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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their 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. 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.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
(Ephesians 5:22-32 ESV)
Paul here explains about marriage, and he quotes a verse from Genesis 2:24. In my last article on Genesis 2:18-25 “When Adam meets Eve”, we have seen that God is the one who initiated and designed marriage, and He designed marriage to meet our need for companionship. Marriage is a blessing for mankind. But God didn’t design marriage not just so that we could be happy and have our needs met. Here, we will see from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians church that God designed marriage to be a testimony for Him. Godly marriages bear witness of what it means to know God.
The Bible says that God created marriage for a purpose bigger than itself: Marriage is a picture of the believer’s relationship with God. Paul quotes Genesis 2:24 in his letter to the Ephesians church then he wrote “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church”. Marriage is an earthly picture of the spiritual relationship that exists between Christ, the bridegroom, and the church, His bride.
When you think about it, this truth about marriage as an illustration of relationship between Christ and the church, teaches us two things:
1. We need God because Christ is our ultimate spouse
We as the church (which is the bride), and Christ as the bridegroom, meaning that He is all we need. We need to have God in our life. Remember in Genesis that we are created in God’s image, and so in a way we are like God, but not God. God is like us but not us as well. He is like us because we are created in His image - theologians put it as a “communicable attributes” - there are some attributes that we have that is like God, example would be that we are created as a personal and relational being just like God is both personal and relational. But He is not like us, because He is holy, He is a spirit, He is sovereign. Just like Adam and Eve, they are equal, yet they are different. God is our ultimate helpmeet, not just as someone that you believe in, but He is the one we need in our life (God is the one that ultimately meet our needs for companionship). We will never be the one we are supposed to be unless God comes into our life, where we have an intimate relationship with him - to take Him as our lover. We need to talk to Him (in prayer), to listen to Him (meditate His word), and to think about Him (our thought has to be for Him).
2. God has given His heart for us (Christ is for us)
For a groom to take someone as his bride, meaning that He has given his heart for that woman. For God to put Himself as the bridegroom and we, the church as His bride meaning that Christ heart is bound up with His church. Marriage is a commitment - a covenant keeping (in fact God designed it that way) , and when Christ take His Church as His bride that also means that He is fully committed.
But what do we do? We often say that we believe in Him, that we love Him, but in reality we didn’t regard Him as the central of our life, we live for our career, achievements, our own pride which they are all spiritual adultery. Our deepest passion and hearts in this sinful world are anything besides God Himself. Imagine a wife who says that she loves her husband, but whenever she goes.. she looks on other man. That is us in God’s eye. God had said that He had given His heart for us, but whenever He sees us, His heart aches - it hurts him so much to see us unfaithful to Him which suppose to be our lover.
John 1:11 says that Christ came to His own, but His own did not receive Him. Even when we are lost, when we mock Him, when we are being unfaithful to Him, Christ came to take us back with His unending love. Some of us may say that we have such a terrible marriage, but there is nothing worst than Christ and His church. God has experienced the worst marriage of all.
His bride was really crucifying Him - when Christ was on the cross looking down to us, realising what it would take for Him to love us, and yet He still stays up there for us. He is a God with such a great sacrificial love, and fully committed to His bride, even His bride crucifies Him. God knows that His bride is not perfect, actually far from perfect, yet His love purifies the bride. He keeps enduring himself with such patience to win His bride back. His love purifies us, His bride. He has came to our life, dying on the cross, bearing the pain of our sins, so that we would be made pure once again. This is the gospel - that Christ, the bridegroom has came to save the bride (us, the Church) for Himself. Not by our works, but by His work, thus it is only by His grace through our faith that we could be saved.
He came to seek, He came to save, He came so that we have the freedom as a pure bride of Him. He did all of these and He is like saying to us “now trust me, and be my lawful wife once again, as I will always love you”. Just like Husband and wife became one flesh, we too become one in Christ. Christ love is a sacrificial love for us, and we ought to submit to Him, we too should love Him with an undivided mind - this is what faithful is.
And so to conclude, for those that has been married, when we reflect on what Christ has done for us: remembering His patience to stick with us to the end no matter what, it should encourage us to be patience with our spouse to the end. we might say to our spouse that “you have done bad things to me, but i had done far worse to my ultimate spouse, yet He is still committed to me, and so I too will be faithful to you my lawful husband/wife”. Let us not get too upset with flaws, but instead let our marriage be an illustration of Christ relationship with His church; let our marriage be a reflector of Christ when other people sees us. For those who is still single, you have Christ as your ultimate spouse, whatever you do: think on Him, think of His heart, and be thankful to Him, as He is the one who will provide and care for you, because He is Christ the bridegroom who loves you with a sacrificial love. Only God knows whether you should be married. Only God knows whether you should not be married. So let God rule your life, and may you feel His love in your life.
Soli Deo Gloria,
Paul Hartono
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