An Introduction
Ladies and Gentlemen.
A fair few of you have asked us to provide resources for reading, reflection, and perhaps guidance in your personal devotions (and personal lives). We have a few books we like to point people to for particular topics, yet we have taken note that there really is not a lot of good Lutheran material available on the topics of “singlehood” and romance. Let alone on the match-made, long-distance relationships you might soon begin, or on navigating a new relationship knowing that you are both dating with the intent to marry - that is, marriage-minded! So, being the Pastoral Advisor here at LCMS Connections, I have been tasked with advising you all via our blog.
Topics such as love and marriage are very broad and very personalized. For that reason, I hope to invite a number of happily married Pastors and Deaconesses to write a blog post or article for us as well. The first three blog posts will offer my understanding of God’s gift of marriage and how that gift finds its fullness in both the ideal and the real world. This first post will take on a basic look at marriage.
If you’re reading a blog on an LCMS match-making site, odds are you probably have been praying for a faithful spouse. And if you haven’t thought of this as something to pray about, per se, or maybe you just don’t have the words, I’d like to recommend you pick up a copy of the Lutheran Book of Prayer, from Concordia Publishing House.
For a Pious Spouse.
O almighty and eternal God, Creator, Preserver, and multiplier of the human race, You instituted marriage while Adam and Eve still dwelt in paradise. You also honored holy matrimony by the first miracle performed by Your dear Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior, at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. You know my heart, You know my disposition and attributes, and You know my weaknesses and strengths better than I myself. From You one also receives the gift of a good spouse because that comes alone from the Most High. I beseech You from the heart that You would grant me a good, Christian, God-fearing spouse whom I would ever hold dear in my heart. I pray that this companion and I might peacefully and harmoniously live upon earth in the true fear of God and in this Christian journey. I cry to You, make my heart fit regarding such things, and enlighten me with Your Holy Spirit. And having commended the matter to Your Fatherly care, let me be at peace; for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen. [Taken from Lutheran Book of Prayer, (St. Louis: CPH, 2010), 226.]
This prayer was a daily comfort and plea for me, in the years before marrying my darling wife, Faith.
Let us first look at the beginning, Genesis 2, wherein humans are created. Adam (which is a word for man in Hebrew) is tasked with a particular role in creation. In verse 15, we read that “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” It is a big task. To work and to keep the very same creation which the Triune God Himself only just looked upon and called “very good” in Genesis 1:31. God loves His creation and refers to creation as His own work again in Genesis 2:2. God entrusts Adam to do exactly He has: to work it and keep it.
“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.’” Genesis 2:18-23
Woman is man’s helper. And what is there for man to be helped with? The “working” and “keeping” of Eden. It is true that in a pre-lapsarian (before sin) world, Adam will not eat bread by the sweat of his face, rather creation will gladly yield up its harvest to Adam, as God first intended. As an aside, I always imagine trees bending down like something in a fantasy cartoon, essentially placing a red, glistening apple right into Adam’s hand - like a kindly version of the Wizard of Oz.
God says it is not good that man be alone: this relationship of help, or marriage, sits at the heart of how God intends for the creation to be worked and kept. Just as God made humanity to assist Him with the working and keeping of creation, so woman, within marriage, helps and assists man in his task of working and keeping. So, there it is, laid out from the very beginning. Woman is to Man as Man is to God. That is, the marriage relationship exists and was created to reflect the relationship of Humanity with God.
We’ll come to Ephesians 5 in a moment, but let us first finish Genesis 2. Verses 24-25: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” There’s a lot there, and I think perhaps I’ll leave most of these points to be topics for another blog post, but notice that “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife.” And I mean, really notice it. Just sit on it for a while. I have known a lot of men who really messed up their relationships, broke engagements apart, and even ended their marriages in divorce, because they wouldn’t leave their mothers and fathers and hold fast to their wives. You are not boys anymore, you are men. Your wife comes first. Anything less is contrary to the Scripture. That goes for women as well. You are not girls anymore, you are women. Hold fast to your husband as to the Lord.
This applies to widow(er)s and divorce(e)s too. Those are a little more complex and I’ll address them more fully another day. Follow the command of Christ given by St. Paul in Ephesians. Wives, be devoted to your husbands. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ loves the Church.
Let us turn to Ephesians 5:21-33.
“21 Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, 22 wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 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. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the Church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Verse 21 governs all that follows. We begin with Christ. In marriage, we start with Christ and from our reverence of Christ comes many things. Ladies, when we speak of submission, this is submission out of reverence to Christ. It is not something for you to do “when he actually loves me as Christ loves the Church,” but to do out of reverence for Christ as you help your husband learn to love you as Christ loves his Church. If you would submit to Christ, submit to your husband, and show him what the Church is, and so teach your husband how to be a better Christian: how to be the Church in submission to Christ.
Look through the above passage and count. Just count how many of these verses are about the wife submitting to the husband, and how many are about the husband loving the wife as Christ loves the Church, as himself, etc…
It’s not close, is it? What does that tell you? The husband has a lot of work to do for his part. Whatever your role in the marriage is to be, look again at what a husband is called to do. He is to practice self-sacrifice. He is to present his bride to himself in splendor such that he thinks she is perfect, without spot, wrinkle, or any such thing. To look at her as Holy and without blemish. (Can you imagine such a love?) This all arises out of reverence to Christ. In loving our bride as Christ loves His Church, we would show her who Jesus is, and so teach her how to be a better Christian: how to love as Christ loves His Church.
Submission to Christ is an act of trust. We submit to Christ because we trust that he has our best interests at heart, even when we may disagree with how our Lord would bring those to fruition. So too in marriage, our submission and love is built upon trust. Men, if you are a good husband, who does these things in good faith, then your wife will not find it difficult to submit, and you won’t find yourself asking her to submit. She’ll say “Okay, I trust you.” But if you are cruel, bossy, selfish, or otherwise “unchristian” toward her, you only ensure that you will have a rebellious wife. Likewise, we trust that our wives will cherish our love and receive its presentation with joy. A wife that refuses such expressions of love breeds a resentful and bitter husband.
If I may briefly insert a comment about the Biblical term headship. We have already covered its substance but let us be clear. You, men, are the head. You are called to sacrifice in order to lead your wife in this right relationship. You show her what it means to be loved by Christ, and then she will show you what it means to be devoted and in submission to Christ. Men, you must be the leader here. If you act like a woman, then she has to act like a man. And when the Church tries to lead Christ? It is a complete, absolute, unmitigated disaster!
Paul rounds out this section of his epistle to the Ephesians with a beautiful clarification that “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” It’s just what we saw in Genesis. The relationship of Man and Wife is reflective of Christ and the Church, of God and Humanity. In marriage, we get to actually experience and live out the relationship of Christ and the Church. Men, you get to experience the same self-giving and undeserved love that Christ gives to you in His incarnation and crucifixion, and so teach your wives and children just what it means to be loved by God, to exhibit the never ending love and forgiveness of God. Women, you get to experience and live out the Church submitting herself to Christ, her Lord, even when all of your senses and your thoughts and your opinions tell you to do exactly the opposite! And you get to teach your husbands and your children what it means to be the Church, to show them how to trust in God.
Let us close with a prayer.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Father God, Creator of all things, You formed us out of dust and put Your breath of life into us, making us in Your image that we might work and keep Your Creation as You do. And that we would not be alone, You made Man and Woman, Husband and Wife, and have given us marriage as a wonderful gift and reminder of You. Help us, then, O God. Provide for us pious spouses, according to Your will, grant us to live piously in these special vocations, and create in us clean hearts and right spirits which are not selfish, but even as You have shown us to love. Restore us from all sullenness, grief, longing, resentment, sorrow, apathy, and every other kind of hurt, and draw us ever closer to You. For You have provided for us a Husband, even Christ the Lord, so present us to Yourself in splendor, as a wife fitting for the King of Creation. Through the same Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit. One God, now and forever. Amen.
Written by Pastor Jake Bellinghausen
Edited by Pastor Andrew Johnson
