The Mystery of Marriage
Ephesians 5:31–32
SERMON • For many, marriage is little more than a social contract in which two lovers team up to relentlessly pursue their own pleasure. God, however, designed marriage to be radically God-centered. Marriage exists primarily as a joyful, human picture of the union of Christ and His Church. As such, our marriages must not mimic ever-changing societal norms but echo the eternal love story of Jesus and His Bride.
In his book, Catching Foxes, marriage counselor John Henderson suggests imagining that God offers you a complex, beautiful device, saying, "This treasure is yours to accept or reject. It is designed to be a wonderful blessing to human life, but you have to enjoy it properly. The device explodes if mishandled!" This prompts us to consider whether we would accept or reject such a treasure, given its potential for both good and harm. This analogy, of course, refers to marriage. If we were to accept this treasure, critical questions arise: What is its purpose, how does it work, and what does "explodes when mishandled" mean?
Marriage can lead to the highest highs and lowest lows, blessing or wrecking us and our spouse, depending on our handling. As God is the creator and designer of marriage, we must look to His guidance. We begin by turning to Ephesians chapter 5, specifically verses 31-32.
Paul, in these verses, grounds the meaning and function of marriage in both the first marriage of Adam and Eve and the last marriage of Christ and the church. Verse 31 quotes Genesis 2:24, referring to Adam's marriage to Eve, and verse 32 speaks of Christ’s eternal marriage to His church. To understand Paul's teaching, we consider both these marriages in relation to our own.
Genesis 2:20–24 records the first human marriage. Adam names the animals but finds no suitable helper. God causes Adam to sleep, takes one of his ribs, and creates Eve. Adam recognizes Eve as "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh," leading to the concept of becoming "one flesh." This idea, quoted by Paul in Ephesians 5:31, is central to understanding marriage.
Paul uses the "one flesh" quotation to highlight the significance of the "one flesh union" in marriage. The physical act of God using Adam's rib to create Eve symbolizes the intended unity in marriage. Paul then astonishingly links this first marriage to the ultimate marriage of Christ to His church. He suggests that human marriages are microcosms of this great union, a profound mystery referring to Christ and the church. This perspective forms Paul's main idea in these passages.
Marriage Pictures Our Union with Christ
The "one flesh" reality that God creates every time a man and woman enter into covenant marriage displays, albeit in fallen, fallible ways, the spiritual union of believers to Jesus. Union with Christ is a massive doctrine all over the New Testament and lies at the epicenter of God's grace towards us.
The doctrine of union with Christ refers to the spiritual and mystical union of believers to Jesus Christ and Jesus to those who believe in Him. It is a central theme in the New Testament, mentioned over 200 times in Paul's letters and more than two dozen times in the writings of John. This union is described using phrases like "in Christ," "in the Lord," and "in him." It encompasses various aspects, including believers being found in Christ, preserved in Christ, saved and sanctified in Christ, walking and laboring in Christ, and participating in the reconciling work of Christ for sinners. This union with Christ is made possible by the work of the Holy Spirit, who joins believers to Christ and engrafts them into Christ's spiritual body. It is through this union that we believers receive all of Christ and his saving benefits. The doctrine of union with Christ is essential for understanding the Christian life, from election to justification to sanctification to final glorification.
Notice that Paul calls human marriages picturing this unspeakable reality a "profound mystery" (v.32). What does he mean by "mystery"? By mystery, he does not mean something that is incomprehensible or beyond our ability to understand, although in many ways it is. He simply means, as the word musterion is used in the Greek language, that this glorious truth is something that had been hidden from human knowledge until being fully revealed in the gospel.
Earlier, in Ephesians 3, Paul used the same term "mystery" to refer to the fact that God's plan, from eternity past to include all peoples and nations in his eternal plan of redemption, was not fully revealed until clear revelation was given through Jesus and his apostles. Eph 3:6 reads:
"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." – Ephesians 3:6
And again, in Colossians 1, Paul writes of the same mystery and ties it to our union with Christ:
"The mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." – Colossians 1:26–27
"Christ in you"... Being indwelt with Christ's own Spirit. That is, union with Christ. In other words, for Paul the profound and glorious mystery revealed in the gospel is that believers are being brought into a saving, unbreakable, covenant relationship with Jesus.
And Paul intends for this mystery to radically transform our understanding of the purpose and function of our own marriages. Your marriage is not primarily meant to be a mere male-female contract that grants covenant companionship, though it does that. Your marriage is not primarily meant to be a sacred and stable context in which children are born and raised in fulfillment of the creation mandate, though it is that too. God's ultimate purpose for the union of husband and wife is meant first and foremost to proclaim the love story of redemption, our own eternal one-flesh union with Christ Jesus himself. We see this Christ-church, one-flesh-union terminology several times in Ephesians 5 leading up to our text:
v.25 "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her."
v. 28 "In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself."
vv.29–30 "For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body."
Marriage Involves Three Aspects of One-Flesh Union
The union of marriage involves three aspects of one-flesh union, which is very instructive for all the present and future marriages represented here today.
Spiritual Union
Spiritual union in marriage is the foundation upon which all else is built. If both husband and wife are united to Christ by faith, they can also be profoundly united spiritually to each other. This is why it is so important that we marry "in the Lord," as Paul affirms in 1 Corinthians 7. We must avoid marrying anyone who is not a true believer in Jesus Christ. Regardless of what a love-struck man or woman may avidly profess, to marry someone who is not truly born again and thus united to Christ is to sacrifice this sweetest and most important aspect of oneness in marriage.
Emotional Union
In premarital counseling, we elders use a workbook produced by The Austin Stone church. It very helpfully explains this: "God created people in his image, giving each person a unique capacity to feel and experience a wide range of emotions. Since marriage is a union, marriage must become an emotionally safe place for each spouse to open up their hearts to one another. In the deepest parts of our souls, we long to be accepted and loved. God created marriage to be a place where we can be naked and unashamed before one another, but sin causes us to hide and withhold. Part of the work of marriage is to grow in emotional oneness." – The Austin Stone. Oh, how we must be deliberate to overcome all obstacles of holding back and hiding emotionally from our spouse, and we must labor to be a safe person with whom the other can share their deepest emotions. Emotional intimacy and oneness is a grace that not only sweetens marriage but first and foremost displays our union with Jesus.
Physical Union
When we hear the term "one flesh union," we probably most often think of the sexual aspect of marriage, and for good reason. God created us as sexual beings with sexual desires that God designed to be expressed always and only in the sacred covenant of marriage. The physical "one flesh" union is easily sabotaged. Most often, it happens due to selfish and hurtful words or actions or a general lack of prioritizing the marriage relationship. I remember meeting with a mentor years ago before marriage and him saying, "Tim, I know it's tempting to think that physical intimacy will be the cake. But you'll soon find out the marriage itself is the cake and sex is the proverbial cherry on top. Without spiritual and emotional intimacy being constantly nurtured, the cake withers, the cherry eventually falls off, and you'll be tempted to start looking for it elsewhere." This "withering of the cake," is for many today our story.
Our Marriages Often Distort the Beauty of Our Union with Christ
Here are just a few ways we may be doing this:
Dishonesty: Out of fear or sin, we are dishonest with our spouse. But Jesus is the truth and lives transparently with his bride. We have the passwords to Jesus' iPhone and computer, so to speak. He speaks truth and never gives us any reason to mistrust him.
Neglect: We often begin to take each other for granted and prioritize work, or the kids above our spouse. But Jesus never neglects or abandons His Church. Neglecting your spouse's emotional or physical needs misrepresents Jesus' commitment to us and us to him.
Abuse (Physical, Emotional, or Verbal): Too often husbands and wives actually treat each other worse than they treat others. But Jesus always treats His bride with gentleness and love, and the church (once glorified) will always worship and adore Jesus. Any form of mistreatment or abuse is grievous and contrary to Jesus' nature, words, attitudes, and actions.
Unforgiveness: We too often have desires that turn into demands that turn into judgment that turn into punishments that keep score and retaliate and hold grudges. But Jesus forgives and gives grace freely knowing we are fallen and fallible. Can we not show that same lavish grace to our spouse each and every day Christ shows us?
Manipulation / Control: We often misrepresent our marriage to Christ by being domineering, critical, and manipulative towards our spouse in order to try to get what we want. But Jesus doesn't dominate His bride, he cherishes, nurtures, and guides her for her greatest good; just as the church is called to follow Jesus' lead and do so with a supportive, joyful and affectionate heart.
Adultery: Emotional and physical adultery breaks this covenant of trust and misrepresents the great marriage of which we are a part. But Jesus is faithfully devoted to his bride alone, and the glorified Church is faithfully devoted to Jesus.
Indifference: We too often grow indifferent to our spouse along the twists and turns of life. But Jesus is passionate about His Church and she is passionate about him. Apathy or indifference toward our spouse's well-being or feelings misrepresents His passionate, sacrificial love.
Withholding Affection: Spouses often withhold affection as an act of punishment or mere selfishness. But Jesus' love for the Church is relentless and her joy in him is lavish and complete. We might also mention a lack of confessing sin and asking forgiveness when we wrong each other.
In his book, Sacred Marriage, Gary Thomas puts it this way:
“Couples don’t fall out of love so much as they fall out of repentance."
But, thanks be to God, this isn't the end of our story.
Our Union with Christ Reshapes Our Own Marriages
Ephesians 5:25–27 assures us that our brokenness does not take Jesus by surprise. In fact, his redemptive work is to redeem what we have broken. The scripture says:
"25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish."
He has died on the cross to deliver us from the penalty of our sins, his Spirit has brought us to new spiritual life and is actively beautifying us from the inside out, and God has promised to perfect us just before our wedding day to Jesus.
'Twas with an everlasting love that God his own elect embraced; before he made the worlds above, or earth on her huge columns placed.
Then in the glass of his decrees, Christ and his bride appeared as one; her sin, by imputation, his, whilst she in spotless splendor shone.
O love, how high thy glories swell! How great, immutable, and free! Ten thousand sins, as black as hell, are swallowed up, O love, in thee! — John Kent, ca. 1850
The foundation of Christian spouses showing each other kindness and grace daily, hourly, is not that the other always makes us happy or that our marriage is always all we want it to be.
It’s the fact that we are the troublesome spouse in our marriage with Christ, and he loves us still. He always gives us grace freely, even laying down his life for our salvation and transformation.
The vision the apostle Paul paints is glorious: One day, all who belong to Christ's bride will be changed from corruptible to incorruptible, from decayed to decadent, from sullied to stunning.
And we will all be presented in that final day to Christ dressed in white and beaming with a radiance brighter than the sun, without spot, or wrinkle, when we will stand before him holy and without blemish in love!
Our Marriages Must Model the Complementarity and Oneness of Christ and the Church
In brief, I want to leave us with two vital words based on this reality that our marriage unions are designed by God to reflect and picture the union of Christ and his church: complementarity and oneness. At SMC, the elders hold to a view known as complementarianism. It's a fancy word that means that God calls husbands to function in marriage in ways that mirror Christ's role towards the church: in sacrificial, visionary, sanctifying, tender love. God calls wives to function in marriage in ways that mirror the role of the church in relation to Christ: in joyful, strong, supportive, respectful submission to her husband's leadership.
Why do we say this? Because we're chauvinists? Patriarchal, insecure control-freaks? Simply, no. Because Scripture sets forth this vision for marriage, and this vision mirrors (albeit in fallible and faltering ways) the marriage of Christ and his church. Scripture holds that the roles and responsibilities unique to husbands and wives are not mere culturally-embedded ideals unique to the first century AD, and thus are negotiable ideals we may disregard as passé. Rather, they were designed by God for the first marriage and all subsequent marriages as faint fore-glimpse of the eternal marriage of the Lamb to his church, which will function for all eternity in these very ways. Marriages for all time are meant to mirror Jesus and believers, as depicted by Scripture. Reinventing God's unique plans for husbands and wives acts as if Jesus and the church are interchangeable, that the church may well have sacrificially laid down her life to redeem Jesus and that Jesus is just as called upon to follow the church's lead. More will be said in this score in the next few sermons in this series.
Lastly, oneness. We husbands and wives must strive to foster the profound union we have with Christ by fostering our spiritual, emotional, and physical intimacy. This will involve not just planting and watering the garden of our marriage but weeding the garden of all that threatens any aspect of material oneness: relational laziness, spiritual disconnectedness, emotional stonewalling, infidelity. By God's grace, based upon Christ's relentless love and redemptive action towards us, we can nurture and grow our marriages to more fully display the great marriage for which we have been created and redeemed. ❖
