As the hymnwriter Samuel Stone beautifully put it:

The church’s one foundation Is Jesus Christ her Lord, She is His new creation By water and the Word.

From heaven He came and sought her To be His holy bride;

With His own blood He bought her And for her life He died.

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MARRIAGE: A HOLY UNION

Besides being our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ is the eternal Bridegroom, and everything He did (and still does) is to the aim of reconciling us to God and preparing us, His church, for that great Marriage where we are united with Him forever.

I want to explore the image of marriage to God and each other; proclaim its place in the Judeo-Christian faith; and show precisely how it should affect the way that believers think, see the world and act. It is to the extent that we allow God to mould our thinking, that we serve Him, receive His divine favour and can declare His kingdom on earth (Romans 12:1-2).

I am concerned that we have lost sight of how crucial marriage is. Experience has merely borne out what God repeatedly tells us: That a good wife is a blessing to any man, and it is their responsibility to love and care for each other as themselves, and to pass their values on to their offspring. It is the basic fabric of civilisation—a strong marriage leads to strong families, and strong families to strong nations.

That’s why when God created Eve, He did not make her ex nihilo (‘from nothing’):

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. (Genesis 2:21-22)

She was made from Adam as a complement to his role: “a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). Neither man nor woman is complete without the other, as woman was taken out of man.

For it is only in the union of man with woman that the image and likeness of God is made complete (Genesis 1:26).

The basic union of man and woman has remained the foundation of human society. Indeed, the physical and psychological makeups of men and women bear testament to this: Men are generally stronger, faster and more aggressive, while women are more empathetic, protective and nurturing.

Without the underlying support of the father and mother, society can and will crumble as the next generation looks elsewhere for the love and nurturing it needs.

It is in the balance of the two-parent nuclear family that children are best formed—dad provides, protects and encourages the children to grow, preparing them for the future; while mom sees to their needs, well-being and adjustment into society. Two men raising a child cannot provide this complementarity; nor can two women. A family is not complete without a man and a woman in holy union.