how the Bible’s sexual ethic is tied to the very nature of Christology. If Jesus was wrong in what he claimed, he is not perfect and not worthy of our belief.

If we cannot trust Jesus Christ to be correct about marriage, how can we be sure he was not mistaken elsewhere? If we cannot trust Jesus here, why trust him at all?