The one who dreamed marriage, made it
not for human relationship but . . . for Himself.

The human marriage, a hint and rehearsal only.

Marriage was His Original Design for the
ultimate purpose of His own aching love-heart:
to gain an object for His most intimate
union by actual indwelling.
to feed, nurture, cover and . . .
possess by His holy love.

Husband-giver, wife-receiver.
This arrangement was the Eternal Father's
reason for Creation.
The way of expansion to fill the earth,
the manifestation of His own love,
the solution for loneliness.

And these reasons and purposes apply to GOD
and not only to humanity.

Marriage is His expression of Himself.
He gave the institution that we might
comprehend His powerful focus of love.

He made humanity to need marriage,
This lies at the heart center of every person:
the desire for understanding, intimacy,
the need to give love as well
as the desperation to possess it.

These are the built-in drives of humanity,
designed to take us to the supreme pinnacle
of human existence:
knowing God the Son as Bridegroom and
then . . . Husband.

The Creator stamped the creature with such idealistic need,
such vision of love's desire,
that only He can live up to the perfection of
such an instinctive ideal.

He set His own dream within the conscious heart
of His creation, made to satisfy God's marriage ideal . . .
and not their own. 

Truly, marriage was born in Heaven.
And all of humanity has desecrated this
ideal communion - from Highest Israel down
to the Redeemed Church.

Throughout all the ages, mankind has turned
this holy union into a forum for self-indulgence,
for abuse by unending sin, and willful bitterness.

We have profaned the holy.
We are blind to the divine pattern and
disinterested in the Ultimate Union of
God within.
Unfit for the Wedding of history's end. 

Paul writes of marriage in his letter to the Ephesians
that most purely spiritual of his many churches.
To these ones who could comprehend, Paul
pours out his revelation of the meaning of matrimony.

Wives be subject to your own husbands      
as to the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife,
as Christ 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 . . . .

By this indecipherable discourse, Paul weaves
the human relationship into the
Savior's wedded position with the church.

Paul concludes those guides of marriage
with this exquisite declaration:

  This mystery is great, but I am speaking             
with reference to Christ and the church.
Ephesians 5:32 NAS

Marriage is not to be the "example" to copy
Christ and the church.
Marriage is rather the "expression" of the union
of Christ and His Bride.

The apostle is not appealing to us
to copy or emulate Christ in the husband-role
nor the church in the wife-role.

Paul presents the whole Christian marriage
as a mystery, not unfathomable,
but defying explanation.

It issues from heaven, from the spiritual bond
down and into the earthly institution.

The Believer's realization of union with Christ
permeates the human bond.
The marriage becomes saturated with
the style and character of the True Husband and
begins to appear in replication of that Heaven Union.

The Divine Master first,
given His place as jealous Husband,
jealous even of our human bonds,
no matter how sealed by vows.

There is only One Husband of our soul
and One Partner for our destiny.

Christ is first and the origin of any marriage bond.
Until He is Husband, the marriage is below the line
of God's best intention.

Where just one partner fuses with God in abject surrender,
the mystery of the Divine Union begins to flow
and appear in the human relationship.

Paul calls it a mystery . . .
one to be revealed by entry.
A mystery to unfold by living.

Where there is no human marriage, the
the wedding call, the marriage mandate
still stand . . .
waiting to be understood by surrender.

A mystery solved and understood
by the "wife-believer" submitting to
the "Husband-Lord" in all things.

Copyright © 2003 Martha Kilpatrick