When we open the Bible and start reading, we first learn about God’s creation of everything, including Adam and Eve. Then immediately, we come across the wedding between Adam and Eve. If we continue reading to the last page, we find another wedding, this time between Jesus Christ, the Groom, and the church, the bride. Between these two marriages, the story revolves around how One Man loves one woman and does everything, including sacrificing His life, to make the woman He loves His own.
Paul writes: –
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself” Ephesians 5:25-27a NKJV
Did you see it?
“He might present her to Himself.”
And Jesus prayed on behalf of His Disciples to His Father this way,
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that THEY ALSO MAY BE IN US, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” John 17:20-21 ESV (capitalization is added)
Did you see it?
“they also may be in us”
At the beginning of all things, God created an institution as a precise temporary template for the end of all things. This institution was the marriage between Adam and Eve that reflects the only true and eternal marriage of God with His people, God being one with His people. This theme runs through all the Books of the Bible. If this is the case, we can rightly say that the Bible is the love story of God and the woman He chose for Himself, the church.
Now think about it. The marriage of one man and one woman on earth is actually a shadow of the real marriage that is yet to come. Marriage on this earth is reserved only for this life, and married couples here on earth will not remain married in heaven. The purpose of their earthly marriage ends when they die. The main purpose of their earthly marriage is like running an ad for the yet to come real and lasting marriage of Christ and the church. This eternal marriage is the only hope there is for humanity.
The Creator and Owner of this universe and this life made everything for His glory—no other reason! Since God created marriage between one man and one woman, this institution was also made for the glory of God. When people in this institution live their married life according to the word of God, they are agreeing with God to glorify Him. This agreement with God brings them peace, joy, pleasure, rest, contentment, and more. That is why we say God put a life of shalom in His glory. Outside of His glory, there is only pain, destruction, and death.
Furthermore, God didn’t just say, “Glorify Me”; He also told us how we can glorify Him.
(By the way, only Christians, those whom God draws to Jesus Christ (John 6:44-51), can glorify God. No one else! Why? The human race has fallen into sin through Adam and lives in sin and death. Unless God saves each one of us in Christ, we remain blind, deaf, mute, and dead to the things of God, and dead people cannot glorify God (Romans 8:5-14). This is crucial! If you are not a Christian and want to be one, all you have to do this: Call to the Lord Jesus Christ to save you. The word of God says, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10:13 ESV)
And God can only be glorified by His Spirit. Just imagine, among the human race, who can bring enough glory that measures up to God? No one!
Christians, who are a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), glorify God because once they come to Christ, God makes them the temple of His Spirit. When we say “His Spirit,” we refer to the Holy Spirit, and God’s Spirit can only be found in God’s word. Nowhere else!
Jesus said this to His disciples,
“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” John 6:63 KJV
Did you see it?
At this point, someone might ask, “Okay, I understand. But how can I glorify God in His word and spirit?”
Christians glorify their God, Lord and Savior by giving themselves to the obedience of God’s word.
So, in the context of marriage between one man and one woman, both husband and wife strive to understand and fulfill their individual God-given calls, not according to their own preferences, but according to the word of God.
Let’s briefly examine their individual calls according to the word of God:
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.” Ephesians 5:22 KJV
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;” Ephesians 5:25 KJV
A wife cannot submit to her husband unless she first knows how to submit to the Lord. Her submission to the Lord mirrors her submission to her husband. If seeking God in prayer and reading, studying, and meditating on the word of God are the last on a wife’s priority list, she ends up despising and disrespecting her husband because that is her (or, every woman’s) default, cursed nature apart from the Spirit of God and the word of God.
The same applies to the husband. Unless he understands how much he is loved by Christ and what Jesus Christ has done for him on the cross to make him a child of God, it is impossible for him to love his wife as Christ loved the Church. This truth is not a one-time revelation for him to read and declare, “Amen! I got it now!” It is a truth he must grow with in his daily life as he reads, studies, and meditates on the word of God and commits himself to the obedience of God’s word.
For example, consider the love of God. Can a man truly understand how much God loves him just by hearing a sermon or two or reading this truth in the Bible once? Impossible! Why?
Listen: –
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through HIS SPIRIT in your inner being, SO THAT Christ may DWELL in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to COMPREHEND with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to KNOW THE LOVE OF CHRIST that SURPASES KNOWLEDGE, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:14-19 ESV (capitalization is added)
Think about it. How can a man truly understand this huge love, the love of God for him, from one experience or hearing one sermon? He cannot! But as he abides in the word of God, he slowly but surely begins to see how sinful and unlovable he is, yet how God in Christ Jesus loved him and still loves him. This understanding naturally compels him to love his wife as Christ loved him.
Otherwise, the man’s default or carnal nature is to use his wife to fulfill his fantasies, treating her as a maid who he expects to clean, cook, and wash. He demands that she live and work hard solely for his selfish desires, wants, and dreams, regardless of her own wants and feelings.
Yes, the marriage between one man and one woman reflects the Gospel.
Are you bound in a marriage?
Then know that your marriage represents the yet to come marriage of Christ and the church, which all angelic beings, including the enemy of your soul, the devil, are aware of. This dark world and the devil, taking advantage of your sinful nature, do everything possible to prevent your marriage from reflecting the eternal marriage of Christ and the church. This divine marriage, the marriage of Christ and the church, announces the end of all evil and the final judgment of the devil and his angels, who will be cast into hell for eternity.
No wonder there is always a battle against the institution of marriage!
If you are single, know that you were originally created by God for the institution of marriage (unless you have a unique call from God to remain celibate for life). Prepare yourself for this marriage while living as a single person by keeping yourself far from anything that defiles the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is your body (1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 1 Timothy 6:11, 2 Timothy 2:22, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4). This is your primary form of acceptable worship and the first way to glorify God in your single life. Other ways of glorifying God, such as attending church and serving others, are secondary to this primary act of glorifying God. ///