Marriage and Jesus Christ

The sermon in church today revolved around marriage.  It caused me to think about how fantastic marriage is.  Not because of the value people place on it, but because it is a clear covenant of the relationship between us and God.  Matthew 22 describes the kingdom of heaven as a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.  The union spoken of is the relationship between the church and Christ.  In that relationship, Christ is perfectly masculine and the church, purely feminine.  That is not to say Christ is manly and the church female, but rather the masculine and feminine are eternal and permanent adjectives while the others are temporal.  C.S. Lewis describes this vital difference in "That Hideous Strength."  "The male you could have escaped," writes Lewis, "for it exists only at the biological level.  But the masculine none of us can escape.  What is above and beyond all is so masculine that we are all feminine in relation to it."  


Marriage reflects the relation of the masculine and feminine.  Husbands are told to "provide for his own, and especially for those of his household," 1 Timothy 5:8.  This reflects Christ providence for us.  On Him we depend for all things.  Scripture also commands "Husbands to love [their] wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, " Ephesians 5:25.  In this way, marriage symbolizes Christ as our head, just as the husband is the head of the household, and the church as the bride submitting and respecting Christ, just as the wife does before her husband.


Since Adam and Eve, God has blessed us with His gift of Marriage.  The earthly physical marriage is merely a reflection, a representation of that which is far greater than our understanding, but also far greater than our highest hopes.  Dr. Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary said this of marriage:  "In so many beautiful ways, marriage points to the very character of God."  In our modern society marriage is being attacked and forgotten.  This is ultimately an attack on the church and Christ, as marriage itself sets an example of the future togetherness of us with our Saviour.




Lewis, C.S. "That Hideous Strength." New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1996.

Mohler, Albert. The Case for (Early) Marriage. Monday, August 3, 2009.