Publications

The principles of marriage

Much controversy has raged in the church over the centuries as a result of the words of Jesus as found in Matthew 5:31,32:

“It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery:  and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery”.

However, it is not our intention to involve ourselves in the classic Christian discussion about divorce and marriage.   Rather we are concerned with marriage as a vital principle in God’s kingdom.  Our key scripture for this study is Ephesians 5: 2232:

“Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church;  and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;  That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing;  but that it should be holy and without blemish.

So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.   He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh;  but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:  for we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones.

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery;  but I speak concerning Christ and the church”.

We need to understand that it is not that marriage just happens to be a handy illustration of the relationship between Jesus and the church, but rather it is that the relationship between Jesus and the church and between a man and his wife are totally intertwined so far as God is concerned. Each is a true illustration of the other hence the parallel which is drawn here in Ephesians 5. Whether we speak of a man and a wife or of Jesus and the church, we are essentially speaking of the same thing.   If we cannot appreciate marriage for what it truly is, we will have great difficulty in appreciating the relationship between Jesus and the church and the reverse is also true.

Having spoken in detail about the manwoman relationship, Paul then says that he is in fact speaking concerning Christ and the church.  Not just that marriage is a type of that relationship but more than that, marriage is the very embodiment of it.   You will be able to appreciate something of the fulness of the church’s relationship to Jesus if you can appreciate the fulness of the relationship between husband and wife.
The principle of marriage is fundamental to the way in which we relate to God.   For some Christians “service” is the predominant aspect of their relationship to Jesus.   In not appreciating that first and foremost their relationship to him is that of a marriage, they have reduced it to one of employer-employee.   A husband and wife may indeed work hard and deny themselves for one another but the moment self-denial and servility become the basis of their relationship, the beauty will have gone out of their marriage. Similarly, the true beauty of marriage is absent from the way in which these Christians relate to Jesus because they see the Christian life as hard work and self-denial and “faithful service” as ends in themselves. They do not see that it should primarily be a beautiful relationship to be enjoyed.

The beginning

God began his relationship with man with a marriage.   Marriage is not an invention of man. Because man’s society did not devise marriage in the first place, present day trends to drastically alter its nature and even discard it, are grieviously out of order because it is a beautiful creation of God that is being tampered with.

“And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone;  I will make him an help meet for him.   And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air;  and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them:  and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.   And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field:  but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept:  and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.   And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh:  she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh”. (Genesis 2:1824)

God knew, of course, that Adam would not find his partner among those animals but it was necessary for Adam to realise that too. God often has to take us through a series of options not because he is not sure what we should do, but rather because we need to discover for ourselves just how right God’s ultimate choice is.   God allowed Adam to closely consider all of those animals so that he would, in turn, realise that his need was far greater than could be supplied by any of them.

His need could only be met by him first losing before he could gain. He needed someone who, unlike the animals, was a part of himself so when he had exhausted all of the possible candidates, God put him to sleep and removed one of his ribs and formed a woman for him.   He could identify with this woman because she came from him and she was an extension of him.   Because she came from him he could no longer live without her.   Having been a part of him first, she then became a far more vital and indispensable part.   But until Adam lost a rib, he did not gain a wife.

In this very first marriage God demonstrated just what marriage means to him and what it is really about.   Marriage exists not merely for companionship and not only for the “procreation of the race”.   Marriage is a man needing a wife because without her he is not complete.   It is a woman needing a husband because without him she has no true fulfilment or expression.   If we see this we begin to understand something of what marriage is in God’s eyes.  It is only as we begin to appreciate just what marriage means to God that husbands can appreciate their wives and wives can appreciate their husbands and the church can appreciate Jesus as Jesus appreciates the church.

So God began his relationship with man with a marriage by creating a man who needed a wife and who found that to have that need met he would first have to lose something of himself.   What he gave was multiplied by God into a wife who would meet his need for the rest of his life.

The climax

Just as God began his relationship with man with a marriage, he will also climax this relationship with a marriage.

“And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia:  for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him:  for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.  And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white:  for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.   And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God”.  Revelation 19:6-9.

All of creation is hurtling expectantly towards this climactic event the marriage of the Lamb. There is a tendency for much more to be said about the Second Coming of Jesus than about the marriage of the Lamb.   Maybe because there are a lot more “workers” waiting for their rewards than there are “lovers” waiting for thei Bridegroom.   It seems that the early Christian church knew far more of this expectancy because they had an appreciation of what it is to be the Bride of Jesus.

Right from that very first marriage between Adam and Eve God set in motion something which will not be fulfilled until the marriage which was planned before the foundation of the world.   The heart of Jesus is expectantly looking forward to that great marriage.   My own courtship with my wife, Judy, lasted for five years and they were very enjoyable years, yet of itself, that courtship would have been meaningless unless at the end of it there was a marriage which was to be the fulfilment of our expectation and our desire for one another during courtship.

That is how Jesus feels. The unfortunate part is that he does not always receive a reciprocal response from his church.  So many are busy hurrying and scurrying and justifying their “Christian” existence as they “work out their salvation with fear and trembling” that they forget the most important thing of all, that they have a Lover who is preparing for a wedding.

In the book of Esther we read that each candidate who was being considered for the role of Queen to King Ahasuarus was to initially spend one night with this King.   He would then decide whether or not he would even see her again.   Yet for this “one night stand” she was put through a meticulous oneyear preparation period   She was prepared for twelve months before she was considered fit to grace the King’s boudoir for even one night!  Yet it seems that some people aim to be at the wedding of Jesus in a state of total unpreparedness.

They will have been so “busy in the King’s service” that their clothes will be old and dirty, their hands rough and grubby and, of course, their justification will be “Lord I have been just so busy working for you”    Should a bridegroom be impressed if his bride arrived at the wedding in her gardening clothes because she was so conscientious that she worked in the garden right up to the time of the wedding, so as to avoid giving any impression that she was going to be a slothful wife!

Surely he would be far more impressed if she had been spending the previous week doing everything to make herself as attractive and beautiful and pleasant as possible for him.   That would mean to him that he mattered more to her than anything and anyone else.   But we get the impression that the church has not much time to waste on Jesus as such.   After all, everyone is too busy working for him to waste time appreciating him!

How easily Christian activity in the name of Jesus can, in fact, push our bridegroom into the background.   That certainly is not the order of priorities in the heart of Jesus.  For him, the exciting prospect is his coming marriage.  The time when he and his Bride come together.  God is going to climax his relationship with man at that wedding.   The Christian life is a courtship with Jesus to be lived in anticipation of the great Marriage to come.   Unless we live it as such, we will not be able to see things in their true perspective and our priorities will be wrong.

Ephesians 5:27 tells us plainly that Jesus “gave himself for the church that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish.”   This was his purpose in giving himself.  The church exists solely for Jesus.   We do not exist for anyone else and all else is incidental.   God’s purpose in all that Jesus accomplished in his death and resurrection is not simply the “snatching of sinners from hell” but far beyond that.  It is to unite man who is the crowning glory of his creation, with himself in this beautiful marriage, and Jesus as the Bridegroom is the means by which this great union is accomplished.

Let us never forget that the gospel does not end at “getting ’em saved” for his purpose is to present us to himself.   Our responsibility is to cooperate with him to make this possible.

God and Israel

God’s relationship with Israel included that of a Husband.

“For thy maker is thine husband;  the Lord of Hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel:  The God of the whole earth shall he be called.   For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God.”   Isaiah 54:5,6.

God reminded Israel that he was a Husband to them. He encouraged them not to worry over feeling desolate and passed by. Not to worry because they saw themselves as a woman who had been married and then rejected by her husband for unfaithfulness, thus being resigned to a life of being unfulfilled unwanted and uncared-for.   He reminded them that he, their Maker, was their Husband.   We need to remember that this is the “God of the old testament”, who, some would have us believe, was an angry old man who sat up in heaven doing nasty things to people and that he was an untouchable, impersonal God.

This old testament God said, in tender love, “I am your Husband, I care for you with a husband’s love, if you put your trust in me you will find me to be everything that a husband is in every way, in love, in provision, in care and in faithfulness.”

Jesus and the church

We also understand from Ephesians 5:3132 that Jesus’ relationship with the church is that of a Husband.   We are totally his.   A man does not run away from his marriage commitment if he is ever going to be a true husband.   The relationship of Christ with the church is that of a husband. He gave himself. How easy it is to think of it all as something like this:  Jesus condescended to leave heaven for a while, go through three and a half years of hard work (and let’s face it, no matter how tough it was he only had to grit his teeth and hold on for three and a half years and then he would be back in heaven where everything was rosy!) and when it came to his ascension he might have said something like, “See you later fellows, it’s been a rough three and a half years but I’m off now so the best of luck and I hope you make it!”

So he went back to heaven and left us down here. Now he is seated at the right hand of God the Father and has had it good ever since he got back there but we have had it tough.   In that case, the least he could do is to answer our prayers and get us out of a few tight spots!

Though most who think like that would not perhaps express it in quite such a graphic way, yet that is the underlying attitude of many Christians.   In truth, the present relationship between Jesus and the church is nothing like that. He is at least as totally committed to us as the man who leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife to the end.

Would God demand of a man such a total commitment to his wife as true marriage entails without him self having such a commitment to his own church? Do you believe that Jesus is as totally committed to you as any woman would expect her husband to be to her?

Jesus has separated himself from all else that he might be totally available to us.   That means in everything.   In every provision, in every need, in every desire, in every purpose.   He is entirely given over to us.   His whole purpose is to be a Husband to his Bride.

Do we live, do we believe, do we trust, do we rest as if that were so?  A woman who knows that her husband will do all that is in his power to provide, protect and care for her is secure and at rest. She is free to love him, honour him, worship him and adore him.  She rests in the knowledge that he is able and he is totally responsible for her.   That is how the church ought to be relating to Jesus for Paul says in Ephesians 5:32 when speaking of the mystery of the two becoming one flesh in marriage, “but I speak concerning Christ and the church”.

In 1 Corinthians 6:17 we read that:  “He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit“.  And that does not just mean that we are to be totally committed to him, but that he also is totally committed to us.   He said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you“.  Although the marriage is yet to come, Jesus and the church are already espoused to one another.

Espousal is as binding as marriage.  The only difference being that the consummation is yet to come, therefore, Jesus must already be regarded as the church’s Husband.

The Holy Spirit's work

The Holy Spirit’s work now is the setting aside and preparation of the Bride.

“For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 11:2

These are the words of Paul concerning the legitimate jealousy which he felt for those whom he had introduced to Christ.   He had played the part of “matchmaker” and was now faced with the prospect of those whom he had espoused to Jesus, being unfaithful to Him.

In a social setting where this form of espousal is practiced, it is understood that when a woman is promised to a man she is already committed to the same standard of faithfulness as would prevail after the marriage is consummated.   She is committed to her espoused husband and if she violates that commitment, her husband is free to set her aside and not marry her.   We, the church, are already espoused to one Husband and he is a very jealous Husband.   The words of James 4:4,5 are strong:

“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?   whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.  Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?”

The Holy Spirit, who is within us, has a driving possessive desire toward us.   He demands that seeing as we are now espoused to Jesus, we belong only to him.   He is possessive.   When God gave his people the ten commandments and told them that they were not to have other gods, he said, “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God” and he is.

Jealousy in marriage is a wonderful thing.   I am completely jealous toward my wife, she is all mine and belongs to no other man and she is equally jealous toward me, because she rightly considers me to be hers and hers alone.   So far as God is concerned, when we give ourselves to him then we are his and he lays complete claim to us and will be violently, passionately jealous if we start “making eyes” at another.   We are not free to flirt with other affections outside of our affection for Jesus.

What then is “friendship with the world”?  To have anything in your life which does not please God is to have friendship with the world.   And that is a wrong affection.   If it does not please God it is wrong.  A woman who is espoused to a man does not need to buy a book on what is right or wrong in espousal.   All she has to do is to find out what pleases her husband.   If he considers something in her life to be an expression of unfaithfulness, (whether or not it appears as such to others) then she will honour his desire and rid herself of it.   After all, he is the one that she needs to please.

If Jesus says that something in our lives does not please him, then that is all the reason we need for getting rid of it.   He alone is the Lover that we need to please and the Holy Spirit’s work now, is to set us aside and prepare us for our marriage to Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is his agent.   He watches over us, convicts us, directs us and shows us what is the will of our Lover so that we, in turn, might be fitted for that marriage.   He “works us over” and puts us through all kinds of preparation processes.   The most demanding relationship is that of love and because he is our Lover, he is most demanding on us as he prepares us to be his Bride.

My wife, having made a particular commitment to me, the like of which no-one else has ever made, is entitled to be demanding upon me and I upon her for the same reason.

When we make a true love commitment to Jesus we find that he is most demanding and we may be tempted to object to his demands yet because of his love for us he has earned that right.   The fact that Jesus has so completely separated himself for us is our security.   Having so separated himself and being completely committed to us, he is now preparing us, his Bride, for that great wedding.

So, as we begin to understand this great principle of Marriage, we realise that it is still unfolding before our eyes with the climax yet to come.  Only as we, his church, identify with Jesus and move together with him, can the spirit of God reveal to us all what marriage really is.   Such an understanding will make our own marriages more precious and at the same time give us a greater anticipation of that great Marriage to come.

Are you prepared to cooperate with the way in which the Holy Spirit will lead you, direct you and deal with you as he expresses to you the love and demands of Jesus upon your life?

Such cooperation will prepare you for your part in that spotless bride for whom Jesus is waiting.

About the author

Tony Kostas was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1941, where at the age of seventeen, he committed his life to Jesus at a Billy Graham Crusade. In 1967 he founded the Melbourne Outreach Crusade, a non-denominational evangelistic outreach. This later grew into Outreach International, which is now a worldwide body of believers, who share a God-given calling and are committed to live in love with Him and with one another.

Tony’s life is a true expression of all that God has revealed to him throughout the years, in its purity and focus on loving God. His passion is for God to have the desire of His hears: a people who truly represent Him because they are His and His alone.