Married For God

Christopher Ash, in Married for God, writes:

The Bible tells many stories of human marriage, both good and bad, from Adam and Eve through Abraham and Sarah, David and Bathsheba, and countless others. All of them, one way of another, are stories of dysfunctional people in spoiled relationships.

But above these stories the Bible tells a bigger story, the story of a marriage which includes within itself the whole history and future of the human race. It is the story of God the Lover, the Bridegroom, the Husband, and his people his people Beloved, his Bride, and in the end his Wife. It is the story that John the Baptist had in mind when he spoke of Jesus as the ‘Bridegroom; (John 3:25-30), and the story that Jesus himself accepted when he spoke of himself as the ‘Bridegroom’ (e.g. Matthew 9:14-15). It is the story of Paul referred to when he spoke of the church in Corinth as being ‘engaged’ to Jesus Christ like a pure virgin (2 Corinthians 11:2) (Christopher Ash, Married for God, 166).

Supplying his line of thought with more biblical content, the biblical story of marriage is a story that begins with the first union in the Garden of Eden and climaxes with the marriage supper of the Lamb in the Book of Revelation. It is a story of love created, love lost, love promised, love received, and love consummated. It is a story that sounds too good to be true, and yet it is a story more true than any storybook love affair in novels or the news. It is a story that centers around the king and his bride (cf. Psalm 45). It is a story of a lover and his beloved (i.e. Song of Songs). Tragically, it is also a story of wife who becomes a harlot and prostitutes herself to the nations (cf. Ezekiel 16 and Hosea). Yet, the love of the husband will not be overcome. The rest of the story concludes with the husband’s redeeming, willing, and cleansing sacrifice restoring his bride to new life (cf. Eph. 5:22-33). Consequently, it is in the end a story of forgiveness, of a husband who searched the marketplace to find his estranged wife, who paid the highest price for her return, and who lovingly and mercifully restored her beauty and radiance to the kind never before seen in a bride. And it is the story of a wedding day that never ends for those who participate in the wedding of the Lamb (Rev. 19:6-10).

And it can be your story if you will turn to the pages of Scripture, read, and believe. Christopher Ash continues:

It is the story that John speaks of in the visionary imagery of Revelation 19 and 21. The metaphors are mixed and the language is vivid and suggestive; we cannot read it literally and it would not be possible to make a film of this imagery. At the climax of human history John hears the announcement made, “The marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready” (Revelation 19:7). The Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, is to be married at last. His Bride is his people, every believer of all time, corporately to be joined to him forever in union of unmixed delight and intimacy. This is a time of joy and amazement” (166-67).

This is the story of marriage in the Bible. From the beginning, God’s aim with marriage was the final marriage–Christ and the church. In the garden, the first marriage was for the purpose of the last, and every engagement, wedding, and marriage that has followed has been an eschatological image designed to reflect the final marriage. As a result, our marriages do not stand in the way to that final marriage, they are instead an invitation to come, taste, and see the goodness of the God’s marriage to humanity in the Christ-church mystery (Eph. 5:31). This marriage is now offered to each husband, wife, or single who will respond to Jesus’ invitation to know him and love him and dwell with him forevermore. In this way, all of our love stories–past, present, and future–fit into the grand narrative of the Creator of Marriage and the Redeemer of humanity.

As we abide in and enjoy our marriages, may we lift our eyes to a greater union, and with anticipation and hope look forward to our forthcoming union with our loving savior. Until that day…

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

In his popular-level book on marriage, Married for God,Christopher Ash relates a story from Britain that illustrates the way that marriage is expressly intended to display the lovingkindness of God.

Some years ago I read of a dispute in Britain between the Foreign Office and the Treasury. The argument was about which British Ambassadors would be provided with a Rolls Royce for their official duties in a foreign capital [sic]. The Treasury unsurprisingly wanted the wonderful cars restricted to a few: perhaps Washington, Moscow, and Paris. The Foreign Office argued for many more and I love the reasoning. Most people in a foreign capital [sic] have never been to Britain, they said. But when they see this magnificent car gliding through the streets with the Union flag on the bonnet, they will say to themselves, “I have not been to Britain. I don’t know much about Britain. But if they make cars like that there [and in those days we did!], then Britain must be a wonderful place.

In a similar way, I like to think that men and women may say to themselves as they watch a Christian marriage: “I have never seen God. Sometimes I wonder, when I look at the world, if God is good, or if there is a God. But if he can make a man and woman love one another like this; if he can make this husband show costly faithfulness through sickness as well as health; if he can give him resoucres to love when frankly there is nothing in it for him; well, then he must be a good God. And if he can five this wife grace to submit so beautifully, with such an attractive gentle spirit under terrible trials, then again he must be a good God. If you are married or preparing for marriage, pray that others might be able to say this of you in the years ahead (Christopher Ash, Married For God:Making Your Marriage the Best It Can Be [Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2007],96).

Christopher Ash’s analogy points to the way God has designed marriages to radiate His glory and reveal truth about His faithfulness and love. In the human clay of marriage, God has imprinted his heavenly signature, and men and women who are joined by him have the dignified privilege of serving as heavenly ambassadors in a fallen world. Such a living portrayal of God’s love is neither optional or incidental, it is God’s design and his desire for every marriage–Christian or otherwise. Of course, patterned after Jesus Christ and his bride, only those marriages founded on Christ and filled with the Spirit are able to fully reflect his glory (cf. Matt. 7; Eph. 5:18). Nevertheless, every truly Christian marriage should invite others–married couples and interested singles–to experience the increasing depths of heavenly intimacy had in the display of Jesus’ redemptive love portrayed in marriage.

Reading Ash’s account challenges those married or soon to be married to consider how your own marriage discloses or covers Christ and the Church, the love of God, and the blessed hope of union with Christ at the end of the age, to name a few. Marriage was not ultimately created to provide temporal pleasures in a rough-and-tumble world; it was created to picture a greater reality that might draw all the nations into the gracious embrace of the Risen Savior. While providing wonderful pleasures, marriage points to a greater and more lasting union– the marriage feast with the lamb of God (Rev. 19:6-10).

May our marriages grow in the glory of God’s love, and may a skeptical world be awakened by the light of Christ shining forth from our Christ-centered marriages.

Sola Deo Gloria,dss