Marriage reflects God's love

• God is Love
• Human love
• Marriage is built on love
• An image of who God is
• In view of Christ and the church
• Now what is that great mystery?
• Christ is Head and Sustainer
• The water bath through the Word
• Marriage, a triple cord
• Peter also says something about marriage
• Heirs of the grace of life

Last year we were married for 50 years. That is a long time and during that time we were allowed to experience the truth of our wedding text. In the wedding service at that time, like Moses, we asked the Lord to go with us: "If You Yourself do not go with us, do not raise us from here" (Exodus 33:15). When I look back, I see and know that the Lord was there. But you also see that there were things that, so to speak, should have been done differently. As a husband and father, you have little to boast of; in fact, nothing at all.

One particular aspect I have realized only recently. That is that God gave marriage to man so that in marriage man could show who God is: He is "merciful and gracious, supremely patient and full of loving faithfulness." (Psalm 103:8 EBV translation).
And that the responsibility for maintaining that image lies primarily with the man. Nothing new, you say? Yet Paul calls that a "great mystery.

God is Love

It starts here: 'God is love' (1 John 4:8,16). God's essence is love. It is the only way God reveals Himself to man. Love that aims to have Himself with man¹. A love that will do anything for that:

“In this the love of God is revealed to us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:9-10).

Love is what He is and that is also what is between the persons in the Godhead: the Father has loved the Son from before the foundation of the world (John 3:35; 5:20; 17:24b) and the Son loves the Father (John 14:31). Their mutual relationship consists of love and is eternal....

The love between the Father and the Son is from eternity. With this divine love, They also love believers (John 15:9; 16:27).

Click here for an overview of texts that deal with the eternal love of the Father and the Son.

📖 Eternal mutual love of Father and Son

1. Before the foundation of the world
John 17:24 - "Father, I want that where I am, they also may be with Me whom You have given Me, that they may see My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world."
John 17:5 - "And now You glorify Me, Father, to Yourself, with the glory that I had with You before the world was."
📌 The love between Father and Son is forever, not created in time. Their glory and fellowship existed before creation.

2. In the being of God
John 3:35 - "The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand."
John 5:20 - "For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He does..."
📌 The Father, out of love, gives everything to the Son. That complete openness and fellowship shows that they are one in essence.

3. Jesus' love for the Father
John 14:31 - "But that the world may know that I love the Father, and do as the Father has commanded Me..."
John 15:10 - "...As I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love."
John 8:29 - "I always do what pleases Him."
📌Jesus' obedience to the Father is not dutiful but loving. That love is as eternal as the Father's love to Him.

4. In creation and redemption visible
Proverbs 8:30 - "Then was I a nourisher with Him, and was daily His delight..."
Colossians 1:16-17 - "...All things were created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things..."
📌 Creation itself comes from the loving cooperation between Father and Son. Redemption is the culmination of that same love, made public in time.

5. Fulfillment in eternity
John 17:26 - "So that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them."
📌 The eternal love between Father and Son is shared with all who belong to Christ. Believers are included in that community of love forever.

💡 Summary in one sentence: The Bible reveals that the Father and the Son love each other from eternity, that this love is the source of creation and redemption, and that this love is fully shared in eternity with all who are in Christ.

Human love

When God created man, He made them in "His image. He not only gave them a spirit to communicate with Him (cf. here), but also enabled them to love.

Only then is there the second mention of loving in the Bible when mention is made of Isaac's love for his wife Rebekah (Genesis 24:67). This is the love in marriage that we will deal with below.

God has thus given us humans the ability to love, so that this love may be above all and first and foremost for Him. This may be evident from the fact that the law of the ten commandments mentions that He shows mercy to those who love Him (Exodus 20:6; Deuteronomy 5:10).

In addition, the ability to love is given to human beings to love one another. Husband and wife in marriage, parents and children, fellow believers and so on. It is "the natural love" that man has naturally received, but which Satan takes away from men through his deception (Romans 1:31 and 2 Timothy 3:3).

Marriage is built on love

We are going to talk about marriage between two believers. People, male and female, who know the Lord Jesus and love Him and in whom the love of God has also been poured out in the heart by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5).

I am just assuming for convenience that most marriages began because husband and wife conceived love for each other. In most cases, that will have started in some way with falling in love. The feeling of always wanting to be with the other person. For most of us, mutual love will be the basis for marriage.

Even after the Fall had taken place. That one did cause a lot of damage², but that did not remove God's intention that marriage would be a mirror of God's love. For believers, that remains the important premise because it would determine our behavior in marriage.

An image of who God is

Some may say that this is not literally so in the Bible, so you cannot say that.
Yet there are indications in the Bible that the Lord uses human circumstances or relationships to make things clear to the people of Israel. For example, consider

• God's relationship to the believer is described even in the Old Testament as that of a father with his child³. For example "As a father takes care of his children, so the LORD takes care of those who fear Him." (Psalm 103:13)
• The relationship between Christ and His church is reflected in the relationship of husband and wife in marriage. We come there below more on this.
• Hosea, who had to marry a harlot (Hosea 1:2) because the Lord wanted to show His people Israel how bad it was when Israel would commit acts of worship instead of serving Him.
• That example immediately indicates that God is also indirectly saying by this that marriage is a picture of the Lord's relationship with his people.

"(...) only for your fathers did the LORD conceive love to love them, and He chose their posterity after them, you, out of all the nations, as it is still today. (...) ¹² Now then, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to go in all his ways, to love him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul." (Deuteronomy 10:12, 15)

God desires a relationship with His chosen people based on His love, and He desires it to be reciprocated with love in return. How often does it say. Constantly it is repeated that they would love the Lord; see, for example, Deuteronomy 11:13,22;19:9; 30:6,16,20.

Marriage begins and endures because husband and wife love each other. Love that has the welfare of the other in mind and is willing to give itself away for that. Thus marriage is a living testimony of Who God is. For He also gave Himself away for sinners out of love.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16).

God instituted the marriage of man and woman so that man would thereby be constantly reminded of God's own love He has for people. Moreover, then follows the reminder to reciprocate that love of God. If all goes well, every marriage in this way is, as it were, a proclamation of the gospel of God's love.

In view of Christ and the church

God has given us His own example to follow. It says so beautifully:

“Be imitators of God then, as beloved children, and walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us as a sacrifice and victim, to a pleasing aroma to God." (Ephesians 5:1-2)

In the first 21 verses of that chapter, Paul describes the children of God as "beloved children. They have left behind the darkness they were in and have become children of light" (verse 8). The children of God demonstrate God's characteristics: love and light. They walk in this dark world in accordance with the light into which they have been brought. Filled with the Spirit of God, praising and praising the Lord in our hearts.
The section then ends with the call for all to "be submissive to one another in the fear of God" (verse 21). They are people who want to show something of God's character even in being submissive.

Then Paul goes on in the same chapter and compares the relationship of husband and wife to that of Christ and the church. The woman is called to be submissive, especially since the man is the head. It is a familiar section where the relationship between husband and wife is described by Paul and he compares it to the relationship of Christ and the church.

So here again the same thing: the marriage of husband and wife as the image of Christ and the church.

Now what is that great mystery?

You can read the section of verse 22-33 very simply and straightforwardly as follows:

• The wife must be submissive to the husband as the church is submissive to Christ.
• The husband is head of the wife, as Christ is the Head of the church
• The husband must love his wife, just as Christ also loved the church

But this "explanation" in this way fits seamlessly with the "sin in us" and man's need to rule. And that most certainly cannot be the intention. For then we ignore what the text says about what Christ does for and to the church. Because that, I believe, is where the mystery Paul speaks of in verse 32 is. It is even a 'great mystery' and that's why it's worth giving it some thought.

We look briefly at what is written about Christ in this section:

• Christ is Head of the church; and He is the Sustainer of the body (5:23)
• "Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, cleansing her with the bath of water through the Word, that He might set her before Himself in glory, a church without blemish or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be holy and spotless." (5:25-27)
• "he nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord also nourishes the church." (5:29)

Christ is Head and Sustainer

Christ is the head of the church. He has all authority. But it is not that He simply says: you must do this and that, you must just do what I say. Headship is directly connected to the fact that He is also "the Sustainer.

This is unusual because the word actually simply means "savior" or "redeemer. In ancient times, it was also a title given to someone who had done much good for his country or people. Or in other words, someone who had "brought salvation" from some miserable situation.
That the word is translated as "keeper" here in Ephesians may also have to do with the fact that the Lord is called the "Keeper" in Psalm 121. That word is used 6 times in that Psalm.  

This is also how we may see the Christian husband in marriage: as the one who is a kind of "keeper" or "preserver," as it were. He has a special responsibility for the woman he loves to ensure that she, too, will soon be fit to meet the Lord Jesus Christ. In this regard, you could also say that the husband has been given the responsibility by God to lead the woman he has received from Him - to be her head and keeper - until she is with Christ in glory.

It is also what Christ does : He came because He loved us and gave Himself up for us (Ephesians 5:2 and 25). He makes every effort to achieve His purpose with her. He wants to "set her before Him in glory, a congregation without blemish or wrinkle or any such thing, and that she would be holy and spotless." (Ephesians 5:27).

The water bath through the Word

The Lord Jesus sanctifies and cleanses the church and uses the Word to do so (Ephesians 5:26). Moreover, He "nourishes and cherishes" her, it says in verse 29.

When the Lord feeds His congregation, He naturally does so through His Word. There is no other means. To nurture means something like "to surround with warm love," and that is what the Lord Jesus does with His church. He also does that from His Word, because where our lives are difficult, His loving nurturing comes to us in His Word.

Now if Christ uses the Word to nurture, cherish, sanctify and cleanse His church, what does this mean for the intercourse of husband and wife in marriage? Then should

Marriage, a triple cord

At a wedding ceremony, marriage is often referred to as a threefold cord. After all, that is how the text says:

"Two are better than one, (...) A triple cord is not easily broken." (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)

Husband and wife are joined together by the marriage bond and the Lord is there third who is included, as it were, in it. Usually the couple is offered a Bible, the 'marriage Bible'. But I have never experienced that a 'manual' is given with it, how best to do it together.

When the husband is "head and keeper" he cannot really do anything but open the Word of God together with his wife. When they read and ponder God's Word, the Lord joins them. That was the promise He also gave to the people of Israel⁵.
This nearness of the Lord is also there for us now. Then what also happened to the Emmaus disciples will happen to you: "Was not our hearts burning within us, when He spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures for us?" (Luke 24:32).

In the protection and intimacy of the marriage bond, you can talk about all things of life and the Word of God. No question is wrong and you help each other to know what the Lord thinks about it. It is the safest place in the whole world. It will not be for nothing that Paul calls on the wives in the church not to ask their questions in the church, but at home to her husband (1 Corinthians 14:35).

In this threefold cord you grow as husband and wife toward each other, but also together more toward the Lord. How wonderful it is that in this way you grow more in love toward each other in your marriage and also grow together more in love toward the Lord Jesus.

Here I am not going to give elaborate advice on how to do this. Just one tip: take a reading schedule from "The Bible in a Year" to read through the Bible together from Genesis to Revelation. This gives insight into the coherence of the Bible and you will find that questions will be answered as you read through it. It is very helpful to keep this up for several years. In addition, there are enough questions in life where you ask the Lord together for advice and may expect the answer from His Word!

Peter also says something about marriage

Peter also writes an interesting bit about marriage in his first letter. It is 7 verses (1 Peter 3:1-7) where the first six address the wife. I am not going to talk about that now.

But the last verse becomes exciting because there the man is addressed. He is the one who is portrayed by Paul in Ephesians 5 as "head and keeper," and Peter shows a very different aspect here when he writes:

”Likewise, men, dwell with understanding with her; give the woman, as the weaker, [her] honor; after all, you are also co-heirs [with her] Of the grace of life; lest your prayers be prevented." (1 Peter 3:7)

Heirs of the grace of life

We are not perfect people - sin is still in us - and we need God's grace for this life. We have thought about this before, e.g. here. We wrote the following there at the time:

Simply put, we need God's grace because we have our weaknesses and shortcomings. Without grace we will not progress on the path of faith. The Lord gives it to us undeservedly and on the basis of the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus.
Both - man and woman in marriage - we are heirs of the same grace of God.

But without grace we don't get ahead in our married life either. There we live so close to each other that it is precisely there too that my weaknesses, mischiefs and shortcomings, the unpleasant sides of my character (let me call it that) become most apparent.

Then not only may I experience God's grace, but I also need my wife's grace. So that we can move forward again.

That grace is mentioned here where the man is addressed will not be accidental. By nature, man wants to be "in charge" and lead. This fits perfectly with the sin in us, which causes us to exalt ourselves above others (cf. here). And that can go very wrong.
Therefore, every Christian man must know that he needs God's mercy in this life. He must know himself, but also the place where he can receive mercy and grace (Hebrews 4:16).

Thus, in marriage, husband and wife may show each other something of Who the Lord God is to them. Showing each other grace.

"Merciful and gracious is the LORD, patient and rich in mercy.”

Psalm 103:8

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Footnotes

1. Even His "punishments" are because He loves us (Hebrews 12:6). ︎
2. On the essence of the Fall for human relationships: see here (https://goddienen.nu/over-de-zondeval-en-nederigheid/#aioseo-de-essentie-van-de-zondeval) ︎
3. I will leave the relationship of parents with children out of this blog. ︎
4. See, for example, Leviticus 20:7,8; Psalm 12:7; 19:8,9; John 15:3; 17:17. ︎
5. See also here: https://goddienen.nu/god-en-zijn-woord-zijn-dichtbij/ ︎
6. In Constable's Expository Notes ︎