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NOTES
At the wedding ceremony, when a man and woman hold hands, stare into each other’s eyes, and publicly vow to a life-long, loving union, something divine is happening that offers a glimpse into the cosmic future.
Introduction
Marriage is practiced in virtually every human society—ancient and modern all across the world. Now, how marriage plays out in the details varies, but most cultures have men and women pair off to form a special lifelong relationship. This relationship creates unique privileges and duties between the man and woman as they become one, begin to do life together, and have children. So what explains the universality of marriage?
Some might say evolution. That human genes developed the impulse toward marriage as a survival mechanism—to help further our species. Others say marriage is merely constructed by the elite to oppress the weak and disadvantaged and retain power. Still others claims it’s a worn out tradition that might have been useful before all the advancements of the past 200 years, but technology and science make marriage irrelevant. Sometimes those explanations can be intriguing or even illuminating in ways, but ultimately they are not persuasive.
Marriage does more than merely produce more humans. Decently healthy marriages help the man and woman in the marriage actually thrive. A good marriage provides immediate benefits rather than merely helping the survival of the children produced by the marriage. Plus, good marriages benefit people across society’s strata—rich and poor, young and old, hand-workers and head-workers. Lastly, marriage—while it’s declining in some advanced societies—is still a tendency for many in the modern world. Science and technology can’t give us what a good marriage gives us. Nor can cohabiting—which is like relational junk food, a poor imitation of what marriage actually is. Cohabiting seeks the benefits of marriage without the responsibilities that create those benefits. Marriage is not a worn out tradition.
To try to explain marriage at merely a human level doesn’t work. Those explanations fail, in my opinion, because they simply neglect God, the creator and designer of marriage. I explored that profound fact and its relevance in my last post. I addressed if there will be marriage in heaven, examining Jesus’s statements in Matthew, and then we looked at the origins of marriage in Genesis. Jesus said marriage is temporary in God’s grand scheme and Genesis hinted at why. Now, side note, this series in general contrasts heaven-aimed Christianity and new-creation Christianity and how those perspectives affect our understanding of Christ, his Word, and our lives. Regarding marriage, heaven-aimed Christianity tends to downplay creating a healthy one and fails to offer our newfound spiritual resources for doing so. But new-creation Christianity helps us properly understand marriage and do it well. This post will turn our attention from the beginning to the end to help us properly understand marriage in light of God’s new-creation purpose—which leads me to this question and my first point.
1) God Is in Every Wedding Ceremony | His Blessing, His Work
Does God still take marriage seriously? He created marriage. God performed the first wedding ceremony in Genesis two. He made it one of the key institutions of human society. God designed marriage to be a primary way humanity fulfills its collective purpose and to be a primary way to experience God’s blessing and happiness on earth. Then came the fall. Adam and Eve sinned and rejected God. So God cursed it all. God cursed us all. We live in a fallen world. So does marriage still have significance in God’s eyes? According to Jesus, absolutely.
He said so himself in Matthew 19:3–8. Religious leaders felt threatened by Jesus and wanted to trap him in a trick question on the thorny issue of divorce. It was a tough topic in Jewish circles at that time just as it is a tough topic in Christian circles today. Let me read the whole passage for you:
“Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question: “Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife for just any reason?” “Haven’t you read the Scriptures?” Jesus replied. “They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.’ And he said, ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.” “Then why did Moses say in the law that a man could give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away?” they asked. Jesus replied, “Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended.” (Matthew 19:3–8; NLT)
From a simple reading, it’s pretty clear God does not like divorce. It’s breaks his heart. There are circumstances when he permits divorce. But a healthy, thriving, lifelong union is always God’s intent when people marry. The statement I want you to notice, and it’s easy to miss if you run through the text quickly, is this, “let no one split apart what God has joined together.” Jesus isn’t merely referring to the first marriage between Adam and Eve. He’s referring to all subsequent marriages in human history. What does that mean? That God is in every wedding ceremony. While the ceremony may not feel magical, he is uniting the man and the woman into one.
Christian, Atheist, Hindu, Muslim, Spiritist, Animist, whatever the beliefs, whoever the people, whenever the time—God is in the ceremony. When a man and woman come together in a witnessed rite or ritual to unite for life, God is there. In the stating of vows, God is there. That act reflects his desire for people. He’s interested. He’s active. He’s listening. He’s working. He’s blessing. Even when he is not honored in the ceremony, he’s at work through the ceremony. Yes, there are occasions when God probably doesn’t sanction a marriage, but in the doing of it and the stating of vows, God hears and honors those vows and wants that marriage to be healthy and to last.
Living in a cursed world and bearing the weight of the curse doesn’t mean God has trivialized or cast aside marriage. It’s very important in his eyes. He’s in every wedding ceremony. As a redeeming God who sent Jesus, his power and presence can help restore broken marriages and make marriages one of the happiest relationships in a person’s life. Now, God loves marriage so much because, in part, it signifies his own marriage, which is the subject of the next point.
2) God Himself Is a Groom | The Cosmic Significance of Marriage
Yes, you heard me correctly, God himself will be married. He will have a wedding celebration of his own. He is actively engaged in every wedding ceremony because it points to the ceremony he will have one day. In fact, the Bible teaches that the very institution of marriage, that the day God joined together Adam and Eve, God himself was creating an signal of the cosmic wedding he had planned all along. So every human wedding ceremony points to a cosmic ceremony down the road. That’s the point of the apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Ephesus.
After writing on the deep mysteries of God’s work through Christ, Paul then addressed how to practically live in light of those truths. He turned to marriage in chapter five. After telling wives to respect their husbands and husbands to love their wives, he quoted from Genesis to support one of his points. Listen to what he says in Ephesians 5:31–32:
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:31–32; ESV)
After quoting from Genesis 2:24, Paul explains how that quote refers to Christ and the church. In other words, Christ in his work to purchase and redeem people, in his work of drawing people to himself to give them eternal life, he is acting as a groom. The redeemed are his bride. Jesus is saving people that he might be married to them. From the very beginning, God planned to pledge himself to people and enjoy a relationship with them that is so happy, so thrilling, so intimate, so joyous, so fulfilling that only the institution of marriage can foreshadow that plan.
Christ acted like a loving husband when he gave his life that his wife might live. That image accurately portrays what happened on the cross. People were made for God, but they rejected him—like a wife who spends all her husbands money, commits adultery, and runs away. All of us stand guilty. But he chased after us, he paid the penalty on the cross that our rebellion deserves, and extends to us the offer of forgiveness that we might return to him. We belong to him and our place is with him. And His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead made that restoration possible. The Bible teaches that God made everything to glorify himself. That even includes human marriage in a fallen world. Human marriages point to his own marriage.
Christians may not feel like or look like they possess that special status but they do. That is their inheritance after they die and when, eventually, history as we know it ends and moves into its next stage. While people still have breath, they can turn to Christ to receive His forgiveness, to live with his presence, and to walk in the power of his spirit. In fact, Paul calls the Holy Spirit, who is poured into our hearts when we turn to Christ, a down payment. The spirit is like an engagement ring that points to what is come? And so what is to come? Nothing less than a ceremony hosted by Jesus himself, which leads me to the third passage of Scripture and the third point.
3) History’s Greatest Wedding Party | God: Master, Host, Chef, Servant, Groom
Jesus himself will have a wedding ceremony one day. A massive celebration is coming. God invented parties. God is a happy God who invites us into his happiness. He invites us to celebrate and enjoy who he is and what he has done. During Jesus’s earthly ministry, when he began to disclose and reveal who he was and why he came through miracles, one of the first, if not the first, miracles he performed was changing water into wine at a wedding party. You can read the story in John chapter two. No doubt he did so to tell people a celebration is coming. He did so to call people into that celebration through faith in Him.
While that celebration is eternal, it will kick-start with a wedding ceremony. And that ceremony is Jesus’s own ceremony with all who have been redeemed by him. History as we now know it will not always be the same. People who follow Jesus will at some point in the future, in the blink of an eye, disappear to be with Jesus. When that happens, all whom God has saved throughout all of human history, will take part in what the Bible calls “The Wedding Feast of the Lamb.” Jesus is called the lamb to describe how he sacrificially gave his life on the cross to redeem people. I just want you to listen to how John describes “The Wedding Feast of the Lamb.” The apostle John, who knew Jesus and followed Jesus, had ministered for roughly 60 years before Rome exiled him to an island called Patmos. One day, on Patmos, he was praying, and God spoke to him and gave him visions to record for God’s people about the glorified Jesus and his future plans. Here’s one of the final visions John received.
Revelation 19:6–10: “Then I heard again what sounded like the shout of a vast crowd or the roar of mighty ocean waves or the crash of loud thunder: “Praise the Lord! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give honor to him. For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb, and his bride has prepared herself. She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear.” For the fine linen represents the good deeds of God’s holy people. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.” And he added, “These are true words that come from God.” Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said, “No, don’t worship me. I am a servant of God, just like you and your brothers and sisters who testify about their faith in Jesus. Worship only God. For the essence of prophecy is to give a clear witness for Jesus.”
That wedding celebration will be the greatest in human history. It will be the most populated, the most lavish, the most joyful party that has ever taken place. Christ himself is the host, the chef, the servant, and the groom. We, his people, will be the collective bride. All who go will have a nameplate on the table etched by God himself with a seat that represents our eternal union with God. What a remarkable picture! It’s all about Christ and His work on the cross and victory over sin, death, and Satan.
God is in every wedding ceremony not only to bless those who are getting married, but because the ceremony points to his own that will happen one day. And that ceremony will ignite a perfect, eternal relationship, which is the subject of the next and final point.
4) The Only Never Ending Marriage | The Union of Christ and His People
The only marriage that will truly last forever is the union between Christ and those who have been redeemed by him. One of the most common questions about heaven is whether people will be married in heaven. In my last post, I demonstrated why they won’t. While marriage is extremely important, it is temporary. Ultimately, all human marriages will end. People aren’t married in hell and people aren’t married in heaven. God designed marriage to be a great and good thing for people, to do good to us, and, as we have seen in the previous points, to point us to the ultimate relationship for which he made us—union with him. Even the best of marriages, even the best of any kind of relationship on earth that we are gifted to have, none can even come close to a relationship with God.
All of us inherit a corrupt nature that distorts who God made us to be and severs our connection with him, but he did not sit idly by with hands folded in heaven. He sent his son, to rescue us from eternal ruin and give us eternal glory with a renewed nature, perfected body, and restored connection with him. To help us imagine how much he loves us and how much he wants to be with us, he created marriage so that we can catch a taste of what a relationship with him is like. When we confess our wrongs and need for Christ, when we put our trust in him and follow his ways, we not only move from a helpless orphan to a favored child, we also become like a spotless, adored bride. The community of the saved are collectively married to God and have an eternal, perfect, joyful relationship with him awaiting them. We just examined the ceremony that will kick-start eternity, now let’s read a bit from Revelation 21–22 to hear what everlasting bliss with God is like.
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” (21:1–4) Second, “Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It flowed down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. No longer will there be a curse upon anything. For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship him. And they will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads. And there will be no night there—no need for lamps or sun—for the Lord God will shine on them. And they will reign forever and ever.” (22:1–5). Third and last, “Look, I am coming soon, bringing my reward with me to repay all people according to their deeds. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” Blessed are those who wash their robes. They will be permitted to enter through the gates of the city and eat the fruit from the tree of life” (22:12–14). That future is God’s promise to you who follow Christ. No one and nothing can take that away from Christ’s people. That is the ultimate promise of new-creation Christianity. A never-ending marriage with God not in the context of heaven, but on a new earth.
Conclusion
I titled this post “God’s New-Creation Purpose for Marriage” to emphasize that God designed marriage to have significance beyond the immediate good it can do for people and beyond this stage of human history. God had an end goal in my that involved his own marriage.
First, we looked at Jesus’ words in Matthew 19 that teach God’s involvement in every wedding ceremony. His involvement means that he celebrates marriage. Marriage is not simply an after thought in his plan. It is not a ruined or tainted practice from our ancient past. God wants us to understand and use marriage based on his good designs intended for our blessing. And, ultimately, God created marriage for his own glory. New-creation Christianity teaches that God loves wedding ceremonies because it points to his own wedding ceremony in the future between Christ and the saved, which we looked at second.
From the very first marriage, God was looking forward to the day when Jesus would save a desperate and destitute humanity. God was looking forward to the day when Jesus, acting as the groom, would purchase his bride with his own sacrificial blood that he might clean her and honor her and be with her forever. Individuals today can become a part of his collective bride through faith and receive the hope of eternal bliss. That hope we looked at in points three and four.
In the third, we looked at John’s vision in Revelation 19 that portrays “The Wedding Feast of the Lamb.” There, all the saved with take part in a wedding ceremony celebrating Christ and his achievements for us. God himself will have a wedding celebration. It is a banquet where we are the guests of honor. Christ is the host, master, groom, and servant. It will be the greatest party in history that kick-starts our eternity with Christ.
Then we looked at images of eternity in Revelation 21–22, which was the subject our fourth and final point. Our union with God will be eternal bliss. That marriage will be the only never-ending marriage. The best, the most delightful and fulfilling, the most joyful and invigorating of human marriages can hardly compare to what to all relationships with be like between people who are saved and between individuals and their creator and redeemer, Jesus Christ.
The essence of new-creation Christianity is the relationship between God and his people. Heaven-aimed Christianity gets that emphasis correct. But the way it envisions that relationship taking place in the future, which is in a non-earthly, heaven, is incorrect. The context, the arena, the location that marital relationship is expressed will not forever be in heaven. For now, it is. But it will eventually be on a new earth. By understanding that fact, we can begin to live on earth now with heaven’s presence. God is with us now, leading us, molding us, encouraging us, strengthening us, blessing us. So we can live now on earth, in part, as we will one day when all things will be made new. I’m Aaron Massey. Thanks for listening.