Marriage is to reflect the Trinty

As a reflection of the unity of purpose within the Trinity, God gave Adam and Eve the same overriding purpose. Together they were his vice-regents over creation. In that role they were to serve and glorify him. That remains our goal today. We’re here to serve and glorify God.

One purpose of marriage is marriage is as a reflection of the relationship of Christ and the church, something Paul calls a great mystery. There’s foreshadowing of the mystery in the Old Testament. In several instances God compares his relationship with the Israelites to a husband’s relationship with his wife (Isa. 54:5, 61:10; Ezek. 16:8; Hos. 2:19).

In the New Testament Paul explicitly reveals the mystery in context with his teaching regarding the roles of husbands and wives in Ephesians Chapter 5. Paul addresses wives first:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 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. (Ephesians 5:22–23)

In verse 22 he exhorts wives to yield to their husband’s authority as part of their service to God. Ultimately they are yielding to God, not their husbands, because God defined the roles. Next, in verses 23-24, he compares the headship of the husband over the wife to the headship of Christ over the church, another God ordained relationship. He exhorts that just as the church is subject to Christ, so should wives be subject to their husbands.

Even a loved and loving Christian wife will find following Paul’s command difficult at times. On occasion she will rightly see that some of her husband’s decisions are mis-guided or self-serving. As she bears it, she is showing both her love for him and her love for and obedience to God.

Next Paul turns to husbands:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 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. (Ephesians 5:25–27)

Paul’s command to husbands in verses 25-27, to love their wives, is no less demanding than his command to wives. Again he uses Christ’s relationship to the church to illustrate. The husband is to love his wife as Christ loved, and continues to love, the church. Christ’s love for the church is perfect and sacrificial–he died for her. In the same way the husband should be willing to sacrifice himself, both his body and his self-interests, for his wife’s good. This is a tall order; even those who desire to love in this way are often hampered by pride and selfishness.

Paul continues the analogy in verses 28-31:

In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. (Ephesians 5:28–31)

Just as we, members of the church, are united with Christ, husbands and wives are united as one flesh. Everyone loves his own body. Therefore just as every Christian should love Christ, with whom he is united, every husband should love his wife, who is his own flesh. As part of the argument Paul takes us back to Adam’s declaration in the Garden of Eden that husbands and wives are one flesh.

Paul’s concludes with a surprise in verse 32:

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (Ephesians 5:32–33)

This tells us that Paul’s comparison of the right relationship between husbands and wives to Christ and the church is for more than illustrative purposes. Christian marriage is to be not only like the relationship of Christ with the church, but symbolic and reflective of it. The two are linked at a profound spiritual level. The link is part of God’s eternal plan, preceding Christ’s incarnation, foreshadowed in Adam and Eve.

Paul’s statement “I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” reveals that the primary subject of the passage is Christ’s relationship to the church, not the proper relationship between husbands and wives.

Paul is saying it’s our Christian duty to reflect the relationship between Christ and the church in our marriages. Christ loves the church unconditionally–husbands are to love their wives unconditionally. Christ has authority over the church–the husband has authority over the wife. The church is called to gladly submit to Christ’s loving authority–wives are called to gladly submit to their husbands loving authority.

This passage about the roles of husbands and wives is often misunderstood, maligned and mis-represented in today’s world, by both believers and unbelievers. Christians should embrace it. Since God laid the foundation in Genesis, Paul isn’t breaking new ground relative to the husband’s authority in marriage. Rather, he’s telling Christians how they can mitigate the loss of harmony between husbands and wives that came as part of Adam and Eve’s punishment, wives desiring to rule over their husbands and husbands unlovingly wielding authority.

Though men and women are of equal value before God (Gal. 3:28), family management requires one in authority–if both had equal authority it would often lead to stalemate and frustration. Paul, speaking inspired words from God, and in line with the foundation laid in Genesis, assigns that responsibility to the husband.

Though obedience is our duty, marriage is no exception to the principle that loving and obeying God always leads to blessings. When wives submit to their husbands as to the Lord and husbands love their wives as Christ loves the church they are loving and obeying God. They are blessed by it and blessings flow to their children who are nurtured and raised up to love God in a home that serves the Lord. It’s a blessing to others as well. By glorifying him, witnessing to his love for us, and reflecting Christ’s relationship to the church we are a light to all, both fellow Christians and the lost.

That the lost reject the teaching is expected. Paul wasn’t writing to them–lacking the Holy Spirit they are incapable of either the type of submission required of the wife or the type of love required of the husband. Since they are spiritually blind most find the idea repugnant.

It’s a difficult teaching even for Christians, particularly today in our self-centered culture. It’s only by the grace of God, with the help of the indwelling Holy Spirit, that some Christians are able to accept and heed Paul’s call and in turn be blessed by a partial restoration of the harmony that Adam and Eve once shared.