The Marriage Covenant and Marital ‘Vows’ made by Christ
By Jay Wegter
INTRODUCTION: Scripture states that the natural man is blind (veiled) to the glory of God in Christ. As a much younger man, I can remember hearing sermons about the glory of the Lord. For the life of me, all I could muster up in my mind’s eye was some kind of blazing light—a celestial light show. My friends, the glory of the Lord indeed is unapproachable light, but that does not really describe the glory of the Lord. Divine glory in the face of Christ is God in human form entering human history to reverse the ruin caused by Adam’s sin.
It is the love, holiness, obedience, and substitution which equipped Christ to save to the uttermost. It is our King and Great High Priest conquering the enemies of His bride. It is the fullness of the Godhead bodily in Jesus of Nazareth who came to seek and to save. It is the Son of God, who by His obedience unto death on a cross who is now exalted as Mediatorial King, and who is going to return in blazing fire in order to install His eternal kingdom.
How we need to be frequently rocked and staggered by a vision of His glory. For, this world is a wasteland without a crumb for our souls to feed upon. Countless professing Christians are living in ‘existence mode’—just slogging along, only looking at their feet as they place one tiring step in front of another. If that describes your experience or the experience of someone you know, then take heart. Lift your eyes to behold the glory of the Lord, then duty will be transformed into desire and delight.
I. We love, obey, worship, serve, and enjoy a ‘covenant-making’ God.
Only one order of creature is made in the image and likeness of God, man and woman. We were created to commune with our Maker. Our first parents were formed to worship God through obedience, praise, service, and enjoyment of their God. Being a worshipper is our creational identity. We cannot, not worship. You may say to me, “What of the atheist?” Well there are no exceptions. Even the atheist is innately religious, and cannot live without a theology describing his existence. Whether he gives credit to stars or to God, he is still a worshiper.
Man, in a darkened, fallen state takes it upon himself to decide how the divine is to be approached and worshipped. Whether gilding stone buddhas, constructing shrines to deceased ancestors, or lighting candles to Mary and the saints, sinful man creates traditions and superstitions out of his religious nature. We think of Tibetan prayer wheels turned by the calloused hands of monks, and prayer flags flapping in the Himalayan wind, what is astounding is that this false confidence about what is divine is passed through centuries of generational pride. These ideas are taught to their children, and children’s children as to how one may secure divine blessing and favor.
As we ponder this world of religious darkness in which we live, is it any wonder that the one true God makes covenants? The God of the Bible determines how He should be approached, and He provides the way of approach. When speaking of this spiritual darkness, the apostle Paul says of this darkness, in speaking of the most educated people on earth, the Greek philosophers, Paul says they ‘worship an unknown God’. Allegiance to man-made religion, is evidence that people do not know God or themselves. As one Christian leader stated, “We do not know who we are until we know the One whom we are created to reflect.”
God can only be known by His self-revelation in Christ and the Word. For, in Christ as the perfect image of God, not only do we come to know what God is like, but we come to know the way that God has built to reach fallen man. The Old Testament Scriptures constantly promised this coming Redeemer. The Bible records a redemptive history, that is God’s revelation of Himself to historical figures.
God can only be known in covenant. He only gives Himself within covenants. He is a covenant-making God. Each covenant He makes contains terms that describe what devotion to Him should look like. When God makes a covenant it is unilateral, He does negotiate with the other parties. And yet, God’s tendency to make covenants is a massive commentary on His condescension. For in cutting a covenant, God binds Himself on His side to the terms of the covenant. Those who know God realize what a rock of support He is, for in binding Himself to the terms of the covenant, He is letting His people know that He is predictable and faithful, and not capricious.
The God of Scripture promises to be faithful provider and protector to those who love Him. In a sense, He harnesses His own attributes and puts them at the service of His people’s care. This is why idolatry was so serious a matter in the Old Testament. To deny that God has bound Himself by oath so as to turn to the idols of the pagans around them, was the greatest imaginable slight to God’s name.
II. God’s covenant with His people is a love relationship which Scripture likens to marriage.
“For your husband is your Maker, whose name is the LORD of hosts; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, who is called the God of all the earth” (Is 54:5).
“I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (Is 61:10).
“It will come about in that day,” declares the LORD, “That you will call Me Ishi (my Husband) and will no longer call Me Baali (my Master) (Hos 2:16) (Hos 5:19-20; Jer 31:32).
The terms of any covenant which God establishes, are essential to true worship. There is great significance in understanding that God is only known in covenant, He only gives Himself in covenant, and we only give ourselves to Him in a covenant. Ultimately the terms of the covenant reveal the character and attributes of God. Rather than the covenant God makes being based upon a business arrangement between divine and human parties, the covenants God makes involve mutuality. In other words, the covenant contains the rules, if you will, for how God and the creature give themselves to one another in love.
This is why, of all human metaphors to describe God’s covenant with His people, marriage is the metaphor chosen by God. How significant it is that the closest earthly relationship, marriage, is what God points to describe our covenant relationship with Himself. What began in the Torah as “I will be your God and you will be my people,” becomes consummated to the fullest in the unbroken communion of the eternal state, heaven.
III. The Son of God entered a kind of covenant with His Heavenly Father in order to redeem the people His Father had given to Him.
Isaiah 53 -- Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment, He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet He was with a rich man in His death, because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth. But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty with the strong; because He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors.
Isaiah 53 – Vv. 1-3 -- In His earthly ministry, there was no man of distinction on His side (despised, not esteemed). During His humiliation, His life was constant painful endurance. His inner life was taken up with the wrath instigated by sin, and His response was the burning zeal of self-sacrifice that would ultimately put sin away (1 Jn 3:8). “He was forsaken;” He was the “stone” the builders rejected after careful examination (1 Pet 2:4). The citizens of His nation were blind, oblivious to His real achievement; His mediatorial glory, His vicarious suffering as a substitute (Keil and Delitzsch, “Isaiah,” pp. 304-342).
Vv. 4-9 – Our peace and blessedness is procured by His chastisement. He would remove the sickness of our sin. For, in the eternal counsels of the Godhead, it was determined that He would be the source of the healing of our sin sickness. Our natural condition is one of alienation, straying, lostness, estrangement from God. He would bring us to God by radically identifying Himself with sinners—so that He becomes the curse of sin in order to carry it away. For, in His self-sacrificing love, crushing suffering comes upon Him according to the appointment of God. As a mute lamb, He is led to the slaughter bench. It is incongruous to natural reason that the Author of life should be sentenced to make the grave His abode.
V. 10 – “But the Lord was pleased to crush (bruise) Him.” Though sinful men inflicted the punishment, in the whole, the supreme cause was God. The predetermined course was that this would be the suffering servant’s way to glory. This is how He would establish His church. He would make a sacrifice so highly valued by God that it would grant believing sinners the right to walk courts of God.
Vv. 11-12 – He reaps the fruit of His sacrifice in His priestly role (in which He is the Mediator of the benefits of His sacrifice). He is the Righteous One who makes others partakers of righteousness through their knowledge of Him; His Person and work and through their entrance into living fellowship with Him.
God is only known through Christ—emphasizing His High Priestly role. “Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Mt 11:26-27). In His exaltation, He exercises His mediatorial priestly work, and rises to more regal glory. He who was dead is now the living One who imparts life—and because of His sacrifice, He is an eternal Priest who lives to distribute the blessings He has acquired.
He submitted to the death and punishment that a sinner deserved. And, now He rules above with the offices of sovereign King and Priest united in Him. Our suffering substitute is divine—our Creator is our Redeemer and our King.
Isaiah 53 is filled with the language of substitutionary atonement—or vicarious suffering. And, it also contains the language of a covenant, or legal agreement or contract. The Son of God voluntarily agrees with the ‘terms’ of the covenant—a ‘covenant established in the counsels of the Godhead in eternity past. For, Peter says of the death of Christ that He was delivered up by the ‘predetermined plan and counsel of God’ (Acts 2:23). And, the nature of this covenant between the Father and the Son is conditional. For, this is the wording in verse ten (the verse about God being pleased to crush or bruise Him) indicates that: “If He would render Himself a guilt offering, He will see His offspring” (53:10). (We cannot overemphasize the importance of Christ voluntarily agreeing to the terms of this covenant.) Christ fulfilling the terms of the covenant is responsible for every dimension and facet of grace: “. . . blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Eph 1:3). The covenant purpose of God, to bruise His Son at Calvary is the greatest reality in the history of humanity (Pastor Alan Cairns, “The Covenant of Redemption,” www.sermonaudio.com ).
IV. In order for Christ to ultimately be ‘wedded’ to His church, He voluntarily took certain ‘marital vows’ which involved laying down His life.
John 17 -- Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. ³ This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.
“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me. I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them. I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.
“But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.
“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.
“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
“O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
In Christ’s ‘High Priestly Prayer’ of John chapter 17, our Lord is no longer speaking as a suffering servant, but has become the High Priest by means of the work which the Father gave Him to do (17:4) (Pastor Paul Orchard, “The Covenant of Redemption,” www.sermonaudio.com ). The great burden of Christ is for His church. Christ is praying about His Righteous Father honoring the covenant between the two of them—as He, the Son is coming as a payment of that covenant. In this prayer, we see Christ claiming His reward. Christ anticipates His love gifts and inheritance—the people given to Him before the foundation of the world (‘those whom the Father has given to Me to be with Me’—17:2, 6, 9, 11, 24). For their sakes, “I sanctify Myself” (17:19). Christ regards His people, the Church, to be the reward of His suffering.
Gethsemane and the ‘Volunteerism’ of our Savior: the experience of our Lord and Savior in Gethsemane (‘oil press’), is where a crushing took place in which our Lord sweat great drops of blood (Lu 22:39-46). During this trial, he was deeply conflicted as He thought upon the baptism of fire He was to go. We cannot imagine hell pressed into six hours. This Gethsemane account is recorded in Holy Scripture that we might understand the voluntary nature of Christ’s sacrifice.
This historical account is punctuated with a most significant phrase, “not my will but thy will be done” (v. 42). Concerning this cup of wrath and indescribable suffering, in His full omniscience as eternally God the Son, He had looked into that cup and had agreed to every detail. But that was when He was in heaven prior to taking on a body of flesh. But, now in Gethsemane, He is an embodied person of flesh and bone, He is fully human with sensitive skin, emotion, arteries and veins that bleed and countless nerve endings. He has a frail human heart that can burst and break. Thus, in Gethsemane, He’s looking into a virtual cup, which is revealing the shocking horrific preview of what His passion will entail.
In the garden of Gethsemane, His looking into the cup produced agony in Him (Lu 22:44). He’s peering into the cup as a mortal man, with all the human instincts of self-preservation, survival, and the avoidance of agony and death. As He peers into the cup that He must drink, He sees that the greater part of His upcoming agony will be the bearing of divine wrath. He must drain the cup to the last drop, or there will be no propitiation.
The times when we think about His passion, normally at the communion table, we fixate on what He endured for us, that most cruel form of Roman execution. It is easy for us to forget that in His sin-bearing, He was plunged into the spiritual, emotional, and physical consequences of sin. These judgments coursed through His body and soul like bolts of lightning. For, the guilt and shame and penalty of His people was charged to His account. He bore our sins and their penalty up to the cross.
Though He is the spotless Son of God, pristine and innocent, He recoils from the contents of the cup. Says Jonathan Edwards of Christ’s Gethsemane experience, “Why were clots of blood mingled with His sweat?” “What manner of angst could have caused such a trauma to His body. Such accounts of other martyrs are non-existent. What kind of strain would cause the capillaries around His sweat glands to hemorrhage.” Edwards brings up a sobering reality. With the sins of all who would ever believe heaped upon Him, so that He became the very curse of God, our Savior contemplates this meeting of life and death and wrath. What if, under the crushing strain and stress and agony, He should give up His spirit before the wrath of God was exhausted and quenched?
What if under the crushing wrath of Almighty God, He should come short of the six hours and release His spirit with the sins of millions of souls upon Him? No, He must drain the dregs of the cup. He must endure the cross, the agony the wrath, the sin-bearing and the forsakenness by His father, until He can cry it is finished. Only then will the veil to the Holy of Holies be rent asunder, announcing a new and living way to God almighty through the veil, that is His flesh, which He has given for the life of the world. My friends, this Gethsemane account of the Son of Man, crushed and betrayed, is absolutely essential to the story of redemption, because it captures the voluntariness of our Savior to be our substitute.
Our Lord’s willingness to suffer in our place; His desire to take on our sin and death in order to win us to Himself makes His vicarious substitution a righteous and loving act (see 1 Peter 2:24; 3:18).
V. The ‘vows’ which Christ voluntarily took contained all the details of His incarnation, humiliation, atoning work, and resurrection, as well as the promises the Father made to Him for keeping these vows.
Hebrews 10:5-14 -- Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says,
“SACRIFICE AND OFFERING YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, BUT A BODY YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR ME;
IN WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE TAKEN NO PLEASURE.
“THEN I SAID, ‘BEHOLD, I HAVE COME (IN THE SCROLL OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN OF ME) TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD.’”
After saying above, “SACRIFICES AND OFFERINGS AND WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, NOR HAVE YOU TAKEN PLEASURE in them” (which are offered according to the Law), then He said, “BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, waiting from that time onward UNTIL HIS ENEMIES BE MADE A FOOTSTOOL FOR HIS FEET. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are
sanctified.”
Revelation 13:8 – “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain” (Rev 13:8). “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (KJV). Before there was a sinner; there was a Savior (in the plan of God). Before there was a sin there was a redeemer from sin (Pastor John Greer, “The Covenant of Redemption,” www.sermonaudio.com ).
The fall into sin separated man from God. Mankind lost any standing before God. Adam and Eve hid from God in fear and shame. Sinful man shuns the one true God. No one truly seeks God as He is revealed in His Word apart from the convicting and drawing work of the Holy Spirit (Jn 16:13-14). What a great dilemma this is; for how can rebellious, corrupt man be restored to God in favor and acceptance? How will God-haters be brought to a Holy God? How can a just God remain righteous, and release sinners from their guilt? This of course is the theme of the book of Romans.
The answer to this immense dilemma necessitated a plan of redemption. It could be expressed in this manner; from God’s side, there must be a covenant wherein the divine Savior agrees to assume the penalty of those He came to save in order to impart life and grace to their spiritually dead souls. And, from the human side, it must be a covenant which brings God and man back together from a state of enmity—all while fulfilling justice and righteousness.
Thus, there must be a divine, powerful, all-sufficient provision which actually obtains and secures the salvation of helpless, defiant rebels. Since it is all of God, it must be a covenant in which no flesh should be able to boast or glory in human ability (1 Cor 1:26-31). Do you realize how withering this is to any synergistic salvation scheme based on human cooperation with God?
VI. The ‘vows’ which Christ pledged to keep are the epitome of the love of the Father and the Son toward guilty sinners.
“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4:10). The greatest love story in time or eternity is unfolding in redemptive history. God Almighty has chosen a bride for His Son (Eph 1:4). In eternity past—before the creation of the universe there was a covenant among the members of the Godhead. The Son of God will be given a people without number from every tribe, tongue and nation on the planet. These individuals will be formed into a new humanity—fit for God—to be ‘wedded’ to God.
If we put this ‘conversation’ between the Father and the Son in eternity past in human terms, the content could be as follows: There will be a problem, your bride will hate you My Son, and she will be dead in sin and corruption (Eph 2:1-3). The only way for you to win, and woo, and redeem her is to become the ‘last Adam’ and take on her legal guilt, her death, separation and deserved wrath (in a guilt and penalty transfer). You will have to go so low as to be tormented and killed on a Roman cross (Phil 2:8). You will go so low as to become a human corpse carried to a stone tomb by sinners.
But, your death will be her life. Your death in her place will not win her, nor awaken love in her merely by an example of sacrificial love. No, your death and resurrection for her will produce in your bride a spiritual resurrection in which she will be given a new heart—a new nature by which she will love you forever. You will grant her a new heart and thereby draw out her love for you forever. You will be able to say to her: you are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. For, indeed, the church was taken out of the side of Christ.
Ephesians 5:22-33 -- Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So, husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. FOR THIS REASON, A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
Did Christ know who His bride would be before He left heaven for her? That question is a huge point of theology. That question is tied to Christ’s particular love for His people and to the very nature of His atoning death. The theology we teach here at GBC, asserts that the son of God did know by name whom He was purchasing by His incarnation, death, and resurrection. He refers to them as those given to me by the Father. In Ephesians chapter five, the apostle Paul uses the language of intent—Christ gave Himself the intent of accomplishing the redemption of His bride.
Is it possible that Christ came to earth for an unknown bride, and without knowing precisely what His sacrificial work would secure, accomplish and attain? It would be hard to conclude that from this central text on Christ’s particular love for His church. In fact, there is nothing in this text that would suggest that Christ’s redemptive work was a speculative venture— solely providing potentiality. No, this text is a love expression of the covenant of redemption— Christ being guaranteed that His sacrifice would effectually purchase His church, and would ultimately be the cause of her glorification (she would be presented to Him publicly without spot or wrinkle).
Words to the Hymn, “The Church’s One Foundation:” “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord; she is His new creation by water and the Word. From heaven, He came and sought her to be His holy bride; with His own blood He bought her, and for her life He died. Elect from every nation, yet one o’er all the earth; her charter of salvation: one Lord, one faith, one birth. One holy Name she blesses, partakes one holy food, and to one hope she presses, with every grace endued (first and second stanza).
VII. The ‘vows’ which Christ entered and kept, constitute the pattern or template of a Christian husband’s marital vows to his own wife.
According the book of Genesis, marriage was instituted before the fall (Gen 2:21-25). The purpose for marriage is imbedded in the creation order, for God made all things in the creation for His glory, including the relationship between a man and a woman. God’s plan as Creator is inseparable from understanding the purpose of marriage. Therefore, God’s purpose for marriage ought to be the driving force in marriages today.
God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden to tend it, commanding them to rule over it in fruitfulness, and for them to be fruitful and multiply. Their calling to care for the Garden was joined to their purpose of worshipping and obeying the Lord. They had a defining purpose for their existence—their creational calling was worship through obedience.
Adam and Eve were created male and female, equal but different, ever perfect for each other—each indispensable to the other. Eve was created as Adam’s complementary helper that together they would fulfill the divine agenda for the creation, and thereby experience His full blessing. As obedient worshippers, they were to subdue the earth as God’s stewards, ruling over it—bringing order and fruitfulness to it for the glory of God.
Now the reason for the ‘leave and cleave’ command in Genesis 2:24 is tied to the celebration of them being ‘one flesh’—the design of which was to result in the worship of God to the uttermost ends of the earth. In other words, their marital oneness was to be a vehicle of raising up God-revering communities; their marriage existing as a God-fearing community in miniature to model the worship of God through obedience.
Now today we think about the ‘normal’ purposes for marriage as the unit and building block of a just, civil, and healthy society. And, in terms of the purpose for marriage, the following benefits come to mind: procreation, companionship, completeness, fulfillment, mutual comfort, and purity. Certainly, these are all God’s blessings by design. But, even collectively all of these blessed benefits do not capture the ultimate design of the marriage covenant. They are secondary to God’s ultimate agenda. The two, in becoming one flesh and in leaving and cleaving are meant to serve the greater purpose of worship through obedience. Thus, godly marriages are designed by God to encourage others to pursue the full expression of what we are made for; the worship and glory of God.
A believing husband’s vow of commitment is aimed at God first and foremost; for that man is pledging to lead, guide, reflect, and advance the glory of God by means of his marriage. In speaking of this marital purpose of ‘bearing of fruit for God,’ John Piper notes, “Marriage exists to magnify the truth, worth, beauty, and greatness of God [in ways a man could not do as a single man].”
When that divine purpose is an animating force in a husband’s life, then filling the earth with the worship and praise of God will be the driving force behind that husband making, and keeping marriage vows. This overriding spiritual purpose must be chief on the heart of a man as he enters marriage and takes responsibility for leadership.
The Word of God records the entrance of sin into the world, and how that sin affected the marriage relationship. The fall brought in selfishness, insecurity, and disputes. According to our Creator (in Genesis 3:16), our first parents’ fall into sin introduced a power struggle between husband and wife. The Lord said the Eve, the wife: To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain, you will bring forth children; yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (Gen 3:16).
This ‘battle of the sexes’ is frequently manifested as female manipulation meeting male dominance. And, although God predicted the inevitability of marital friction, this kind of conflict, though inevitable in a cursed world, is not God’s pattern for Christian marriage. For, according to Ephesians chapter five, Christ’s relationship to His church is the pattern for Christian marriage—for from that covenant between Christ and the church come the commands for Christian marriage.
As fallen creatures who live in a fallen world, the only possible way to worship God through obedience is through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; for only the Holy Spirit can produce Christ in us.
We study Ephesians chapter five in order to discover that Christ’s relation to His church is the primary model to understand the nature and intensity of the marriage vow. For Christ, as the divine ‘Husband’ of His bride, the church, displays the highest sacrificial love conceivable in the shedding of His blood for her. So out of this covenant of love, inaugurated by Christ’s shed blood comes an indissoluble bond of oneness between the Savior and His people.
This comprises a pattern to the watching world, for now Christian marriage provides the world with a picture of Christ’s covenant relationship to the church. Those with saving faith in Christ have the assurance of His faithfulness, His covenant promises—these are promises which do not center upon our ability, but upon Christ’s covenant faithfulness. What security there is in Christ carrying the ‘lovability’ and security of His bride—for it is His sacrifice for her that qualifies her to be a part of God’s ‘forever family’.
So, the ultimate ground for Christian marriage must not be severed from who God is toward us in Christ—and the ‘vows’ Christ took in assuming the covenant obligations necessary to make us His. And now in the marital vows we take in a Christian marriage, sacrificial love lived out in obedience to the Lord results in the worship of Christ. The net effect is to encourage others to do likewise as they observe your Christ-centered marriage. Again, this all goes back to Christ’s covenant of love which He has formed with His people. Christ keeps the covenant—He radically loves, serves, and forgives His bride.
In so doing, Christ fulfills His Father’s will. Our Savior experiences joy through obeying His vow to the Father—which is the basis of His vow to His bride, the church (Heb 12:2). Now, also in a married couple there is joy resulting from obedience. The husband surrenders his rights for the sake of his wife and the glory of God. The wife surrenders her self-will that her husband’s God-ordained leadership may be honored (Eph 5:22-33).
God is the true treasure of believers, and only in the pursuit of Him do we find true joy. Marriage is a vehicle for pursuing God. How frequently we need to dwell upon the big picture— namely that redemptive history is hurtling toward its consummation and goal. For, God’s purpose is that the entire cosmos will be subject to the Lord Jesus Christ, and that His people will surround His throne forever. And now your marriage is to play a small part in that purpose of filling the earth with the worship of Christ.
For, as you follow the pattern Christ laid out in the way He demonstrated love for His bride, to the glory of God the Father, you will be living out the loftiest goal of marriage—and you will be experiencing the greatest joy you can experience on earth. Out of our obedience comes the expression of worship, by which we reflect Christ’s pattern of covenant love. This shouts the wonder of God’s love to a dying world that can’t seem to find what life is all about.
Many people today have a ‘God concept’, but do not actually know God. For, God, according to His Word, can only be known in the covenant He makes through His Son (1 Cor 11:2-26) (‘Jesus’ Yeshua, Mt 1:21). Our God is a covenant-keeping, covenant making God. Everywhere in Scripture He is known by the covenants He makes. This is incredibly important to Christian marriage because only in the covenant that God makes does He give Himself forever. God’s particular covenant love in Christ to His own is not like the universal ‘rainfall’ of common grace, for His covenant love is reserved for those in covenant with Him. To those alone does Christ love sacrificially, serve, keep, forgive, accept, provide, protect, cherish, and safely bring to glory.
And, it is only in the marriage covenant of God’s initiating that a man and a woman are to give themselves to one another without reservation—emotionally, physically, and spiritually. How radically different this is from the world’s social contracts which exist for convenience.
So, how much does God think of the marriage covenant He has instituted? He thinks so much of it that outside of that marriage covenant God says that sexual intimacy between a man a woman constitutes immorality. God has deemed that matrimony is holy—there are to be no rivals, no others—this is covenant only breakable by death.
Your marriage covenant and its vows depict God’s salvation covenant with believing sinners. Countless folks today say that they are ‘OK with God’, but the beach, the mountains, the social club is their ‘church’. But, God says in no uncertain terms that any person who is not in covenant with Him by the shed blood of His Son is yet lost, an alien and stranger to the knowledge of the one true God. Sinners can only know God through the Son of God forgiving them. This is why there was a cruel cross.
When God forgives a repenting sinner, it is based upon the divine justice that was satisfied by Christ in His bloody death. In the greatness of His love, the Son of God was willing to come under God’s wrath and become legally guilty of the sins of all who would ever believe.
So, in this joyous and solemn occasion today, we are setting forth two covenants: one, Christ’s covenant with His people by His death and resurrection. And, the second, the marriage covenant between these this man and this woman. The second covenant, holy matrimony, is a picture of the other—Christ’s covenant love for His church. In both covenants, there are vows to be kept. Our Savior kept the vows made to His Heavenly Father—that He would lay down His life in order to redeem His bride. And now this couple has publicly professed their vows that their marriage might be a symbol and picture of Christ’s great love for His church.
Dear friends, the gospel of Jesus Christ shapes (forms the basis of) the marital commands of Scripture (love and respect, submission and sacrifice, describe the relationship between Christ and His church). The intense spiritual validity of the marriage covenant exists not merely for companionship, love, fulfillment, and child-bearing and rearing— marriage is by God’s decree and plan, a living picture (object lesson) of Christ’s love for His church.
This all-important truth brings to light that there are two kinds of marriages in this world: those recognized by the state, and those recognized in heaven between two believers. By the Word of God, we know which are Christian marriages. A marriage with the Lord at the center is a Bible-centered marriage. God created people; He created marriage; and He created the rules for marriage. You must believe in the inspiration and authority of His Word—that it guides you in every aspect of your marriage. The Word of God is sufficient for marriage, family and for ministry. If you whole-heartedly believe in the inspiration, authority, and sufficiency of Scripture, it will greatly enhance your prayer life. You both will walk in the confidence that God will bring about everything that He has promised in His Word.
VIII. The whole cosmos is poised for the glorious return of Christ for His bride, the church; He will return as King to install His Kingdom.
According to Isaiah chapter 53 and Hebrews chapter 12 and Hebrews chapter 10, Christ knew that His atoning work would secure a particular goal. He did not lay His life down as a speculative venture. There was not one iota of risk involved in His effectual work. What God promised Christ for His work, is spelled out in numerous Old Testament passages. Christ would be given a world filled only with believers. He would rule over a New Heavens and a New Earth. He would reverse the ruin caused by the first Adam. He would bring endless glory to the Godhead. He would purify for Himself a people zealous for good works. He would win subjects, who would be kings and priests with Him on His throne. He would be given a bride who would be presented before Him in absolute perfection. He would win a kingdom for Himself. He would have the joy of being their mediatorial king forever, and he would purchase the glorification of former sinners so that they would be formed into a temple of living stones, housing God’s spirit forever.
The full-orbed gospel involves a comprehensive biblical theism in which God’s ‘glory story in Christ—His plan of the ages is proclaimed. For, the gospel is both an account of what happened historically, and the gospel is God telling us what He did through His Son’s death and resurrection (Acts 17:30-31). And, the gospel is a proclaiming of the infinite dignity of the One who laid down His life by His Father’s command. By ‘dignity’ we mean that the world was created through the Son of God and for the Son of God (to know your Redeemer is to know your Creator—and that all things exist for Him, and by Him. It is His Father’s purpose that He should have first place in everything. We need to become competent at communicating the grand redemptive narrative—a narrative which involves the robust theology of God sending Christ to redeem His bride, of God giving Christ first place in everything so that He has preeminence in creation, redemption, judgment, and restoration (Col 1:15-21).
The bride of Christ is an alien and stranger in an enemy occupied world. God is going to trash the ecology of this planet during the seven-year tribulation. For, the usurper, (the devil), and all those who have followed him, instead of the rightful Lord of the cosmos, will be cast out. To a great degree this will take place during the 7-year tribulation when God sends all manner of disaster to begin the eviction process. (See 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).
This world which has fallen and under a curse, will become increasingly inhospitable to its inhabitants. Before Christ returns in glory at the second advent, He’s going to take back the title deed to the earth from the usurper and his followers. The tribulation period will be a massive eviction of sinners. In Revelation chapter 21, God says behold I’m making all things new. A new heaven and a new earth is coming, in which righteousness dwells. Only men and women made new will live in this new world. At times, we forget that a world dominated by sin and death is a very temporary situation. The rebellion and apostasy of our first parents was an abdication of their holy stewardship. Adam’s rebellion plunged the world into corruption, decay, and death. This will all be reversed by the obedience of the last Adam. For, it is His resurrection and exaltation that is the warranty of a new people living in a new heavens and new earth. By His redeeming work, the creation itself will be restored from ruin. The bride of Christ will dwell with her divine husband in paradise.
Spurgeon on the coming Kingdom: The time is fast approaching when grace shall extend all over our poor world and be universal. According the Bible testimony, we look for the great day, when the dark cloud which has swathed this world of darkness shall be removed, and will shine once more like all its sister planets. It has been for many a long year clouded and veiled by sin and corruption; but the last fire shall consume its rags and sackcloth.
After that [purifying] fire, the world in righteousness shall shine. The huge molten mass now slumbering in the bowls of our common mother, shall furnish the means of purity. Palaces, crowns, peoples and empires, are all to be melted down; and after like a plague-house, the present creation had been burned up entirely, God will breathe upon the heated mass, and it will cool down again. He will smile on it as He did when He first created it, and the rivers will run down new-made hills, the oceans will flow in new made channels, and the world will be again the abode of the righteous forever and ever.
This fallen world will be restored to its orbit; that gem which was lost from the scepter of God, shall be set again, yea, He shall where it, as a signet about His arm. Christ died for the world; and what He died for He will have. He died for the whole world, and the whole world He will have, when He has purified it, cleansed it, and fitted it for Himself. “Where sin abounded, grace did abound much more.” for grace shall be universal where as, sin never was. The world lost its possessions by sin. It has gained far more by grace. Through Jesus we will have a fairer habitation than Eden’s paradise. He has made us sit together in heavenly places. Life lost in Adam is more than restored in Christ.
Our original robes were torn asunder by Adam, but Jesus has clothed us in divine righteousness, far exceeding the value of even the spotless robes of created innocence. We mourn our low and miserable condition through sin, but we will rejoice at the thought that we are now more secure than before we fell, and our brought into closer alliance with Jesus than our standing could have procured us. Our Savior has won us an inheritance more wide than Adam ever lost by His folly. Thou hast filled us a coffer with greater riches than our sins have ever lavished. Thy grace has overtopped our sins. Grace doth much more abound.
APPLICATION: This is all about complementarity—the fitted-ness of one for the other. Christ and the church, man and woman—union is possible because of complementary differences—the fitted-ness of one for the other. Think just how much our adoration of Christ turns upon His fitted-ness to recover, rescue, and raise His Bride dead in her sinful corruptions. So much genuine Christian piety involves exalting Christ by continually matching His perfect suitability for every aspect of our ruin. It is complementarity from start to finish.
The consecrated saint is always about the business of matching the dimensions of Christ’s Saviorhood with our sinnership—His work of redemption with our ruin. “For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself” (Heb 7:26-27).
A true believer is staggered by the ‘vows’ Christ took to bring us from dust to glory—to make us part of God’s ‘forever family’. Caring for this relationship now is what it means to walk in faith and love: “Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him” (1 Jn 2:28-29). The whole creation is poised for that moment of the Christ’s bride presented to Him (see Revelation 19:7-9; 21:9-10).
How we need to rub the spiritual sleep from our eyes and strive for a vivid spiritual sight of this coming glory. For, overcomers gain their victories by exercising clear spiritual sight. They strain to view the glory of the Lord, and are thereby transformed (2 Cor 3:18). In Acts 14:22, the apostle Paul in exhorted the disciples to perseverance, “After they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”
Out of spiritual sight, or vision comes spiritual affections, from which comes assurance, and the resolve to run the race with single-minded endurance and stamina. This ‘kingdom consciousness’ is vital to our victory as overcomers who finish well, and who bring to harvest (‘eye on the prize’).
I am reminded of a frequent Puritan refrain: all of this life is preparation for the next life. The greatest act of faith in the believer’s spiritual journey is full confidence in Christ at the hour of one’s death—every day of life is a gracious gift to prepare for that moment. “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; ²for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:28-29).