1.24.10 - The Divine Drama of Marriage

THE DIVINE DRAMA OF MARRIAGE

Daniel Patz, Lead Pastor

Grace Church, Sunday Worship

Ephesians 5:22-33

January 24th, 2010

Ephesians 5:22-33

[22]Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. [23]For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. [24]Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

[25]Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, [26]that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, [27]so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. [28]In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. [29]For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, [30]because we are members of his body. [31]"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." [32]This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. [33]However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (ESV)

Marriage is God’s doing and it is for His glory!

Marriage is bigger than we could ever imagine.

John Piper:

That is, they exist to magnify the truth and worth and beauty and greatness of God. Not the way a microscope magnifies, but the way a telescope magnifies. Microscopes magnify by making tiny things look bigger than they are. Telescopes magnify by making unimaginably big things look like they really are. Microscopes move the appearance of size away from reality. Telescopes move the appearance of size toward reality. When I say that all things exist to magnify the truth and worth and beauty and greatness of God, I mean that all things—and marriage in particular—exist to move the appearance of God in people’s minds toward Reality.

1. Christ and the Church are Compared to a Marriage.

Christ is the husband: He loves, saves, cleanses, purifies and presents His bride

The Church is the wife: How she responds to and honors and submits to her savior Lord

2. Every Human Marriage Speaks of the Reality of Christ and the Church.

[31]"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." [32]This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

ONENESS – One Flesh

DIFFERENCE

This passage says that every marriage for all times (though we don’t often realize it) says something profound. The institution of marriage speaks of Christ and the Church.

Today we are saying something about Christ whether we know it or not. (now you know it)

3. Christ calls us to speak Truthfully of this Reality by How we Live.

4. What does your Marriage say about Christ and the Church?

Begin by repenting.

Looking to Christ

He is glorified when both are function according to design.

He is glorified when one is functioning and forbearing with a sinful spouse.

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Douglas Wilson in Reforming Marriage

John Bunyan once exhorted husbands to be “such a believing husband to your believing wife that she may say, ‘God has not only given me a husband, but such a husband as preaches to me every day the way of Christ to His church.”

Paul teaches us that we ought self-consciously to think of our marriages as dim pictures of the central marriage, that of Christ to His Church. It is a great mystery, he says, but when a man leaves his father and mother, and takes a wife, he makes a proclamation concerning Christ and the Church. Depending on the marriage, that declaration is made poorly or well, but it is always made.

In this passage of Ephesians, Paul tells us that husbands, in their role as head, provide a picture of Christ and the Church. Every marriage, everywhere in the world, is a picture of Christ and the Church. Because of sin and rebellion, many of these pictures are slanderous lies concerning Christ. But a husband can never stop talking about Christ and Church. If he is obedient to God, he is preaching the truth; if he does not love his wife, he is speaking apostasy and lies—but he is always talking. If he deserts his wife, he is saying that this is the way Christ deserts His bride—a lie. If he is harsh with his wife and strikes her, he is saying that Christ is harsh with the Church—another lie. If he sleeps with another woman, he is an adulterer, and a blasphemer as well. How could Christ love someone other than His own Bride? It is astonishing how, for a few moments of pleasure, faithless men can bring themselves to slander the faithfulness of Christ in such a way.

A husband must always remember that as a husband he is a living picture of the Lord Jesus. This remembrance is his first duty in marriage. Since, as a husband, a man is speaking constantly about the Lord’s relationship to His people, he ought to seek to speak truthfully as well. The way the man treats his wife will determine whether he is speaking the truth about Christ or not. But he does not have the option of remaining silent; he is speaking all the time. This is because the Lord is a husband, and all husbands are therefore a representation of Him.

John Piper in This Momentary Marriage

The ultimate thing we can say about marriage is that it exists for God’s glory. That is, it exists to display God. Now we see how: Marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant relationship to his redeemed people, the church. And therefore, the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display. That is why marriage exists. If you are married, that is why you are married. If you hope to be, that should be your dream.

Christ Will Never Leave His Wife

Staying married, therefore, is not mainly about staying in love. It is about keeping covenant. “Till death do us part” or ‘As long as we both shall live” is a sacred covenant promise—the same kind Jesus made with his bride when he died for her. Therefore, what makes divorce and remarriage so horrific in God’s eyes is not merely that it involves covenant-breaking to the spouse, but that it involves misrepresenting Christ and his covenant. Christ will never leave his wife. Ever. There may be times of painful distance and tragic backsliding on our part. But Christ keeps his covenant forever. Marriage is a display of that! That is the ultimate thing we can say about it. It puts the glory of Christ’s covenant-keeping love on display.

The most important implication of this conclusion is that keeping covenant with our spouse is as important as telling the truth about God’s covenant with us in Jesus Christ. Marriage is not mainly about being or staying in love. It’s mainly about telling the truth with our lives. It’s about portraying something true about Jesus Christ and the way he relates to his people. It is about showing in real life the glory of the gospel.

Jesus died for sinners. He forged a covenant in the white-hot heat of his suffering in our place. He made an imperfect bride his own with the price of his blood and covered her with the garments of his own righteousness. He said, “I am with you .. . to the end of the age.. .. I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Matt. 28:20; Heb. 13:5). Marriage is meant by God to put that gospel reality on display in the world. That is why we are married. That is why all married people are married, even when they don’t know and embrace this gospel.