Daily Citizen recently published a good article on marriage entitled Why Marriage Matters: Understanding its place in the beauty of the Christian story.  The article encourages us to appreciate how profound marriage is in God’s story, especially since marriage is undervalued in our culture.  Quoting from Genesis, Paul wants us to see marriage at the heart of God’s divine plan to save us.  “‘Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’  This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Eph. 5:31-32). 

Back in Genesis 2:24, God declares his intention for humanity and marriage.  The first thing God does with Adam and Eve is create them male and female so as to complement and complete each other.  Then he joins them together as husband and wife.  First, Adam and Eve bear the image and likeness of God as male and female.  Then, after their creation, they are made husband and wife. In Genesis 1 we read, “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it'” (Gen. 1:28).  As the article states, “God performed their wedding … called them to live as husband and wife, be fruitful, start a family, fill the earth, and engage all of creation.” 

Later in Genesis, Adam declares the beautiful advent of women, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man” (Gen. 2:23).  Then God declares what Paul quotes in Ephesians 5: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. ”  The article’s takeaway is this: “Marriage is central to God’s plan for humanity and his divine purposes … What God created in marriage from the start for man and woman is also intimately and mysteriously related to the beautiful truth of Christ and His Church.”  As Paul himself states, “This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and the church” (Eph 5:32). 

Marriage is thus central to the whole story of the Gospel from Genesis to Revelation.  In the prophets God pursues his unfaithful bride.  The Song of Songs is an allegory of the marriage relationship with Christ and his Church.  Jesus tells us He is the bridegroom, seeking His beloved bride.  Revelation speaks of the wedding feast of the Lamb. “Our marriages have been an imperfect signpost pointing to this glorious nuptial truth of Christ and his Church.”

The article ends with this: “Marriage is a beautiful thread running consistently and significantly through God’s divine narrative from the first page to the last … it is true that one cannot really tell God’s story of his divine plan for humanity and the Gospel itself without speaking deeply and intimately of marriage.  Marriage does matter, more than we can ever know.”

This article impacted my thinking of marriage in several ways:

  • Marriage is central to God’s intentions for the inhabitants of his creation.  Marriage has not  evolved by human necessity or thought; rather, it is at the heart of God’s story and plan for the men and women.  I dare not tamper with his intentions.
  • Marriage is the greatest gift given to us, other than God’s salvation in Christ.
  • Marriage has survived the ups and downs of history.  God’s intention is for our marriages to reflect his glory in the earth.
  • Because of this, esteem and honor marriage.  The enemy our our souls, Satan himself, wages constant warfare on our marriages.