“Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:31-2)
Praise you, Father, for the marriage you have given me. It is a wondrous gift from your hand, a portrait of an even more wondrous gift from your hand.
Everybody knows what marriage is, right? After all, most people marry at some point; and even if they don’t, they see marriages everywhere they look. In fact, the odds are that they have seen at least one marriage up close, for most people still have lived in a home with married parents. We know marriage.
Or do we?
For all of our familiarity with marriage, most people do not seem to have any inkling of what it really is. Just look at the marriages. Marital dysfunction and divorce are rampant, and I would argue that part of the reason so many marriages are so bad is that people don’t understand what marriage is.
And this ignorance is not limited to the rank and file. Most researchers, psychologists, marriage counselors, sociologists, and therapists likewise don’t know what marriage is, for most of these “experts” completely ignore what Scripture says about marriage. To them, marriage is an entirely earthly affair. It is not rooted in God; it does not reveal anything about God; it participants do not answer to God; indeed, it has nothing to do with God. They rip God out of marriage and then talk as if they understand it. In other words, when it comes to marriage, the blind are leading the blind.
If we want to recover marriage, I’m afraid we need to put God back into it. We need to know why He made it, how He structured it, and what He has to say about it.
So let’s begin.
Marriage is God’s idea. He invented it and He likes it. A lot. Marriage is a holy union that unholy people get to participate in. Sometimes we like to think that marriage is an arrangement designed to meet human needs, but I’m not convinced that is true. I wonder rather if human needs were designed to fit marriage. After all, marriage is a picture of Christ and the church, and we in Christ are His Bride. Through faith all Christians enter into a marriage — the marriage they were made for.
This reality is why marriage is so holy. It reflects the very purpose for which you were made. It is not itself that purpose. It merely reflects it. Thus, a single woman can be completely fulfilled without a husband because she enjoys a greater Husband. And a married woman can experience in marriage an earthly taste of heaven because that is what marriage was designed to be. Our little marriages were meant to point us to a much greater one.
When you begin to see this truth about marriage, you begin to see a template for marriage, and you also see how far we have fallen. Anything that clouds the picture of Christ and the church defiles marriage. An abusive husband defiles the picture of Christ; a self-asserting wife ruins the picture of the church; divorce destroys the picture outright. God meant marriage to be a wondrous blessing, but we have too often turned it into a hell.
We need to restore marriage to its original purpose, but we can’t if we deny that purpose outright. This world wants to improve marriages by improving communication skills or implementing conflict resolution strategies or discouraging behaviors that bring financial strain. All of these things are good, but they go only so deep. Marriage is Christ and the church, not just two people communicating well.
When a husband grabs hold of a good conflict resolution strategy, he may implement it, and it may help; but it is merely a tool he uses, and it touches his heart as a hammer does. But when that same husband begins to see that he represents Christ within a holy union, that vision touches his heart. He wants to love his wife as Christ would. He wants the commitment to his bride that Christ has toward His. That husband will fail to show the perfect love of Christ, but he will also have that perfect love pulling him ever onward. He changes from the inside.
And when a wife sees that she represents the church within a holy union, she forms a desire to honor her husband, to remain with him no matter the cost, and to respect his leadership. She will fail to do these things perfectly, but she will have Christ pulling her ever onward. She changes from the inside.
When marriages fail, they fail from the inside. They do not fail mainly from inadequate relational skills or strategies but from a lack of love and commitment. Good skills and strategies cannot survive a lack of love and commitment, but Christlike love and commitment toward the other will endure poor skills and strategies. Bringing marriage back to Christ brings it to its origin and allows us to build it on a foundation that will last.
Marriage is much more than we think.
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