I had the honor of officiating at a wedding on November 25th, and it was very special to me since the groom was a member of the church I served in Iowa and the bride was Rebekah Paul, a former student at Mount Hope. Here’s the sermon I preached at their wedding:
“My beloved is mine, and I am his” (Song 2:16). Thus the bride rejoices in the Song of Songs, and the hearts of this couple rejoice today, and the hearts of all Christians rejoice, for Christ, our Bridegroom, has taken us to be His people and given Himself to be our God. “My Jesus is mine and I am His.” That is the true marriage of which every human marriage is a shadow. You heard the great mystery of marriage from Genesis 2 when the Lord instituted it: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). And you heard the Apostle Paul explain that this mystery is not ultimately talking about Adam and Eve, or Aaron and Rebekah, or any other earthly marriage. But after quoting that verse, “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh,” Paul says, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:32).
Christ and the church. That is the prime marriage, the chief marriage, the marriage to which every other marriage points and from which every other marriage flows. The Son of God left His Father, came down from heaven, was made man. And on the cross Jesus left His mother, entrusted her to the Apostle John, for Jesus was holding fast to His wife, and the two became one flesh. “My Beloved is mine, and I am His.” At the cross everything that we were and had went to Jesus. So He was regarded as the sinner, though He had committed no sin. He was condemned to death, though we were the ones worthy of condemnation. Meanwhile He gave His righteousness and life to us, and we were like the women, standing by the cross alive and safe, as our Lord died our death. We came to the marriage with sin, death, and damnation. Jesus came with forgiveness, life, and salvation. And by His grace He has exchanged rings with us.
“My Beloved is mine, and I am His.” It is as if we were in debt ten thousand talents, and then a Man came along who had a hundred million talents and married us. Not only was our debt paid, but we were enriched with every good thing because of our Bridegroom. So we confess, “Ah Lord, I have sinned!” And Jesus says, “I have borne that sin, and My blood and righteousness proved stronger than sin, so that now your sin is gone and only My righteousness remains. And My innocence met every accusation that stood against you, and My innocence prevailed, and now only innocence remains. And My life met your death, and I have risen, never to die again, and now only life remains.” And our heart is glad and our whole being rejoices, and to the kind Word of our Lord we say, “Amen” with thanksgiving and wonder, for “My Beloved is mine, and I am His.”
This is marriage, that Jesus has taken us to Himself and delighted to call wretched sinners “Mine,” and that He has given Himself to us entirely, such that we, who have no right or claim to anything, not even our own lives, can call Jesus and all He has “mine.” This is marriage, and this glorious, heavenly marriage instructs us in every aspect of earthly marriage.
And what does the marriage of Christ and the Church teach us about earthly marriage? First, that marriage is God’s institution. That is key. Marriage is not our plaything. We do not get to define it. Jesus is the true Bridegroom, and thus He determines what marriage is. Marriage is only between one man and one woman, not one man and multiple women, not two men or two women, but one man and one woman, for the simple reason that Jesus is one man and His Church is portrayed in Scripture as one woman. Marriage is a union of one man and one woman, in which everything that belongs to the one belongs to the other, again for the simple reason that Jesus has not hesitated to claim all our wretchedness as His own, nor has He withheld any good thing from us. The union of marriage is lifelong and faithful, for the simple reason that Jesus never puts us away or divorces us or takes another, nor do we ever suppose that life without Jesus or life with some other god would be better. Rather as long as Jesus lives, which is forever, He bestows on us every grace and blessing, and as long as we live, which because of Jesus is forever, we rejoice to be united to Him. Thus earthly marriage is the union of one man and one woman, lifelong and faithful. Any other definition of marriage is wrong.
The marriage of Christ and the Church also teaches the duties of husbands and wives in earthly marriages. St. Paul listed the chief duties of husbands and wives in Ephesians 5. First it said, “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 her Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (Eph. 5:22). Do you remember what the Church says to Christ when He says, “All yours is Mine, all your sins are forgiven, all your death is swallowed up by My life?” She says, “Amen.” She submits. What if she didn’t submit? What if she said, “No, that can’t be true. No, I don’t want it to be that way. No, I want to be an independent woman who takes care of her own problems and doesn’t need a husband”? What if the Church refused to submit to Christ? She would go to hell.
Rebekah, your chief duty in marriage is to submit to Aaron. This means that you defer to him, you regard him as being right, you look to him as your head. At times this will be easy, when he seems worthy of such regard. At other times this will be difficult, when he seems unworthy. Understand that worthy or unworthy doesn’t matter. The Scripture does not say, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to a man.” It says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” Aaron does not stand in any human office, but the office of Husband is Christ’s office, and you regard the office of Husband according to how Christ exercises it, not according to how a mere man participates in it. You might disagree with Aaron, you might think you know better, you might even be right. But out of respect for Christ as the Church’s Bridegroom, in the knowledge that saying “Amen” to Jesus is always the right response, and that to fight Him would only be to harm yourself―out of submission to Christ, you submit to your husband. You say, “Dear Jesus, my eyes see a mere man, but my eyes of faith see You in that man, You overshadowing him, You acting through him. The office of husband is Your office, and You will make that office a benefit to me for Your name’s sake. So grant me to submit to my husband as the Church submits to You. Yes, Jesus, I know You will grant this, for my Beloved is mine, and I am His.” This, Rebekah, must be your prayer.
After the duty of wives, St. Paul states the chief duty of husbands: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). Here is the definition of love. It is not a mere feeling of affection, though affection is included. But love is to give of oneself for the sake of another. If Christ only cared for the Church insofar as it was convenient or pleasurable or beneficial to Him, what would be the case for us as the Church? We would be damned. But Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her. He bore all hardship, all inconvenience, all suffering. He thought not of Himself, but of His bride. And when He was giving of Himself on the cross, suffering wrath and torment and the wages of sin, where would He have rather been? Nowhere! Jesus “for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross” (Heb. 12:2). For the joy! After the Good Shepherd journeys through the wilderness with its brambles and thickets, and has strained His eyes with searching, and knows the whole time that when He finds His lost sheep it’s going to be weak and injured and He’s going to have to carry it all the way back, what does He do when he finds it? “He lays it on His shoulders, rejoicing” as it says in Luke 15:5. It is Jesus’ glory that He gave Himself for us. It is His glory to bear the marks of the nails and the spear forever in His body. He is forever Christ Crucified, He is forever the Slain Lamb, for His great joy, and ours as well, is that He loved us and gave Himself for us.
Aaron, your chief duty in marriage is to love Rebekah by giving yourself for her. Your life is hers, your body is hers, your time is hers, your sweat and blood are hers. Jesus has put you in authority over her, and you use Jesus’ authority the way Jesus used it, as He says, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mt. 20:28). You do not stand in a man-made office, but in the office of Christ Himself. How you act toward your wife teaches her how Christ acts toward His Church. When you act in love, then you portray Christ rightly. When you act in anger or selfishness then you paint Christ falsely and teach lies in His name.
What man among us is fit to hold the office of husband? Lord, have mercy! Did I not sin enough before I was married that I needed the office of husband in order to merit hellfire even more fully? Jesus, You be the husband. I’m not even worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of Your sandal, let alone be called by Your title of Bridegroom. What can I do but mar and misrepresent it? Have pity on my wife and do away with me so that she doesn’t have to be scandalized by my wretched shadow of You. And yet You, Jesus, are the one who placed me in this office, as You said, “What God has joined together, let not man separate” (Mt. 19:6). You have joined me to my wife, and since it is Your doing, it cannot be meant for my damnation, but for my good. So Lord, fill up what I lack and shine through me in spite of me. I know, Jesus, that You will grant this, for my Beloved is mine, and I am His. And this, Aaron, must be your prayer.
Note well that both the duty of wife and the duty of husband leave you thinking of Jesus and looking to Jesus, for He is the hope not only for a successful marriage but for eternal salvation from the sins committed in marriage. Who but Jesus could teach you, Rebekah, that submission to a husband is a good thing? Who but Jesus could give you, Aaron, the selfless love with which you are to love your wife? And this brings us to the greatest key to a successful marriage. If you want your earthly marriage, which is a shadow of the ultimate marriage of Christ and the Church, to last and be enjoyable, then participate in that ultimate marriage. It is significant that the first thing you did as husband and wife was to go to church together. Continue to go to church together. Hear the Absolution, listen to the Gospel, receive Christ’s body and blood. Read God’s Word at home together. Pray with and for each other. Confess your sins to each other. Forgive each other. Baptize your children and raise them as Christians. “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col. 3:16). For “My Beloved is mine, and I am His.” This is your joy: the joy that you will see on display in your marriage, the joy that all Christians have in our Lord, the joy that we know now in part, and at the last shall know fully at the marriage supper of the Lamb. My Beloved is mine, and I am His, world without end. Amen.
In Christ,
Pastor Richard
