There is much about biblical marriage that can be said from the standpoint of Scripture and should be said, but in this small space, I am answering the specific question, “How does a faulty view of marriage misrepresent the gospel?” That’s a good question, one that catches us off guard: “The gospel and marriage? How do the two relate?” Are you just a little curious? The gospel is not often associated with biblical marriage. In fact, you’ll search long and hard in Christian bookstores to find works on marriage that deal with this important but neglected aspect of matrimony, because the majority of Christian authors on biblical marriage are just as guilty of this oversight as the majority of churches goers are. Those books you do find that address it are bound to be good ones.

In all of the weddings that I have done since I was ordained a minister of the gospel, I have made premarital counseling mandatory. During my thirteen weeks of intense Bible study on just about every area of marriage thinkable with the starry-eyed couple, I discuss this aspect of the gospel with them. And on their wedding day, during the ceremony, I make it clear to the witness that it is the intension of this couple that their marriage be a testimony of the relationship that exists between Christ and His bride. It is at this point that launch into the gospel. Where in the Bible does God make such a connection? You will find it very clearly stated in Ephesians 5:22-27: Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.

In this wonderful passage, Paul does at least two things: (1) he describes how husband and wives are to carry on with each other; and (2) he uses human marriage to illustrate the relationship that Christ has with His church (v. 32). No doubt, one has something to do with the other; specifically the way that husband and wives carry on must demonstrate the spiritual union that the Church, the Bride of Christ, has with Christ, her Groom. Pre-marital couples, and many married couples for that matter, find this connection somewhat surprising, never thinking that a marriage is mean to describe the redemptive relationship that Chris has with His Church. He loved her with a saving love, a redeeming love, a sanctifying love. He cleansed her of all her sin, so that He could live with her forever in glory. Therefore, the bride, having received this kind of love, is now able and willing to submit to her Husband in a sacred and binding union.

There are surely many applications to this powerful passage, but the one primary among them is that a faulty view of marriage misrepresents the gospel. When marriage is ignored, treated lightly, defined differently than the way that God defines it (Genesis 2:24), or abused either by the husband in his role or the wife in hers, the gospel is likewise treated. There is no way around the fact that we tamper with the gospel by tampering with marriage, a living, tangible, object lesson of the relationship that Christ has with His Church.