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All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you.
Song of Songs 4:7
The creation of the world seems to have been especially for this end, that the eternal Son of God might obtain a spouse towards whom he might fully exercise the infinite benevolence of his nature, and to whom he might, as it were, open and pour forth all that immense fountain of condescension, love, and grace that was in his heart, and that in this way God might be glorified.
Jonathan Edwards[1]
Think back to the last wedding you attended in a church sanctuary. The congregation is attentive, waiting for the wedding party to arrive. Suddenly you know the service will begin because the pastor, groom, and groomsmen move to the front of the sanctuary. The congregation watches expectantly as the bridal attendants walk down the aisle to the strains of organ music. Then the music swells and the sanctuary doors burst open for the first glimpse of the bride. The congregation leaps to its feet and turns to behold the radiant bride.
Until fairly recently, it was customary for the bride to wear a veil covering her face. All eyes are on the bride as her father leads her down the aisle to her beloved groom. The next time you are at a wedding, watch the groom. The moment the doors open and he glimpses his beloved, his eyes fill with breathtaking wonder, love, and devotion.
When the bride and her father reach the groom, the bride’s father lifts her veil, thus fully revealing the bride and groom to each other. Then her father gives her his blessing kiss and puts her hand in the hand of her beloved.
The bride and groom face each other and vow to be your “loving and faithful husband [wife]; in plenty and in want; in joy and in sorrow; in sickness and in health; as long as we both shall live.”[2]
Finally, the minister announces that since they have made their vows to each other in the presence of God and the congregation, “I proclaim that they are now husband and wife.” Repeating Jesus’s words from Scripture, the minister admonishes the congregation and couple, “Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”[3]
After the wedding vows are exchanged, family and friends join the husband and wife in eating together and celebrating their new union. When the celebration ends, the bride and groom leave to consummate their one-flesh union and live together until death alone parts them.
Each marriage of a man and a woman is an image of Christ joining himself to his bride, the church, forever. It is the Father who gives the bride to his Son.[4] Therefore, the Father leads the bride to her waiting groom.[5] It is the church, the radiant bride, who expectantly looks up to see her beloved groom and exclaims, “I belong to my lover, and his desire is for me.”[6] It is the Father who lifts the veil from the bride’s face so that she can see her beloved not dimly but “face to face.”[7] It is the groom, Christ, who whispers to her as she arrives and takes his hand, “All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you.”[8]
At the wedding of Christ and the church: “[His] bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean was given her to wear.”[9] Christ fulfills the vows first made in his betrothal to Israel. He vows to his bride to love her, to provide for all her needs, to give her the gift of children, to dwell with her forever––the Ten Commandments. Out of love and devotion to her beloved, the bride responds to his promises with her commitment of faithfulness and agrees to live in light of his promises. The Ten Commandments are still in effect, now written on the bride’s heart.
The wedding is followed by the wedding feast described in Revelation.[10] Through the marriage union, Christ and his bride are joined together and made one flesh. They dwell together in perfect joy, know each other fully, and “reign [together] forever and ever.”[11]
The marriage of Christ to the church is the greatest love story ever lived. It is a union of the perfect divine One and the once-sinful human church. It is a love that is so powerful it transforms the bride so that she becomes radiant and holy, and reigns with Christ forever.
The marriage of a man and woman images Christ’s marriage to the church. This also means that the reality of Christ’s marriage union with the church shapes what our human marriages ought to be and do. The reality is greater than the image, but nevertheless the image points to the reality.
Our Identity Flows from Our Union with Christ
As members of the church, we are part of the Body of Christ––the Bride of Christ––and that defines who we are. We are not autonomous beings. We are destined to be fully united in a face-to-face one-flesh union with the living God and dwell with him forever. Even now, through the “earnest” of the Holy Spirit, he lives in us and we in him as a guarantee of the fullness that is to come. Because of our union with Christ, we have been taken up into the love that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have for each other. We are not individuals alone in the universe. We are a new entity. We are no longer two but one—Christ and the Church. What God has joined, let no man separate.
We are not defined fundamentally by our career, our accomplishments, or our human relationships. We are defined foremost by our relationship with Jesus Christ. Our human marriage, our role as mother, father, daughter, son, our career—every aspect of our lives––is subject to our union with Christ.
The marriage of a man and a woman also results in a new creation, for two separate individuals have become one through the power of God. The bride is no longer an autonomous individual alone in the world. Her identity is in relation to her husband, “the wife of John” and similarly, John is defined in relation to his wife, “the husband of Nancy.” The husband and wife come together in a conjugal union as a physical expression of their oneness that has the potential to create a new life. This is not a loss of identity but a new, willingly chosen identity. Husband and wife receive and give love in a relationship of promises and commitments that remains until death parts them.
We Are Not Alone
The Father loves us so much, he gave us to his Son in marriage. Christ loves us so much, he gave his life to demonstrate his love, to pay the penalty for our sin, and to make us holy. Many people feel alone today. Fractured families, job mobility, and just being busy and overextended, means that people often feel alone.
No one in the church, however, is alone, ever. Not only do we have brothers and sisters in local churches and around the world, but also we are loved and cared for by Christ as “his own body.”[12] We speak and he is there. We mourn and he comforts us. We are weak and he carries us. We are vulnerable and he covers us with his banner of love.[13] We are hungry and he feeds us. We are wounded and he heals us. We are frightened and he speaks into the darkness. We ask for direction and he guides our steps. We stumble in the dark and he speaks in a still small voice. We are not alone.
In marriage, husband and wife are not alone, either. They are an image of God’s tender care for his bride when they comfort and care for one another. The statement describing the Gift of Marriage from the Book of Common Worship, includes the following:
God created us male and female, and gave us marriage so that husband and wife may help and comfort each other, living faithfully together in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, throughout all their days.
Our Lives Have Meaning and Purpose
Our lives have meaning and purpose because of our union with Christ. If we believe we are autonomous human beings, then the only purpose our life has is the purpose we assign it, and that purpose must be limited because we are temporal. Usually the purpose is to acquire more material possessions, to live comfortably, to find challenging work, and to love and be loved by another person. Deep in our heart, however, we know, that all of that is meaningless in light of eternity. The author of Ecclesiastes looks for meaning in his work, in study and wisdom, in pleasure, in relationships, and in wealth. His conclusion is that “everything is meaningless” because all of it is temporary. The author recognizes that we were created for eternity, for “he [the LORD] has set eternity in the hearts of men.”[14] Nothing on this earth can ultimately satisfy our desire for meaning and purpose.
Christ and all who belong to him have an eternal purpose “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”[15] We glorify God when we live in joyful union with him and praise his Name for who he is and what he has done. The elders in Revelation fall down before the throne of God and worship him:
They lay their crowns before the throne and sing:
“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things and by your will they were created and have their being.”[16]
Tens of thousands of angels, living creatures, and elders sing: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”[17]
Then the promise in Philippians 2 is fulfilled, that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”[18] John sees and hears the fulfillment:
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power for ever and every!”[19]
The chief purpose or fulfillment of man and woman is to know God fully, praise him for who he is, enjoy our wondrous relationship, and therefore bring glory and honor to his name.
We Have an Eternal Mission
Because of our union with Christ, we are part of his great enterprise to claim the world for himself. Our work, our study, our relationships, our wealth are from him and for him. Our mission is to bring others to Christ. Jesus explains this when he commands his disciples to “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”[20] Having experienced the love of Christ, we want that love to overflow and touch others. We want to introduce him to others who do not know him and his love. We want to help care for those who are part of the church—his bride. Some have said that we are Christ’s hands and feet in the world—reaching out with his love and care to a hurting world.
We want others to know the love of Christ and be welcomed into his church. Jesus gives us a glimpse of that purpose when he prays to the Father the night before he is crucified:
As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. …My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message…. [21]
The marriage of a man and a woman is part of this eternal purpose and mission—to glorify God and to make disciples. God did not design human marriage haphazardly or randomly, but as an intentional image of Christ’s union with the church. Human marriage is a flawed, imperfect image of the true divine marriage between Christ and the church. Human marriage is mortal and Christ’s relationship with the church is immortal. Human marriage is marred by sin and Christ’s relationship with the church is perfect. Yet, even in its imperfection, God uses human marriage as a signpost pointing to the perfect divine relationship in which we find our fulfillment and through which others come to know the living God.
We Live Our Lives In Light of His Promises
The Ten Commandments describe our response to this divine marriage of joy and abundance. We no longer live according to our sinful nature, which Paul describes as committing acts of: “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.”[22]
Instead, we have a new heart devoted to Christ that is increasingly filled with the fruit of his Spirit, which is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”[23] Christ’s life is united with ours and flows through us.
All life belongs to Christ: “All things were created by him and for him.”[24] He knew us and chose us “before the creation of the world.”[25] Therefore, we give thanks for the gift of our lives and the days he has given us. And we thank him for the gift of children and seek to care for them as his own beloved children. In every circumstance, we rejoice because Christ is with us and in us. He is faithful and his promises are true.
Our view of the world is seen through the eyes of our beloved. We know that our greatest joy and highest fulfillment comes from responding to our beloved. All of our earthly relationships and possessions are part of his great purpose.
Our Self-giving Love Images Christ’s Love
Christ’s love for his bride, the church, is self-giving love. He withheld nothing from her, even giving his own life for her. Self-giving love says more about the lover than the loved. That is true in the great passage on love from Corinthians that says a lot about the lover and nothing about the one loved. Paul describes this self-giving love:
Love is patient, love is kind…. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.[26]
Christ’s love does not make the church an object or tool to satisfy his needs. Christ is perfectly complete within the Trinity. His desire is to bring the church into the love relationship that exists between the members of the Trinity. By being united with Christ, the Son, the church is lifted up into the great love that the members of the Trinity have for each other: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This self-giving love transforms the church into the bride she was created to be. Sin now hides her beauty. It is as if she is a bride with dirt all over her face; her dress is torn and tattered, and she is angry and uncertain. She is filled with shame and guilt that causes her to hide from herself, other people, and God. Christ loves her so much he washes her, removes every spot and wrinkle and as the glorious, majestic, loving King of kings and Lord of lords, he unites himself to this beautiful bride. Christ left his Father and joined himself to his bride and the two will become one flesh.[27] Peter reminds the church, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree …by his wounds you have been healed.”[28]
This is the love that a man and a woman are to give each other in marriage. Author Dennis Kinlaw observes, “Biblically, marriage is the union of a man and a woman in such self-giving love that they share a name, their bodies, their possessions, their vocation, their common life—their total selves.”[29] While one can share possessions and vocation and other aspects of life, only in marriage can a man and a woman share their bodies in total self-giving.
May our marriages image the self-giving love of Christ for his church.
The Marriage Union Results in Children
The marriage union of Christ and the church results in children of God. John writes, “To all who receive him [Christ], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God––children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”[30] God has given the Word and sacraments to the church to proclaim his love. Therefore, these children of God are conceived, given birth, and nurtured at the breast of their mother, the church. Reformer John Calvin explains:
[T]he church, into whose bosom God is pleased to gather his sons, not only that they may be nourished by her help and ministry as long as they are infants and children, but also that they may be guided by her motherly care until they mature and at last reach the goal of faith. “For what God has joined together, it is not lawful to put asunder” [Mark 10:9 p.], so that for those to whom he is Father the church may also be Mother.[31]
Calvin also quotes early church father Cyprian who said, “You cannot have God for your Father unless you have the church for your Mother.”[32] Christ’s last words to his disciples in Matthew’s gospel are to go and bear children of God. He tells his followers, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”[33]
It is the church that reaches out to the lost world to birth new children of God. Often it is at great sacrifice to the church’s own life. On February 12, 2015, twenty-one Coptic Christians were killed by ISIS forces in Libya because they confessed Christ. The news media report church buildings in the Middle East being burned or used for torture chambers or stables. More Christians died for their faith in the twentieth-century than all other centuries combined.[34] According to the Pew Forum, Christians face persecution today in 133 countries, which is 2/3 of the nations on earth.[35] Each year 150,000 Christians are killed for their faith, according to the Catholic relief agency, “Aid to the Church in Need” and the evangelical group “Open Doors.”[36] The church demonstrates self-giving love when she continues to exalt Christ and bear his children even at the cost of her own life.
In the marriage of a man and a woman, their self-giving love results in the birth and nurture of children. Parents’ self-giving love for their children results in their willing sacrifices for their children: the sacrifice of time, resources, and emotions.
Elizabeth Santorum tells the story of her sister Bella, who was born in 2008 with a genetic disorder and has an extra 18th chromosome. Children with “Trisomy 18” often do not survive birth, and 90 percent die before their first birthday. Therefore, doctors encouraged mother and father, Rick and Karen, to “just let her go” rather than seek life-saving medical procedures. Some doctors advised them, “Don’t grow attached to the baby. It’s for the best.” But they would not withhold their love. Elizabeth writes that Bella taught her that “the highest form of love is self-giving and chooses the beloved even when it proves difficult.”[37] Bella is now 9 years old, a precious member of a family that surrounds her with love.
Marriage Fulfills God’s Reconciling Love
Sin severed the intimate relationship between humanity and God in Genesis 3. Suddenly man and woman no longer walked with God in the cool of the garden, but instead hid from him. Their guilt and shame caused them to recoil from a holy God.
God’s restoration of what was lost in the Fall is not merely to once again walk together. God’s plan in the marriage union of Christ and the church is to be united with his bride in a one-flesh union. She is now his very body. At the consummation of the marriage, Christ will not just walk in fellowship with his bride, Christ will lift her up into the perfect life, love, and eternal being of the Triune God.
Scripture assures us that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”[38] Christ paid the price for our sin. That is called “justification.” Christ sent his Spirit to give us new hearts so that we no longer desire to sin. That is called “sanctification.” But human beings are still “other”––still outside and apart from God––creature and Creator. It is only when Christ joins himself to us in marriage that we enter into his life––that we are united to him, inseparable from him.
The Westminster Confession of Faith explains that Christ’s two natures––man and God––remain distinct and yet are “inseparably joined.”
The two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.[39]
The union between Christ and his church may be described in similar terms: “inseparably joined, without conversion, composition, or confusion.” In the union of Christ and the church, the church does not become divine. The natures remain distinct, just as they do in human marriage. There is a union, a oneness, but the distinction remains.
Men and Women are Reconciled
The relationship between man and woman was also affected by the Fall. Rather than being united, they were separated by blame and hostility. Instead of being completely vulnerable with one another––physically, emotionally, and spiritually––they now hide. Their physical vulnerability is hidden behind fig leaves. Their emotional vulnerability is hidden behind blame. And their spiritual vulnerability results in their hiding from God.
In marriage, God helps Christian men and women to overcome the hostility and brokenness resulting from the Fall. Through the one-flesh union of marriage, in the power of the Holy Spirit, man and woman begin to experience the reconciliation between men and women that God offers. Only in marriage do a man and woman give themselves totally to the other. A man is to love his wife as he does his own body. He is to cherish and care for her as he does his own body. He is to give his life for her as Christ did for the church. And the wife is to respond to such a great love with her own love and devotion.
Early church father, John Chrysostom, encourages husbands to express their ardent love and unity by telling their wives:
I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for us. … I place your love above all things, and nothing would be more bitter or painful to me than to be of a different mind than you.[40]
Sacraments Are a Visible Sign of An Invisible Truth
Protestant churches have two sacraments: baptism and communion. These sacraments are a visible sign and seal of the invisible truth of Christ’s marriage union with the Church. The traditional meaning of baptism is a sign and seal of the washing away of our sins, our dying and rising with Christ, and our being received into his kingdom. That is true. However, in the context of marriage, baptism may be understood as the bride’s ritual bath before her wedding.[41] In New Testament times, the bride typically had this ritual bath just before her wedding.[42] Believers and children of believers are washed by Christ in preparation for being united to him as members of the Bride, the church. Indeed Paul writes that “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word…”[43] (emphasis added).
The sacrament of communion is also related to marriage. We often interpret communion as a sign and seal of Christ’s forgiveness, communing together with Christ and other believers as a foretaste of eating together in his Kingdom, and spiritually nourishing us with his own body. Those explanations are true. But, there is more. A man and woman reaffirm their marriage union each time they give their bodies to the other. Therefore, when Jesus told his disciples, “this is my body given for you,” he meant more than just his dying on the cross. He gave his body totally to his bride. He gave his body even unto death in order to give her life. He did it out of sacrificial, self-giving love.
Author Christopher West tells the story of his father-in-law’s reaction to receiving communion the day after his wedding, having consummated the marriage the night before. He wept. When his new bride asked the reason for his tears, he said, “For the first time in my life I understood the meaning of Christ’s words, ‘This is my body given for you.’”[44]
Out of his great self-giving love, Jesus tenderly tells his bride, the church, “This is my body given for you.”
Conclusion
God created man and woman so that their marriage would be an image pointing to Christ’s marriage union with the church. God created man and woman in his image in Genesis 1: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”[45] But, it is not just as individual human beings that we are created in the image of God. There is more. God ordained the marriage union between a man and a woman to be an image of Christ’s marriage union with the church. In instituting marriage, God announces in Genesis 2, “for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh.“ West asks, “For what reason?” and he answers, ”To reveal, proclaim, and anticipate the union of Christ and the church.”[46] Pastor Tim Keller explains it this way: “Marriage is God’s gift to the church. Through Christian marriages, the story of the gospel––of sin, grace, and restoration––can be seen and heard both inside the church and out in the world. Christian marriages proclaim the gospel.”[47]
Scripture begins and ends with marriage. It begins with the first marriage of a man and a woman, which is marred by sin, and it ends with Christ’s marriage to the church, without blemish, spot, or wrinkle. God’s pur-pose in the creation of the world, as eighteenth-century pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards explains, is to gain a bride for Christ so that he might pour out his boundless love on her and thus bring glory to God:
The creation of the world seems to have been especially for this end, that the eternal Son of God might obtain a spouse towards whom he might fully exercise the infinite benevolence of his nature, and to whom he might, as it were, open and pour forth all that immense fountain of condescension, love, and grace that was in his heart, and that in this way God might be glorified.[48]
Our marriages have an eternal, holy purpose: to make the love of God known and bring glory to God. May our marriages reveal and proclaim the union of Christ and his church. May they reflect to the world his selfless love for his bride. May we grasp with new hearts the depth of Christ’s love for us. May we respond to so great a love with hymn writer Isaac Watts’ words:
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.[49]
From Susan A. Cyre, From Genesis to Revelation: God Takes a Bride (New York: Cage Publishing, 2019), 262–278. Used with permission.
[1] Jonathan Edwards, sermon September 19, 1746, “The Church’s Marriage to Her Sons, and to Her God,” www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=article&aid=3426.
[2] Book of Common Worship, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), 116.
[3] Matthew 19:6.
[4] John 17:2, 6, 9.
[5] Praying to the Father, Jesus says, “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me …” John 17:6.
[6] Song of Songs 7:10.
[7] 1 Corinthians 13:12.
[8] Song of Songs 4:7.
[9] Revelation 19:7–8.
[10] Revelation 19:9, “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!”
[11] Revelation 22:5.
[12] Ephesians 5:29.
[13] Song of Songs 2:4.
[14] Ecclesiastes 3:11.
[15]Book of Confessions, (Louisville: Office of General Assembly (PCUSA), 1999), Westminster Shorter Catechism, 7001.
[16] Revelation 4:10–11.
[17] Revelation 5:12.
[18] Philippians 2:10–11.
[19] Revelation 5:13.
[20] Matthew 28:19.
[21] John 17:18, 20.
[22] Galatians 5:19–21.
[23] Galatians 5:22–23.
[24] Colossians 1:16.
[25] Ephesians 1:4.
[26] 1 Corinthians 13:4–8.
[27] Genesis 2:24, Ephesians 5:31–32.
[28] 1 Peter 2:24.
[29] Kinlaw, Kindle location 1031–1037.
[30] John 1:12–13.
[31] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, Translated Ford Lewis Battles, (Philadelphia, Westminster Press, MCMLX), 4.1.1.
[32] Ibid, footnote 3.
[33] Matthew 28:19–20.
[34] “Christian Persecution Statistic” July 27, 2010, http://www.examiner.com/article/christian-persecution-statistics.
[35] “Persecution kills 150,000 Christians every year, September 12, 2012, http://www.ucanews.com/news/persecution-kills-150000-christians-every-year/60090. UCANews.com is “Asia’s most trusted Independent Catholic News Source.”
[36] Ibid.
[37] “Bella Santorum’s Gift” by Kathryn Jean Lopez, Feb 16, 2015, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/398660/bella-santorums-gift-kathryn-jean-lopez.
[38] Romans 5:8.
[39] Book of Confessions (Louisville: Office of General Assembly, 1999), The Westminster Confession, 6.044.
[40] Catechism of the Catholic Church, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, (Boston: St. Paul Books and Media), 2365. Original reference: St. John Chrysostom, Hom. in Eph. 20, 8: 62, 146–147.
[41] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1617.
[42] West, Theology of the Body, 86.
[43] Ephesians 5:26.
[44] Christopher West, Theology of the Body for Beginners: A Basic Introduction to Pope John Paul II’s Sexual Revolution, (West Chester: Ascension Press, 2004), 10.
[45] Genesis 1:27.
[46] West, 122.
[47] Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, (New York: Dutton, 2011), 218.
[48] Edwards.
[49] Isaac Watts, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” Celebration Hymnal, (Word Music, 1997), 321.
