The Single Key To Personal Change

A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

–Ephesians 5:31–32

I believe that the main way the Bible works (and the main way that preaching works when it is faithful to the Bible) is not to focus us on application. Application is good and right and needful, and nitty-gritty examples and illustrations can be helpful. But I believe that the main way the Bible works is to display glories.

And here is a profound glory: marriage, in its deepest meaning, is a copy of Christ and his church. If you want to understand God’s meaning for marriage, if you want to see marriage in its highest possible glory, you have to grasp that we are dealing with a copy.

Marriage isn’t an end in itself. This is why marriage doesn’t exist in the resurrection (Matt. 22:30). It is a copy. Copies aren’t needed anymore when the reality is on full display. Here they are needed. The world is filled with the need for this very kind of marriage. But it won’t be needed in the end.

That’s because marriage is a copy of a greater original, a metaphor of a greater reality, a parable of a greater truth. And that original, that reality, that truth is God’s marriage to his people—Christ’s marriage to his church.

We are designed and made to know that which we don’t yet know. Why don’t we know? Because our hearts and minds are so often consumed with the worthless things of this world. But by the Holy Spirit, in a moment of illumination, all of that can just be driven out, and something absolutely glorious enters into a human heart and changes everything by virtue of its magnitude.

Before any application ever arrives, you are just changed. Suddenly a husband’s heart soars with a new sense of what he is on the planet for, and what this woman in her magisterial dignity as his bride is really all about. Everything changes when something lands on you like that with biblical force.

I can have a little misgiving when a husband’s response to hearing about the glories of marriage is, “Yeah, but give me an example.” All right. I will give an example. But is your heart exploding with this truth? Are you soaring? From those new heights she looks different, the kids look different, the job looks different, the planet looks different, life looks different, death looks different, the devil looks different.

Again, marriage in its deepest possible meaning, in its most profound glory, is a copy of Christ and his church. Marvel at that. Be in awe. It is wonder that changes people, not examples. Examples and illustrations and action lists are a little bit helpful, but seeing glory changes everything.

TALK ABOUT IT

Pray together now, taking turns, reveling in the wonder of God’s grace to us in his Son, that he would take the church as his bride. Praise God together that you get to display that glory in the everyday life of marriage.