The Simple Lesson
The Simple Lesson:
Marriage = Christ and The Church
One of my favorite books is Henry Hazlitt’s Economics In One Lesson. What stood out to me as really unique about his book is that chapter one is the lesson and that is it. Every other chapter in the book was just examples of how the lesson applies in practical life situations. I am going to follow a similar patter here. This blog (chapter) is the lesson, every blog (chapter) after this will be applying the lesson to our relationship with Jesus (ie theology). Let’s start with our principle verse.
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. - Ephesians 5:21-33
I have always found this verse a little funny. I mean in essence Paul is saying: wives do these things, and husbands do these things, but really I am not talking about you at all, I am talking about Jesus and his church, but husbands and wives do these things anyway.
Just the way it is written makes me chuckle a little bit.
I used to understand this verse in a pretty simple way. I used to think that it was simply saying that just as Jesus submitted to the father so wives should submit to their husbands. Then I used to simply think that just as Jesus loved the church and gave his life to serve and love her so too husbands should give up their lives and love their wives, etc. But there was a depth I was missing.
So what was Paul getting at when he said, “it is a profound mystery but I am talking about Christ and the church”? Well, Paul was making a reference to verse 31, which is a quote from Jesus, who quoted Genesis. God tells us in Genesis that a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
In the Garden of Eden God put Adam into a deep sleep. Imagine Adam laying down flat and in deep sleep. Then scripture tells us that God takes a rib from Adam and makes woman. God did not form woman out of dust again like Adam. Adam at this time was fully in the image of God. So God reached down into the image of God and pulled out a woman. Adam even says she is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. So out of (and from) Adam woman is taken and created. When Adam wakes up (imagine him getting up and standing straight up) he is then joined with his wife and they become one flesh.
Before being put to sleep Adam could live for himself. He could do what he wanted when he wanted. He didn’t have to worry about anyone else. But when he rose up from his sleep he was united with his wife and now they are one family, one flesh. Adam was no longer his own anymore. He was now forever part of his wife and his wife a part of him, never to be separated. He now does everything not on his own but in unity with his wife. They work together, live together, plan together, and in this unity they even create new life together.
So also when Jesus goes to the cross, He goes down into death. Jesus called this sleep when Lazarus had died. So imagine Jesus laying down in death (sleep). Out of Jesus’ body God creates the church. When Jesus rises from the dead he is then united with the church and the two now become one. Jesus no longer lives for himself, no longer does anything on his own, but now lives in unity with the Church never to be separated. Out of this unity is created new life. The two are one in ways deeper than we can even understand at the moment.
When you and I chose to marry (ie covenant) ourselves to Jesus we are choosing to become one with him. We give up our own dreams, our own desires, and our own lives and instead we live in unity with Jesus. We become one!
The author of Hebrews in chapter 9:16 says: In the case of a will, (Same Greek word as covenant) it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it. When we covenant to our spouse it is necessary for us to “die to self” in the spiritual sense. One cannot be covenanted with their spouse if they still hold on to everything they personally want and were.
This is a representation of what Jesus did physically and Spiritually for us. Now he calls to us to die to ourselves, leave behind our old ways of thinking, ways of living, and our selfish desires, and become one with him! He bids us come share everything with him.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” When you finally understand this spiritual reality of marriage in the heavens, the call to come an die no longer sounds like horrible thing for God to ask of us. He isn’t so much bidding us come and die, as much as he is bidding us come and be completely part of Him.
In John 17:10 Jesus speaking to the Father said: “all I have is yours and all you have is mine”. That is marriage language. Marriage first, is a representation of the relationship of the Father and Son. They have all things in common. The father holds nothing back from the Son. The son has full complete access to everything just like spouses do in a healthy marriage.
Then Jesus says something even crazier in the verses following. He says he want’s us (humans) to be one with him just as he and the Father are one. The Father and Jesus are trying to bring us into one with them. They want to share the full inheritance with us. Often in life we may feel like God is taking something from us, but they are never taking, they are only trying to remove an obstical so they can fully give. This fully giving of everything of God can only be done by becoming fully one with Jesus just like we attempt to do in marriage. In marriage we remain individual people who have died to their old selves and have come together to create new life as one couple. They never lose their individual identity completely but as individuals laying down their own lives they take on a united identity that is two in one. Is this starting to sound a little like the trinity to you? Perhaps because God is revealing his nature by what is seen through his ordained covenant of marriage on the earth.
The lesson is simple but the implications are profound. As we go forward, I would like to dive in to several of these profound implications. I hope to write more posts that will cover these topics:
Does God get a bad rap.
Marriage is really faith.
How are sins transferred?
Why Does Satan try so hard to destroy God’s definition of Marriage and Sexuality?