LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
The Mystery of Marriage
"For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery; but this I say concerning Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:32).
What is marriage? Is it what everyone knows it to be? Is there something deeper, and which the world does not know? Marriage is, we can say, the metaphor of a mystery. This mystery -Christ and the church- was not made known to the Old Testament prophets, although its metaphor -marriage- had already been established in Genesis 2:24: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh".
Marriage is an allegory of the mystery of Christ and the church, and not the full revelation of it, because it shows the union of Christ and the church in a veiled form, not openly. When we see Christ united forever with his church, in the heavenly places, celebrating the marriage of the Lamb, on that day, the metaphor will have a full manifestation.
To know the true meaning of marriage, we must know Christ and the church. The Lord accepted a certain distortion regarding marriage under the Old Covenant, but He cannot accept it under the New. For in marriage, the husband represents Christ, and the wife the church, which was not known under the Old Covenant.
When the Pharisees approached Jesus to ask Him about marriage, they had in mind the teachings of Moses given in Deuteronomy chapter 24. However, the Lord took them further back, to Genesis chapter 2. "Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses permitted you to put away your wives; but at the beginning it was not so" (Matt. 19:8). "In the beginning it was not so". This is the parameter by which it is to be measured. That which is in the beginning shows God's original pattern, and which expresses the desire of His heart. The later is the result of man's inability and irresponsibility to sustain that model. So we must look carefully at how things were in the beginning, in order to know the mystery of marriage.
When God created Adam he had in mind his Son, and when God created Eve as Adam's companion, he had in mind the church. The first thing is Christ and the church. Not Adam and Eve; not the marriage of Adam and Eve, but Christ and the church. Marriage is a replica in time of that wonderful and eternal union of Christ and the church.
The mystery of Christ and the church -like all those that God has revealed in his gospel- is not revealed to all men, but only to those who are of faith: "He answered and said unto them: For unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; but unto them it is not given" (Matt. 13:11). These mysteries are not understood by flesh and blood, but are understood spiritually, by revelation of the Holy Spirit.