The message today is about a
couple of my favorite subjects from the Scripture, and I hope
that we'll find them to be real encouraging. I'll be speaking
today on marriage as the picture of our election and life in Christ. To begin with, let me read four
Scriptures that will kind of, I hope, lead us and guide us
in our thinking through this, and then we'll discuss marriage
as it was, in the time of Christ. The first scripture is from Romans,
chapter 15, verse 4. And the scripture tells us, for
whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction,
that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures,
we might have hope. And I hope that guides us today,
that as we discuss this and look at things from the scripture,
we'll be built up and encouraged in Jesus Christ. The second passage
is from Isaiah chapter 54 verse 5, For your Maker is your husband,
the Lord of hosts is his name, and the Holy One of Israel is
your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. The
third passage to guide us along is Ephesians chapter 5 verse
31 and 32. 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 and the church. The last
passage will be from the book of Revelation, chapter 19, verses
6 through 9. Then I heard what seemed to be
the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters
and the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, Hallelujah,
for the Lord our God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exalt
and give Him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and His bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to
clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine
linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel
said to me, write this, blessed are those who are invited to
the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, these are
the true words of God. I hope that these passages will
kind of guide us along The subject of marriage throughout the scripture,
both old and new, is important to us on our level as a definition
of our social life and the highest and deepest relationships that
we have as people. But on a more important level,
they are the picture given to us of the relationship of God
to his people, of Christ and the church. throughout the Old
Testament and throughout the New are constant references to
God as our husband, to Christ as the groom, and to the people
of God as the wife or the bride. This is throughout the Old Testament
and throughout the New. I don't think I need to back
that up with multitudes of Scriptures, although we could. Jewish life
as practiced up to the time of Christ, was a picture of spiritual
things given to them by God. The rituals in the temple represented
the Christ to come. The social customs and patterns
in their culture were spiritual pictures as well. Marriage being
a supreme picture of the relationship to God and His people. To better
understand what marriage means in terms of Christ and the church,
it's important that we place it in a historical context. The
reason I say that is because we, in our culture, in our day,
in our place, have such a degraded view of marriage that we speak
about marriage and we say, well, this is the picture of Christ
and the church. What does that mean anymore?
We're told that a family has multitudes of definitions. It can be two daddies. It can
be two mamas. We're now having gay marriage.
Does gay marriage picture Christ in the church? No, it does not. In no way do these deviations
represent Christ in the church. So today what I'd like to do
is look back and set a historical context. We can place marriage
as a social custom at the time of Christ in its place. Look at it. How it was practiced.
What it meant. And then we can focus on the
principle and bring that forward. And I think as we do this, a
lot of Scripture will come to mind. A lot of things that you've
heard and read will come to mind. And you'll see them in your mind's
eye. And you'll say, there it is.
There it is. And I think as we look at marriage, in its historical
context, put it in its place, and that is in Jewish culture
at the time, it will take on much more of a meaning to us.
Because as I said before, our view of marriage in this day
and this age is very degraded. And that's unfortunate. Even
within circles who call themselves Christian today, we have a very
weak view of marriage. And it's proven out amongst us
by the fact that so many Christians are divorced. It has become as
common as marriage in Christian circles for divorce to happen.
And now that we're having other social issues come into the church,
now we're starting to see Christians arguing about whether two men
can get married, two women can get married. So again, let's
go back to the first century, if we can, and let's look at
marriage in the day of Christ and see if the picture of Christ
in the church isn't much more lively, much more vigorous, and
much more fully understood by us. To begin the discussion,
I have to make a few points that I think are critical. And you
will see immediately a deviation from our viewpoint on marriage
today. And well, indeed, our viewpoint
on society today. The first thing I'll point out
is that in ancient Israel and even up until the time of Christ,
the Jews lived in a patriarchal society. A patriarchal society. The father was the head of the
household. He was the law within the family. What he said went. That was the way it was. Patriarchal
society. Men ruled. Of course, immediately
we understand that as Americans today, we will not accept that
idea anymore. We won't put up with it. We won't
tolerate with the idea of a strong man as head of his household.
But at this time, the time of Christ, they were patriarchal
and the father was the head of the household, and that meant
he was the supreme leader within the household. This has implications. based or draws from theology
with God as the father and that passes through the family to
the father as the representative of God within the family. They
were patriarchal. This view made some assumptions,
and these are assumptions that we will not generally accept
either, unfortunately. The view in the patriarchal society
is that the father, by virtue of age and experience, was wiser
than his children and knew what was best for them. He decided for his children up
until the time of their adulthood, and they abided by it because
father did indeed know best. This was a patriarchal society. Coupled with that then, was the
idea that the first son was the honored son, that this son would
be in line to take the authority within the family. This was the
cultural norm practiced throughout Old Testament times, even up
to the time of Christ. There were, in the Scripture,
a few deviations from that model, but they were God-ordained for
a purpose instantly Jacob and Esau come to mind when you say
there were deviations from that model. But generally speaking,
we are talking about a patriarchal society with the first son being
the honored child and next in line for the authority from the
father. A second point to be made and
comprehended in this is that marriages were arranged. Today
we don't do that. And as Americans, we hear about
third world nations that still practice arranged marriages.
And we think, my goodness, how barbaric. How could that ever
be? At the time of Christ, marriages
were arranged. The practice was that the fathers
of two families would get together. They would discuss the possibilities
of a son marrying a daughter. The arrangements were made. There
was a bride price to be paid, the grooms The family would pay
money to the mother and father of the bride. And then there
would be a dowry that she would bring something into the marriage.
This was all done even at times without the knowledge of the
children involved. They were arranged marriages. Considerations in that, first
and foremost, were in Israel that they would be marrying fellow
Jews. They would not be marrying outside
of the faith of Israel. Second was the family. This was a social deal, and it
was a way to step up in society. So the position of the family
within society was to be considered. And after that was the ability
of the young woman to bear children, because this was a culture that
honored childbearing. Built into that was the hope
as well that the next child born into a Jewish family might be
the Messiah. So childbearing was a very, very
important aspect to arranged marriages. They would look at
the families and they knew the families. They'd follow them
back and see, were these people healthy and vigorous? Did they
bear children? That was a good indicator, as
good as they could get, that that would happen. What was missing
from this formula as we would look at it was that there was
little, if any, consideration given to the emotion of love. These were arranged marriages.
As I said earlier, oftentimes the children didn't even know
each other. They might not have seen each other at all. So there
wasn't this romantic aspect where we're going to date for a while,
and we're going to fall in love, and then we're going to get married.
That wasn't the way it worked. It was assumed that the families
knew what was best for their children, and they would provide
for them through marriage. They would arrange a good marriage,
and in the process of time, the two would learn to love each
other. They would learn to love each
other. After the parents got together to arrange the marriage,
and the agreement was made, all the prices were set in place,
and it was determined that these two would be married, they would
have a very public ceremony to announce the betrothal. That is what we would call, I
guess, the engagement. And they would gather together
at the gates of the city or wherever judgment was rendered in front
of the public and they would announce that there will be a
marriage between this son and this daughter. The considerations
would be explained and everything would be laid out. This is the
way it's going to work. This is the way it's going to
work. It was very public. It was very announced. It was
a big deal and it should be. It should be. At that point then, it was understood that there
would be a betrothal period. The typical betrothal period
of the time was a year. So you would say, I guess, in
our terms, that the engagement was a year long. And after the announcement, after
all was made, and it was public that this would happen, then
the groom would go off to make preparations for his marriage.
This was a very public deal, as I said, and typical at the
parting of the groom from the crowd, from his now betrothed,
he would issue the statement, I go to prepare a place for you. And he would leave. He'd go back
to his father's house to begin to start making preparations
for his bride-to-be. Have we heard that before? I
think we have. Christ drew from the example
of marriage constantly throughout His ministry. He alluded to marriage. He attended a marriage. He spoke
often in terms that reflected that relationship of God to His
people. using marriage. Now the betrothal
period, as I said, was typically a year long at the time of Christ. And during that time, the practice
varied widely. It might be that the groom would
not see his bride a single time during that year. Or it could
be stages of chaperone visits throughout the period. But there's no real formula for
that. I guess it was determined by
the families how that would work. Visits, if there were visits,
were heavily chaperoned and monitored because purity was a big deal,
as it should be. It was very important that there
be no improprieties during the period of this betrothal. Now,
because betrothal was a public contract, if you will, It was
as binding as marriage. It wasn't a consummated marriage
yet, but it was as binding as marriage. And if you'll remember,
when Joseph found out that Mary was with child, he sought to
divorce her. Quietly. I think Joseph loved
Mary. I think he respected Mary. I
think he was shocked at the news that he heard. And he sought
to divorce her. The point here is that betrothal
was as binding as marriage. It took the process of a divorce
to end a betrothal. So the process of marriage began
the day that the betrothal was announced, and it was binding.
It was binding. We go ahead then, the year has
passed. The year has passed, and it is
time for the wedding. And the groom and his family
and an entourage, friends of the family, friends of the groom,
would make their way to the bride's place in procession. A large
parade. A large parade coming to the
bride. Coming to the bride. And these
were very public ceremonies. The entire community may be involved
with it, whether you knew the people well or not. So as the
bride, And as the groom's entourage came to the bride, the crowd
would grow, it would grow, it would grow, it would grow, until
the whole community may be there. And then he would come to the
designated place, either being the bride's home, if it was big
enough, or a place that they had designated, and the marriage
would take place. There would be the ceremony.
There would be a huge feast. This was a great time of feasting. Lots of food, lots of wine, lots
of merriment. If we remember, the first miracle
of our Lord Jesus Christ was at a wedding, turning water into
wine. It was a big occasion, a community
occasion. This was the fulfillment of a
year of expectation. This was a grand and glorious
thing. Whatever ceremony was to be done
was done. The feast would take place, and
then at an appropriate time, the fathers would get together
and announce to the crowd that it is time to consummate the
marriage. The new husband and wife would
be taken to a private place within the confines of this great gathering,
and they would consummate their marriage. All the while, the
crowd was in the party place, feasting and having a good time
celebrating what a wonderful thing is happening that these
two people are now married. This was a wonderful, wonderful
occasion in their day, in their time. Marriage carried with it
a picture of God and His people. It carried with it the union
of two people within the community. And all viewed that as a good
thing because two were coming together. Families would be elevated.
New friends would be made. New family would be made. And
ultimately, there would be children born. This was such a happy occasion,
the community just reveled with joy. Now, we've said that this is
the picture of Christ and the church. And it is, and we know
that. The verse in Ephesians tells
us, and I'll read it again, 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'm saying it refers to Christ and the church. We look at this, and my topic,
as I told you to begin with, and let me focus our thoughts
now on this, was to be election, or marriage rather, as the picture
of election and our life in Christ. And given what I've told us now
about the nature of marriage and how it happened in the time
of Christ, let's look at how that fits Christ and the church. The first thing we discussed
is that marriages were arranged by the Father. This is our election. God, our
Father, at a time even before the foundation of the world said,
My Son, Jesus Christ, will have a pure and spotless bride. And He made the choice. He selected
a bride for His Son. He selected a bride for His Son. But it wasn't just any Son we're
talking about. We're talking about His first
Son, His only begotten Son. The Son of His love, Jesus Christ. This is a special marriage within
the family. This is the marriage of the one
who is given all power and authority from the Father. This is the
number one Son. The selection was made again
before the foundation of the world. We as God's people, you
and I as God's people, had nothing to do with the choice. The arrangement
was made before we were. The contemporary thinking is
that maybe that God looked down through the corridors of history
and saw that we would believe and then made His choice. But
that's not at all the case. God chose us to be a bride for
His Son before we ever were, before we ever did or would do
anything. God made the choice. represents
the action of a father on behalf of his son to select a bride. Now here's where the picture
gets beautiful for us, deviates from the model a little bit,
but is beautiful for us because there was always a bride price.
The bride would be given, there was a price for that bride. We had nothing to offer Christ. In the time of Christ and throughout
the Jewish age, marriages were meant to bring both families
together and up in society. But we had nothing to offer Christ. God has every and all things. Christ has every and all things.
We have nothing. So the concept of bride price
And dowry is nothing but debt and degradation on our part.
And here is the wonder that God chose a bride for His Son who
could offer nothing to His Son. This is the grace of God. Because we had nothing to bring
to the marriage. Every one of us were depraved
and terrible sinners. We were not the pure and spotless
bride that we should have been. But God arranged for His Son
not only to take us as bride, but to pay off our every debt
so that we could enter the family of God free and clear. That is a wonderful and wonderful,
more wonderful thought. If we really take that to heart,
keep it in the thought of marriage. Christ steps outside of His social
bounds to take a poor and degraded orphan. The picture of that comes
to mind from Ezekiel, I believe it's chapter 16, about God passing
by the orphaned, abandoned child found laying in the field. That's
us. That's us. Nothing to offer,
and yet God in mercy and grace and kindness arranges for us
to be the bride for His Son. The marriage was spoken of throughout
the Old Testament. Keeping it in this kind of thought,
this kind of context, the actual public proclamation, if you will,
of the betrothal, the announcement that God will take or does have
a bride for His Son was made in the incarnation in the life
of Christ. Christ was here to seek and gather
His own. He was here. to find his bride. That was the official announcement,
the public proclamation of the betrothal. He came to find his
bride. He found her wretched. He found
her naked. He found her ignorant and lost
and in debt. But yet He promises, I go to
prepare a place for you. And then He laid down His life to pay her debt. He's claimed His bride. He's
claimed His bride. With the resurrection, Christ
leaves us with the promise that He will come back for us. We
are betrothed to Christ. We are His bride. There is no
question now. He has given His all to claim
His bride. He has said, I will come back
for you. I go to prepare a place for you.
I will come back for you. The resurrection, Christ leaves
us to prepare that place for us with the promise that He will
be coming to complete the marriage. He will be coming. for that grand
and glorious feast. We have a special thing that
happens that's not necessarily pictured in the model of marriages
practiced in the Bible times, but Christ didn't just leave
us. He didn't go away to prepare a place for us, yet He leaves
us the Holy Spirit that we may be comforted and know with a
surety in our hearts that He is coming back for us. So we
have a seal, a special sealed, given to us by Christ Himself,
that He is coming back. That marks His promise as true.
And then, on that grand and glorious day, Christ will come, even as
the groom in the Old Testament times and the Bible times came
with a big parade to claim His bride. Christ, as we're told
in the Scripture, will return with a host of heaven to gather
His elect to claim His bride. Then we see from the book of
Revelation, the wedding feast of the Lamb. All of heaven is
proclaiming boldly, Hallelujah to the Lamb. Here is the feast. Here is the merriment. Here is
the joy in the presence of God in Christ. The bride is there
and the beasts of heaven and the host of heaven. all scream
out with joy and adoration, this is the consummation of all things
in the marriage of Jesus Christ to His Bride, to the union of
God and His people. I think about that and I just
at times get overwhelmed. Now, as we know, it gets a little
personal here, I stood in front of this church and got married.
And it was a great day. It was a wonderful day. I stand
before you today as one not married. Product of our time. Weakening
of attitudes on part of our society. My marriage didn't work. It was
a poor picture of Christ in the church. But it did not in any
way lessen my view that there is a right way and that the right
way pictures the union of God and His people, of Christ and
the church. And I hope that we all keep that in mind because
society is so counter to Christian thinking on marriage. Let us
always focus back to the Scripture. Let us think about marriage as
the Scripture presents it. And furthermore, let us think
about marriage as that picture of God's election and God's marriage
set forth for His Son and His people. Let us all be thankful
that we are allowed to be a part of this picture. Those of you
in the congregation, Brother Bill, Brother Joe, you all have
been married a long time. Thank God. Personal, I realize it, and I
point you out. Let me say this. You picture Christ in the church. The marriage of Christ and His
church does not fail. It perseveres. We as a group
of people can look at you all. You have persevered. Thank God. You picture Christ in the church.
And I hope that you can sense my appreciation when I say that. Sister Holock, you were married
a long time before your husband left us. Thank God. You persevered. You pictured Christ in the church.
And every time that we as a group get together and we can think
about that, let us all be built up and encouraged that the marriage
of Christ and His people is permanent, and many within our midst picture
that well for us. Let us be encouraged in that. I don't know if any of y'all
who are married have thought about, particularly the men,
the fact that your wife is your elect. Do you ever say that? Do you ever think about that?
Do you ever think of it in those terms? She is. She's your elect. God
made a choice of His people. It was a choice to a special
and intimate relationship. that would be shared with none
other. You made a choice to your spouse
to a special and intimate relationship to be shared with none other. You are the elect of your husband. You're allowed to picture in
a demonstration of Christ in the church. I've got to get back in my notes,
I kind of deviated. Well, I just would ask us, I
kind of lost my train of thought, so I'm going to just sum it up.
I would just ask us as we think about marriage, that we'd be glad for it. We
look in the Scripture and it's the first institution given to
us. Granted to us in Adam and Eve in the garden. It's a unique relationship. It's
a special relationship. It's one that we as women and
men should crave. It should be deep in our hearts,
the desire to be married. It pictures the relationship
of God and His people, of Christ and the Church. It's a special
relationship that we share with our God. It's a special relationship
that we share with our spouses. And we should be glad for it. We should be thankful to God
that He allows us to participate in it. That itself is a wonderful
grace and mercy that He has allowed us that two could come together
and share a life, a special life, a unique and intimate life together. Every time we think about marriage,
every time we attend a marriage, every time we look at our friends
who are married, let us stop for a minute and think, this
is Christ in the church. Thank God for that. Let me make a few recommendations. This is drawing into this, but
there are some good books that I recommend. just to read. The Bible itself has a context. We talk constantly in this church
about putting a scripture in its context. So that we don't
deviate from its real meaning, because we all know that taken
out of context, you can prove anything you want to prove from
the scripture and people do it always. There is also a historical
and a cultural context to the Scripture as well. And it does
us well at times to remember that and to try and understand
that and sift through the Bible in its time and its place to
understand the principle and then to bring the principle forward
in our own age. And the reason I say that The
subject today has been about marriage. But if you look at
America for your definition of marriage, you are looking in
the wrong place. And you will come away with a very low view
of God's relationship to His people. So I would encourage
you. There are some books that I found
particularly helpful in looking through this and studying through
this. And I'd recommend them if you don't have them and you're
interested. Maybe you would get them and
go back and do some reading. These are books about the culture
at the time of Christ. There's a book put out by Nelson
Publishers called Bible Manners and Customs by Howard F. Voss that is particularly helpful
and it's well illustrated as well. So it's not just dry reading,
but he talks about the customs within Israel at the various
times. of the life of the nation of
Israel. And it really is helpful sometimes
to understand what those people were living through. And then
you can see that the examples Christ gave, the things He said
were pointed to certain things that were going on at that time.
And then you can better grasp the principle and bring it forward.
Another book that is fairly short, but really insightful is by a
man named Bishop K.C. Pillai. And it's called Light
Through an Eastern Window. And again, it's just a small
commentary on Bible times and customs. And it's interesting
reading. Another couple or three books
that I recommend, although I don't have the titles right in front
of me, are by a man in the late 1800s. His name was Alfred Edersheim. And he was a Jewish convert to
Christianity, and he wrote extensively on temple rituals at the time
of Christ, and Jewish culture at the time of Christ. So it's
particularly helpful because the Bible was written, yes, for
God's people at all times in all places, but immediately it
was written to a specific people in a specific time at a specific
place. And if we can understand the
time and the place better, we can sometimes grasp some things
that we would miss by looking at it from our day and our time. So I make those recommendations
to you. I hope that the message today has been encouraging. The subject of marriage is a
wonderful subject, even more so when you consider it in terms
of the picture that it gives us of Christ and His church,
the union of God to His people, that God did indeed select a
bride for his son, Jesus Christ, and we are that bride. Thank you. And like I say, I
hope you find that encouraging.