Adult Sunday School - The Analogy Of Marriage

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this morning. We pray that you would open our eyes to understand the truth of your word, and we pray that we would be more like Christ, the one who is able to stand before you.

In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so it's been, wow, it's long.

Sorry. It's been three weeks, I think, since we last looked at marriage.

Sorry if I could get a little bit less volume in here. I tend to talk quieter when

I hear myself behind me like that. It's been about three weeks in which we looked at marriage, and last time we looked at all the

New Testament passages that talk about the union between Christ and the church, at least speak of it maritally,

Him as the bridegroom. And now we're just going to be looking at Ephesians 5, that main passage, and exploring all that that entails.

What exactly is that analogy of marriage? All right, so yeah, this singular truth about the union between Christ and church is the main truth that drives the

Christian ethic of marriage. So it's important to know exactly how that analogy applies.

And in subsequent weeks, we'll be looking at this more and more, but today, just how does that analogy apply exactly?

All right, so the locus classicus, meaning the main text that's about a particular topic is for this topic,

Ephesians 5. Would someone like to read Ephesians 5, 22 to 33?

We won't be reading as many texts as we have in previous weeks, but I'd still like to have a volunteer read a couple of these.

Yeah, yeah, so some volunteer, whoever that is. All right, sure, okay,

Nick, you'll get the next one. Yeah, Ephesians 5, 22 to 33.

22 to 33, right? Yeah. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the

Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior.

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.

Because we are members of his body, therefore 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 as the church.

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let his wife see that she respects her husband.

Okay, so interestingly, this teaches, not that the union between Christ and the church is like a human marriage, but rather that human marriage is like the union between Christ and the church.

So there's a primacy to the union between Christ and the church. And that's a surprising thing.

The Book of Common Prayer says that marriage is an honorable state, signifying unto us a mystical union that is betwixt

Christ and his church. So even the Book of Common Prayer used in Anglican churches acknowledges this, that human marriage is signifying this marriage between Christ and the church.

So what is the sign, and what is the thing signified? Well, the human marriage is the sign, and the thing signified is Christ and the church.

So there are a lot of analogies in scripture that contrast or compare things.

And of course, all things are designed to point to our maker. So Psalm 19 says that the heavens declare the glory of God.

Right, so all things ultimately point to our maker. However, even though God has ordained everything for his purposes, we can't always say that the primary purpose of some aspect of creation is to illustrate some particular truth about him in such a way.

So for example, John 15, one says that Christ is the true vine. Does that mean that vines were given primarily, above all other purposes, to illustrate some truth about Christ being the source of life?

I think it's hard to say so. One, we have no testimony from scripture to that apart from that passage and maybe a few others.

But in addition to that, we have other passages that use it to mean different things. For example, Israel is frequently compared to a vine, and on one occasion, it talks about just how as the wood of a vine,

I mean, you don't really think of that as wood, but just like the wood of a vine is not useful for construction, but only useful to be thrown into the fire, so Israel will be cast into judgment.

You know, and so, well, there, vines represent weakness and worthlessness. You know, so is that the primary purpose of God creating vines and putting them in our universe?

It'd be hard to make that assertion. Similarly, we could look at leaven, right, yeast.

Why did God give us yeast? Well, for enjoyment, to make fluffy bread. But then we might say, well, maybe his primary purpose in giving us yeast was to illustrate the reality of sin and how it spreads throughout the whole earth.

We see that repeated a few times during scripture, but we also see scripture speak of the kingdom of heaven being like a little leaven, right, that grows.

And so, once again, it would be hard to assert that that's the primary purpose of God creating yeast and exposing us to these aspects of creation that might illustrate some truths about him.

But marriage, on the other hand, accomplishes this purpose of teaching us about our maker in a particularly heightened way.

In a way where Paul is testifying that its primary purpose is to illustrate

Christ in the church. So, first of all, it's not some relatively insignificant part of creation that's being harnessed to demonstrate the glory of God.

Now, many parts of creation are less significant than others, relatively speaking, you know, blades of grass and, you know, the smell of rain when it hits the soil, things like that.

But marriage is kind of the crown of creation in a lot of ways. God created heavens and earth.

We have six days. On the sixth day, he created man. And then, on that sixth day, it describes him, man naming all the animals, and then, at last, coming across woman,

God creating woman. On that day, he created both male and female in the image of God and blessed that union.

And so, this is like, this is the final aspect of creation. This is, creation is the stage on which, it's a stage, it's a platform created for the purpose of showing this beautiful marriage.

And then, as we saw last week, as we looked at the marriage between Christ and the church in the New Testament, it's how scripture ends, as well, with the marriage.

So, not only does the new creation, or the old creation, end crowned with a marriage, but the new creation is crowned with a marriage.

So, this is not some aspect of creation that has lesser significance. This is something that really is a crowning aspect of creation, if not the crowning aspect of creation.

So, and then, secondly, we have Paul's testimony in this passage, explicitly teaches that human marriage points to the reality of Christ and the church.

Both unions are a gift from God, and one is an illustration of the other. And so, that union between Christ and the church is the primary one, and then, our own marriages are the secondary one.

All right, now, let me prove this a bit further, that human marriage is not just some arbitrary illustration of Christ and the church, but actually designed for that.

So, first, Paul asserts this, asserts that the union between Christ and the church implies an ethic for marriage. So, on the one hand, it's not surprising.

As an exemplar, Christ's love should be the pattern of our love. Of course, that's going to have implications for how we love one another.

John 13, 34 says, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

However, Paul's not merely saying that his demonstration of love implies an ethic of love.

He's saying that the church's submission also implies an ethic of submission, and that the union between the two implies an ethic of union.

Ephesians 5, 23 says, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, being himself the savior of the body.

So, in this light, the church does not function, Christ and church don't function merely as exemplars of a union, but as antitypes, so, an antitype being something that creation is pointing to.

A marital union, in particular. Yet, it does not provide the relation between, this union also does not provide the template for other kinds of relations.

You know, you see throughout the rest of Ephesians 6, where it talks about parents and children, it talks about masters and servants, and it's not, it doesn't go on and say, well, just like Christ loves the church and the church submits, so, fathers, you should love your children, and children, you should submit to your fathers.

It doesn't keep using that union as the driver of all these other things, so, it's not, this isn't just, oh, well,

Christ is an exemplar of love, let's apply that to everything. True, Christ is an exemplar of love, that should be applied to all situations that require love, all relationships, but this union is providing something particular when it comes to marriage.

All right, so, yeah, the only explanation for that is that the union between husband and wife derives its purpose from the union between Christ and the church.

So, second demonstration of this is, Paul speaks of marriage as implying a mystery.

All right, so, given that God has revealed his will for human marriage, he's revealed his will for this marriage between Christ and church, it would be easy for us to just say, okay, well,

Paul is just looking at two aspects of creation, right, this union he created here and this union he created there, and he's just drawing some similarities, and that's all he's doing, but he's not just drawing similarities, he's between things that are revealed, he's even saying that this has implications for things that are unrevealed, and so, he's asserting that there are similarities without even observing what the similarities are, because he can't know them, right, but, and so, that demonstrates there must be some kind of organic connection if he can say, there are similarities between these and I haven't even seen what those are yet, right.

Ephesians 5 .31 says, for this reason, though a man leave his father and mother and will join with his wife, and the two will become one flesh, this mystery is great, but I speak in regard of Christ and the church.

So, yeah, what is a mystery? A mystery is something that is hidden and then later revealed. What here is hidden?

The full nature of this union, it will not be known until we are in glory, until that wedding is consummated, but Paul is asserting that human marriages speak to that mystery, and this is him asserting that there is an organic connection, it's not just,

I happen to notice some similarities here. All right, so third,

Paul speaks of this parallel as being natural, right, he kind of, he assumes this organic connection more than arguing for it.

You know, maybe this was given to him by Christ, you know, all the disciples, all the apostles were taught by Christ for three years.

With Paul, you see explicitly, you know, that he encounters Christ on the road to Damascus, and then in Galatians 1, he explains that he went away for three years to Arabia.

There's never really an explanation of why that is, but it does seem to fit that, well, the other disciples were discipled for three years, and taught under Christ, and Paul is explaining the teachings of Christ, when did

Christ teach him? I don't think it was all on the road to Damascus, I think it was these three years that happened immediately after he met

Christ, and then before he began his public ministry, like this. So it's possible, it's possible that Christ taught him these connections, however, the way he is not even arguing for it, but just assuming it, is implying that it should be obvious to us as well,

I believe. Yeah, and if the

New Testament has revealed that God's ultimate purpose in creation, his ultimate purposes in creation are found in redemption, then non -redemptive features of creation require some sort of fulfillment, and I can give you a few examples of that.

So, first, Paul, elsewhere in 1 Corinthians, asserts the natural body of Adam implies that there is a glorified body.

So, right, the particular weakness of Adam, he's prone to fall, he's unstable, implies that there must be something, some, a redemptive state to his body as well.

1 Corinthians 15, 44 says, it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

That's a pretty wild thing that Paul is saying, that basically, this old creation thing that is obviously lacking in some ways, demands that there must be something better.

And if he's willing to say that about Paul's body, would he not also be willing, on the same grounds of recognizing

God's purposes in redemption, to say the same thing about marriage? Secondly, God rested on the seventh day from his work, and we see in the

New Testament, there's a new day of rest in light of a new creation. So, on the day that God rested from his old creation, the seventh day, the

Jews rested. On the day when Christ rested from his new creation, on the first day of the week, we now rest.

And so, there is even an anticipation in scripture of there being some changes in a post -redemption world.

So, considering all that, if Adam and Eve is this crowning moment of creation, them coming together, this is the flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone,

I think I got those backwards, but anyway, if this is the crowning moment of creation, and then we are also informed in Matthew and Mark that in the new heavens and new earth, there is no marriage, but we will be like the angels in heaven, neither being married nor given in marriage, is it really the case that we just throw away the crowning aspect of creation, or is it the case that we should expect there to be some fulfillment of it, some redemptive fulfillment of it in a post -redemption world?

The pattern of scripture, and this is, yeah, I get that a lot of what I'm saying doesn't have real direct proof texts that say, a marriage between man and woman demands that there be some greater kind of marriage, but this is the pattern that you see throughout scripture, and especially if we have marriage, human marriages being the crowning moment of creation, the idea that God would just throw that away without some kind of fulfillment really does not match any of the patterns of what we see elsewhere in scripture.

And so, I believe that we could come to these same conclusions that Paul is coming to, even apart from having

Ephesians five. Now, thank God he did give us Ephesians five, because it makes it all the more clear, but what

I'm arguing for is I think Paul is asserting what is only the natural implication of the rest of God's revelation to us.

Also, feel free to ask questions at any point. I love questions, yes?

Yes? Yes. Right, and so that's what

I'm saying, yeah. Fulfilled. Yeah, and that's what I'm saying is that would he throw away and there be no fulfillment, right?

Just like you're saying, there is a fulfillment, and that's why there's not the, and yeah,

I'm saying that God's pattern in creation, the way he has operated, the way he has communicated, lets us know that it would be incomplete if there weren't some kind of fulfillment.

Does that make sense? Yeah, thank you, yes. Yeah, and sometimes people can feel uncomfortable about trying to read

God's patterns this way, but really scripture demands it. You look at Jesus assert that the scripture said that he would arise in three days, and the disciples have to, are obligated to believe that.

Now, there's one proof text that could be, that could possibly be directly saying that. I think it's in Haggai or Habakkuk, I think.

But in general, you just see throughout scripture this pattern of three -day, third -day deliverance from the dead.

You see that with the baker and the cupbearer, you see it with Hezekiah, you see it with Isaac being delivered from the potential human sacrifice that was gonna take place.

It just, you see it with Jonah, right? It's just happening repeatedly, and so I believe Jesus is asserting you were obligated to have read this pattern and understood what it was going to point to.

And so we have to do that sort of thing cautiously and with humility, but there is an approach to scripture that says, you know, unless I have a real direct proof text,

I'm not going to, I'm not even gonna touch it, and I don't think that's appropriate. So we do have a proof text here, we do have

Ephesians 5, but part of my point is I think Paul is just explaining what is the natural conclusion of the other revelation that God has given us.

So let's talk about some of the implications of this, that we have a primacy to the union between Christ and the church.

So first, it means that marriage was designed to prepare us for that eternal state.

So it's instructive, and we should learn from it. Now, that doesn't mean that the individual experience of marriage is the primary way that we're being taught, right, like Mormonism would teach, right, they would say that marriage, you being personally married is preparing you for the eternal state.

I'm just saying that God having given us marriage and us as a Christian society honoring marriage, either as a married person or as a single person, is preparing us for the union between Christ and the church.

It is illustrative, it is instructing us about this union. And if you look at the way

God has ordered creation in history, you'll realize that this is typically how he works, why did he give all the sacrifices for Israel for, you know, 4 ,000 years or so?

It was to illustrate what would be coming later. It was to prepare and instruct, and in the words of Galatians, to be a tutor, right?

And so marriage is, in a way, tutoring us even now in preparation for what is to come.

So that means that it should be studied by all believers, right? If you're single and you think, well,

I don't really need to think too much about marriage, or I'll think about marriage when I get there, something like that. If it really is instructive in this way, it's actually an important subject for everyone to look at scripture and see what it says, not just practically, as I need helps to fix my life.

That's a lot of times how people approach scripture, right? You know, I'm not gonna really pay attention to it until I'm in desperate need, but this is something where proactively looking at scripture is helping us in more ways than just preparing us for human marriages.

Secondly, and inversely, we can best pursue our own marriages by looking to the union between Christ and the church.

So not only looking to honoring the human unions prepares us for that other union, and equips us for this other union that we already have with him, but also that if we understand more about Christ, his gospel, that can equip us for our marriages here on earth.

Right, so the more you understand about the love of Christ, the more you understand about the role of church, the more you are going to understand about how the husband and wife are to interact with one another, and the healthier that relationship will be, generally speaking.

All right, and so third, we especially honor God by honoring marriage. Yeah, on one hand, this is true in all interactions among men.

By following the second table of the law, we follow the first table of the law. By loving one's neighbor, we love

God, right? Matthew 22, 39 says, and the second is like to, yeah, and a second like to it is this.

Speaking of the greatest commandment being to love God, but there's another commandment that's pretty much like it.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. When you love your neighbor, you are loving God. So it is the case that when we love our neighbor, in general, we're loving

God. However, there's a special way that that is done in marriage if marriage is particularly in a heightened way expressing the union between Christ and church.

When we honor marriage, we are especially honoring the relationship between Christ and his church. Hebrews 13, four says, let marriage be had and honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled.

For fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. Why is there so much concern about the marriage bed being had and honor?

It is because it honors God especially. And the last thing, and I've mentioned this in some previous sessions, but it shows that redemption is primary in the order of God's decrees.

Now, I'll explain that. This is known as supralapsarianism. So there's a question of, now

God doesn't deliberate through matters like we do. He's saying, well, I think I'll do this, and then if I'm gonna do that, then

I'm gonna go here. If I'm gonna go to Yosemite, I'm probably gonna stop here, and then, he doesn't deliberate through things like that, but it is a useful question to ask.

Did God send Jesus Christ to die on the cross because he knew that we would fall, because he had ordained the fall, or did he ordain the fall in order that he might redeem us through Christ, right?

So it's a real important question to ask because it really changes the nature of God's goodness.

If you understand that he actually ordained the fall in order that he might demonstrate his mercy to us in Christ, it heightens his goodness to show just how wise he is in having ordained what he's ordained, and us being in this situation that we're in, this is not plan

B, where he's fixing up things that got messed up, right? This was his plan A all along, and what this passage shows us is that it was plan

A, right? Why would God have, if the relationship between these two unions,

Christ and the church is primary, how would that make any sense if God had created this human marriage without an eye towards redemption, and then, only once mankind fell, then he thinks, well, how am

I going to use marriage as best as I can so that all things work together for good?

Right, that's not what he's doing. He's not saying, okay, now that we're gonna have some redeemed state, now that everybody's gonna be in heaven without marriage, you know, we're gonna have new heavens and new earth, and there's not gonna be marriage anymore, how can

I find some fulfillment of that? No, the fulfillment was always in view, and marriage is created the other way around. So anyway, this backs up the scriptural idea of superlapsarianism.

Now, if you hang out in Reformed churches, you'll find there's a pretty good split on this topic.

The other position being known as infralapsarianism, and then there's a lot of people who deny that this is a useful question to ask it all, and that we can't order

God's decrees like that. You'll find that, too. But anyway, I believe that superlapsarianism is affirmed by passages just like this one.

Yeah, that God's purpose in creation is primarily in redemption, and everything else, including the fall, was ordained in order to support that purpose of us knowing

Him in the mercy of Christ. All right. So now, what is this analogy between Christ and the church?

So it might seem obvious what the different reference are, but I think it's worth stepping through these.

So first of all, like, so what I mean by that is what is Christ, what is the church, and what is the union?

So Christ is the Son of God. The word Christ corresponds to the Old Testament term

Messiah, referring to anointing. And so typically, we think of anointing in the terms of His offices, right?

His particular offices as prophet, priest, or kings. These are things in Old Testament Israel that you would need some special anointing for.

But you also see Him speak of anointing in the context of marriage. Song of Solomon 1 .3.

Your oils have a beautiful fragrance. Your name is as oil poured forth. Therefore, do the virgins love you.

Psalm 45 .7. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.

All your garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia. Out of ivory palaces, string instruments have made you glad.

And Psalm 45 being wedding song. Both of those being wedding songs. Song of Solomon and Psalm 45.

So, as such, it's worth pointing out that Christ is an incarnational title, okay?

When we speak of Christ, we are speaking of one who is anointed. We are speaking of one who is appointed by God.

This refers to Jesus as man primarily rather than Jesus as God primarily. And a lot of people don't realize that.

A lot of people just think Christ and they think Son of God and they apply, they end up taking passages that are particularly talking about Jesus as man and applying it to Jesus as God and that can be pretty dangerous.

So, just to back up what I'm saying here. Hebrews 5 .1 says, for every high priest, right?

A high priest being one of those offices that requires anointing. For every high priest being taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.

And then verse five says, so Christ also did not glorify himself to be made a high priest, but he who spoke to him, you are my son, today

I have begotten you. And, yeah, if you're familiar with that last line, you are my son, today

I have begotten you in Psalm 2. What is that talking about? It's talking about the Lord's anointed, you know, the

Messiah, right? This is one who is appointed and selected. This is not an eternal state that he has.

It's something that happens in time and happened in the first century. All right, so for example, how do people abuse this when they say, when they think of Christ as just being a term for Jesus as God, even?

First Corinthians 11 .3 says, but I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is the man, and the head of Christ is

God. A lot of times you will see people take this and say that the son has eternally submitted to the father.

If the head of man is Christ and the head of woman is man, head of Christ is God, okay, well if the head of Christ is

God, the woman submits to the man, Christ eternally submits, and in fact, we can use this to prove that there's nothing subordinate to a woman if the son and the father are co -equals and the one is eternally submitting to the other, but that's not what this passage is talking about at all.

In fact, when it speaks of Christ, it's speaking of Jesus as man, not Jesus as God, and so he is not eternally submitted to the father.

You don't have two wills in the Godhead, one submitting to the other. You only have a distinct will in Christ as man submitting to God, so this is unfortunate theology.

This is also known as the eternal generation, or excuse me, the eternal functional subordination, right, when people say that Christ has eternally submitted to the father.

Christ has not eternally existed as Christ, right? He's not been eternally anointed.

Certainly that was in God's plan, but he is chosen once from among men, right, as it says in Hebrews 5 .1.

There's a need for him to become a man before he could take that office of prophet, priest, and king Yeah, additionally, it's worth pointing out the uniqueness of this role as husband.

Second Corinthians 11 .2 says, for I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I espoused you to one husband that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

So Jesus is the one husband, right? That's what Paul says, espouse you to one husband.

In Roman Catholicism, the pope is also considered the head of the church, right, and he's also considered, and all the priests being considered vicars of Christ, especially since they're celibate, too, and they don't marry, it's considered the church is their wife, and they are the husbands of the church.

That goes against what scripture says when it says that I've espoused you to one husband.

All right, now what is the church? Now that we've talked about who Christ is, this is a particularly incarnational title, what is the church?

The church refers to all the elect of God. So first of all, this is a corporate notion rather than an individual notion.

A lot of people think about this union between Christ and the church as being primarily about a union between them and Christ.

Now we all are individually united to Christ, that is true, but when it's talking about this marriage, it's talking about us corporately being united to Christ.

Yeah, a lot of guys find it pretty emasculating to be talked about as the bride of Christ, and it would be, but don't worry, you individually are not the bride of Christ, okay?

The church is the bride of Christ. More properly to that analogy, when it's spelled out further in scripture, you see that we individually are considered the children of the bride.

Okay, Galatians 4, 26 says, but the Jerusalem above that is above is free, which is our mother.

Isaiah 54, 1, which is quoted by that same passage in Galatians says, sing,

O barren, that you did not bear. Break forth in the singing and cry aloud, you that did not labor with child, for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, says

Jehovah. So you have this prophecy that Jerusalem will have many children. What is

Jerusalem? What is that heavenly city in Revelation that's coming down from the heavens? It's called the bride.

That cubic city we talked about last week, or, well, last session, that is about half the size of the

United States and just as tall, coming down out of the sky in Revelation 21, that is the bride, and the people of the city are the children, right?

So this is a corporate analogy. It does not make sense to apply it to individuals too directly and can lead to some bad theology as well.

Secondly, if this is all the elect, this is not just referring to those who presently identify with the church.

So first of all, not all those who identify as members of the church do receive the special love that's described in this passage because not all are truly of God's people.

There are a lot of people who look like true members of his church, but in reality, their hearts have not turned toward him.

They are not converted. And then in addition to that, this includes the elect, both past and present, all as part of that assembly.

And God's love for us exists even apart from us being brought into the fold in the course of our life.

Romans 5, eight says, but God commends his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, right?

It was while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. His love for us is one that, his love for this bride, this bride is all the elect, past, present, future.

And so his love is not just those who are there in the church presently, right? It's all the elect.

Now, of course, there's some limits to this because not all of the elect have submitted to Christ.

And so can you use that as a model of submission? Well, you can if you understand, first of all, that this is corporately, right?

The church is submitting to Christ, even though some of the individuals might not yet because they're not yet saved.

Christ submits, or excuse me, the church submits to Christ. And then on top of that, this is a growing and maturing submission.

And while Christ is described as the mature head that the body is growing into to match, yeah, it gives us a picture of what that submission is supposed to look like.

It's supposed to be a growing one that approximates some ultimate submission, even though as we look at the churches that exist today, it might not be the perfect model of submission.

So you can't say, well, well, it's okay for me to not submit to my husband because this church over here did this awful thing that wasn't submitting to Christ, right?

That's no excuse. Yeah, and this would also stand in contrast to those who deny the reality of a global church.

It is pretty clear there's a singular bride here, right? Not many brides. There's a singular bride called the church in this passage.

Because there are some people who would reject that the Bible ever uses the word church to speak of a global church.

All right, so now what is that union between Christ and church? So it refers to the mystical bond that joins them together into a common interest for each other.

So first, some caveats to that union. It exists in the state of betrothal.

In human marriages, we wouldn't say they're really married until there is an actual wedding.

However, with Christ in the church, that consummation has yet to take place, that marriage has yet to take place, and yet we are still, in Ephesians 5, considered to be united to him.

Second, Corinthians 11 .2, which I just quoted a minute ago. For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

So Paul's speaking of espousing, right? He hopes to present them as a pure virgin to Christ.

This is in a state of betrothal, not of consummated marriage just yet, and yet we are currently considered to have that union, unlike we would with a human marriage where in the state of betrothal, they don't exactly have that union just yet.

Secondly, that state of betrothal has implications for how we think of Christ. He plays both the role of the father and the groom in this passage.

Ephesians 5 .27 says that he might present to the church, the church to himself a glorious church.

You know, talking about washing her with the water of the word. So that's not all him just directly, traditionally as husband, it's also him as father there.

And it seems to be that there's an allusion here to Ezekiel 16. Now we read this a few weeks ago, but I think it'd be worth reading again.

Someone wanna read Ezekiel 16, three through nine, where God plays both father and husband to Jerusalem.

Okay, Nick, you've got this one, right? You didn't know what you were signing up for, but here you go.

Yeah, 16, three through, Ezekiel 16, three through nine. Thanks.

And say thus the Lord God to Jerusalem, your origin and your birth are the land of the

Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother was a Hittite. And as for your birth, on the day you were born, your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths.

No, I pitied you to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field for you were a board.

For on the day that you were born, and when I passed you by and saw you wallowing your blood,

I said to you, in your blood live, I said to you, in your blood live,

I made you flourish like a plant on the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment.

Your breasts were formed and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare. When I passed you again,

I saw you. Behold, you were at the age of love and I had spread the corner of my garment over to you and covered your nakedness.

I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine.

Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil.

All right, so here you have in Ezekiel 16, God comes by, sees

Jerusalem in need, adopts her, basically, but then later comes by again and marries her.

Now, and what we see in Ephesians five is something very similar, even using that phrase about washing with water.

So we have a picture of Christ both as father and husband, and so we have to ask ourselves, well, how does that apply as we're thinking about applying this analogy to human marriages?

There are some ways in which it is appropriate even though it is the role of the father to betroth, et cetera.

And that is that when a man and a woman marry, the husband takes over the role, any role that the father had previously.

So there is cause for him to care for her in that way and to beautify her and make her perhaps not ready for marriage in the sense of pre -preparation, but for continued marriage to make her fit for it.

So yeah, I'm just pointing out that some aspects of this analogy break down a little, but they still have applications to human marriages.

All right, any questions at this point? Next section's a little long and I'm not sure we're gonna get through it all, but let's go for it.

All right, now how do we, yeah, how do we apply that analogy? So first of all,

Ephesians 5 makes the analogy between the two unions using as or even as. It says in Ephesians 5 .22,

wives be in submission to your own husbands as to the Lord. Ephesians 5 .25 says husbands love your wives even as.

Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for it. So those don't refer to equality, they refer to equity, right?

This is not the way that Christ loves the church is not identical to the way that a husband loves his wife.

Well, a husband might even give his life for his wife. He is not able to do so in any kind of eternally salvific way.

There's a lot of places where this would break down if you were to read this univocally. However, yeah, and then on top of that, the submission that the church gives to Christ is different than the submission that a wife gives to her husband because the church has submitted absolutely everything.

And yet any human submission between, any submission between humans is qualified by the phrase in the

Lord as in Ephesians 6 .1, right, that we should, there is a higher allegiance, but with Christ, there is no higher allegiance.

So there are substantial differences. However, while this analogy is not univocal, meaning it's not a one -to -one identity, it is not equivocal either.

An analogy would be equivocal if it were so ambiguous you really couldn't tell what it was supposed to mean, right?

You know, you talk about people equivocating, right, and they're using their words in ways where you can't really tell what they're saying. An analogy is considered univocal if it's identical and equivocal if it, you know, there's no way of interpreting it, certainly.

We can interpret it, certainly, but yeah, we can't read it literalistically.

We have to understand that there's a comparison being made here that requires some adjustments.

And we have all the tools to do that. So first of all, let's talk about hermeneutics, where hermeneutics is the science of interpretation.

You know, what do we need to consider in order to be interpreting this analogy rightly?

So first of all, more clear passages interpret the less clear. We could take some of these passages about the union between Christ and the church and try to derive some implications from them, right?

We just looked at Ezekiel 16 and Ezekiel 5. We could say, well, does that permit a father to marry his daughter?

Well, we have clear passages that tell us no, right? Leviticus 18 rejects that. Leviticus 18 .6

says, none of you will approach to any that are related to him to uncover their nakedness, I am the Lord.

The nakedness of your father, that is the nakedness of your mother, you shall not uncover. She is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness.

Now, of course, I'm kind of begging the question here because I was talking about how to interpret the analogy and now there's this other question, well, how do you interpret

Levitical code? But let it suffice to say that the ethics around these incestuous relations are kind of obvious and Leviticus is simply confirming what we already know to be true since the time of Noah.

This is not just some special holiness code that only applies to Israel. Second key for interpretation.

The purposes of marriage must guide interpretation. Now, we've talked about those a little.

Who remembers what the three purposes of marriage are that are outlined in our confession? Okay, legitimate offspring, that was one of them, yeah.

Legitimate offspring, right? Mutual help between husband and wife and the prevention of uncleanness, meaning adultery, right?

So, for example, once again, we could look at this betrothal.

You know, you've got this, so far, it's been about a 2 ,000 -year betrothal between Christ and the church and you might ask, well, maybe we should have long betrothals.

Maybe we should have engagement periods that are like five years long or 10 years long. That would work against every single one of those three purposes of marriage that we just talked about.

That would do nothing to quell the burning passions. It would do nothing to produce legitimate offspring. Wouldn't really allow husband and wife to help each other.

So, the purposes of marriage have to guide our interpretation as well. First Corinthians 7 .36

says, but if any man thinks he behaves himself unseemly toward his virgin, that the virgin betrothed to him.

If his passions are strong and if his need so requires let him do what he will, he does not sin, let them marry.

So, right, obviously, we shouldn't take from this analogy, Christ and the church, that, oh, long betrothal periods are totally appropriate.

Okay, third tip for interpreting this analogy is that the notion of headship provides an anchor for that analogy.

All right, so Paul expresses the connection of the analogy between unions as being found in the notion of headship.

Ephesians 5 .23 says, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is also the head of the church, being himself the savior of the body because we are members of his body.

And I'll also point out here that due to a textual variant, the King James Version here adds of his flesh and of his bones, but the point is still the same here.

So, on a first pass, it might seem like that's just another metaphor. Oh, well, the union between Christ and the church is like a human marriage, or the union between Christ and the church is also like a head and a body.

But this is not just one additional, this is not one additional metaphor that's being used.

The connection between the metaphor between human marriage and the union between Christ and church is found in the notion of headship.

Union between Christ and church is like a head and a body because the union between a man and a wife is like the union between a head and a body.

So headship really needs to be the anchor that guides our analogy because that's where Paul locates the analogy in, right?

There's a lot of things that happen in marriage, there's a lot of things that happen in weddings and unions that are not really,

I'm trying to think of a good example, but aren't really of the essence of what he's getting at in this analogy, really the essence is found in the notion of headship.

All right, so some would, yeah, relegate this identity to only manifesting in healthy relationships.

For example, they would say that a husband is only the head of the wife if he has earned it, but that's not the case, right?

Like they are, by virtue of the union, being joined together. He is the head and she is the body.

All right, and other passages speak to this. First Corinthians 11 .3, even though it's not talking about the church corporately, this still applies here.

But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is

God. So Paul's willing to speak of headship about man and woman elsewhere.

And he speaks about, so sometimes he speaks about headship with man and woman apart from speaking of the union between Christ and church.

And then other times he speaks of headship about Christ and church without even talking about human marriage. So this is really the thing that draws those two together.

It is in the notion of headship. And I wish I had a good example I could think of of something that exists in marriage that really isn't part of the analogy that Paul's drawing because it doesn't have to do with headship, but anyway.

All right, so this has a lot of implications, right? First of all, it establishes the grounds for mutual concern.

You know, whoever, no one hated his own flesh, right? And so the man should love his wife. And likewise, wife needs to love and submit to her husband because otherwise she's harming her own self if they are really joined together in this way.

Secondly, it also implies the order of relationship. Something that I think sounds pretty odd and foreign to modern ears, but you look at our catechism and it talks about these relations that are described in Ephesians 5 and 6 as relations between superiors, inferiors, and equals, right?

And so in this, the husband is the superior and the wife is the inferior. Now, a lot of people, like I said, have a reaction to that because it sounds like you're saying that she's worthless or something like that.

But when it comes to authority, dignity, a host of other things that we'll look at in the subsequent weeks, it is the case that the husband is superior and the wife is the inferior.

We do talk about, we do use this terminology in some avenues of society. If you're in the military, you speak of superior officers and you may speak of your inferiors, right?

Like as far as the authority reporting chain goes. And so this does apply. And yeah, and unfortunately, there is a lot of, there's a lot of balking at this language to find something that's more palatable that ends up throwing out what is true about it too in a lot of literature.

We'll look at that some more in upcoming weeks when we look at things like authority and how a lot of people end up compromising on the notion of authority to make it just a little more palatable.

But yeah, the notion of head and body really establishes that ordering as well. And yeah, once again, this has implications for Roman Catholic theology.

How can they say the Pope is the head of the church if Christ is the only head? The church does not have two heads.

It's not a two -headed monster. Now, it's still, one thing that people would want to do is come up with a list of ways that these two unions are like each other.

Incorporating the notion of headship but then just going through a list. William Gouge has several.

I decided not to write my own list and just use his. I'm gonna end up quoting him a bit more in upcoming weeks too.

Because he has, William Gouge, yeah, he's a reformer who, or I guess

Puritan, who wrote On Domestical Duties.

Yeah, he's got two volumes on domestical duties. I think he's also one of the translators of Calvin or at least an editor of some of the translators, translations of the

Institutes, I forget. All right, but let me go ahead and read six of his points before we quit here.

They are persons fit to be joined, though Christ be God, yet for this end, he became man.

And though the church were impure, yet for this end, she is cleansed and sanctified.

So, okay, first of all, how are these two unions similar? Well, both is fit for each other, okay?

They have their parents' consent. This is another way they're similar. For God is the common father of both and God has given

Christ to the church and the church to Christ. Third, they have given their mutual consent to each other.

As we see in the Song of Solomon 2 .16. You know, man and woman give mutual consent.

Christ and church, mutual consent. He bears a husband -like affection to her and she is willing to yield a wife -like subjection to him.

So just in the whole love and affection and submission, there's a similarity as well.

He has given her many favors and gifts as pledges of his love and she, in testimony of her faithfulness, was under the law circumcised and is under the gospel baptized and doth bind herself with all the sacred bonds and covenants which

God to that purpose has sanctified. So talking about the,

I think he's kind of getting more at the nature of betrothal here than the nature of the marriage itself.

But he's pointing out that when it comes to making a covenant, there are signs involved, there are pledges and gifts involved, and that happens in human weddings as well.

And also, Christ has prepared a place of habitation for them both and she does earnestly desire to be with him.

So just like a husband would prepare a house for his wife, so Christ prepares a house for the church.

Okay. Let's end there. Any questions? And next time we'll summarize the duties and perhaps look at the relative dignity of a husband and wife.

Okay. All right, let's go ahead and pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for the gift that you have given us of marriage.

We pray that we would honor marriage as we ought and we pray that it would teach us more of your love for us.