REFLECTIONS OF A MYSTERY

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on November 5, 2023 under 2023 |

Bethany Bible Church Sermon Message from November 5, 2023 from Ephesians 5:31-33

Theme: Marriage between a husband and wife is to reflect the mystery of the relationship between Jesus and His church.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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I have quite a challenge today. I am going to share with you about something that cannot be fully explained.

It’s something that—in the Scriptures—is referred to as a ‘mystery’. In Ephesians 5:31-33, the apostle Paul wrote;

“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 is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband (Ephesians 5:31-33).

Marriage between a husband and wife is a wondrous thing that is meant to be a reflection of the even greater mystery of the relationship between Jesus and His church. And unless we understand something of the greater mystery of Jesus and His church, marriage cannot be understood as what God intended for it to be.

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Now; a good place to begin might be to ask, “What exactly does Paul mean by a ‘great mystery’”?

Ordinarily, when we think of a ‘mystery’, we think of a clever story created by a ‘mystery writer’—a puzzle in which clues are given to us that we’re supposed to put together and solve. But that’s not how we’re to understand what the Bible refers to as a ‘mystery’. When the Bible speaks of a ‘mystery’, it’s not speaking of something that human beings can put together and figure out. Rather, it’s referring to a great spiritual reality that we could not—in any way—know anything about or understand unless God had first graciously revealed it to us.

We’ve been studying together from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians; and in it, he spoke of how God had revealed a remarkable ‘mystery’ to him. In Ephesians 3:3-4, he called it “the mystery of Christ”. And in verses 5-7, he explained that it was a mystery

which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power (Ephesians 3:5-7).

As a Jewish man, Paul knew that God had made great covenant promises to his Jewish kinsmen in the Old Testament Scriptures. They are God’s chosen people. But the great ‘mystery’ that had been revealed to Paul was that, in this present administration of God’s grace, God was now making both the Jew and the Gentile into one new man in Christ—joining them together, through faith in the cross of Jesus; and making them into a single body that is called ‘the church’.

Paul felt that it was an unspeakably great honor to be the man God used to reveal this ‘mystery’ to the world. In verses 8-9, he wrote;

To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ … (vv. 8-9).

The unveiling of this ‘mystery’ was through the preaching of the gospel that God had given to Paul. At the end of this letter, he even asked his readers to pray for him;

that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel (6:19).

And so; as we come to our passage in Ephesians 5 today, we find that Paul is still talking in terms of a ‘mystery’. It has to do with that great ‘mystery’ that reveals how we have been formed together by faith in Jesus into ‘one body’. But in this particular case, Paul applied a particular sense of wonder over that mystery to the marriage relationship between a husband and a wife. He spoke of one mystery—but then, he suddenly seemed to speak of the other.

Frankly, dear brothers and sisters, I think it’s a little hard to tell just what it is that Paul is calling ‘the great mystery’. Is it the relationship between the husband and the wife? Or is it the relationship between Jesus and His church? And I’ve grown to think that we’re to see them both together. The mystery of the relationship between the husband and the wife is caught up in the mystery of the Lord Jesus and His church—the mystery of one being explained to us by the greater and more eternal mystery of the other.

And so; I believe that this passage is teaching us that a believing husband and a believing wife are to each understand the nature of their relationship with one another in light of the marvelous wonder of the even greater and more glorious mystery of Jesus and His church.

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Now; do you remember how our study of this portion of the Book of Ephesians began? It all started with the apostle Paul talking about the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In Ephesians 5:18, he wrote this specific command to his believing friends:

And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit … (5:18).

The believing friends to whom he wrote may have—at one time in their past lives—sought to give themselves over to alcohol and to place themselves under its destructive influence. That was how they sought a temporary sense of ‘happiness’. But now, they were instead to place themselves under the prevailing and pervasive influence of the Holy Spirit—the third Person of the Triune Godhead who permanently indwells all people who have been saved by faith in Jesus. And as they submitted themselves to the indwelling influence of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit’s life-transforming power would produce true happiness in them. The Spirit’s filling would show itself in at least three ways:

speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God (vv. 19-21).

So then; that was how we started in our study of this portion of the Book of Ephesians. We saw that it’s about letting the Holy Spirit rule our lives and produce true, lasting happiness in us. And do you also remember that the apostle Paul went on to describe how that last manifestation of the Holy Spirit—“submitting to one another in the fear [or better, “reverence”] of God”—should show itself in the marriage relationship? First, he spoke of how it would show itself in the believing wife’s relationship to her husband:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything (vv. 22-24).

That kind of submissiveness—first to God, and then to her own husband; and always in the enabling power of the Holy Spirit—leads to happiness. Then, he spoke of how that same Spirit-empowered submissiveness was to show itself in the believing husband’s relationship with his wife:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones (vv. 25-30).

And before we go any further, let me just pause and say something to you; my dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Ordinarily, whenever we talk about the Bible’s instructions on humble submissiveness through the power of the Holy Spirit, I feel under pressure to defend the whole idea of ‘submission’ altogether. The unbelieving world has a whole lot of twisted ideas about this subject; and a lot of people’s defenses automatically go up whenever they hear the word ‘submit’. But I’m thankful that—when it comes to you—I don’t feel that pressure. This whole idea of ‘mutual submission’ is something that is empowered in us by the Holy Spirit; and I believe that—in a reverence toward God—you ‘get’ that.

And so, that brings us once again to this glorious ‘mystery’—and to how it touches on the whole idea of mutual, Spirit-empowered submission in the marriage relationship. In verses 31-33, we read;

“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 is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband (Ephesians 5:31-33).

And so; while the ‘mystery’ of Jesus’ relationship with His church isn’t possible for us to fully fathom, it still stands as the basis of how ‘submission’ in marriage is supposed to look. That’s why I felt it was important for us, this morning, to just consider these three verses alone. They give us three important things: (1) a design to remember, (2) a mystery to embrace, and (3) a practice to apply. And together, these three things show us that marriage between a husband and wife is to reflect the mystery of the relationship between Jesus and His church.

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So then; first, let’s learn how it is that, in verse 31, we’re given …

1. A DESIGN TO REMEMBER.

What we’re given is God’s original design for marriage. We must always keep that original design before us. The apostle Paul wrote, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

Now; when Paul wrote the words, “For this reason …”, he wasn’t speaking of what he himself had just written in the previous verses. Instead, he was quoting directly from the Creation story in Genesis 2. So; let’s turn there and read what it says. That passage tells us about how—at the beginning—the first man Adam was alone. In Genesis 2:18-20, we’re told;

And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him (Genesis 2:18-20).

I believe that our great progenitor Adam was a brilliant man. He had the ability to look upon the creatures that God brought to him, comprehend their unique characteristics and natures, and summarize them each into a single name. It would have taken a remarkable level of genius to be the first person ever to do that. God blessed him with that ability. But we have to wonder why—after He had declared that it wasn’t good for man to be alone—did God make Adam go through all of the process of naming the other creatures? I believe it was so that Adam himself could see—after examining all of them—that none of them could be a suitable helpmeet for him. Perhaps it resulted in a deep yearning in Adam’s heart for that perfect partner.

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man (vv. 21-22).

God had formed Adam from the ground and breathed the breath of life in him. But it’s very significant to notice that God didn’t make Adam’s wife in that same way. Instead, God formed the woman from out of the body of the man. She was a partner to him that was truly suitable in the deepest possible way. She had a body and personhood all her own; but that body and personhood were perfect complements to his, because she was made from him. As someone once pointed out, she was not taken from his feet to be oppressed under him, or taken from his head to rule over him, but from his side to be a partner to him. And so, she was, indeed, a very suitable partner to him.

And Adam—with great excitement and satisfaction—recognized all this. In verse 23, he declared;

“This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man” (v. 23).

In Hebrew, it’s “She shall be called Ish-shah, because she was taken out of Ish.” And this was Adam’s way of recognizing that she was the perfect companion to him. Because she was taken from him, she was truly one body with him—bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. That is what was meant by those words “For this reason” that Paul quoted; because it was for the fact that Eve was one body, one bone, and one flesh with Adam that we’re told; “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

By the way; in a day like ours, we need to keep pointing to this authoritatively. People in our time have dared to take it to themselves to ‘alter’ the institution that God has made. But what is being described to us in Genesis 2:24 is the once-for-all-time design for marriage that was established by our Creator. Marriage—by design—cannot be between a man and many women, or many women and a man. Nor can it be between two men or two women. It can only be a marriage if it conforms to the original design of God our Creator; that is, the design in which only man (1) “leaves” from out of under the authority, dependency, and supervision of father and mother, (2) “cleaves” to only one woman as his wife in a permanent bond—a bond so legal and binding, in fact, that to sever it would damage both persons, and together (3) become “one flesh”—so that the husband, from then on, considers his own wife to be ‘bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh’—and that he is one body with her.

Dear brothers in Christ; do you consider your wife to be one flesh with you in this way? And dear sisters in Christ; do you consider yourself to be one flesh with your husband? Is that how you affirm this thing called ‘marriage’ to be? If not, go back again and carefully study the design that God has established from the very beginning. It’s how God our Creator has declared a husband and a wife to be in a relationship to one another. It’s what our Lord and Master Jesus Himself has affirmed to us; telling us in Matthew 19:4-6;

“Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:4-6).

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So then—returning back now to Ephesians 5—that’s the design for marriage that we’re to remember and keep ever before us. It can—in and of itself—be considered a glorious mystery.

But notice what Paul then goes on to say in verse 32; “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” And so, we see that there is also …

2. A MYSTERY TO EMBRACE.

Which is the ‘great mystery’? Is it the marriage between a husband and wife? Or is it the relationship between Jesus and His church? They are both together to be considered mysteries. But because of what Paul says in verse 32, the mystery of marriage is based on—and draws its glory and its example from—the more glorious and eternal and unfathomable mystery of how Jesus united Himself to His church as His bride, and made Himself ‘one flesh’ with her.

Have you ever thought of the fact that, just as a rib was taken out of Adam’s side in order for Eve to be made from him, Jesus hung on the cross and was pierced in His side for the church to be redeemed by Him? From Adam’s side, a rib was taken to give existence to his bride; and from Jesus’ side water and blood flowed forth to give redemption and cleansing to His Bride.

And just like Adam, Jesus is now ‘one flesh’ with His Bride. Look at what we’re told in Ephesians 1:22-23 about Jesus; that God

put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (1:22-23).

In Ephesians 5:22, we’re told that He is “the head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body”. In verses 29-30, we’re told that husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies, nourishing and cherishing and caring for her as he would his own body;

just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones (vv. 29-30).

Jesus has so loved us that He has united Himself to us forever; so that we are now His body. He is not complete without us; and we cannot exist without Him. Even when the church—the assembly of those He has redeemed to Himself—stumbles and falls and fails to be what it should be, He will still never forsake His bride. He will always pick her up and cleanse her and restore her. He has given His all for her; and He will always love her, and cherish her, and nurture her, and nourish her. He will ultimately completely glorify her with Himself. He is truly ‘one flesh’ with her. And if you have trusted Him as your Savior, that includes you. You are a part of His bride, and He is so devoted to you that you are one flesh with Him.

How can a thing like this be? How can it be that Jesus is one flesh with us? I don’t know. It’s a mysterious thing to me that Adam was one flesh with Bride. And it’s even a mystery to me that I am one flesh with my own bride, and she is one flesh with me. So, it’s an even greater and more unfathomable mystery to me that Jesus is one flesh with His Bride. You could no more understand it than I can.

But even if we can’t fully understand it, let’s believe it, and embrace it, and live by it!

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And that leads us, finally, to …

3. A PRACTICE TO APPLY.

Even though we cannot fully understand the mystery of how Jesus is one flesh with His bride, Paul wrote in verse 33; “Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

Do you notice the word “so” in the phrase “so love”? That’s meant to tell us that husbands and wives are to look carefully at the mystery of Jesus’ love for His bride, and thus “so love” each other. And do you notice that we’re to do this “each one of you in particular”? That means that there isn’t an exact formula for how this is to be put into practice for each individual marriage. How this would look in each couple’s relationship with one another might be different. But the fundamental standard is always the same—Jesus’ love for His own bride. The husband is to love his own wife as himself … just as Jesus does the church. And the wife is to respect her own husband … just as the church does toward Christ. As Paul wrote in Colossians 3:18-29;

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them (Colossians 3:18-19).

I would suggest that this means that there is to be no ‘division’ within the relationship of a believing husband and a believing wife. They are to hold no secrets from one another, or hold back in any way from one another. They are to be completely truthful with each other, and mutually care for one another, and share all things with each other. After all, Jesus keeps nothing from His bride; and His bride is to keep nothing from Him. He said, “all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). He prayed to the Father and said, “all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them” (John 17:10). He loves His bride as His own body, and gives everything of Himself to her, and holds nothing back. He is ‘one flesh’ with His bride in perfect and complete union. That mysterious union of Jesus with His church is to be reflected in how a husband and wife love each other.

And this will be easy to do if—in the enabling power of the Holy Spirit—we keep the mystery of Jesus’ own love for His church before us … and allow our own marriage to be a reflection of that glorious heavenly mystery.

AE