Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.
Try Tabletalk NowAlready receive Tabletalk magazine every month?
Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.
With evocative language, the Song of Songs poetically captures the perfect love of a bridegroom for his bride:
“You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride;
you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes,
with one jewel of your necklace.
How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride!
How much better is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!” (4:9–10)
Yet this only begins to express the loveliness present already in Genesis 2. In response to the not-good aloneness of the man, God made a woman from Adam’s side who corresponded to him, shared the image of God with him, and partnered with him in the work of filling, subduing, and having dominion over the earth (Gen. 1:27–28; 2:18, 21–22). Adam’s amazement and relief are palpable: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (2:23). In a culturally counterintuitive move, the woman would not be subsumed into the man’s family; instead, man would leave his family and turn all his attention to his wife. Together they would start a new family. He would cling to her in faithfulness, cooperation, and companionship, and together they would become one flesh, enjoying sexual union and especially single-mindedness in pursuing God’s glory in their shared work of dominion (v. 24).
Of all the technology ever created to make work efficient and effective, nothing comes close to the powerful resource that is the marriage of a man and a woman. Unfortunately, Satan knew this, and seeking to challenge God’s sovereign rule, he aimed a blow at this image-spreading, dominion-extending tool. The enemy turned the couple against God’s words, ultimately turning husband and wife against each other. The curse in Genesis 3:16 describes self-centeredness and self-interest at the expense of the other, a story that has played out in history through polygamy, abandonment, rape, abuse, adultery, and divorce.
Yet when all hope of God’s use of humanity to showcase His glory seemed lost, God stepped in, redeeming marriage, regulating it through good statutes and commands in Exodus through Deuteronomy, and redeploying it for redemptive purposes. Not only would bride and bridegroom continue to fill the earth—now with redeemed image bearers who showcase His grace and mercy (see Deut. 4:5–8; 6:6–7)—but God would explicitly apply marriage to Himself and His people.
Hosea 2:14–20 presents a vivid picture of God’s love for and union with Israel, His bride. Alluding to the exodus from sin and slavery in Egypt, God says that He will “allure” His bride, bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her (v.14). He will restore and rejuvenate her so that she will no longer be tempted to view Him as a ruthless master as when she grumbled in the wilderness but will instead see Him as her husband (vv. 15–16). This divine-human marital union culminates with the Lord’s infallible promise: “I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord” (vv. 19–20).
Hosea 2 provides the backdrop for the further unfolding of bride and bridegroom imagery that we find in the New Testament. The Gospels proclaim that Jesus is the Bridegroom (Matt. 9:14–15; Mark 2:18–20; Luke 5:33–35; John 3:28–29), and Paul expounds on this with unprecedented profundity in Ephesians 5:22–33. In contrast to a Greco-Roman culture that devalued marriage with concubinage and extramarital sex at Roman baths and brothels and in association with pagan temples, Paul placards a most beautiful union of husband and wife, one that points to Christ and His beloved bride, the church. Christ is the bride’s husbandly Head and Savior (v. 23). He loved His bride and gave His life for her (v. 25). He makes His bride holy, radiant, and without blemish as He cleanses her “by the washing of water with the word” (vv. 26–27). Finally, Paul provides an inspired commentary on Genesis 2:24: “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” (Eph. 5:31–32).
How can Paul say this? Is he overreading Genesis 2:24? No. New Testament scholars have shown that Paul has a typological perspective. He notes in Ephesians 5:32 that though Genesis 2:24 establishes the creation ordinance of human marriage, it does more than that. As God was shaping all history to reveal the perfect work of Christ, He modeled marriage in Genesis on Christ’s union with His church. This explains why He redeemed it and regulated it in the law and why prophets such as Hosea could preach about God’s own marriage to His people. Even though Ephesians 5:22–33 is one of the most sublime theological assessments of marriage found in the Bible, Revelation 19–21 points forward to the final day when what we experience already in part will be experienced forever in consummate fullness.
Despite the claims of Mormonism, human marriage is not for eternity. This is why Jesus says in Matthew 22:23–30 that the resurrection is not complicated by figuring out who is married to whom, something especially difficult in cases in which people have remarried: “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matt. 22:30). In saying this, Jesus is not saying that our love for one another—including our spouses in this life—will be less than it is now. Indeed, our being perfected, renewed, resurrected, and without sin will have a marvelous impact on our relationships in glory. But Jesus does tell us that the oneness and union that we experience in human marriage in this life will give way to something better.
In Revelation 19, John’s attention pivots to a deafening throng of cheers: “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready” (vv. 6–7). In Ephesians, we saw how Paul described Christ, the Bridegroom, cleansing His bride; here we see the completely cleansed bride in all her radiance: “‘It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure’—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints” (v. 8). This is the marriage supper of the Lamb, where Christ finally and everlastingly weds Himself to His bride, the church.
This scene resumes in Revelation 21, where John sees not just some marriage feast in some venue in some corner of some city but a marriage taking place in the venue of a new heavens and a new earth. There we see the people of God gathered corporately and described as the holy city, the new Jerusalem, and yet this city-people is coming down an aisle to nothing less than the new creation, “coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (v. 2). A few verses later, John sees even more clearly how Christ’s bride-city is a picture of all who belong to Jesus. The city has twelve gates, each labeled with one of the tribes of Israel, the church of the Old Testament (v. 12). The city wall has twelve foundations, each labeled with one of the names of the twelve Apostles, symbolizing the church of the New Testament era (v. 14). And there the Bridegroom of all bridegrooms draws His bride to Himself, ushering her into the marriage of all marriages—perfectly leaving, cleaving, and becoming one with His people as they enjoy an eternal marriage, dwelling in His presence, never again to mourn or to face death or pain or temptation or sin (vv. 3–4): “Behold, I am making all things new,” this Bridegroom tells His radiant bride (v. 5).
The last fifty years in the West have displayed a sustained devaluing of marriage. A vivid set of statistics about divorce, cohabitation, and children born out of wedlock testifies to this. Even though marriage rates affect issues such as poverty, education, crime, and mental health, forces are aligned against the institution of marriage between one man and one woman.
Why would anyone seek to minimize marriage? Because of its eschatological significance and symbolism. Marriage between one man and one woman tells the story of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though our world rejects Him, seeking satisfaction and fulfillment from anyone and anything but Him, our world desperately needs Him. Christian marriages, marked by selfless love and submission, point toward something better than the self-serving approaches of modern marital distortions. They testify, albeit imperfectly, to our eternal hope: everlasting life with Jesus, our King, Savior, friend—our Bridegroom.