Legendary Love

Valentines Day has arrived!

Roses are red,
  Violets are blue
    You are so lovely
      I love you

.....etc etc etc.


   Romance, marriage and relationships are great, and I certainly don't want to degrade them (quite the reverse), but how about we pause, today in particular, and look at the greatest marriage of all time.

   Everyone was invited to this wedding feast, no one was missed off of the list- friends, family, acquaintances, strangers- everyone got an invite!

'Go... to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests. 

   This is a marriage which was planned from eternity past and shall continue forever. It is, of course, the marriage of the Lord Jesus Christ to His Bride- the Church.

    Until fairly recently I viewed this marriage as being a metaphorical one. In the Gospels, Jesus simply used the example of a marriage to show how he felt about his church. However, when we read Ephesians we see something quite startling- bind blowing even! Paul is talking about 'two becoming one.' He is talking about the love which is between a husband and wife. And then he says something which turns my human mind upside down!

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church

   Do you realise what Paul just said? I didn't at first read either, it took the prompting of a Christian author to jolt me awake to the truth here.

Paul is saying that weddings, husbands and wives, the very institute of marriage were made to be a picture! The very institute of marriage was made to be a picture! God created marriage between a man and a woman so that we could understand his love for us! It wasn't created- primarily- to ensure the continuation of the human race, it wasn't created- primarily- to give us a warm and comforting environment to mature in. No. It was created primarily so that we could better understand God's love  for us!

    At my church we are currently studying the tabernacle in the Old Testament. We are learning about the "types" and pictures shown through the tabernacle: There was only one entrance; God's dwelling place was separated from the gate by a wide court and two veils; No one could come into God's precise without a sacrifice to atone for their sins. All of this is a picture of the gulf which sin has placed between us and God, and how the Lord Jesus bridged this gap by becoming our sacrificial offering for sin. He is the 'lamb' of God.

    Just like the tabernacle, marriage is also a picture- a picture of God's love for His people: a love which culminated in his death upon that cross, when he fulfilled the pictures of the tabernacle offerings.

    Does this degrade marriage? Hardly! If anything it upgrades marriage!
  
     Marriage is to be a picture of God's love. Doesn't that inspire you to greater things in your relationships? Doesn't that inspire you to live as a picture of your Lord and Saviour through your wedding vows? It should do!

    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.