This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. Well, have your finger in Genesis 2 and Ephesians 5, if you will. We'll talk about marriage again. This week, I thought about the fact that as Christians, we love the institution of marriage. We know the moral foundations of marriage as Christians who Know our Bibles, we realize and understand the crucial role that marriage has in a stable society and in a healthy church. But I think we may love the idea of marriage more than we love marriage itself. Because when it comes right down to it, marriage is messy. Has anybody noticed this? Marriage is messy. And I'm not talking about dirty socks and undergarments left outside of the shower. I'm talking about the fact that two sinners have been joined together in a union that the Bible describes as one flesh. What an idea! Take two people who are born into this world who are profoundly and fundamentally selfish and join them together with the commission to think more highly of the other than themselves and to serve the other for their good. Unless God is in it, this is a prospect doomed to failure. Why? Because expectations are high. Nobody goes into marriage thinking, I bet this is going to be one of the worst trials of my whole life and it's going to last for the rest of my life. I do. So expectations are high. Oh, are they high? and therefore the disappointments are many. And so today, if the disappointments are too many or the disappointments are too deep, we have the idea that you just go down to the courthouse and file papers and call it quits and then start over with somebody else. John Piper has something to say about that and it's worth hearing. Piper wrote years ago, our culture has made divorce acceptable and therefore easier to justify on the basis of emotional pain. Historically, the misery of painful emotions was not a sanction for divorce in most cultures. Marriage durability with or without emotional pain was valued above emotional tranquility for the sake of children, the stability of society, and in the case of Christians, for the glory of Christ. In Christianity, such rugged enduring marriages through pain and heartache are rooted in the marriage of God to his rebellious people whom he has never finally cast off. And so I pose a question to you this morning. What if marriage is about something more than your personal happiness? What if marriage exists for a higher purpose than merely to live happily ever after? What if marriage exists to teach us about redemption and the gospel and perseverance and Christ and his church? Now don't get me wrong, I think that happy and healthy marriages are great, And it's a great aim, and it's a great goal, one for which we should strive. But what I'm proposing to you this morning on the basis of God's holy word is that marriage exists for a purpose that is higher than your personal happiness. What we see in the Bible is that marriage is a living lesson of eternal truth. And so we've seen in our number of studies now in Genesis 2, 18 to 25, what we've called the gift of the bride, the first wedding, the first marriage, marriage in the garden temple. And so let me just review very, very quickly What we've covered first, we looked at the Lord God's observation that it's not good for man to be alone and God then determines to make a helper corresponding to him. That is, a helper equal to him, a helper who completes him. That's God's design. And then what God does, secondly, is then He takes Adam and has all of the animals, as it were, march by for Adam to name the animals. And in so doing, Adam is exercising dominion over the animal kingdom as he names them, but then he becomes aware that there is no helper in the animal kingdom that corresponds to him. In other words, this little exercise after God's observation really is designed to awaken in Adam the need for a helper who truly corresponds, fits, completes him. And thirdly, we saw the formation of woman. The first surgical procedure was God actually doing something unique in that everything that he had created so far, he had created by divine fiat out of nothing. In Adam's case, he creates him out of the dust of the ground. But then what God does with the woman is he creates the woman out of a pre-existing living human being, namely Adam. God takes one of Adam's ribs and literally builds a woman. And so the first created living being was taken from another living being and the wedding then occurs. And God actually, in just marvelous imagery, brings her to Adam. Adam, of course, breaks out in rhapsody and praise. First human words ever spoken are by a man on his wedding day singing forth a poem. That's awesome. It's never happened since. Adam breaks out in rhapsody and makes this deeply covenantal expression, bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, that's not just she came from me, that is we are in deep covenant together, and he names her Eshah because he's Esh, or woman because he is man. And fifthly, we saw the elements of a divinely ordained marriage outlined for us in 2.24. It is first of all exclusive. A man leaves his father and mother and now has a new priority, a wife, and vice versa. Second element, it was permanent. A wife shall cleave, or he shall cleave to his wife, and this cleaving is both a permanent and a passionate covenant commitment. And then there is third element, a unity. The two become one flesh. And so there is a physical, spiritual, and emotional solidarity, which is reflected, of course, in sexual intimacy, but clearly surpassing sexual intimacy. And the two are now one in that they complete each other. Sixth, they were naked and unashamed. Adam and Eve had no barrier between them. There was nothing to hide. Perfect integrity and openness. And that's really how the Genesis account actually concludes in chapter 2 verses 18 to 25 is with this sense of bliss and integrity and openness and joy, nothing to impede. And so what we did is we drew out application. regarding equality and headship in marriage. So man and woman are absolutely equal in personhood as image bearers. But the Bible's also clear, right? Before the fall, at creation, the Bible is clear that men and women, although equal in person, do in fact have different roles, and those different roles are embedded in creation. The husband is the head of the wife. The wife is to be in submission to her husband. This was before the fall. Now, if you didn't hear that message from two weeks ago, I would just encourage you to go online and listen to it because I made it very clear, I don't have time to review it right now, male domination is not male headship. Headship is responsibility and servant leadership. It is not simply the man, quote, being the boss. So we also drew out the blessings of the marriage union, of course, bringing forth children. and an exclusive, joyful, intimate sexual relationship. And then we looked at the creator's boundaries for marriage. One man, one woman in a permanent covenantal bond which takes priority over all other earthly relationships. So, husband's the most important person in your life next to the Lord Jesus is your wife. Wives, the most important person in your life, not your children, but actually your husband. And it is that bond established for us in Genesis 2.24 that says that this is the closest human relationship that exists in this world, and there's a reason why. And that is because of what Paul tells us 1,500 years after Moses writes what he writes in Genesis 2 the Apostle Paul says this mystery is great and you say No kidding, of course marriage is a mystery. I've been married for 40 years and it's still mysterious to me. I don't know what she's doing, I don't know what I'm doing, and it's a total mystery. And that is not exactly what Paul, of course, had in mind. It may be true. but it's not what Paul had in mind. This mystery is great, Ephesians 5.32. So we start by asking, what is a mystery? Because just like the word hope, if you use the word hope in a worldly context, the word hope does not mean the same thing that it means in a biblical context. Right? The word hope, for instance, has the idea of wishful thinking. Okay? I hope the Raiders at least win one game this season. Right? Well, I don't know that that's going to be true. I hope it's true. But hope, biblically, is confident expectation that God's going to do what he said he's going to do. That's hope biblically. Well, mystery is the same thing. If you say something is a mystery in the world, there's this idea that, you know, you're talking about an Agatha Christie novel or you're talking about just simply a puzzle. Now, in Paul's day, he was surrounded by what were called mystery religions. And in Paul's day, the pagan world had these mystery religions and for them a mystery was this idea of secret knowledge that was reserved for those who had been properly initiated In other words, it was for the super spiritual who had jumped through some necessary ritualistic hoop and now they became the possessors of this secret knowledge that is a mystery. Paul absolutely does not have that idea in mind whatsoever. In fact, when Paul uses the term mystery, and he's quite fond of the term mystery, he is using it as it is rooted in the Old Testament, but especially in the book of Daniel. Let me give you a definition of mystery that is both simple and straightforward. A mystery in the Bible is a truth which had been concealed or hidden by God, but is now revealed by God. It's actually that simple. A mystery is something that had been hidden by God, but is now revealed by God. And so Greg Beal, one of my favorite New Testament scholars, has a new book, and the title actually says it all. Hidden, but now revealed. A biblical theology of mystery. In the book of Ephesians, Paul uses the term mystery numerous times. And in fact, as Paul uses the term mystery, he typically has something very specific in mind. And that is, God's full, complete, end-time purposes, which are all fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In fact he starts out in Ephesians chapter 1 verses 9 and 10 talking about the mystery which had been hidden for ages past but now is revealed and that is the summing up of all things in Jesus Christ. So in other words in the Old Testament it was hidden And by hidden, notice hidden does not mean absent. It just doesn't mean right there on the surface. And so Paul says there's this great mystery that's now unfolded, that's revealed in Jesus Christ. And that is that all of God's purposes are fulfilled and summed up in the person and work of Christ. And the central emphasis has to do with the church. So the church itself is part of the mystery. And here it is. is that God in Jesus Christ was going to bring together both Jew and Gentile and make them into one new man and create that thing that we call the church. Now, why is marriage a great mystery? Well, first of all, just notice the way Paul describes the mystery. He says it's great. This, you can translate it like this. This is a great mystery or this mystery is great. I don't think there's a whole lot of difference there. But the idea of great is that what he's about to explain to us is profound. It's utterly profound. It is deeply significant. In fact, in all the times that Paul uses the term mystery in his writings, he never describes any mystery as a great mystery except marriage. So what is the mystery? Well, let me say, first of all, that the mystery is not marriage per se. Marriage wasn't a truth that was hidden but now is revealed. But rather, marriage is a mystery in the sense that there is truth in marriage that is now revealed, all right? Now, at this point, I wanna just point something out and that is, In Roman Catholic theology, marriage is seen to be a sacrament. Okay? Now, that comes along because when Jerome, back in the 5th century, is translating the scriptures into Latin, he takes the Greek word musterion, which is the word for mystery, and he translates it with the Latin word sacramentum. So, you read Ephesians 5 in the Latin Vulgate, which was the official translation of the Catholic Church for over a thousand years, and what you have is, this sacrament is great, but I speak with reference to Christ and the church. And so the idea is, according to the Roman Catholic Church, is that when marriage is entered into under the authority of the church, marriage as a sacrament then mystically gives grace. This is unbiblical. Marriage isn't a sacrament, it's a creation ordinance. And marriage, as you know, doesn't mystically give grace, but always demands grace. All right? Now, the mystery that Paul's talking about here is that marriage points to the union between Christ and his church. Now, before we dig into that, let me say that What Paul is not saying is, you know, the relationship between Christ and the church, wow, what a great illustration of marriage. That's not what Paul's saying. In fact, Paul is saying not that marriage is an illustration of Christ and the church, but what he is saying is, The relationship of Christ and the church is illustrated in marriage because the relationship between Christ and the church precedes human marriage. In other words, as John Piper puts it, God did not create the union of Christ and the church after the pattern of marriage, just the reverse. He created the human marriage on the pattern of Christ's relationship to the church. The hidden truth that is now revealed from Genesis 2.24 is this, the union between a man and a woman is a reflection of the union that exists between Christ and his church. In other words, it's Christ and his church that now forms the pattern for marriage. Now, where does this come from? Well, let's talk about the truth hidden and now revealed. So in the Old Testament, God was a husband to Israel, right? In fact, God was in covenant relationship with Israel. God takes Israel as his bride. In fact, not only is this kind of language and imagery sprinkled throughout all of the Old Testament, It is predominant in the prophets. And in fact, one book is entirely devoted to the image. The book of Hosea. And in fact, furthermore, when God is indicting His people of unfaithfulness, the predominant imagery that He uses of their covenant unfaithfulness to Him is that of covenant infidelity within marriage. In other words, oftentimes Israel's idolatry is equated to adultery, a violation of the marriage covenant. In fact, this theme is actually repeated so many times, but there's one that stands out to me in Ezekiel 6, 9, where God actually says, I have been hurt by their adulterous heart. And so Yahweh and Israel are joined together as it were as husband and bride, or husband and wife, and they're in covenant with each other. Then when you fast forward to the New Testament though, the New Testament, Christ is now the husband to the church. Now this has a lot of ramifications, but just think about these for a second. First, Christ is identified as Yahweh. If Yahweh was the groom or the husband to his bride, the covenant people, and now in the New Testament, it's Christ who is the husband or the bridegroom to his people. Jesus is being identified as God. Jesus himself, by the way, alludes to this in his own earthly ministry when he repeatedly calls himself what? The bridegroom. The other implication that we see is that the church is the fulfillment of the Old Testament covenant people. So the church is now one new man. So under the new covenant, there is no longer Jew or Gentile, but under the new covenant in Christ's blood, Jew and Gentile are brought together to form one new man, which is the church, which is a new creation. Now, did the Old Testament actually foresee the inclusion of the Gentiles into the covenant people? Yes, absolutely. In fact, there are major portions of Psalm 87, for instance, is dedicated to the idea of the inclusion of the nations into Israel. But the mystery is that the Gentiles would now become not just, as it were, included in the covenant people alongside of Israel, but the mystery is now that the Gentiles would become a full-fledged part of the household of God, being the seed of Abraham, and no longer strangers and aliens, but rather partakers of the commonwealth of Israel. Now that is absolutely part of the idea of the mystery here. What is revealed is the person of Christ, what is revealed is the nature of the church, and what Paul's saying is that's embedded right there in Genesis chapter two and verse 24. But there's actually something more to the mystery than just Christ as the head to, or the husband to the bride. Jesus Christ in the incarnation takes on human flesh. Right? The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In the incarnation, Jesus becomes a partaker of blood and flesh, Hebrews 2.14. In other words, the Son of God, who is the eternal Son, enters into this world and actually becomes a human being in every way, just like we are, with one grand exception, that is, without sin. So Jesus Christ comes into this world, takes on human flesh and in human flesh redeems the church and the church now becomes his body. Now, there is absolutely no way that an Old Testament believer could have read the passages about Yahweh and Israel being husband and bride and thought to themselves, really what is going to happen is that Yahweh is going to become enfleshed and enfleshed is going to purchase for himself a bride that then will become one flesh with him. This is part of the mystery. It's part of the mystery of the incarnation. It's part of the mystery of our redemption. And so, so organic is the unity that exists between Christ and his church that Christ is now described as the head. And the head, of course, is inextricably connected to the body. One flesh. You ever wonder why Paul is so emphatic that the church is the body of Christ? Why the body? Well, just as Eve was created from Adam and their union created a one flesh union, so Jesus Christ in his incarnation partakes of flesh and blood and redeems us so that we become bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. We become his body, which he now loves and nourishes. In fact, if you're in Ephesians 5, look at this. Paul says, so husbands ought also to love their own wives. How? As their own bodies. That's a little surprising, isn't it? That's not exactly what you would think he would say. But he does. He actually makes the point that husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ also does the church, for we're members of his body. In other words, Paul is saying, you know, God gives you a body and it's not that you stand there and you go, oh, I'm so in love with this body that God gave me. Okay? But his point is, is that body's a part of you. And as that body is a part of you, what do you do? You feed it, you take care of it to the best of your ability. If it's sick, you give it medicine. You know, if it's weak, you try to build it up. Nobody absolutely just goes around and just destroys their own body because it's their body. And so Paul says, hey, love your wife because guess what? She's part of you. You're in one flesh union with her. To love her is, in a sense, very much so to love yourself, to take care of yourself. And guess what? This is exactly what Jesus does with the church. We are now in union with him, and guess what he does for us? He actually loves us and nourishes us. Why? Because by the work of the Spirit, we are in union with Jesus Christ. In a real sense, you could say that for Christ to love His body is for Christ to love Himself. Now, there is no other relationship in the world that is like that relationship. Right? There is nothing in the world like a union between a husband and a wife that is now supposed to be this magnificent reflection of what exists between Christ and the church. So, when the Father sets out to create the world, He says to the Son and to the Spirit, so to speak, let us create in such a way that our glory is reflected in everything that we do. This world is going to reflect our glory. And son, this world is going to reflect your glory, but there is a peculiar glory which you have as the head of your people. that will be reflected in the marriage union between a man and a wife. So the glory that exists between Christ and his elect, which the father had given as a bride, is now going to be reflected in marriage. And so what happens? Jesus Christ comes into this world and purchases for himself a bride, which is a fallen people, a sinful people, but he's going to lay down his life for her. And so we read, husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Jesus Christ lays down his life for his bride in order to purchase for himself a people, a bride forever, and then he turns around and he says, men, that sacrificial love that I've demonstrated towards my bride is now the pattern of you loving your bride. Jesus Christ has pursued us and still pursues us as his people, bringing his gospel to us by his spirit. And then when we hear by faith and believe in him, that union is a union of grace. It's a union that's born out of God. gospel grace, and so men and women then, living in marital union, have to learn to live by grace. What is the basis of the church's relationship with Jesus Christ? It's all of grace. It's all the gospel. If there's no gospel and no grace, there's no relationship between Christ and his church. And therefore, God says, listen, husbands and wives, do you know what? I'm gonna put you in a marital union that is going to demand that you learn to live by grace, sustained by grace, motivated by the gospel. Do you understand that your marriage is the best platform on the planet to live out gospel grace? Why? Because you have so many opportunities to ask for forgiveness. You have so many opportunities to repent. So many opportunities to extend forgiveness. So many opportunities to be reconciled. Well, what is it? What is forgiveness, repentance, reconciliation, but the heart of the gospel? The marriage union should be this pulsating, gospel-rich illustration of what it means to have eternal life. If I can just say, some of you actually short-circuit that part because you never admit you're wrong. Can you imagine having a relationship with Jesus in which you never admitted you were wrong? Some of you short-circuit the picture because you never ask for forgiveness. And some of you short-circuit the picture because you think reconciliation always needs to be initiated by her or him. And the reality is, is that gospel grace should actually pulsate, overflow in your marriage. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in If you ever have a chance, read his sermon. He was actually in concentration camp when his best friend, Eberhard Betka, was gonna get married to, I believe it was his cousin, or may have been his sister, I can't remember now, and he couldn't be there to perform the wedding, so he wrote a wedding sermon from prison, and that's what it's called, a wedding sermon from prison, and in there he says, in a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins. You know that sentence just by itself would transform some of your marriages? In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it, no human fellowship, least of all marriage, can survive. Bonhoeffer went on, he says, God gives you Christ as the fountain of your marriage. Welcome one another therefore as Christ welcomed us for the glory of God. Romans 15, seven. Don't insist on your rights. Don't blame each other. Don't judge or condemn each other. Don't find fault with each other, but accept each other as you are and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts. A marriage in which there's nothing but condemnation, blame shifting, and just always judging the other person short circuits the picture of the gospel. Wake up to the reality that you're married to a sinner, and guess what sinners do? Sinners sin. And then the minute that that kind of starts to hit you and you go, wow, you know what? I'm married to a sinner. I'm married to a person that doesn't always walk with God in perfect obedience. Then you should be thunderstruck with the reality that she's married to the same kind of person. Two sinners joined together learning to actually live out the beauty and the glory of the gospel. Jesus Christ loves his bride and sanctifies her by the Word and Spirit, Ephesians 5, 26. Husbands should be seeking the sanctification of their wives by Word and Spirit. This struck me this week. The selfish husband who neglects or ignores his wife isn't too selfish, he's too short-sighted. Because if he really valued himself and his own happiness, he would spend more time nourishing his wife in love. Our problem is not that we pursue joy. The problem is that we don't pursue the joy of our spouse more earnestly. Bruce Waltke says these words. He says, C.S. Lewis wryly observes, the real danger in the Christian doctrine of man's imitation of Christ in marriage is not that husbands will grasp the thorn of crowns too eagerly, but that they will allow or compel their wives to usurp it. And then Waltke goes on, he says, the servant empowers his wife to use her spiritual gifts to her fullest potential. On the other hand, the Bible instructs the wife to respect her husband as her Lord, an instruction that entails obeying him in everything as qualified above. Importantly, the Bible neither instructs the woman to manipulate the man to serve her, to be the proverbial neck that turns the head, nor the husband to hold his wife in subjection to be the head that lords itself over the body. Serving and obeying in mutual subjection to the Lord are inward graces worked out in the heart, consciences, behaviors, and customs by the Holy Spirit. These are ideals for which we strive, though recognizing we'll never fully be attained any more than any other perfection of holiness. Failure to attain them should be accompanied with repentance and renewed faith, not discarded by cynicism, despair, or the seeking of new societal structures. As we consider marriage in all of its glory, we say without hesitation marriage is not simply some cultural or societal construct. Marriage between a man and a woman is designed by God. And it's designed after the relationship between Christ and his church. And so if you are married, your marriage has the privilege of being a Christ exalting picture of the Savior's love for his people. What a privilege. Men, that wife that God has given to you, He has given to you so that you are able to live out this life before His face and to be a demonstration to the watching world of what Christ and the church looks like. Wives, yes, believe it or not, that husband that God has given you, not just afflicted you with, that husband which God has given to you. He has given that husband to you so that during your earthly sojourn, you can live out that marriage as a dim reflection of Christ's relationship to his church. That marriage is to be exclusive, it's to be sacrificial, it's to be sanctifying. I remember years ago listening to a sermon by my friend Art Azurdia and he asked this question. Brothers, is your wife a better Christian today because of you or in spite of you? By the grace of God, we will in fact do better than we do. There's not a single person in this room that would say, you know what? If people wanna see what Jesus and his bride really look like, just come over to my house. Right? Nobody's gonna say that. Nobody's gonna say that, and you know why? It's because we realize, first of all, as husbands, the calling to love your wife, as Christ loved the church, wow, how in the world could I ever do that? There is this gigantic impediment in my life to do that. It's me. Because I come into this world loving me. And I come into this world not to serve, but to be served. Which, by the way, is the exact opposite of my Savior. And so husbands realize that there's a high standard because the relationship of Christ and the church is the model upon which marriage is built. Husbands have a constant need of grace, forgiveness, wives. One of these days, that husband will be what God intended him to be. Now, it will be when his body's rotting in the ground and his spirit is united to the Lord in heaven. Husbands, one of these days that wife will be everything that God intended her to be. In the meantime, May we be men and women who live out the beauty and the power and the glory of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that when people see us, they don't see these perfect little Pollyanna marriages. They see the nitty-gritty, messy reality of marriage when two sinners get joined together but who understand the power of the gospel and live by grace and seek to do what God's called them to do in this world. As brothers and sisters in Christ, we should settle for nothing less. And so may the grace of Christ be magnified in our marriages as we await the consummation of the ultimate marriage feast between the bride and the lamb. Let's pray. Father, we know marriage is your idea because it certainly wouldn't be ours. But we thank you that your thoughts are not our thoughts, your ways are not our ways. We thank you, Father, for the mystery that's now revealed. And we pray for husbands, we pray for wives, we pray for those who might be a husband or wife one day. Father, grip us with this truth. Grip us with the gospel. And in all these things, may Jesus Christ be praised. Amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.