Raising Purity

Sex and the Image of Christ and the Church

October 7, 2009 | 0 Comments

One of the main theological premises of my book is the idea that an analogous relationship exists between human marriage and Christ’s spiritual marriage to his Church. Even more pointedly, I argue that the sexual relationship within marriage corresponds to the spiritual relationship between Christ and the Church. Paul assumes this theological insight in 1 Corinthians 7:15-17, when he takes up the subject of prostitutes. But he states it plainly in  Ephesians 5:24–32,  where he provides lengthy instruction for husbands and wives.  In short, Paul argues that the true meaning of human marriage is that it points toward the higher marriage of Christ’s and the Church.

Theologians call this sort of thing “typology.” The word “type” come from the Greek term “tupos” and literally means an “image or shadow of something else.” So in a theological sense, a type is a foreshadowing of God’s redemptive work through Christ. The New Testament authors (Paul in particular) were quick to see types of Christ in the Old Testament (the passover lamb, the ark, the Levitical priest, etc.). From a New Testament perspective, we can see that God has woven prophetic foreshadowings into the fabric of redemptive history, preparing his people for the coming reality of the gospel.

Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, comes to realize that human marriage is itself a type, a shadow, of a higher gospel reality. In other words, human marriage is an image of a Christ’s marriage to the church. This is seen plainly in Ephesians 5:24-32. As you read the passage, note carefully the significance of the last sentence (verse 32) within its context.

As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject 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, 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. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.”  This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church [rsv].

In this passage Paul is discussing the relational dynamics of Christian marriage.  And as he gives instruction to husbands and wives about how they are to treat one other, he draws a tight parallel between human marriage and Christ’s relationship with the church.  The way Christ treats the church, Paul tells us, serves as the pattern for the way in which a husband is to treat his wife.  And the way the church relates to Christ is the way a wife is to relate to her husband. But why is this? By what logic does Paul ask husbands and wive to relate to one another as Christ and the church?  The answer is found in verse 32. Human marriage, Paul tells us, “refers to Christ and the church.”  Drawing upon the ancient marriage formula of Genesis 2:24, Paul reveals a mystery (i.e., a previously hidden truth): sexual oneness within marriage was created by God to serve as an image (or type) of the spiritual oneness between Christ and the church.  As Augustine once wrote, “It is of Christ and the Church that it is most truly said, ‘the two shall be one flesh’.”

Herein, then, lies the significance of sex and marriage—not what it accomplishes on an earthly plane but what it images forth on a divine plane. It is not an end in itself; it is a type of something higher, pointing to the deeper reality of the gospel.  Just as sex establishes a new union between a man and a woman and explains the shared life that follows, so too the indwelling of the Holy Spirit marks a new union between Christ and the Christian and accounts for the life-change that follows.  Just as a husband and wife “become one” physically, Christ and the Christian “become one” spiritually (1 Corinthians 6:17).  The New Testament’s many references to the church as the “bride” of Christ and to Christ as the “bridegroom” further highlights this parallel between earthly and heavenly union.  Additionally, many of Christ’s parables use the wedding motif as an illustration of his return and consummate union with the church.  And Revelation explicitly refers to the wedding of the Lamb and the church as inaugurating the dawn of the eternal age (see also Matthew 25:1–13; Revelation 19:7; 21:2, 9; 22:17).

It’s important to remember which came first in God’s mind; God did not pattern the divine marriage after human marriage, but rather human marriage is a foreshadowing of the divine marriage.  The fact that the oneness of sex images forth the oneness of our spiritual relationship with Christ is not merely a happy coincidence.  Just as God ordained the Passover lamb of the Old Covenant to prophetically witness to the coming sacrifice of Christ, so too God ordained human marriage to testify to the coming wedding supper of the Lamb.

Applying this truth becomes the central thrust of Raising Purity. If human marriage and sexuality was created by God as a means of imaging forth Christ’s one-spirit relationship with the Church, then it is paramount that we behave sexually in ways that correspond to the manner in which Christ and the church relate spiritually. Failure to do so is a smearing of the image our sexuality was meant to convey. Our sexually was not created for our sake alone, to be used as we see fit. No, our sexually was created by God as a means of testifying to Christ’s monogamous, single-minded, devotion to his Bride.

Categories: Christ and the Church, From the Book