The Flow and Purpose of Marriage

Tracing some Biblical Themes

There is a lot that can be gleaned through comparison with the early chapters of Genesis, the stories that follow later and the ultimately the story of Jesus Christ. One such example is the flow of marriage.

When we read the account of Genesis Two we will notice a couple of things.

Vs21 - Adam falls into a deep sleep resulting in the creation of Eve.
Vs22 - God brought Eve to Adam.
Vs23-24 Adam rejoices. There is separation, union, and communion.

This may not seem very significant, but it’s worth comparing each one of these things to stories that come later. Today, let’s start with the first.

The deep sleep of Adam - Marriage begins with a death.

The next story of marriage we read about in Genesis is when Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for Isaac (Gen 24). It is worthwhile to notice the context of this story. Sarah’s death has just occured (Gen 23) and the chapter ends with ‘Isaac being comforted after his mother’s death’ (24:67). We may notice that this story of marriage begins first with a death leading to the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah.

Similarily when we read of Jacob’s journey leading to his marriage with Leah and Rachel the journey begins with Esau looking to kill Jacob and waiting for Isaac to die. We could point out similar themes of death in Joseph’s story leading to him being raised up and given a wife, as well as the entire book of Ruth which begins with the death of the husbands leading to Ruth’s marriage to Boaz.

All of these stories are pointing us towards the greater Adam, Jesus Christ, whose death and resurrection lead to the creation of the church, His bride (Acts 2).

Practically we may learn from this pattern that if we seek to be married we should first expect to die. We cannot expect to remain the same as we are before and after marriage. We are leaving an old way of life so a new way of life may be born. It is no mistake that Paul’s call for husbands to love their wives contains the words ‘as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her’ (Eph 5:25); for the love of Christ which gave himself up for the life of his bride, is the same love which allows us to give ourselves up for each other. The life of marriage is a daily dying for the life of the other, spouse for spouse, parents for children… etc. The more we grow in love and maturity the less we live for ourselves but the more for others.