“God’s design for marriage in the Bible pictures the husband loving his wife the way Christ loves his people, and the wife responding to her husband the way Christ’s people should respond to him. This picture was in God’s mind when he sent Christ into the world. Christ came for his bride and died for her to display the way marriage was meant to be. God’s idea for marriage preceded the union of Adam and Eve and the coming of Christ. We know this because when Christ’s apostle explained the mystery of marriage, he reached back to the beginning of the Bible and quoted Genesis 2:24, “A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Then in the next sentence he interpreted what he had just quoted: “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31-32).   That means that in God’s mind marriage was designed in the beginning to display Christ’s relationship to his people. The reason marriage is called a “mystery” is that this aim for marriage was not clearly revealed until the coming of Christ. Now we see  that marriage is meant to make Christ’s love for his people more visible in the world.   Since this was in God’s mind from the beginning, it was also in Christ’s mind when he faced death. He knew that among the many effects of his suffering was this: making the deepest meaning of marriage plain. All his sufferings were meant to be a message especially to husbands: This is how every husband should love his wife.  Even though God did not aim, in the beginning, for marriages to be miserable, many are. That’s what sin does. It makes us treat each other badly. Christ suffered and died to change that. Wives have their responsibility in this change. But Christ gives a special   responsibility to husbands. That’s why the Bible says, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).”

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Ephesians 5:25

As I read this I am recalling a a message from Dr. Wayne Grudem on the differences between men and women and why it matters.  Dr. Grudem made it plain that this verse was a pivotal one in the understanding of why men and women were made different yet have equal value and worth.  Like much of the Old Testament, the revelation of Messiah (Christ) was in the form of types and shadows.  Marriage and the union of a man and wife, the Apostle Paul points out, happened to be one of many.  Marriage mirrors God and relationship between the Father, Son and Spirit.  It is meant to show the uniqueness of individuality, the importance of  differences in roles and the joy of unity.  The picture John Piper uses is poignant.  We talk allot about role models in our culture.  Sports icons, politicians, heroes, etc.  Yet, what Paul says here is profound.  Our marriages are images of Christ’s death.  That fact makes marriage more important than just what’s at stake in the relationship between man and woman.

Questions:  Did you realize that marriage is more than just a formality or status but that it serves an eternal purpose?  How will Paul’s description of the purpose of marriage change your relationship with your spouse and children.  If you are not married, how does this fact affect your choice of a mate?

Quote from “The 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die”.

Questions and reflections by me.

Picture – The cross at Mount Erebus, Antarctica, commemorating the 1979 Air New Zealand Crash near Mount Erebus.