Christ's Bride - The Church - A Great Mystery

Christ’s Bride - the Church and a Great Mystery

Written by Dan McDonald

            Wives . . . (Look somewhere other than this blog for your rules)

            Husbands . . . (Look somewhere other than this blog for your rules)

            Ephesians 5:31-32:  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.”  (Not so many blogs on this great mystery!)

            I have just enough insight into personal relationships to know that my forte is not writing on relationships.  I do feel though that I have some basic insights into this mystery that St. Paul speaks about in Ephesians 5:31-32 when he quotes Genesis on why a man should leave his father and mother, so as to marry; only then to speak of how St. Paul is speaking of Christ’s relationship to the Church, rather than the ordinary relationships of men and women who enter marriage.  If you were like me when I first noticed Ephesians 5:31-32 you were utterly surprised by how St. Paul seemed to move from discussing Christian marriage to his assertion that what he was speaking of was Christ’s relationship to his bride, the Church.

            No one with a Jewish background or familiar with the Book of Genesis would have been surprised that the Apostle Paul would quote Genesis 2:24 in reference to Christian marriage.  The surprise comes when St. Paul says this verse is a great mystery for it refers to Christ and the Church.  When St. Paul presents to New Testament believers the possibility of celibacy as a gift it must surely be built upon the foundation that Christ in a redemptive sense fulfilled Genesis 2:24 in his marriage to the Church.  In the Old Testament the possibility of celibacy was hardly mentioned, but in the New there is a possibility of celibacy for those granted the gift of celibacy, but those who marry also do good, so whether married or single all are in Christ.  So for the celibate he or she may rest in the recognition that we are indeed loved wholly in Christ and called in his devotion to love others.  While for those married, because Christ has fulfilled Genesis 2:24 then there is a new model for understanding marriage and it is revealed in Christ’s love for and relationship with the Church.

            This would mean that the primary emphasis St. Paul places on Ephesians 5’s comments regarding the husband/wife relationship is that your marriage in Christ is meant to be an exploration of God’s love set forth and experienced in Christ’s love for the church.  This mystery is not something of an understanding acquired only through doctrine and teaching.  We know that God loves us not only because the Bible tells us so, but also because we have experienced the love of God in Christ in the church.  We love because he first loved us.  He has loved us in that he has loved the Church and we are granted his presence whenever two or three are gathered in his name.  Husbands and wives are thus to be guided not only by the rules of a code, but also by the love of the brethren we experience among God’s people in the church.  I am patriarchal enough in my thinking to imagine that to some degree this corresponds to how God created men and women to be different from each other.  But we all know that there are vast differences of maleness and femaleness expressed in our individual persons.  That said, I am suggesting that the first rule of Ephesians 5 is that husbands and wives in Christ are called to recognize that Christ’s relationship with the Church is the sole marriage that completely lives up to the expectations of Genesis 2:24 and therefore it serves as the one indispensable model for understanding Christian marriage.  If a Christian man and woman join in marriage with Christ’s relationship to the Church as their guide it will be a marriage where a woman honors her husband and it will be a marriage where a man takes care to see to it that her gifts, talents, desires, and ambitions are not squelched but given room to blossom according to the fullest possible extent of her humanity.  This is how we experience Christ’s love for us in the Church.  He has no desire to squelch the varied gifts he has given us but to bring them to fullness in a complete and full life.  A truly Christian marriage is meant therefore to be primarily an exploration and experiencing of the mystery of Christ illustrated in his leaving his father and mother to be joined to his bride, the Church.

            You may well think that this view is fanciful and unsubstantiated by the Scriptures.  But here is how I think St. Paul could have demonstrated the Biblical validity of such a perspective.   St. Paul could have joined Genesis 2:24 to Genesis 3:15 where God promised to Satan that the seed of the woman would one day bear forth a seed that would crush Satan’s head.  Every Jewish woman who married hoped to be the one who brought forth this son.  It was part of the Jewish hope that became connected to Messiah in a woman’s giving birth while hoping for the promise of the one who would be born of woman so as to crush the serpent’s head.  St. Paul also believed it essential for Christ to be in all ways as we are, yet without sin so as to bring about our redemption and salvation.  Christ is therefore uniquely to be like us whether celibate or married.  He lived a celibate life physically, but entered marriage to his bride, the Church, in a redemptive manner.  He would fulfill Genesis 2:24 in a redemptive manner and in so doing his relationship to the Church would become the new redemptive model of marriage to guide men and women who choose to participate in Christian marriage.  He so fulfilled the Genesis passage regarding marriage that men and women are no longer under any necessary obligation to marry.  The celibate life is a possibility for those called to it.  That is a possibility opened up to those called to it in the New Testament.  But for those who do marry, there is now a new model that brings the newness of life in Christ into the marriage relationship to be experienced by the Christian.

            In my next post I will show how Biblically I think we can see passages of Scripture showing us how Christ did actually leave father and mother to be joined to his bride, the Church.  There is a beautiful folk song that to me wonderfully reflects how Christ came down from the hills to woo and win the heart of a lady, his bride and how she left everything to follow him and how they were joined in a great feast where there was wine and music.  Perhaps you will enjoy listening to a wandering whistling gypsy which I think reflects (even if not necessarily intentionally) the story of Christ’s love for his bride.