What is marriage meant to do and be in your life? Is it meant to be a means of personal worth and validation? Is it meant to be a means of happiness and satisfaction? Is it meant simply as a means of companionship? Certainly, there are all sorts of reasons people get married, and these reasons and goals and priorities become the lens through which we view our marriage and judge our marriage a success or failure, as well as the lens through which we determine whether to continue on in marriage at all or throw in the towel instead because it is not accomplishing our predetermined goals and expectations.

But when we are restored to God through faith in Jesus, God gives us a new lens, a Gospel lens, through which to view marriage. Viewing marriage through the lens of the Gospel shows us that the Gospel of Jesus gives us God’s intended pattern, provision, and purpose for marriage.

As we look into the Gospel, how Jesus sacrificially served and loved us by giving his life for us in order to redeem us and make us whole, we see the pattern that husbands are to conform to. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her (Ephesians 5:25). As we look into the Gospel, how Jesus submitted himself completely, in all things, to the Father, even to the point of death on the cross, in order to redeem us and make us whole, we see the pattern that wives are to conform to. The way husbands and wives live their lives with one another are to be a “re-enactment” of the Gospel. Marriage puts the Gospel on display!

The Gospel also provides what sinners need in order to love, serve, and enjoy one another as husband and wife - forgiveness of sin and freedom from sin. God created husband and wife to live in harmony and unity with one another, but sin caused husband and wife to go into hiding behind the fig leaves of selfishness, pride, and self-protection. But in Christ, our sin was crucified, canceled, and overcome by God’s love and grace. So husband and wife can come out of their sin and love, serve, and enjoy one another.

And finally, the Gospel provides husbands and wives with the purpose of marriage – to know God and become like Him. Marriage has a way of bringing out our sin and depravity like nothing else. As a single guy, my sin went largely undetected. But when I got married and began sharing my life with another person, sin that had previously gone unchecked began to really be exposed. In other words, my wife does not make me impatient. She doesn’t make me frustrated. She doesn’t make me angry. But she does provide the opportunity for my anger and impatience and selfishness and pride to be revealed, which then provides me the opportunity to repent, believe the gospel, and be changed by God from angry, selfish man to a faith-filled, loving man. And, as I am changed in the context of my marriage, I come to know more of the love of God and more joy in God. Knowing God and becoming like him is at the center of the purpose of the Gospel, and is at the center of His purpose for marriage.

For more on viewing marriage through the Gospel-lens, listen to the podcast: Viewing Marriage through a Gospel Lens