A Healthy Marriage, Part VI: The Gospel Shape of Marriage
Ephesians 5:31-33; Remsen Bible Fellowship; 10/06/2024
Revelation 21:9-23 (ESV): Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. 12 It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed— 13 on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. 14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15 And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. 16 The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal. 17 He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel’s measurement. 18 The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, like clear glass. 19 The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. 21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.
Introduction
Marriage matters more than you think it does. If you think marriage is all about happiness, or companionship, or even procreation, then your view is too small. Marriage is for those things, but it is not just for those things. Marriage has a message.
The fact of there being a message behind marriage means that, if you are married, you are a preacher. Not in the formal or technical sense of someone called to herald the gospel at a particular time and place with your words. But in this equally profound sense: Your life, your marriage, is saying something about the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you are skeptical of that reality, let me direct your attention to Ephesians 5:31-33.
Text
Ephesians 5:31-33’ “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.’
Transition
In these three verses we encounter three realities: a creational basis for marriage, an eternal message in marriage, and practical implications for marriage.
Basis
Verse thirty-one takes us back to some well-worn ground that we have mentioned often: God’s original design for marriage. In the beginning, God created the man: Adam. After giving the man a task, which brought to the man’s attention the unsuitability of all other creatures in creation to be his helper, God put Adam to sleep. And when he awoke, he found that God had done some surgery: taking from his side a rib, and fashioning a bride: this at last! bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh. He called her woman because she was taken out of man.
This original design, this first marriage, became the pattern for all marriages which followed. Paul, here in Ephesians5:31, is directly quoting Genesis 2:24: “Therefore [that is, because of the pattern instituted at the beginning] a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
We’ve talked about the physical part of that one-flesh union last week, as in marriage two bodies truly do unite as one. But this unity is also significant for the fact that it is something new. A man shall leave his father and mother. This is a prerequisite to holding fast to his wife, at least in the proper biblical ordering. The marriage union takes two things which had been separate - the man and the woman - and brings them together. But in doing so, it also means a reordering of other relationships. The man’s position as a son is still present - his parents do not cease to be his parents, and his duty to honor them remains - but it is altered significantly as he takes a wife and establishes a new household. One in which he is not the son looking up to his parents, but the husband and father, responsible for those in his care. He continues to honor father and mother - but he does so primarily (though not exclusively) by taking care of his own household in a God-honoring fashion. He is no longer under the roof and authority of mom and dad. He has left them, and he holds fast to his wife.
There are many in our day who have said things like “the nuclear family is a mistake” or that it’s a recent invention. But the nuclear family, a household centered on the marriage of one man to one woman, is woven into the very fabric of creation itself.
Paul takes this fact as a given. So should we.
Message
But to have that as a given truly isn’t enough. Believing in households, built around the marriage of one man to one woman, as the basic building block of society is a good start. But it doesn’t get you anywhere near the finish line of God-honoring obedience you are intended to cross with your marriage. For that, you need to know the meaning behind marriage. You need to know this, you need to have a why for long-term marital faithfulness, fidelity, and fruitfulness, because marriage is generally a long and hard road. If you are running a marathon, but 8 miles in you forget that you are part of a race, and forget where the finish line is, you’d be in a bad situation. You might give up, or keep running, but off the course. So too with marriage. We need to know the why, we need where the goal of this thing is, if we are to stay on course all the way to the end.
There is a greater reality to which marriage points. And Paul makes this clear in Ephesians 5:32, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” The word mystery is important in New Testament theology. It refers to something hidden or concealed - something which was present in past times, but which could not be fully understood without the more complete revelation we receive from and through Jesus Christ. In the 27 occurrences of this word in the New Testament, over 20 refer in some way to the gospel. Perhaps more significant for understand this passage, six of those occurrence - 22% - come here in the short book of Ephesians alone:
In Eph 1:9-10, we read of God showing his grace by “making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” The mystery was God sending forth Christ in the fullness of time, to unite heaven and earth.
In Eph 3:3-6 the word occurs twice in the Greek text, and is implied once more, which is why you’ll hear the word mystery three times in these four verses, “the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. 4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” In these verses, the mystery is that in the Gospel, Jew and Gentile alike are made partakers of the one salvation through Jesus Christ. And, as in chapter one, the theme is on uniting. But the Union Christ brings is not only vertical (reconciliation with God through Christ) but also horizontal (reconciliation with one another as we are brought to salvation in Jesus).
Just a few verses later, in Eph 3:8-10, we encounter the mystery again: “8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” Here, the mystery refers directly to the gospel of salvation through Jesus alone, the unsearchable riches of Christ of Christ our Savior, and to God’s plan which unfolded over the course of history, not being fully made known until the Son took on flesh and walked the earth, becoming the God Man who died and rose and is now ascended on high. That he came not only for the Jews, but for the Gentiles as well, uniting them in one church, has a purpose: through the church the manifold wisdom of God is made known to rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. That is, through the church, God is saying something to the angels, he’s saying something to the seraphim and the cherubim, he’s saying something to demons, he’s saying something to Satan. God is putting his wisdom on display for them all to see - by saving men and women, boys and girls, from every tribe and tongue and people and language, and making them part of the church, which is the Bride of his Beloved Son. We often think of the gospel as personal good news for needy sinners - and it is. But it is far more than that. It is also a declaration by God of his infinite wisdom above all rulers, authorities, and spiritual powers. The gospel is the power of God on display. The gospel has cosmic ramifications.
This is good news for anyone who will hear and receive it, for any who will bow the knee to Jesus when hearing of who he is and what he has done. Repentant sinners are united by faith to the ruling and reigning King of the Cosmos. So Paul asks the Ephesians in Eph 6:19 to pray for him, “that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.” This message needed to be boldly declared in words, in preaching.
But is that the only way this mystery is proclaimed? Not according to our text in Eph 5:32. Remember, Paul says, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” Mystery, here, is the union of man and woman in marriage. But Paul is saying, though there is truly a mystery in the union of man and wife, there is something indescribable in what one writer has called the mingling of souls, nonetheless, this glory is penultimate: there is a greater glory still, one to which the most glorious human marriage pales in comparison. That glory is the union of Christ and his bride, the church.
This mystery starts to take shape in the Old Testament. There we often find the prophets speaking of God as a bridegroom and the people of Israel as the bride. This often comes up in contexts where God is calling the people to account for their unfaithfulness, their rebellion, and their sin. Sin is characterized throughout the Old Testament canon as a form of spiritual adultery. And, not coincidentally, spiritual adultery often was accompanied and characterized by forms of literal sexual immorality. Cult prostitutes, male and female, were staples of pagan temples. If you’ve ever been confused when reading the Old Testament about all the negative references to high places and under green trees, this is what is going on. Temples or tents of worship were generally set on hills, and in the cool of the shade people would offer wicked worship. And God describes these things not as isolated sins, but as characteristic of what spiritual rebellion is at its very core. It’s whoring after other gods.
But, when we turn to places like the book of Hosea, we find God promising a time when he would turn the hearts of his people back to himself. Though they were faithless, he would be faithful. And his faithfulness would be efficacious, it would create a loveliness in his people which they did not possess on their own.
Hosea 2:16-23: “And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ 17 For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. 18 And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. 19 And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. 20 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD.
21 “And in that day I will answer, declares the LORD,
I will answer the heavens,
and they shall answer the earth,
22 and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer Jezreel,
23 and I will sow her for myself in the land.
And I will have mercy on No Mercy,
and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’;
and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”
God promises in this text to take his rebellious people and remove the idolatry from their mouths. And he would make a covenant with them which did not merely impact them, but would impact all of creation, beasts, birds, and creeping things. Even the ground itself would rejoice with grain, wine, and oil - its produce exceedingly great as the Lord poured out blessing upon his bride. How would God do this? No one could say. It was a mystery. It had seemed earlier in Hosea’s prophecy as if God had perhaps cast off his people forever, calling them “not my people” and saying that he would have “no mercy” on them for a time. But we find from Paul’s letters - in the revelation of the mystery - that when Christ came, he was calling for the lost sheep of Israel, but he was also folding in the Gentiles. The “not my people” were not only rebellious Jews, but all of the nations in rebellion against God. And God would bring salvation to all of them. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. Is this starting to sound familiar? A lot like the mystery revealed in Ephesians?
Friends, in a sense, the whole Bible is the story of a bride - the people of God - wandering away from home. She is rebellious in spirit, decides to do things her own way, and finds herself in a chaotic mess, bound in slavery to her own wicked desires, and trapped there by a terrible dragon. The mystery of the gospel is that God, her creator, does not allow her to stay locked in the deep dungeons of the dragon’s lair and her own heart. Rather, he sends his Son into the wilderness of the world to do battle sin, to overcome both the fiery flames of the dragon, and the unwilling rebelliousness of the bride. And when he conquers the dragon, and wins his bride, he takes her, in the end, brings her home to a great wedding feast which sets the table for an eternity of fruitful joy in knowing One another.
We love fairy tales because they get at something true: when the knight conquers the dragon and brings the princess home, we are seeing the Bible in miniature. We are reading the story of the world.
Friends, your marriage is bigger than you. This story you are a part of is bigger than you. And yet, in God’s wisdom, kindness, and love, he allows us to participate in this most glorious mystery. Not only as believers who are folded into his church, but as preachers: those whose lives have an opportunity to reflect, however dimly, this most glorious reality in all of the cosmos.
Implications
That, then, is the glorious picture of marriage set forth in the Scriptures. What we have is a most wonderful union - one in which our roles as men and women are playing a part: that’s where Paul returns in v33, he says, don’t forget the practical piece here: love and respect. Husbands, you have a job: model what Jesus’ love looks like. Wives, you have a job: respect your husband and the role that he has.
In concluding our series on marriage, I also want to offer a couple of practical ways to hold marriage in high regard, especially as we consider it’s ultimate point: pointing people to the gospel.
First, how should we speak about marriage? Is your speech surrounding marriage characterized by criticism, complaint, or cynicism? Does that rightly reflect the nature of what marriage is for? How could you speak better of your spouse, more highly of marriage? I’m not suggesting you lie - for our speech to be transformed, our mindset will first need to be. Marinate on this passage in Ephesians 5 and consider how the Lord wants your mindset to change, and then ask how that ought to shape your words.
Second, and related: the church should be a bigger proponent of early marriage. Our society devalues marriage by seeing it not as a core institution for society, but as an optional and unneeded accessory in your personal fulfillment project. Evangelical churches have too often been party to this by extolling how wonderful it is to be single. Now, here me clearly: there are benefits to being single. Paul talks about those in 1 Corinthians 7. But those are strategic benefits for doing ministry while single, and he clearly sees long-term singleness as an anomaly.
Don’t buy society’s lies that you’ll be more free and fulfilled alone, or that you need to have all your ducks in a row and be in a perfect place of maturity before marriage. Most people won’t ever get to that place of maturity apart from marriage. If part of what we’re doing in marriage is learning what it means to picture Christ and his church, here is reality: you’ll never be ready for that.
To the younger single people here, from Cade down to Ross, let me be clear: none of this is to say you can’t love and serve the Lord and live a meaningful life while single. All of us are called, for some portion of our life, to do just that. But what I am far more concerned about, in our day, is an attitude that says marriage doesn’t matter, or it can wait for another 5 or 10 or 20 years. Biologically, that’s really not true. Emotionally and spiritually, there’s a real sense in which that isn’t true either. Don’t be desperate, do trust the Lord and his timing. But also don’t be foolish and think spouses just drop out of the sky when the time is right. Marriage is not only a great gift from God, it is a great gift we are to pursue.
Conclusion
We have spent a month and a half now thinking directly about God’s gift of marriage. This is worthwhile, not only because marriage plays such an important role in our earthly lives, but because, as we’ve seen today, marriage has a message. It has a cosmic meaning. And that meaning, that message, is the glory of the union between Christ and the church. As a man is one with his wife, so Christ becomes one with his people. He is the head, and we, the church, are the body of Christ. This union is not simply some abstract theological reality, it is the goal to which all of earthly existence is directed.
In his book, The Household and the War for the Cosmos, pastor C.R. Wiley puts it this way,
[I]n a real way, conjugal marriage is the end of the world. It connects this world to the next, it unites Heaven and earth, and it is a sign that reads, “This is the way the world will end, not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with wedding bells.”
In light of that, I want to finish our consideration of marriage with two texts from the book of Revelation.
Revelation 19:6-9, “6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”
Revelation 21:9-14, 22-23, 9 Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. 12 It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed— 13 on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. 14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb…
22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.
Friends, all of history is moving toward a marriage, and a wedding feast. One day the Bride of the Lord Jesus will be revealed in full splendor - the church, described in Revelation 21 as the New Jerusalem. Fully cleansed and purged of all sin, and then positively beautified to the point where it is clear John is having a hard time describing it in words, the glory is so overwhelming. And the union of Bride and Groom is such that the light of his glory fills, permeates, the city, and all night is driven away. Perfect love has cast out sin and darkness and fear. In the words of Revelation 22:5, “the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”
Loved ones, God has given us the opportunity in our earthly marriages, sinful and momentary though they are, to taste some glimpse of this heavenly reality. More than that, he has given us the opportunity as believers to intentionally order our lives in such a way as to point others to this reality. May our lives - our marriages - so convey the glory of Christ and his love for the church, that our friends and neighbors and families will want to know, “who is this Jesus, and how can I know him?”
Communion Meditation
We’re going to divert from our series of meditations on the creed, and just circle back to Revelation nineteen. There we read, in verse nine, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” Friends, the Lord’s Table is a foretaste of the greatest of wedding feasts. Though at the Table we remember a somber event - the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus in our place for our sins - we do so as believers not only in the cross, but in the empty tomb. The same Lord who died for us rose again and returned to the Father. Having conquered the dragon, he will return one day to take us to the great wedding supper of the Lamb. In communion, we, his Bride, have the opportunity to taste that supper in advance. We remember that we are united to him, the conquering and coming King, and we proclaim his death until he comes. If you do not know the Lord Jesus, let the bread and cup pass by. There is nothing magical in them that will somehow impart spiritual good to you apart from faith in Christ. But for those of you who do know him, welcome to the table. Taste and see - remember, heart and soul - that the Lord is good.
