Your Marriage Is a Subplot within God’s Story of Redemption
WEDDING SERMON • Human marriages are sacred subplots within God's grand Story of Redemption, finite stories given context and meaning by four master plotlines of the biblical metanarrative: (1) the cultural mandate, (2) the curse on mankind, (3) the conquest of Messiah, and (4) the consummation of Christ’s marriage at the end of time.
12 min
Of Plots and Subplots
I want you to think of your new life together as a masterful story being written day by day, moment by sacred moment. But what makes your story so "masterful" is that it's part of God's Story—the grand Story of Redemption that God himself is writing into human history. Your wedding is not only a new chapter in your lives but, more importantly, the opening of a new subplot within the greatest Story ever told.
Theologian John Calvin aptly described the whole world as a "theatre" of the glory of God, created to display His goodness, wisdom, justice, and power.
This makes you characters in the divine drama, your life scripts being written by God's own hand.
Whether we're talking about "The Pilgrim's Progress," "Pride and Prejudice," or "The Lord of the Rings," great stories are driven by overarching plotlines that grip the imagination and give context and meaning to the many subplots woven throughout.
There are at least four such plotlines in God's Story that should shape your understanding and experience of the subplot of your marriage.
Plotline 1. The Cultural Mandate: Your Marriage Has a Mission to Fulfill
In the beginning, God created a vast universe and our tiny planet, where He placed the first-ever man and woman. Being created in God's own image and likeness, Adam and Eve received what's often called the Cultural Mandate, which we find spoken in Genesis 1:28–31.
It says, "And God blessed them. And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion. . .. And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good."
The Cultural Mandate was the divine commission that established humanity's role as stewards of creation in God's stead. God instructed humans to multiply and exercise godly dominion over creation—cultivating life in ways that reflect His own authority, morality, and relationality.
And as a married couple, you, too, are given the mission to multiply and rule over part of creation as vicegerents—or stewards—of God that reflect and enjoy the character and glory of your Creator as you bring order out of chaos and labor to build a home that, above all, pleases God.
You must never forget that your marriage has a divine mission. Your mission is not to form each other in your own image for your own pleasure but to image forth your Creator and see the image of Christ take shape in your life and in the lives of those around you.
Plotline 2. The Curse on Mankind: Your Marriage Has a War to Wage
As you well know, the Story didn't end with marriage in paradise. Our forebearers didn't remain long in their state of innocence. But at the prompting of the Serpent—the archenemy of God and man—they rebelled against God, doubted His wise designs, and transgressed His command.
In so doing, the first couple exchanged their stewardship under God's rule for self-rule and selfish desire. So, God kept his Word and pronounced the Curse on Mankind.
The Curse upon Women
To the fallen woman, God said:
"I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you" (Gen. 3:16).
Corresponding exactly to the Cultural Mandate, this aspect of the curse ensured a disruption to the task of fruitful multiplying—both in the forms of (1) pain in childbearing and (2) disordered marriages.
You must realize that you will live out your marriage in a spiritual war zone—not against each other but against the unholy trinity of the world, the flesh, and the Devil:
The world system of fallen beliefs and desires,
The fallen flesh that resides within each of us and seeks to sabotage our walks with God and each other,
The Devil, the Evil One, the god of this world, the spirit that is now at work in those outside of Christ.
The Curse upon Men
Furthermore, to the man, Adam, who had failed to protect his bride from the serpent, God said:
"Because you have listened to the voice of your wife by eating of the tree of which I commanded you ('You shall not eat of it') cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Gen. 3:17).
We see that this aspect of the Curse also corresponds exactly to the Cultural Mandate by promising a disruption to the tasks of ruling over creation, living in harmony with it, and benefitting from it, experienced now in (1) painful toil, (2) a disordered ecology, and (3) the certainty of death.
In light of this curse on mankind, you have a war to wage against the temptation to doubt God's goodness when life gets really hard, to complain, grow bitter, or even quit when you face the sting of the curse from within and without. Today, you are jumping into a foxhole together, and are committing to kill sin… and not each other!
Plotline 3. The Conquest of Messiah: Your Marriage Has a Love Story to Display
In God's boundless mercy and grace, the Story didn't end with the curse either! On that gloomy day in the garden, God sent a ray of promise beaming through the trees in the Protoevangelion, the "first gospel," which we see in His curse upon the serpent in Genesis 3:15.
"To the serpent, God said, 'I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.'"
True to His promise, in the fullness of time, God sent His own Son—incarnate deity—to redeem his long-lost bride from the curse of sin and death. Jesus Christ, born of a woman, was this long-awaited Conquering Messiah, the Promised Seed, the Serpent-Crusher. And just as the first sin and curse happened by partaking of a forbidden tree, so Scripture tells us:
"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree'" (Gal. 3:13).
Dying as our substitute to bring us to God, Christ suffered the ultimate penalty for the sins of rebels like you and me, who, by grace and through faith, turn back to God from self-rule to righteous, image-bearing life through God's indwelling Spirit.
Marriage’s Deeper Meaning
But it's here also that God reveals the deeper meaning of human marriage, not merely as a pragmatic partnership to fulfill the Cultural Mandate but as a breathtaking display of the redemptive love of Jesus for his bride, the church, as the Apostle Paul assures us in Ephesians chapter five.
Your commission as a husband is to display the loving, sacrificial, sanctifying leadership of Christ to the church.
Your commission as a wife is to display the reverent, confident, and co-laboring followership of the church to Christ.
Surely, in the gloomy days that will sometimes come in your marriage, this redemptive plotline can assure you that your conquering messiah will defeat every foe and redeem you from this warzone of the bondage of corruption in which your marriage is now entrenched.
Every time you (1) forgive and ask forgiveness of each other, (2) believe the best about each other, (3) thank each other, (4) pray for each other, (5) encourage each other, (6) celebrate God's goodness with each other, and (7) move toward each other in love and respect, you display the love of Jesus and his bride.
Plotline 4. The Consummation of Christ's Marriage: Your Marriage Has a Hope to Embrace
Amidst the tension and conflict of the Fall and the cross, the Story of Redemption reaches glorious resolution in the Consummation of the Marriage between Christ and His covenant people, which we read about at the very end of the Bible. Significantly, Scripture begins with a marriage… and ends with a marriage.
Revelation 19:6–8 narrates, "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. 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; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure'—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints."
The beautiful white dress you wear now is but a glimmer of the spotless glory that we who have put our trust in Jesus will wear on that wedding day for which all days are made.
The Hope of Charles & Susie Spurgeon
Many of us are familiar with Charles Spurgeon, the renowned Baptist preacher in the 1800s. But fewer of us know as much about his marriage to his wife, Susannah.
Susannah's first 35 years and early marriage were full of health and adventure. She loved outdoor walks; she traveled to Paris numerous times, learning the language and culture, and she was educated in music and art. But her active lifestyle abruptly ended when, after the birth of their twin sons, she suffered a medical condition, leaving her mostly homebound for the rest of her life.
And Charles also struggled—with depression, anxiety, and intense public criticism, and he depended greatly on Susannah's love and support. He once wrote to her:
"My Own Dear one: None know how grateful I am to God for you. In all I have ever done for Him, you have a large share. . .. I have served the Lord far more, and never less, for your sweet companionship. The Lord God Almighty bless you now and forever!"
How, we might wonder, could their severe trials draw them closer to each other rather than apart? The same way you two can endure the challenges that lie ahead of you. In part, they embraced the hope of their future marriage to Christ in a renewed Creation. About that wedding day, Spurgeon once preached,
"We who have believed in Christ have the absolute certainty that we shall one day stand in the midst of the splendor of Christ's wedding feast. . .. What hallelujahs will [we] raise to him; and oh, with what delight will he look upon all his people . . .. Once there, every pain and tear and fear will have gone forever; that will be a glorious wedding feast indeed."
Your marriage today is a hope-embracing preview of that great union to come when Christ weds us as His Church in glory everlasting.
And so, my prayer is for you: From this day forward, may you faithfully and joyfully (1) fulfill your mission, (2) wage your war, (3) display Christ's love Story, and (4) embrace hope in Christ as a beautiful subplot within God's grand Story of Redemption. ❖
