An Additional PURPOSE of Marriage is,
Illustration
An illustration is something that is used to define or describe a particular point of teaching. Illustrations often use tangible, concrete things to express intangible or abstract ideas. An illustration can be “a sign or symbol of a spiritual reality.”
Pastor John Piper believes that one of the primary purposes of marriage is illustration. He says, “The most ultimate thing we can say about marriage is that it exists for God’s glory. That is, it exists to display God.” Now [after looking at the Ephesians 5 passage] we can see how: Marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant relationship to the church. And therefore, the highest meaning and the ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and His church on display. That is why marriage exists.” His conclusion is marriage is an illustration of Christ and His church.
I introduced this purpose of marriage as an additional or secondary one. In the first part of this study, I gave you what I believe are the biblical reasons to see sanctification as the primary purpose of marriage. But surely, John Piper and others are correct in seeing the covenant relationship as one of the purposes of marriage. Saint Augustine of Hippo who lived in the 4th century AD wrote, “As long as a couple is married, they continue to display – however imperfectly – the ongoing commitment between Christ and His church…”
Discussing this purpose takes us back to Ephesians chapter five where Paul quotes Genesis 2:24. He writes, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” Paul then gives us his interpretation of this in verse 32. “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”
It’s logical to conclude that Paul is saying marriage (the covenant involved in leaving father and mother and being united to a spouse) is patterned after Christ’s covenant commitment to His church. Jesus spoke of this relationship in Matthew 9:15and John 3:29. He refers to Himself as the bridegroom coming for His bride, the church. Paul recognized his own ministry in gathering the bride in Second Corinthians 11:2. “For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, because I promised you in marriage to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.”
Furthermore, it’s critical to our understanding of this purpose to notice that God didn’t create the union of Christ and the church after the pattern of human marriage. Instead, it’s just the opposite. He created human marriage on the pattern of Christ and the church. Paul writes that the mystery of Genesis 2:24, written by Moses, is an illustration of Christ’s relation to His people that has been planned in eternity past.
The love that binds husband and wife together, the love Adam and Eve had before the fall, is a glorious love because it portrays something magnificent, Christ’s love for His people. Marriage is essential, mysterious, and magnificent because it points to something bigger that is also essential, mysterious, and magnificent. According to this purpose of marriage, its greatest function is that it displays something unspeakably great. In other words, “marriage is a vivid, life-size, daily illustration of God’s plan of redemption, Christ’s covenant with His church.”
Dwight Small, author of the book, “Design for Christian Marriage,” concurs with this conclusion and describes it this way; “To the Christian, marriage is the means to the fulfillment of divine ends. The marriage union, like man himself, is designed for the glory of God, and for the exhi...
