“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband” (Ephesians 5:31-33).
Throughout history, Satan and sin have worked consistently to undermine the institution of marriage. As a gift of God, marriage provides us with healthy societies and reflects the nature of the Trinity and Christ’s love for His bride, the Church. For these reasons, we must maintain a robust defense of a biblical understanding of marriage.
Civic Marriage
The institution of marriage is a work of God’s common grace established by Him before man’s fall into sin. As a work of common grace, it is applicable to all men and women, not only Christians. Since the fall, marriage has worked throughout history, along with other common graces, to preserve individuals and communities from withering completely beneath the effects of sin.
In the Garden of Eden, God established the first marriage between Adam and Eve after dividing humanity into two distinct genders. As 17th-century Anglican priest and poet John Donne proclaimed, “Ever since, they are he and she, man and woman. They must be so much; he must be a man, she must be a woman; and they must be no more” than that. [1] They cannot be related to one another, they cannot be bound to any other person in marriage, and they cannot be of the same gender. God makes these limitations very clear throughout Scripture.
Through this mystical union of two people into one flesh—two households united into a new one—God works to preserve harmony and order in the world. Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper explained that the family is the foundation of good society. Its institution preceded both the state and the church.
The family is designed to be the social institution where individuals develop good character and civic courage necessary to serve as valuable members of their communities and remain independent of the state by holding firm to civil liberties. As Kuyper puts it, “marital happiness…constitutes the vigor of our national existence” [2] and elevates the cultural development of our communities. [3]
However, not all marriages are the same. Some so-called marriages are merely caricatures of the true institution: men and women who live together outside of the law; married couples who bear no affection for one another or their children; and those who lightly and repeatedly divorce do not build “a true family life” but rather “only…work at its destruction.” [4]
While unbelievers and Christians alike can take part in these forms of marriage, Christians who truly follow Christ ought not to fall into a caricature of marriage. Of course, everyone will experience days when our affection for spouse and children is not as it should be, and on those occasions, we must repent.
A second type of marriage exhibits warm affection between spouses and careful attention to the raising of children. These families, whether Christian or not, spread harmony and peace in society.
Religious Marriage
Religious marriage is the fullest form of marriage, exhibited only by Christians whose redemption provides them with God’s particular grace revealed through Scripture. A godly marriage exhibits love and attentive care for each family member. In addition, Abraham Kuyper explains, the “sweet savor [that] emanates from Christian faith” will permeate “all of family life” and bestow “a higher level of consecration upon all relationships within the family.” [5] In short, the Christian ethic guides our familial interactions with one another. In marriage, our spouses become our nearest neighbor, whom we love as ourselves. Beyond this selfless love, the Holy Ghost works in our interactions to assist us in building one another up in the Lord.
Within Christian marriage, our homes become small churches led by the head of the family, the husband. We read the Bible daily, pray together, and sing hymns. In this way, the Christian family “is the ‘family under the sign of the cross.’”[6] It does not replace the gathering of the church but rather prompts family units to seek the fellowship of a broader pool of believers in the local congregation.
The Christian husband and wife realize the union “of [their] two loving hearts” into one flesh is more than what John Donne calls “love’s strong arts.” [7] As I have written elsewhere, it is, in fact, a type or picture of our union with Christ and the three-in-oneness of the Trinity. [8]
The nature of our relationship with Christ is also revealed in the structure of the marriage. Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:33: “Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.” The husband is the head of the home, but his headship, like Christ’s, is grounded in sacrificial love for his wife. Christ set aside His glory to be born as a man and then suffered the disgrace of the cross so we might enjoy the riches of His grace.
The husband has the same weighty calling toward his wife. But the husband, not being omniscient like Christ, often finds it difficult to know what is best for his beloved. John Donne referred to women as “mystic books” whose mysteries are revealed to their husbands as they study them over a lifetime. [9]Only then can a man love his wife as his own flesh, which Paul instructs here. To fail to love his wife sacrificially is not only harmful to the woman but even destroys the man.
Puritan theologian Paul Bayne explained, “In not loving [his wife], a man doth kindle such a discontent in himself, which like a gentle fire, doth dry his bones, which doth make him eat his own liver, and after a sort become his own hangman.” [10] More, a cold and tyrannical husband proclaims to the world a false teaching about Christ’s love for His bride.
For the wife, willing submission to her husband’s headship typifies for us the submission of the Church to Christ. Her faithful companionship and respectful support for her husband’s leadership was instituted at the first marriage before the fall. So, the Christian virtue of submission is not a response to sin but an intrinsic aspect of the marital relationship that brings order and harmony to the home and to society.
Expanding on this thought, in 1 Corinthians 11:3, Paul explained the submission of the wife to the husband is directly connected to the man’s submission to Christ, and even Christ’s submission to the Father. Thus, it is part of a cosmic chain of order and harmony Paul mysteriously describes as benefiting the angels (11:10).
Thus, if the husband defaults on his leadership, or the wife becomes dissatisfied with God’s design and sets herself up as the head of the home, it disrupts the harmony of the family, society, and even the cosmos. It gives a distorted image of the Church’s relationship to Christ and even Christ’s submissive obedience to the Father as He journeyed toward the cross.
For this reason, it is not surprising churches that embraced an egalitarian understanding of marriage years ago now stand in full rebellion to God’s Word on a host of other issues related to the nature of reality.
The Prophetic Marriage
Finally, the nature of marriage is important because it foreshadows the final wedding made by God the Father, when the great Bridegroom will receive His bride in glory. When we attend a wedding, we glimpse a shadow of the coming new Heaven and new earth with the holy city of the “new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven” (Revelation 21:2). Just as the couple has been preparing for their day of union, we, too, long for the coming Bridegroom.
When we celebrate the uniting of a man and woman, shower them with gifts, and share food with them, we practice for the day we will receive our own glorious inheritance in Christ, the Head over the Church and the fulfillment of all things. We prepare ourselves to sit down to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Our joy, our glory, will be in His riches, His nobility, and His power, not our own. Through the ages, the Father shows the “exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7).
*Adapted from an article published at helwyssocietyforum.com
[1] John Donne, “Of Human Marriage and the Marriage of the Soul with Christ; A Wedding Sermon,” in The Showing Forth of Christ: Sermons of John Donne, ed. Edmund Fuller (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), 90.
[2] Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace: God’s Gifts for a Fallen World, vol. 3: The Practical Section, ed. Jordan J. Ballor and J. Daryl Charles, trans. Nelson D. Kloosterman and Ed M. van der Maas (Bellingham, WV: Lexham, 2020), 345.
[3] Kuyper, 349.
[4] Kuyper, 351.
[5] Kuyper, 369.
[6] Kuyper, 372.
[7] John Donne, “Epithalamions or Marriage Songs,” lines 223–25.
[9] John Donne, “Elegy 19: To His Mistress Going to Bed,” lines 41–43.
[10] Paul Bayne, Puritan Commentary on Ephesians: Volume 2, Chapter 2:11-6:18 (1866; reprt., Wilmington, DE: Sovereign Grace, 1959), 522.
About the Writer: Phillip T. Morgan is curator of the Free Will Baptist Historical Collection and History Program coordinator at Welch College. Learn more: www.FWBHistory.com.
