18. Marriage and Family Life
It must be remembered that marriage is the most
exalted parable of the spiritual relationship between Christ and the Church, his
“Bride”:
“Wives, submit to your husbands as to
the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the
church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to
Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in
everything.
“Husbands, love your wives, just as
Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing
her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as
a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and
blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own
bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his
own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church —
for we are members of his body. ‘For this reason a man will leave his
father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one
flesh.’ This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ
and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves
himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (Eph. 5:22-33).
Marriage was never intended by God merely to be
an end in itself, however great its benefits. Rather it is intended to be a
living “parable” or replica of the relationship of Christ and the
ecclesia, or church.
It ought to be the ideal of every marriage to
reflect the relationship of Christ to his bride — the ecclesia. Is this
what others see when they look at your marriage? Can they see the pattern of
Christ and the ecclesia — one in which the headship of the husband is
respected and the submission of the wife practiced; one in which the wife is
nourished and cherished — being herself holy and without spot and
blemish?
This ideal is in marked contrast to the breakdown
of marriage in the world around us. Nearly all Western societies are
experiencing an increase in divorce rates. Educators and social workers are
attempting to pick up the pieces from the broken homes. The task is immense and
growing. Many of these children end up in special education classes with
learning problems; others find their way into detention homes, and later into
drug rehabilitation clinics or worse.
These problems are the result of a world that
does not know God. For the disciple there is a better way. Marriage is not a
temporary arrangement until something better comes along. Many of the mistakes
of yesterday we can, in part, correct, but marriage is not like changing a job
or trading in a car. It is a lifelong relationship.
“The wife is bound by the law as long as
her husband liveth” (1 Cor. 7:39).
For this reason marriage should never be
undertaken lightly, nor without a commitment to its lifelong
permanence.
The relationship of Christ and the ecclesia as a
pattern for marriage provides a continuing exhortation to right conduct. Does
Christ betray the ecclesia? Is he unreliable so that the ecclesia cannot trust
him? Does the true bride take another husband? Far from being unfaithful, Christ
continually seeks the wellbeing of the ecclesia; and the true ecclesia for its
part steadfastly remains loyal to him.
God sets before us a pattern to be followed, an
ideal for which to strive. He has designed that two might become one, one in
concern for the other’s welfare, one in submission to the other’s
need, one in objective in raising a godly family. He requires a binding together
in holiness and humility, a uniting epitomized by a total loyalty in their
physical union, a uniting that reflects in its beauty the uniting of His Son
with his own beloved.
When God’s perspective is appreciated, His
concern for the state of the mind in this matter is understood. As a yearning in
our thoughts after mammon is called covetousness, which is idolatry (Col. 3:5),
so a seeking in our hearts after another partner is adultery (Matt. 5:28). We
are to have our hearts set on a right course, with our eyes looking to the ideal
pattern and desiring in our inner man to emulate it. Right conduct in this
matter is to be more than outward compliance. It is to be governed by more than
fear of ecclesial censure or public shame or financial complication. Right
conduct is a matter of recognizing and controlling even our thoughts, as we
earnestly strive to live out a relationship that reflects the pattern of Christ
and the ecclesia.
“Woman was taken from man’s
side... ot from his head — to rule over him, not from his foot — to
be trodden down, but from his side — to be his companion, from under his
arm — to be protected, from near his heart — to be
loved.”
