It’s easy to imagine Adam’s excitement when he first saw Eve. After an unsatisfying examination of all the creatures God created, he had finally found a companion, someone like him but different in all the right ways. The first recorded words of a human in scripture are words of joy as Adam first saw his wife (Genesis 2:23).
For a while, Adam and Eve enjoyed the perfect marriage, untouched by sin. But things changed quickly in Genesis 3, and since then, marriages have never been the same. Every married couple knows the joy of marriage along with its struggles: misunderstandings, selfishness, conflict, and frustration.
Most couples stand at the altar thinking they will be immune to these struggles. But soon, every couple confronts the same issues in their relationship, and even worse, in their hearts.
Yet Scripture continues to highly value marriage. Jesus affirmed the original intent of marriage (Matthew 19:1-12). At my own wedding, I heard how Jesus “adorned and beautified” the institution of marriage with his presence and first miracle at Cana (John 2). In 1 Peter 3:7, Peter tells husbands to honour their wives, a command that would have been shocking in his day. The reason: they are “heirs with you of the grace of life.” Peter teaches that God cares so much about this that he will refuse to answer the prayers of husbands who mistreat their wives.
Likewise, Paul taught a mutuality in the marriage relationship that would have been shocking in his day (1 Corinthians 7:4). Later, when, Paul gave household instructions in Ephesians, he spent most of his time giving instructions to husbands on loving their wives (Ephesians 5:22-33). Paul raises the bar for men: they should love their wives as Christ loved the church. How can a husband know when he’s loved his wife enough? When he’s loved her like Jesus loves the church. Until we’ve died for our wives, we can still go farther in loving our wives.
According to Paul, our marriages are portraits of the love that Christ has for his church. He calls it a profound mystery (Ephesians 5:32). It’s not so much that Christ’s relationship to the church is like a marriage; it’s that our marriages mirror the ultimate reality. “We should not think that Christ and the church are the metaphor in this passage, but the reverse,” writes Ray Ortlund. “Christ and the church are the reality of realities, and our Christian marriages are the metaphors.”
In Revelation 19, we come about to the marriage of Christ and His church. Here we discover why the world was created. As Ortlund says:
The new heavens and the new earth will be created for the marriage of Christ and his bride. The whole of cosmic reality exists as the venue for the eternal honeymoon of the perfect husband with his perfect bride in marital bliss forever and ever.
Human history begins with a marriage in Genesis 2. Human history culminates in marriage at the end of Scripture—this time, the perfect marriage between Christ and his bride.
This is why marriage matters so much. It’s not simply a private relationship between a man and a woman. There’s much more at stake. Marriage is meant to be a miniature portrait of a far greater marriage—the one between Christ and his church.
There’s a lot at stake with our marriages. They are meant to be pictures of the greater marriage to come. That’s why the Bible cares so much about marriage. If you are married, your marriage counts too. It has a job to do, and we need God’s help to do it well because your marriage is part of a much greater picture.
Your marriage matters more than you think.