A Biblical Approach to Marriage

Then the Lord God made the rib He had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. Genesis 2:22

Consider the above verse, it was the Lord who brought Eve to Adam; it was the Lord who saw them both adequate for the marriage union. This is and should primarily be one of the first verses to approach when others consider marriage. Why is this? There are a couple of reasons why, firstly we recognise that the marriage union is a gift from God and secondly that both the man and woman ought to be presented for this union and I don’t mean in a ceremonial sense either. Let me show you what I mean as we approach verses that spell out the ‘do’s and do not’s’ of marriage.

 Wives, submit^[f] to your own husbands as to the Lord, ²³ for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. Ephesians 5:22-23

These verses are quite honestly you could spend a lot of time preaching over it! It first presents a command with reason “as to the Lord”, as a wife submits to her husband, she does so in recognition of the union of marriage presented by the Lord and thus obeying the Lord. It is a beautiful union! A submission that recognises the Lord’s work within marriage itself! From verse 23 we see how and why marriage ought to have authority and submission (I’ll explain those two in more detail) “as Christ is the head of the church”. If we expand simply on these two verses alone, than we would have to agree that marriage itself points to the union of the church and Christ Himself. In other words, marriage is a model for the union between Christ and the church; this is the biblical approach to marriage! This is essentially how we as Christians ought to view marriage; we ought to have a very high regard for marriage. Consider what is noted in Genesis 2:22, God gives marriage as a gift and in Ephesians 5:22-23, marriage points to the union of Christ and the church; His bride groom. Now let’s consider the role of the husband.

Now as the church submits to Christ, so wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. ²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing^[g] her with the washing of water by the word. ²⁷ He did this to present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. ²⁸ In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, ³⁰ since we are members of His body.^[ Ephesians 5:25-30

Husbands have the most humbling role there is, to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. I remember speaking with my best friend one time about this verse and he said “this verse is not about a once off physical sacrifice, any man can jump in front of a bus to save his wife, that’s easy. What it’s really saying is that we ought to sacrifice ourselves daily, to kill off selfish desires. Not simply to be with our wives, but to “make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word.” Husbands our duty to our wives is to raise them up with good doctrinal biblical knowledge. Is it a hard task? You bet it is! It takes sweat, grinding and genuine ‘hard yaka’ (as Aussies like to say) to say no to sin and yes to sharing in the word with our wives. We can’t do this on our own strength; we’re too weak for that. We need prayer simply to know how to approach marriage like this.

Now this is my last and final note and this is strictly for parents. Parents do you have this view of marriage? Do you hold marriage as a high model that honours the beautiful union of Christ and His bride groom? Is the biblical marriage more important than your own son or daughter being married? If not, than pause for a moment before rushing your son or daughter to be married to someone else. Your children will look to you as the model for marriage and this is why Paul presents strict guidelines on how marriage ought to be carried out. If your son or daughter doesn’t have a high view of marriage as the bible describes, please don’t approve of their marriage, lest their marriage be a shipwreck! It takes humility and time with the Lord to pray and ask the question “is my son or daughter ready for this? Please show me Lord!” Now I don’t have children of my own, God willing I hope someday He presents us with children of our own. But if by the time my children are at an age where they are considering marriage, I need to know that they have a biblical perspective of marriage before they rush into this! After all, children are precious to parents! So let us model marriage in a way that glorifies the Lord and prepares children for marriage as well.